Blacksmithing Guide to Lightning Steel Ingot

If you haven't realized already, Phase 4 has opened on the Isle of Thunder, and the mob that drops the pattern for the new Blacksmith daily cooldown Lightning Steel Ingot, Itoka, is now spawning.  This post will summarize all you need to know about it!

Daily Cooldown
Lightning Steel Ingot are made by a cooldown also named Lightning Steel Ingot, which requires 10x Ghost Iron Bar, and has a research aspect.  With the research you can learn a plethora of new patterns, such as the Crafted Dreadful sets and the 522 patterns that require Haunting Spirit from Throne of Thunder.

Crafting with Lightning Steel
Lightning Steel is actually only used in a grand total of 18 patterns.  The first 6 you get when first completing the chain from killing Itoka.  Each of these "Phase 1", ilvl 463 weapons are then used as a reagent in crafting "Phase 2" weapons, epics of ilvl 476.  From there, those Phase 2 items are used as reagents in crafting ilvl 502 (raid finder) weapons, that have item models of old no longer obtainable weapons for potential transmogging.

Phase 1
Phase 1 requires 5 Lightning Steel Ingot, 3 Spirit of Harmony, and  2-3 Living Steel.  All these patterns are learned initially when doing the quest from Itoka.  All phase weapons are BoE (see chart below for links), and are required as a reagent, and also unlock the patterns for the Phase 2 weapons.

Phase 2
You learn the recipe for all Phase 2 weapons by crafting their Phase 1 counterparts.  Mats are 10 Lightning Steel Ingot, 6 Spirit of Harmony, and  4 or 6 Living Steel.

Phase 3
You learn the recipe for all Phase 3 weapons by crafting their Phase 2 counterparts.  Mats are 15 Lightning Steel Ingot, 9 Spirit of Harmony, and  6 or 9 Living Steel.

As you can see the mats to craft an ilvl 502 weapon are astronomical, so there will probably be a limited market for these, at the price they'd go for.  The chart below summarizes the evolution models with Wowhead links.  Phase 3 is not on Wowhead yet, so they are battle.net links.

L.S. P1	Phase 1 Version (ilvl 463)	L.S. P2	Phase 2 Version (ilvl 476)	L.S. P3	Phase 3 Version (ilvl 502)
2	The Planar Edge, Reborn	4	Black Planar Edge, Reborn	6	Wicked Edge of the Planes, Reborn
2	Drakefist Hammer, Reborn	6	Dragonmaw, Reborn	6	Dragonstrike, Reborn
2	Fireguard, Reborn	4	Blazeguard, Reborn	6	Blazefury, Reborn
3	Thunder, Reborn	4	Deep Thunder, Reborn	9	Stormherald, Reborn
3	Lunar Crescent, Reborn	6	Mooncleaver, Reborn	9	Bloodmoon, Reborn
3	Lionheart Blade, Reborn	6	Lionheart Champion, Reborn	9	Lionheart Executioner, Reborn

Finally, for your viewing pleasure, the evolution of the models via their battle.net pictures (Click to enlarge).

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Phat's Weekly Lewt Review 3/27: Multimillionaire Edition

If you read my weekly review from last week you'll know I ended up about 30k shy of 2 million gold, at 1,968,760g.  Well this week I surpassed the 2 million marker and more.  I'm up to a grand total of 2,127,034g!  I am officially a multimillionaire!

I am also up over 150k, so I've made over 20k per day the past week, much better than last week.

Posting
I had a posting rut the previous week, but I got out of that this week, and was up to date with all my crafting.  It was really nice to sit back and post after crafting everything I needed the previous week, like sitting on a beach with a cool drink in my hand.  It's been a zen week, but I need to get back into the buying scheme

Sour Deal
I think I've mentioned in previous posts that I've gotten a supplier of GIO, and this week I got an in game mail out of the blue, from a new toon, claiming they were my supplier, saying that their original account got banned (I didn't ask questions), but that the 90 they were mailing me from had herb/mining, and would gladly farm for me, but they didn't have flying, and wanted 10k up front.  I checked out the old toons, and his story checked out, neither had logged for a few days, and this one had mining/herbalism, and being that this guy has given me so much ore in the past I obliged and sent the 10k.  The next day I got 48 stacks of GIO in the mail, a nice down payment, but since then (about 4 days now), I have not gotten a single piece.  So right now I've payed an average of 208g/stack, and I'm not too pleased.  The toon hasn't been on in 24 hours, but hopefully next week I'll be telling you how it wasn't a bad investment.

Lightning Steel
The long awaited legitimate entry of the Lightning Steel CD came yesterday, and WOW for the "second stage" xmog weapons, it's going to take 2 weeks of daily CDs.  Another 2 weeks for "stage 3".  Yikes!  I'm going to have to really show some self restraint and not use it for myself!

Thoughts on 2 Million
Hitting 2 million has been my goal since I bought Invincible a while back, trying not to make any extravagant purchases since then, and in that aspect I've been successful.  I've had up weeks and down weeks, but overall I've made a truckload of gold in the past 2 months, and I'm on track for tons of gold in the months to come!  My new long term goal is a tough one, not really sure what to be, 3 mill doesn't seem all too interesting, and 5 seems too far off, but only time will tell!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Reader Request Phriday: New Markets

If you're interested in submitting a topic for next week's Reader Request Phriday post, please click here for more info!

Since they were the only one who responded this week, once again our question comes from Leeu, who is currently sitting on 80k, through Ghost Iron Ore shuffling, and flipping.  Leeu asked if there were any other markets that they could break into without leveling more 80+'s.

Jewelcrafting Sub-markets
Since you have what you need to do the shuffle, you may want to look into other profitable Jewelcrafting sub-markets.  My favorite is Wrath Epic Gems, this is a great method to make gold, and is a great submarket.  In addition to what's in the post I linked, you can add Nightmare Tear's to the list, YMMV.

On top of that a hot topic that I keep hearing from both Elvine and Profitz is disenchanting Tin Ore to get the leveling gems for JC to sell raw on the AH (think Moss Agate etc.).  I don't use this method personally, but it comes from two reliable sources, with many behind them backing it up.

New Tabs!
It's funny that Leeu ended up asking this question, because I had already been writing a post I was going to come out with today, and it coincides well with this question.  Yesterday someone asked me a question and I wanted to link them to one of my past posts for more info, and I found that going through my blog to find some useful information can be tedious.  To that extent, I've compiled a list of my still-relevant past posts, and put it under a Gold Making Ideas tab in the top bar of my blog.  I organized the post subjects the best I could, but if you're ever looking for some inspiration, or a new market to dive into, this will hopefully be an invaluable resource.  So go check it out and dive into some new markets!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you enjoy my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Phat's Weekly Review 3/21

If you are interested in submitting a topic for this week's Reader Request Phriday post, feel free to send one in ASAP, I still don't have a topic yet!

This week has been painfully slow for me gold making wise.  My numbers are based on an 8 day week (numbers from yesterday).  My new gold total is 1,968,760g for an 8 day increase of only 62,800g, dismally low considering that I made twice that in only 6 days last week.

Excuses
So here is the section where I list all my excuses, but honestly, this week's lack of income can be attributed to laziness.  I make about 5k/day selling glyphs, and I only posted them twice this week.  Shame on me.  On top of that I did not play much this weekend due to St. Patrick's Day festivities.  All is good though, I'm on track to hit 2 million by Friday (hopefully)

Semi-Productivity
This week I did manage to prospect and cut 250 stacks of GIO that I had been putting off for a while.  I actually ran out of a few cuts, which is when I knew I had to do something about it.  On top of that I DE'd all the resulting rings/necks for enchanting mats and crafted scrolls, I shuffled this week more than I have in the past month, which is promising for me actually hitting my 2 million mark some time in the very near future.  My realm's market value is 3.6 million.  Considering my transmog seller controls about 1.2 million of that, and my gems/glyphs/enchants account four another .5 million, and I have 2 TCG mounts that add up to .3 million, I can buy out my server's auction house today.  Fun facts.

TSM Application
Sapu, Lead Developer of TSM, linked to some interesting stats this week about the TSM App on twitter.  Quick aside for those of you who don't use it: the TSMApp is a free application that updates your scan data every hour so you never have to scan the AH in-game. The stats can be found here.  The stats are from people currently running the app, and in order they are the current version everyone is using, followed by the number of realms that people have set up for each individual tab.  Just thought some of you might find it interesting.  Also you all should follow Sapu on Twitter, as well TSM's twitter page.  Be up to date on your favorite addon!  I hope you all had a more product



Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Improving Gold Making Efficiency

If you're like me, you have your gold making machine up and running, and you're churning out lots of items, using TSM as well as you ever will, but your whole operation is getting a bit disorganized.  Every once in a while it's good to take a step back from your operation and checking to see where you can fine tune things.  I of course took the realm maintenance to draft my ideas, and I figured I'd share my battle plans

Bank Alt
I've been putting off dealing with this problem for a while, but I have so many items posted from my bank alt every 2 days that I'm going to have to deal with it.  I'm looking for the most efficient ways to do so, and here's what I've come up with for the time being.  As a note I post items by Item ID, aka ignoring suffixes.

Twink Gear

• Have TSM post (at most) 3 of each item (down from 6)
• After posting, go through extras (by hand and with comparing to suffixes posted) and send off worst stats to Enchanter for DEing
• Keep all extra blues in Guild Bank

Twink gear has some of the highest posting costs from my toon (especially in comparison to the low level transmog gear), so I want to eliminate as many superfluous auctions as possible.

Transmog Gear

• Have TSM post (at most) 2 of each item (down from 4), except high tiers.
• After posting send off all extras to Enchanter for DEing (easier than with twink gear because stats dont matter)

This should (roughly) eliminate about 40-50% of my stock, and save me ~15-20 minutes per posting (every 2 days).  Hopefully it will both save me time and help organize my auctions.  What do you do every so often to increase your efficiency in gold making?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

So that's Competition?

A character who was sending me transmog hate mail, has now committed themselves to being my competitor.  It's been an interesting chain of events, and a story I thought would be worth telling, this is a blog after all.  I hope you enjoy it and consider contributing to the discussion.

Alli Side
First a little background.  I play mainly on the Horde side of my server.  I have a 25 guild and all my crafting characters Horde side, but I wanted to dabble in the Alliance auction house, and have made over 100k there  by flipping items in two markets - Twink and Transmog.

The Letters
So being that I flip transmog, I of course get the occasional hate mail.  My general policy is this: If you take the time and ask me for a deal on the piece of gear, and do it in a polite way, I'll be more than happy to cut you some sort of deal.  On the other hand if you're rude and/or condescending, I just won't respond to the mail.  So the first mail went something like this, I really wish I kept them so I could just Screenshot them.

"Hi, the cloth gloves you have on the AH are way overpriced, only an idiot would sell them for that much.  I'll give you 50g for them, you should be happy to get that."

As is my policy (above) I just ignored it, but this person really wanted the gloves.  A few days later I got the following:

"I see those gloves haven't sold yet.  50g is a great offer and the most you'll ever get"

Well at the very least he is persistent.  Again, I ignored it and went about my business.  Wouldn't you know it, 3 days later:

"I don't know why you won't sell me those gloves, they're not worth that much.  You probably don't make any gold with your ridiculously overpriced auctions."

I considered putting him on ignore, but I decided to respond.  I sent him a mail with the following:  "Since you want them so badly, I've decided to reevaluate my pricing model."  I then proceeded to list the item at gold cap.  I got a few other mails followed, but I put his toon on ignore, and kept listing my auctions as per usual.

Out of the Blue
Randomly, about 2 weeks later I get a mail from a character with (phonetically) the same name as this guy.  The title was "Hurry Up" and read something as follows:

"Hurry up and finish posting so I can undercut you!"

Okay, you caught my attention now.  Did he just figure out the transmog market and is trying to beat me at my own game?  Naturally I looked up this toon on The Undermine Journal and had a good laugh at the results.  He was selling a decent amount of gear, but maybe only 1/50 items I actually recognized as transmog gear.  So what he thought I was doing is just buying up all the greens and relisting at absurd prices for my own entertainment and profit.  This struck me as a bit of culture shock, but it provided some keen insight into why transmog toons are particularly infamous on servers, because they are assumed to be big jerks by those not "in the know" of the market.  Heck, even people "in the know" might just dislike them as well.  Hope you enjoyed this, and if you have any stories you'd like to share please do so in the comments!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Phat's Weekly Lewt Review 3/12

If you're interested in submitting a topic for this week's Reader Request Phriday, make sure to have it in by Thursday afternoon at the latest! 

I'm doing my weekly review today because I will be unavailable all day tomorrow, but normal Wednesday weekly reviews will resume next week.  In the past 6 days I am up over 133k gold.  That's over 20k a day, which are some nice post-patch numbers, at least on my server!

Glyph Mania
I really wish I could say I owe a lot of this to the patch, and gems/enchants all selling well, but in the past 6 days I've made 35k g in glyphs alone.  Now I'm on a small-mid pop server, and there are a few major players in the glyph market, but none of them showed up this week!  I was able to post lots of glyphs at fallback, and raked in quite a bit of gold because of it.

Transmog/Twink
I've been using my method for Twink gear almost daily now (used to only repost every 48 hrs), and now I'm seeing some nice results every day.  I like shying away from the useless gear, and having it rot on the AH, keeps prices low.  My inventory has already been paid for by the gold I've made, but I'm getting quite a few of each item on backlog, and may start to disenchant some of them.

Patch Profits
I must add to all of this that the patch has been treating me well.  Gem sales are through the roof, and Ghost Iron prices are right where they were pre-patch.  I was hoping for a little more of a dump, with some low prices, but haven't seen it on my relatively small server, but I hope some of you are able to reap the benefits of the Great Specualtion of 5.2.  I was up a lot this week, especially considering I was focusing less on my gold making and more on the new content.  I'm pleased with the results.  How have patch 5.2 sales gone for you thusfar?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Reader Request Phaturday: Twink Gear Flipping Guide

Welcome to this week's Reader Request Phriday post (a day late)!  If you're interested in submitting a topic for next Friday's post, click here!

Today's question is from one of my readers, Bones.  Bones is 6 months into gold making, and making around 120k a month, playing on a mid-pop EU Server.  Bones' question is about Cata & MoP twink greens.  Being fresh into the market, they want to know how to best optimize and invest into this market, and how much supply one needs to start making some serious profits.  I've actually been wanting to go in depth into this for a while, I'm going to write a Mini-Guide to Twink Gear Flipping.

I. Objective
The object of the twink markets is to purchase low priced "twink" gear and resell it to levelers at a premium .  The gear in the brackets that we focus on gives the users a high amount of stats for their level bracket, and makes them OP.  Because of this, they are really great sellers, and can make you quite a bit of profit.

II. Purchasing
Purchasing this gear is relatively easy.  I use the addon TSM to do my searches, but other addons can do the trick.  TSM gives you the option to not have to do seperate armor and weapon searches as in Auctionator.
There are only 2 searches I do daily and they're as follows:
77/79/i272
80/84/i364

**General Purchasing Tips**

• Avoid the following item suffixes:
• of the Whale, of the Beast, of the Tiger, of the Invoker.  They do not have any desirable stats.  I read about this on Power Word: Gold a while ago, and for the longest time I didn't take the advice.  About 2 months ago I started doing it, and it's working fantastically.  You do not have to undercut these suffixes to make sales, people will want the ones you sell that have the more desirable stat distributions.
• Know the crafted gear and don't buy it!  (or just do a 77/77/i272 search)
• Use TSM's Alt+Click feature to buyout faster! 

Search 1:
The first search is for the 77-79 bracket, OP Cataclysm gear.  The supply of this gear is dwindling as more players are heading to Pandaria.  I personally sell the greens in this level at 500g, and the blues at 1,000g (The Alpheus Legguards could go for more).  I buy at up to half this price, simple as that.  I prefer much lower though.  Some days I don't post just so people won't know the price point to undercut to, and list things in the 20-50g range.

Search 2:
This search is for the 80-84 bracket, introduced in MoP.  This gear is from the Pandaria content, so there's a lot of it available, and on some high pop servers this may be hard to get a good business going.  I'm on low pop so I have a little more freedom with my pricing, so take that into account when choosing yours.  I price the greens at 500g again (also note by 500g I mean 499g99s99c), and the blues in this bracket at 2,500g!  The blue trinkets and weapons can go for even more, use your best judgement, but keep in mind that trinkets  this powerful are hard to come by in this bracket.

III. Selling
I gave you all my price points above, but I throw them all into 3 groups with 499g99s99c, 999g99s99c, and 2499g99s99c fallbacks, with a few trinkets and weapons in their own groups for extra gold.  I post everything on 48 hour auctions, and most of the time when people do undercut you they undercut you by a ton, because they think your auctions are so overpriced.  So, if you're undercut you'll have some things to buy for next round!  My inventory probably consists of 150-300 twink items, can't really put a solid number on it because my twink posting toon is also my transmog posting toon.

I hope I've covered any and all questions you can have about this market, but if you have more, feel free to ask them in the comment section below.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Phat's Weekly Lewt Review 3/6

If you're interested in submitting a topic for this week's Reader Request Phriday, it's not too late!  Click here for instructions on how to submit, and I may write on your topic this Friday!  

Yes it's Wednesday again!  5.2 dropped yesterday, and so far I've enjoyed the patch.  Selling lots of gems and enchants (especially PvP ones), and I have gotten my 2 new PvP patterns for Tailoring.

Earlier today, I was lucky enough to get a Key to the Palace of Lei Shen and take a run through the new solo scenario, and I was pleased with the results.  Definitely need to refine my strategy, but it is a very interesting way to make some bonus gold, and I enjoyed it!  I will definitely be searching for the keys once an established credible source is in Wowhead.  Until then killing rares of course, and treasure hunting!

Overview
This week yet again I am up ~100k to 1,772,114g.  I should be hitting my pre-Invincible liquid gold total some time in the coming week, and if I keep up at this rate I'll hit 2 million before spring!  Here's a quick snapshot of my inflows/outflows this week:

Like last week, relatively low on the investment side, but considering that I did not have much time to play this weekend, I'm pleased with my results.  Had a lot of gem sales yesterday (iSold was going crazy), and that added to the high profits.  

Darkmoon Gold
This week was the DMF, and I sold about 22 cards, at a good profit.  I'm still a bit hesitant on this market for the duration of 5.2, but right now it's still remaining solid.  I'll definitely be doing the cooldown in the weeks between the faires, not sure how I'll use them yet.  Definitely considering crafting the BoA with my priest and druid healers next on the ranks to be leveled, but I'm going to keep an eye on herb prices before I stop crafting DMF cards.

Transmog Lulz
Had a pretty funny altercation with a player this week while reposting on my transmog seller, thought I'd share:

Panic (Ghost Iron) Ore

Today I missed out on the first dumping of Panic Ore on my server.  After the API came back up, I got an email saying there were over 150 stacks for really cheap.  Eight minutes later when I checked the AH for them, they were sold out.  I think it's pretty evident there's no real necessary reason to power level BS at this point with Phase 4 at least a few weeks away, and I'm hoping there's more panic on my server and I can get some great deals this upcoming week.  Only time will tell!

So how was your week in gold making, and how's 5.2 treating you?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you enjoy my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

5.2 Gold Making Patch Notes

Hey guys!  Below I've copy and pasted all the patch notes for 5.2 that are even semi-relevant to gold making.  Enjoy!  Full patch notes here.

• Taking Over The Farm
• Players that have grown attached to working the land at Sunsong Ranch can now acquire the farm from Farmer Yoon via a quest. The farmhouse becomes a rest point like an Inn, where the player can bind and instantly log out. Work orders will pour into the farm from factions across Pandaria, and completing a work order will earn a reputation boost with the issuing faction.
• The option to take over the farm is available to characters that are exalted with the Tillers and have unlocked all 16 farm plots.
• Pet Battles
• Many new Battle Pets and Battle Pet abilities have been added.
• A number of new pets can be found on the Isle of Lightning, including rare spawn drops, wild pets, and raid boss drops.
• Professions
• Archeology
• Mantid Archaeology has been added. Players will be able to uncover common and rare Mantid artifacts. Players can purchase a Mantid Artifact Sonic Locator to focus exclusively on Mantid digsites.
• The Lorewalker’s Map now randomizes all digsites in Pandaria, rather than just 1.
• Updates have been made to the “museum” at the Seat of Knowledge.
• Blacksmithing
• New raid and PvP blacksmithing recipes have been added, and can be acquired through daily research of Lightning Steel Ingots.
• Seasoned Blacksmiths will be able to find a way to create Lightning Steel Ingots once their realm has unlocked the Thunderforges on the Isle of Thunder. These ingots will allow blacksmiths to recreate powerful weapons from the past, updated for Mists of Pandaria. These power weapons will be bind-on-equip and making them will take a significant amount of dedication.
• For blacksmiths who have lapsed in their trade (i.e., haven’t practiced blacksmithing since the Burning Crusade), there is a (not necessarily cost efficient) way to catch-up. Blacksmiths at your faction’s shrines in the
• Vale of Eternal Blossoms will be able to teach you training plans for crafting common household items using Ghost Iron.
•  Fishing
• The chance to fish up Flying Tiger Gourami, Spinefish Alpha and Mimic Octopus has been increased.
• Reputation gains from bringing rare Pandarian fish for Nat Pagle to examine has been increased.
• Players with a high fishing skill have a chance to fish up new pets. The Pet Journal has clues on where these elusive pets could be found.
• Fish of the Day: On any given day, there is a location in Pandaria teeming with a type of Pandaren fishing pool. Ben of the Booming Voice, located near the Halfhill Market area will inform players what the “Fish of the Day” is and mark the location on their map.
• Jewelcrafting
• Jewelcrafters may find the designs for Serpent’s Heart and uncut Primal Diamonds during the course of their adventures (world drops).
• Serpent’s Heart is a daily cooldown that consumes several Serpent’s Eyes to create a random rare quality Pandaren gem. In addition, there is a small chance that a player will discover the design for the Sapphire Cub or Jade Owl.
• The design for uncut Primal Diamonds requires Spirits of Harmony and large quantities of uncommon gems.
• Leatherworking
• Patterns for Magnificence of Leather and Magnificence of Scales could be found via world drops. These patterns allow the leatherworker to create Magnificent Hides more economically and share a daily cooldown. In addition to producing a Magnificent Hide, the leatherworker will learn a new 5.2 raid or PvP pattern.
• A new 36 slot leather bag (Magnificent Hide Pack) can now be created through Leatherworking.

• Tailoring
• New raid and PvP recipes have been added, and tailors can acquire these new recipes via the daily Imperial Silk cooldown.
• Items
• Teebu’s Blazing Longsword once again appropriately illuminates its surroundings.
• Transmogrification rules have been broadened for several weapon types.
• Two-handed axes, maces, and swords can be Transmogrified to each other.
• One-handed axes, maces, and swords can be Transmogrified to each other.
• Staves and polearms can be transmogrified to each other.
• Skyshards are now Bind on Account.
• Sunsong Ranch
• Seed bags have been added that allow planting of crops 4 plots at a time.
• Yoon's Mailbox has been renamed to Sunsong Ranch Mailbox.
• The yield from special crops has been improved to make farming them competitive with gathering these items out in the world.
• Running the Master Plow across underground Virmen will cause them to pop out of the ground at 30% health and stunned.
• Wild Crops will now occur less often.

That's the roundup of the patch 5.2 relevant patch notes.  My favorite are the changes to the Sunsong Ranch, should make farming less of a chore!  What's your favorite part of the 5.2 gold making changes?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts
If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Phat Farm

This post is for Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival on March 11th.  The topic is "What Are You Currently Doing With Your Sunsong Ranch(es)?"

Right now I have 2 characters at 90, and thus 2 farms I can truly optimize.

Farm 1: My Main

My main is a Tailor/Alchemist.  Since these two professions don't really benefit as much from Spirit of Harmony as others, I plant Enigma Seeds, mainly aiming for the Golden Lotus procs, of which I've gotten at a rate of 4.625 per day over the past 40 days.  If I was planting Songbell Seeds, I'd be getting 1.6 Motes a day, which means an extra CD every 2 days, or about 9 Golden Lotus, so really is it worth it?  On my server it was not, which is why I stuck with the Enigmas.  You could do a similar calculation on your farm to see what your best option is!

Farm 2: Rare Seeds ASAP
So I hit 90 on my Death Knight literally 2 days ago.  The day after hitting 90 I was already at Revered with the Tillers!  How did I do this you ask? First of all I had my main that got Revered with the Tillers, so I purchased a Grand Commendation of the Tillers.  Then I started all the Tillers quests before 90, and finished them, as well as having a plot of 4 ready to harvest (you only get Tillers rep for harvesting after dinging 90).  Doing all the intro quests with double rep along with the dailies and one time rep quests on the day I turned 90 and the next, I was able to get to revered (12 plots + special crops + sprinkler/mass pesticide) the day after I hit 90, and now on the 3rd day I'm almost half way to exalted!  With getting to exalted this easy with the Grand Commendation, I'm seriously considering leveling another character to 90 just for the additional Tillers farm once I hit Exalted with my DK.  With my DK I'm going with the Motes because it's the only viable way for me to productively get them (Blacksmith).  I'm getting a few doing the dailies as well which is a nice bonus!

So that's my current setup, I have a level 87 who I am considering leveling to get the 3rd farm going, but we'll see how that ends up!  What are you doing with your Tillers farm right now?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!

Reader Request Phriday: TSM Setup

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the first ever Reader Request Phriday!  This week there were only 2 days to submit questions, but if you're interested in submitting a topic for next week's Reader Request Phriday, click here!!

Today's question comes from a reader, Leeu.  Leeu is currently sitting on 35k from xmog sales, and just getting into professions.  Their question was as follows:

The topic I am most interested in is how you set up your TSM auction groups. I am very uncertain about thresholds and just how low I should go and which method to use to sell. I try to set fixed gold amounts for all of my auction group thresholds and fallback prices. Some things sell amazingly well with this while others not so much. Do you have an individual group for each cut/uncut gem that is sold or are they all lumped into one big category? 

TL;DR: How do you set up your TSM auctioning groups?

Fixed Gold Prices: Gems, Transmog, and Glyphs
For Gems, Transmog, and Glyphs I use fixed gold prices in one large group.  For gems I prospect, so the raw mat cost for each cut is equal, and they never cost me more than 30g, so 30g is my lower bound.  For my upper bound I use 274g99s99c.  This way it'll fall back to a nice price when I'm the only one posting, which happens from time to time.  If you don't make a lot of sales using this method, there is probably someone undercutting you quite constantly.  It's not about if a specific cut sales, but more about overall gem sales, that's how I think of it anyway.

I do a similar thing for glyphs.  Since I use current mats and down convert to the old Inks, I have a set price per glyph, it's usually 30g.  For glyphs I'm not willing to sell "at cost" so my lower bound is 50g, and my upper bound is 475g.  Again a realistic upper bound where I might get sales.

For Transmog my bounds aren't so flexible.  For each tier I set my lower and upper bounds within 100g of each other.  If someone wants to undercut me in this market below that, let em.  My theory is, if they undercut me and make a sale good for them, but the common lister won't keep listing at that price if it won't sell, they'll eventually go down to a price that I'd be willing to buy at, in a worst case scenario.

Percent of Market Value: Current Enchants & Food
The other way I tend to set up groups is as % of AuctionDB - Market Value.  This is useful in groups such as food buffs or enchants, where the market tends to go up or down depending on the time in a patch.  I use these because each food is valued at a different price, and I don't have to think about the very volatile pricing.

For the food I use an upper bound of 140% of Market Value.  This is relatively arbitrary, but if there are no auctions on the AH, I want to sell for a bit more than if there were.  I set the lower bounds to 60% of Market Value.  I don't craft my food (see this post if you're curious about how I obtain it), so I don't base it off of "crafting cost", which can also be a bit inaccurate for things like food (see Ironpaw Shuffle).

Lastly of course is Enchants.  I don't do the following for old enchants because originally I did and I ended up listing some (definitely not worth it) at 400k gold because of people overinflating prices.  For current enchants though (again since I don't want to deal with them on an individual basis and they all cost different prices to make), I use 125% for Upper, and 60% for lower.

Anyway, I hope this answered the question, and gave you some insight as to how I set up my TSM.  If you have any further questions, feel free to ask them below, I'd love to get a nice discussion going about this.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

If you like my blog follow me on twitter, @PhatLewtsGold!!