Dispelling the Enigma Surrounding Enigma Seeds

After 5.1 nerfing the exchange of Spirit of Harmony to Golden Lotus, many people were up in the air about what seed to plant at their Tiller's farm, and you may have recently read that Enigma Seeds (which produce herbs) got a stealth-buff, possibly the better alternative for providing Golden Lotus.

My Findings
I have been planting Enigma Seeds over the past 10 days or so, and every day so far I have gotten 4-6 Golden Lotus each day.   On top of that, the other plots that aren't Lotuses are other herbs that I send off to my Scribe to mill into pigments.  Below is a screenshot of my normal yield:

So not only do you get the 4-6 Golden Lotus, you get other herbs on top of that.  When you plant Songbell Seeds on the other hand, you get 1.6 Spirits which turns into 3.2 Golden Lotus.  So 4 Golden Lotus alone and you'd be better off.  Add to that the other herbs and you're much better planting other seeds.  On some servers vegetables may be the way to go, but the price per Golden Lotus (on average across servers) is currently: , which with the addition of the other herbs are worth more than vegetables (at 5-7 per plot).

If you haven't yet began grinding Tillers rep, now is certainly still a good time.  The rep is a decent grind, and as far as gold making is concerned, is by far your best rep (minus the profession specific grinds).  Cooking is also doing (semi) well for me currently, don't forget the Ironpaw Exchange!!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

JC and Mining, Making Wrath Gold!

Hey guys,

I originally wrote a post about something similar over a year ago, but I recently got back into doing this when I have had some free time in game, and it's a great way to amass a good amount of gold if you have Mining + JC or just JC even.

Dalaran JC Dailies
If you don't have a lot of epic and rare WotLK cuts, start doing the Dalaran Jewelcrafting dailies on your Jewelcrafter.  The quest is given by Timothy Jones in Dalaran and gets you tokens for epic and rare cuts (also it does not interfere with your regular JC daily).  Sidenote: Resilience is a great seller to these markets.

Obtaining Epic Gems
Now that you have some epic and rare cuts, you're going to want to obtain epic Wrath Gems.  This market is huge and viable for both 70 and 80 twinks, and they sell great.  Also, the cut rare gems sell well, and are byproducts of my method.  There are two profitable ways of obtaining the epic gems.  One way is to buy them for 220 Justice Points from any of these three vendors in Dalaran (probably the best way to spend excess JP).  The other way is to attempt an Icy Prism proc.  These create at least 3 gems, usually 3 rares, with a chance at a Dragon's Eye or a Wrath epic.  This USED to be a daily CD in wrath, but as of Cataclysm, you can do it as much as you want every day, but may only have one in your inventory.

Icy Prism
The downside to the second method is that you have to have to come up with Frozen Orbs.  These are only obtainable from doing Wrath Heroics (killing the final boss) or from 110 JP, which probably isn't worth it considering the Epic Gems themselves only cost 220 JP.  I just have it on a TSM search list I commonly use and pick them up whenever they're cheap (< 35g for me).  Then after I accumulate a certain amount I usually prospect for the other mats of Icy Prism from Saronite Ore, and I uses these macros to create and use the Prisms:

Crafting:

/use Jewelcrafting
/run for i=1,GetNumTradeSkills()do local skillName,_,nA,_,_,_=GetTradeSkillInfo(i)if skillName=="Icy Prism"then DoTradeSkill(i,nA)end end

Opening:
/use Icy Prism

You have to alternate between these two macros since you can only have one Icy Prism in your inventory at one time.


So Wait...Where Does Mining Come in to All of This?
Glad you asked.  To get the mats for this, as well as some additional gold, I farm (that's right I said it...FARM my Saronite Ore from Wintergrasp.  Doing about 2-3 rounds of WG on my Tauren Druid with +310% flying in a level 25 guild, I have about a stack of Titanium Ore, which I can sell for 500g/stack on my server, plus about 10-12 stacks of Saronite Ore, which I can prospect for common and rare gems for Icy Prism and Dalaran Dailies.  Make sure you have the guild perk that allows extra procs :-).

Disclaimer:  I am not claiming that farming in this case or any is the most productive or best way to spend your time.  It is however a great way to reduce your investment capital and come out on top!


Hope you enjoy this method of creative Wrath gold making, I like to change up my methods every now and then to cut the drudge of my daily gold making routine...even if that means farming!  What's your favorite way to make gold that you don't do on a daily basis?



Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Phat's Weekly Lewt Review 3/19

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

The Bots Are Back in Town!
The first thing I noticed this week is that the farming bots are obviously back in WoW.  The average price of Whiptail on my server is 50g per stack.  This is what I found this week:

Yes, that's only 2 different posters, one posting 285 stacks and another posting 357 stacks at less than half the normal price.  I've been hearing people saying that the SoR's are just getting bored and farming now.  I'm sorry but no human being is going to farm 300+ stacks of Whiptail, let alone 2 of them on the same (small) server, and willing to post at those ridiculously low prices.  For Example the top seller here sold 285 stacks of whiptail for a mere 4061g25s after AH 'taxes'.  I don't think anyone in their right mind would be pricing like this.  I did enjoy buying it all up, but I don't even know if I'll EVER be able to go through it all.  This puts my price point of MFC's at about 3g each, so...lots of barking in my future!

Kindness in WoW
This week I was faced with a unique problem.  If you read my 1,000,000 gold post, you'd know that my main source of income is selling gems, and it's something I enjoy.  This week though I was faced with a new competitor who was CONSTANTLY posting his Inferno Rubies (all cuts) for a measley 100g, which really cuts into my profit margin.  I tried buying up what he had off the AH but by the next time he logged they were up at the same price.  In my eyes I had 2 options:  Sell at a loss, and hope that the other gems bail me out, or start going on a war path, pricing my gems as low as 50g to get him out of the market.  This was a tough one and for a day or two I just stopped posting Inferno Rubies.  Then on twitter, after asking about what others would do, @msherretz suggested that I whisper the guy and figure out why he was doing this.

So I did.  I approached the guy and politely asked "Hey I was just wondering, why are you pricing your Inferno Rubies so low?".  He replied with something along the lines of "My guild had half a bank tab full of them and asked me to sell them off".  Now to me that doesn't make sense, but that's irrelevant.  He was selling for 100g each so I said "If you want I'd be willing to buy them all for 90 g each."  He Replied: "The 100g point is the lowest that I'd be willing to go, but I have 25 stacks left."  "I'll take em" I said.

After we traded the ridiculous amount of Inferno Rubies, he whispered me and said "Thanks for being so nice about it, most of the people who whispered me were doing it just to be rude or call me names.  If you approached me like that I wouldn't have sold to you."

So try to remember guys, your competition are people too.  Just like IRL, people like to be treated with respect.  We've all vote kicked the level 62 frost DK who won't stop Death Gripping, but there are real people behind the characters, and some younger and less experienced than we are.  Be an example of the WoW community you want, not the one we have.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

Phat's Weekly Lewt Review: Week Ending 3/5

If you like my blog posts, follow me on twitter @PhatLewtsGold for more gold making tips!

Hey guys,

Again this week I'm going to summarize my week in WoW, Gold making and otherwise.

Transmog Farming
I have to start with this because it's probably the most exciting thing that happened WoW-wise all week.  The cloth head I was farming, Circle of Flame finally dropped for my posting toon/main (after about 95 runs) and I'm currently mogged it to both my transmog outfits.  I contribute data to Wowhead and I just want to mention that the drop rate for this item dropped a whole percentage point since I started farming it (but I also wasn't the only one contributing data from this boss during that time :-P).  Pictures of my 2 Xmog outfits, then to gold making news!

PvP Set

PvE Set

Icy Cloak

This week I sold my 3rd Icy Cloak, the last of my original supply.  I originally wrote a post about this cloak on this on December 30th, and since then I've made 6,840 gold from this simple tailoring recipe.  If you have any tailor over level 200 I highly suggest you try this method, you can read the original post Icy Cloak Recipe! for more info.  (Though the pattern is BoE, Horde only, it makes it that much more lucrative if you have a way to get it  to the Alliance side of your server).

All of my sales were on Horde side.  The first sale was 3200, 2nd was 1500, and most recent was 2500.  So the average of all my listing prices is 2400g.  Originally people were saying that there were vendors in Shattrath that sell an identical looking cloak for JP, and that it might not sell, but making 6840g off of an item that costs 20-50g to craft seems like a great deal to me.  I will gladly make some more and keep posting.  Additionally I sent over a pattern and some mats to my alliance Tailor (a level 20 something who is at ~160 Tailoring) and I hope to craft this soon and see how it does on the Alliance market.  A great consistant moneymaker, easy to post with the rest of my transmog gear!  REALLY suggest posting 1 at a time so people don't get suspicious!

Mogging Sales

Mogging results today after 24 hrs on AH

My mog sales this week have been pretty decent, made maybe 10k profit. I'm starting to think though that at least on my small server that mogging just isn't and won't be profitable.  Okay yes it is profitable, but I feel like it's not worth it for the time that I put into it.  Do I enjoy making a 28,000% profit on some items?  Yes.  It feels great.  But I'm just finding that the sales aren't justifying the time invested.  Considering buying any/every transmog item under 100 and posting at a straight 500g regardless of what it is.  Don't know if I'm going to take that plunge until I see another week of data.

Also lately I've been noticing, and I've seen other bloggers noticing that sometimes 'mogging' sales are really going to leveling toons (usually the cheaper of the auctions).  Just another thing to keep in mind when considering the straight 500g pricing scheme.  Also, I'm looking to keep a record of the level of the buyer of my next week of xmog sales, starting tomorrow.  Very interested to see what I personally find out.  If you would like to do the same, my email is at the bottom of this post, shoot me a line and I'll use your data when I post mine!  :-)

TSM Lists
If you didn't notice from my last post, I've really gotten away from Auctionator for searching my lists, and have been using Faid's lists as well as my own to search the AH for resale items.  I really like how TSM does their searches now, and I will probably be primarily using it in the future.  Not much else to say here that I didn't say in the original post, check it out if you havent already!  Also I'm looking for a great and comprehensive TSM Mogging Weapon list, if anyone knows of one, let me know!

Last Thoughts
This week I didn't focus much on crafting, just selling off the  residuals that were left over.  I was doing arena with a friend for conquest points and glory, which IMO is more important that gold making (sometimes).  This upcoming week my goal is to get all my crafters back into their routines and hopefully get some gold churning out of the old mill.  I dipped below 1 mill buying a few items in the past week, but I'm back over for now, no immediate goals in that regard.  If you have any questions or would like to see me post about something in particular in the upcoming week, don't hesitate to ask in the comment section, or send me an email at PhatLewtsGold @ Gmail . com

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

Phantom Blade

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You may know that when Cataclysm removed weapon/armorsmithing from the game, it also removed a lot of the patterns that went with each.  One of the coolest looking ones was the Phantom Blade, and as some may or may not know, if you don't have the pattern, it was added back to the game in the 4.3 patch.

WARNING: If you want to farm this pattern it's pretty easy to farm but BEWARE the pattern is BoP so you'll have to do it on your Blacksmith.

Alright the link to the pattern is here.  You may be looking at the drop rates thinking ".02% drop rate?  That's insane!"  This is very much not the case.  This item was added back to WoW in Patch 4.3, and this .02% drop rate is calcualted on all the drops from those adds (over 115,000) since vanilla WoW, which haven't dropped the pattern until now.  For a more accurate drop rate, the WoW site lists the drop rate as "Very Low", which is in the range of 1-3% (as compared to extremely low which is <1%).  For reference another item that has a drop rate of "Very Low" is  Ashes of Al'ar which Wowhead correctly calculates, and has listed at a 1.7% drop rate.  Luckily, unlike Ashes, the Plans for the Phantom Blade are farmable off of multiple creatures that can be reset.  

Farming the Phantom

To get this pattern you have to kill either Shrieking or Wailing Banshees in Stratholme's The Gauntlet, which the entrance to is located in Western Plaguelands here (don't do what I did at first and go to the regular entrance) 

Once inside, you can follow this path, and you just kill the banshees along the path (dotted line is no banshees, but necessary).  

Now there is one caveat to this method.  Anyone doing this method is subject to Blizzard's 5 instances per hour lockout.  At 85, you could probably do 12 of these per hour, but it WILL lock you out after 5.  I did this, and it ended up taking me 12 runs.  On average it should take less, but it is possible to take more than 12.  Again you may have to take a break, but luckily queuing for random dungeons/raid finder doesn't count towards this total so in your downtime you can do randoms.  

Crafting/Selling

Like the Icy Cloak Post I wrote a while ago, this has look alikes that are available from vendors.  Your main audience is those who will see this item and say "Hey I want that, and I'd be willing to pay that price for it".  You're not going to get someone who looks it up on Wowhead and says "lol look at all these lookalikes!  I'm not paying for that one!", unless they're deadset on the color, so price it accordingly!  I just really like having these cool looking craftables on my alts, make 3-5 of them, throw them in the bank, and if they sell, great!  If not, reduce the price after a few weeks, keep trying.  I had a lot of fun farming and crafting this, and I hope you do too!  If you do try doing this, leave a comment about your experience getting it, I'd love to hear from you! 

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

Tailors: Icy Cloak Recipe!

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Disclaimer: This gold making method is NOT for the feint of heart.

UPDATE:  I've managed to sell this cloak Horde side for over 3k gold!

Requirements: Tailor and Alchemist (Only needs to be @ skill 200 which requires level 20)
Suggested: Tailor, Alchemist, and Herbalist

This is what the Cloak in question looks like:

 

For transmog, this cloak is not unique, in fact there are many other places to get it, but the one thing in your favor is that this is the only way that produces a BoE version of the cloak, AND this recipe is not available to the Alliance at all.  (Also, Priests love this cloak and it's cheap to make)

Step 1: Getting your Recipes

Pattern: Icy Cloak is sold by a vendor only friendly to Horde players, Ghok'kah.  This and the other recipe are Limited Supply so they may not be there right away, and may require some camping to obtain!

**If you are going to transfer this to the Alliance and you have an Alliance tailor/alchemist now would be the best time to transfer this recipe as the next one can be obtained by Alliance or Horde

The other recipe you will most likely need is Recipe: Frost Oil, as Frost Oil is a reagent required to craft the cloak.  This one is sold by Bro'kin, and again will require a decent bit of camping as it is Limited Supply.  

Step 2: Getting your Mats

The mats for Icy Cloak (other than the Frost Oil that you're going to make) are all pretty common and cheap to buy off your Auction House.  The Frost Oil may provide a bit of a problem and this is where having an herbalist will really help you.  The one annoying mat is Dragon's Teeth.  This does drop from a lot of low level instances (Maraudon mostly) so there may be a bit on your AH if the low lvls were smart enough to post it.  If not, the herb nodes are only located in the Badlands.  Get all your mats together and craft the cloak!  

Step 3: ?????

Step 4: Profit

List the cloak on the AH for a reasonable price (I'd suggest 500-1,000 g depending on the size of your server) and wait for it to sell!  

Observations/Comments

This pattern is not available to the Alliance so flipping the pattern on the Alli side (or getting it on an alt over there) may be even better than crafting the cloak.  There are very easy ways of obtaining a cloak that looks like this but hopefully people will see yours in the AH and say "Hey that looks good, and I'm willing to pay the price to not do research" and you'll be all set.  

Good luck camping vendors!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts  (@PhatLewtsGold)

Half a Million (How to Level Alts)

FINALLY!  I finally hit half a million gold.  It wasn't because I couldn't have earned it before now, but I'm a chronic spender!  Every time one of my alts dinged 85 (and I now have 6) I had to get them the latest gear (even though I now regularly play 2).  Repair mounts?  "Had" to have them!  Dalaran Rings, etc.

Did I put a lot of gold into my alts?  Yes.  Did they end up paying for themselves?  ...mostly.  Either way, today I'm going to focus on my theory of leveling alts.

How to Make Gold Using Alts.
This is my key method to making tons of gold leveling alts.  Some may disagree, some may have suggestions to tweak or better use my general method, but this is what I do, and I will provide an argument for why, and how to better it.

Farm.  Yup I said it, Farm.  Get Herbalism and Mining on your alt from the first profession NPCs that you see, and get out there and farm (don't forget a Mining Pick).

Yes, I know, farming at max level isn't the most effective way of making gold, but due to these professions rewarding XP just for doing them, it's the best way of making gold while leveling!

**Note: If you are interested in having a max level mine/herbalist farmer Horde side, I suggest rolling a Tauren Druid.  Taurens have a passive racial Cultivation that allows them to gather herbs faster than other races, and Druid Flight Form at lvl 60+ is an instant cast and you don't have to leave it to Herbalize.  It's the most efficient Mining/Herbalism combo in the game, if you care.  (If you roll Alliance, a druid in general is still the fastest because of the reasons listed)

Why This Method Works:


This is the most cost effective way to level your toon.  If you're going to level an alt, why not have it work for you?  Mining and Herbalism are the 2 professions that will grant you XP solely for doing them.   My advice now is to sell the raw materials and start making gold for this toon.  You can farm sitting in a queue, and farming gets you around the same XP as grinding quests, but makes you A LOT more gold!

If you are interested in finding the best places to level your herb/mining or just professions in general I suggest using wow-professions.

The 75 Conundrum
Once you hit 75 you have the ability to max your professions, which leaves you two options.  Learn Illustrious Grand Master Mining/Herbalism OR use the gold your toon earned to max out serious gold making professions (with no farming) like Alchemy or JC.  My personal goal is to have a character that, through leveling, pays to max out their really good gold making professions.  The one argument I can think of for holding out to 85 to drop herbalism/mining is that you can continue to get XP using your professions if you stick to mining/herbalism.

If you choose to continue leveling past 75 using Herbalism/Mining you can start in Mount Hyjal.  You're going to have to grind a bit here, but there are a lot of nodes that don't have nearby NPC's.  Once you hit 500 Herbalism and 475 Mining, go to The Violet Citadel in Dalaran and take the portal to The Caverns of Time.  Once there, fly south one zone and start farming in Uldum.  A little dangerous in the 70's, but there are plenty of nodes not near NPC's and these nodes will reward TONS of XP.

Have fun leveling your toons!

Phat Lewts