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

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