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!!

Looking Forward: Patch 5.2 Preview

About a week ago, Blizzard released a preview of Patch 5.2 in the 5.2 PTR Patch notes.  Now these changes as we know may not see it to live, but I always think it's good to look ahead, and in this case it's no different.

First Thoughts
As it is with every raid patch, demand for consumables (jewels, flasks, food, etc.) will increase when 5.2 first is released.  This patch however comes with a questing hub that will slowly unlock new things for each faction as they progress through it.  One of them will give a distinct (gold making) advantage to Blacksmiths:
"As the heroes conquer the Isle, they will unlock the powerful Lightning Forge, which will allow Blacksmiths to forge mighty raid-worthy items, as well as classic weapons from the past."
While this is still in it's infancy stages, this is an interesting concept.  It seems that Blacksmiths will have the ability to create raid and transmog weapons, but most likely will require your BS to be 90 to take advantage of this, if it is in the final release.  Other than this particular change, a lot of the gold making changes seem to be on the front of your Tiller's farm.

Buying the Farm
The first major change to the Tiller's farm is the option to purchase the farm from Farmer Yoon.  This will make the farm a place you can hearth to and treated like an inn.  Once you purchase it you will also start receiving "work orders" from factions in Pandaria and completing them will reward you rep.  While this will most likely not net you much gold in the long run, it can certainly help you unlock rep barred recipes on the enchanter you just got to 90 (for example).  The other changes to your Halfhill Farm focus on making your farm more efficient.

Farming Like a Boss
Patch 5.2 will be adding some long awaited changes for all you farmers out there!  The first will be AoE seeding, 4 plots at a time, using special Seed Bags.  Also, using the master plow and running over plots with vermin in them, will knock them out of their plot, stunned, with only 30% health!  Wild crops will also occur less often, once again speeding up the daily farming process.  Efficiency ho!  Some very nice simplifications to the farming system.   Last but not least, possibly the most important farm change:
The yield from special crops has been improved to make farming them competitive with gathering these items out in the world.
Aaah yes, increased yield on our favorite special crops.  I must say I look forward to these changes, as well as seeing how the whole Blacksmithing changes unfold.  It will be very interesting to see how they reintroduce some unobtainable transmog items (and which ones).  This patch also contains a LOT of class changes, so if you have gotten out of the glyph market, but still have a stockpile, the release of this patch may be a time to dabble once more, for a few weeks at least.

Hope you enjoyed this post, and I hope you all have a happy and safe new year!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Phats' Weekly Lewt Review 12/28

Hey Everyone!

Hope you all are having a great and relaxing holiday!  Today as always I'm going to bring you my latest gold making escapades in the past week, in hope of helping you, and/or letting me vent a bit (you'll see below).

Tailoring
Tailoring has been really good for me the past few weeks.  I am still burning my daily CD, and selling both the crafted PvP sets and the Imperial Silk crafted (ilvl 476) gear.  Both at an amazing profit.  I actually can't keep the Imperial Silk crafted gear on the AH long enough to replenish it with my daily cooldown, which is nice!  I'm tending to craft only the gloves now, as both gloves and robes sell for about the same on my server, and gloves take 2 less cooldowns.  If I work up 6 cloths before I sell a pair of gloves though, I will make the robes.  As for the PvP gear, for some simple calculations I figure each PvP piece takes about one stack of Windwool (ie. 4 bolts) on average.  This means that for anywhere from 20-40g I can craft one piece of PvP gear.  That means Selling it from 150-350g is well worth my time!  I'm also crafting Netherweave Bags while AFK because the profit margins are strangely high on my server right now.

Alchemy/Farming
As I mentioned a few weeks ago when 5.1 dropped, I started planting Enigma Seeds.  I'm now using them to make flasks with the rest of the herbs that come up, since my 90 is an alchemist.  Just adds a little bit of value to my Lotus, but well worth it, as they both sell just as quickly for me.  Also, I've been using a spreadsheet to calculate my minimum Living Steel method (since TUJ doesn't account for procs from transmuting).  It's going well, but my profit margin is only about 100g on any given day, with procs taken into consideration.  With 4 alchemists, this means 400g/day so I can't complain for what little work I do to get it.

Burned at the BMAH
So recently I saw a Battered Hilt on the Black Market Auction House.  The starting bid was 15k and I know I can probably get anywhere from 25-30k on my server for such an item, and I figured if it didn't sell, I could use it myself, I've always wanted to do that quest line.  I won the bid at 15k and got the item, only to see that I had purchased the Alliance only version on my Horde character.  So I almost instantly opened up a ticket with a GM.  I got my response within 48 hrs, and I was not very pleased with it. They said 2 things: 1) They would not change the item to the Horde version and 2) They would not refund me the gold I payed for the item.  Bummer.  So I'm out 15k, it's my own fault but I figured they'd at least swap it for the Horde version, but what can you do.  Lesson learned, watch out for faction specific items on the BMAH.

That's about all for this week, it's been a lot of sales I figure because the college and high school kids have off this week through New Year's, and I've gotten a noticeable increase in sales, which is always welcome.  I will try to do another post some time before 2013, but I'm not sure that I will have the time.  In any case, I hope you all have a Happy New Year!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

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!!