What I Want From Legion Gold Making

So the new WoW expansion has been announced and the buzz has begun. This article is going to be an opinion piece of my impressions of WoD gold making and what needs to change in Legion.

WoD Goldmaking
WoD was supposed to be an ultimate revolution in gold making. From the beginning, early stages of the Alpha, we were promised a profession revamp, and there were many interactions between the developer Hwoo and the Consortium gold making community. You can go back and read some of the conversations if you'd like, but the basic gist from the gold making community at the time was we were being "heard" by the devs. We all had a sense of optimism heading into WoD that everything would be more interesting, and new challenges would arise from a "new profession system", and gold making had finally reached a golden age.

Unfortunately, that's not what we were delivered. What we got at launch felt like a half-baked product, and left a lot of professions high and dry. Gold making with professions really took a hit this expansion. Maybe it took all those mindless shufflers out of the equation and left the market to those seasoned vets, but it killed the profitability and interesting choices of many professions. Jewelcrafting is probably one of the last professions someone will suggest now, and it had been a king for a long time. Not to say that one profession should be that OP that it's the default suggestion for new gold makers to have always, but they basically took it out back behind the shed and shot it in the head. Enchanting still had some profits, but slots were reduced. The 3 big crafting professions (Tailoring/LW/BS) were reduced to daily CD making machines, with not many interesting choices from there. Sure it was easier gameplay to not have to enchant/get a belt buckle/get leg armor for every new piece you got in a raid, but it killed some nice routes for those 3 big guys. The gold making game has become dull.

Legion So Far...
So far we have not heard much about Legion and the Devs have seemed to realized that WoD as a whole was a disappointment to many players, and are focusing on not making promises they cannot keep. To me this is a good sign, hopefully transparency continues moving forward. What we do know about professions so far is this (via MMO-Champ):

• There will be a quest line for each profession.
• There will be some system changes to professions as a whole to improve the UI and add new functionality.
• The professions team for Legion is the largest that Blizzard has ever had for WoW and lots of new things are coming. The team heard the feedback about Warlords professions.

The quest line could be the same as this expansion, and honestly I did not find the quests all too interesting, and it didn't really add any gating, so they didn't help gold makers much. Thus far though, it seems like they're at least making some corrective steps to change professions, with the UI and new functionality (whatever that may be). It's nice to hear that they've got the largest team ever for professions, but that could just mean 2 interns instead of 1. I jest, but I'm hoping they stay true to that last point, and introduce some new and interesting profession choices and make sure that "no profession is left behind". All professions (sans gathering) should have interesting choices, and I hope they can accomplish that.

What we were all expecting for WoD was a new professions system, not like Wrath -> Cata -> MoP where it was basically the same mold moved up an expansion, but a new system that would challenge what we knew about professions, and change how we thought about making gold. Creating new complex problems for us to solve and new and interesting choices to make. It really fell short of that expectation.

I personally would love for Legion gold making to make me think again. For a beginner, it may still do that now, but once you get that formula down, it's mindless. I'd like new interesting problems to come out of Legion gold making, and I hope the Dev team can deliver. I also hope that the garrison theme does not continue with these class halls. They claim that the professions team has heard the feedback about Warlords professions, but I honestly hope they can move forward and correct them in a meaningful way, but only time will tell! What do you want to see the most in Legion gold making?

Cheers,
Phat Lewts

How to be a Great Transmog Salesman Part 2

This is a follow up to my previous 2 posts, How to be a Great Transmog Salesman Part 1, and it's recent Addendum, a shorter way to do it.  Now that we've gone through the various ways of purchasing these items, I'm going to go through some methods that I use to sell the items.

Handy Dandy Transmog Seller
I highly suggest for anyone who is going to get serious about transmog to make a level 1 bank mule solely for transmog.  This way your bags are free of any other potential clutter.  My character also has a guild bank for himself to store anything I have more than 3 of.  He has all 26 slot bags (28 aren't worth it yet).  With the backpack that's 120 slots.  150 would of course be preferable because mail comes in 50's, but not an option  right now.

I also find that attempting to be as anonymous as possible is the way to go with this as well.  If guildies find out you're the guy selling all the xmog gear they want, they're going to want you to cut them a deal.  All the time.  Trust me I've been down that road, and minus RealID (which you still can't appear invisible on), don't advertise yourself as being that lvl 1 transmog guy.

The 48-Hour Auction
For Transmog gear, I always set my TSM groups to be on 48 hours.  This way you only have to repost unsold items every 2 days.  You may get undercut, but with the amount of items you have on the AH, you won't particularly care.  I tend to scan at least once per day to find any good deals, but more than that on occasion.  If you're using the TSM Application, it has the option to notify you of Deals if you're using one of the dealfinding lists.  I don't want to go in length on that topic right now, but may in a future post.

My Tiers
Yesterday, in Part 1, I noted that I set up 4 tiers for my transmog sales, I'm going to simplify them by refering  to them as follows:

Low Level: 499g Threshold/749g Fallback
Mid Level: 749g Threshold/1249g Fallback
High Level: 4499g Threshold/4999g Fallback
Extremely Rare: 17999g Fallback

Now you could honestly buy everything below 50g, and put it all in the Low Level Group and make gold, but putting better looking pieces in pricier groups helps make you more profit!  I'd say a majority of my pieces actually do fall into the Low Level group, but there are a few sets (more than this but I'm going to give you some highlights) that I throw into the higher groups, as follows.  Mouse over the set name to look at the set!

Mid Level
My mid level items consist of gear from the following sets (among others):
Blood Knight, Bloodfist, Bloodscale, Captain's, Darkcrest, and Imbued Plate
Note that some of these Chest and Pants I will bump up to the 5k, as they really are the core pieces for the set.

High Level
Arachnidian Robes, Hibernal Robe, Venomshroud Silk Robes, Buccaneer's Set, Hyperion Set (Chest/Legs in Extremely Rare), Silver-Thread Robe, Soulkeeper, Speedsteel Rapier, and my favorite Anvilmar Hammer

Extremely Rare
Exalted Plate, Robes of Insight, Jade Plate

Of course different people have different lists, but these are roughly how I group mine together.  Get a feel for your own server.  My server is Low Pop so I usually have a monopoly on any of the High Level or higher sets, so I can price them how I want.  In a higher pop setting you may want to reduce your prices to remain profitable.  Try out different things, and see what works for you.

Barking
Rarely I will talk about my transmog gear on my main.  Just to get some free advertising.  Say something like (and link the item) "Anvilmar Hammer for 5,000g!?  What a rip off!".  Now you may be thinking Phat, why slander your beautiful self in such a way?  I'll tell you why.  This one is on the principle "any publicity is good publicity".  I can't tell you how many sales I've made off of posting unique items to trade in this way.  A lot of players don't know they exist, even if it doesn't sell that day, you've planted a seed!

That's all for now, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below!


Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Calculating the Value of Spirit of Harmony

Okay so you've been farming Motes of Harmony, both literally with the Tillers, and also by killing mobs and receiving drops.  Now you have a decent amount, but is it worthwhile to use it for a craft?  What's the price point for one of these things?  These are the questions I'm here to answer.

Point for Comparison
Since we have a vendor that will trade Spirit of Harmony for various goods, we can calculate the "Opportunity Cost" of using a Spirit of Harmony in a craft.  9 times out of 10 on any given server the conversion from 1 Spirit of Harmony -> 3 Golden Lotus will be the most profitable, BUT if you would like to compare the other options as well, The Undermine Journal has a neat tool for doing so for you.

Once on your server page, simply hover over Consumables, then select Elementals.

Click to Enlarge

After doing so you should see a page similar to this one, which will multiply by the number you can buy from the vendor by the current going rate for each item.

What this table shows us is that for every Spirit of Harmony you have, you can trade it for about 880 gold.  So if a recipe you're crafting has say 6 Spirit of harmony, and the raw mats + 880*6 = raw mats + 5280 is less than the price that you could get for that item, don't craft it! Now not everything is as black and white as say the LW or BS that NEED this in their Epic crafts, some professions have CDs that you can ignore by using SoH, and others have recipes you can buy with them. So the question for those professions is "Is having this extra CD/recipe worth the gold that these SoH are worth?" or "Is this PvP recipe worth 880g?" For example, on most servers an additional Living Steel CD for your Alchemist is NEVER worth the price of the 9 Golden Lotus I could get instead.  So it's just something to keep in mind.

Additional Valuation
So, you thought that was it huh?  Unfortunately for you it's not!   We have another problem because if you're Revered or greater with the Tillers, you have the opportunity to grow these from the ground!  Is it worth it?
Okay so make sure you've done the above step, which way is worth more?  What's a SoH worth to you? Let's say like the above example your server had the SoH worth 880g to trade in for Golden Lotus, but your LW craft for example takes raw mats that sell for 720g and 8 SoH, but you can sell it for 34k.  TUJ even does THIS math for you!

Click to Enlarge

Since it's worth crafting we can calculate the value of your SoH to be (Selling Price) - (Other Mats) = 34k-720g = 33.3k divided among 8 SoH = 4,162g per SoH!!  So it's definitely worth it for you to craft this item instead of trade it to the vendor.  On the other hand, if you determine the opposite, such as an Alchemist, that it's not worth it with your 90's professions, it's only worth 880g.

Now here comes the interesting (and slightly annoying) part.  Each plot in your farm grows 1 Mote of Harmony (1/10th of a Spirit).  To the LW each plot is worth 416.2g (very nice!), but to the Alchemist, it's only worth 88g.  Not that great...could you get more planting something else?

Currently the other Revered seeds won't (on most servers) get you something worth more than 88g, as they are the most basic of Raw Mats for professions.  BUT, right now there is a very high demand for vegetables!  So back to TUJ to check: Consumables -> Cooking

Click to Enlarge

You will be able to see a chart like this:

Note the price and that each plot will grow not one but five of these each day.  *Note: Ginseng is sold by a Tillers vendor. Basically multiply any of these numbers by 5 and you'll get more than that 88g.  Juicycrunch Carrot would be my go to because Intellect lovers are always my best buyers, but also note that Jogu the Drunk, for a fee, will tell you which one of these to grow each day to harvest 8 the next day.  So one of these will get a x8 multiplier instead of x5.


Now that I've thoroughly bored you to death, get out there and start getting THE MOST out of your Spirit of Harmony!! If you remember to reply after checking, leave a comment with your 2 primary professions and how much your Spirit of Harmony are worth!

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Enchanters: Work your Cooldown!

Today I'm going to be doing a post for all my enchanters out there.

Maxing your Enchanting with JC
Feel free to skip this section if you're at 600 already.
Since I had a Jewelcrafter and a Tailor I needed (wanted) to get to 600, I figured they can help each other out.  First start by prospecting 15(ish) stacks of Ghost Iron Ore.  Once you have your common gems, instead of cutting useless gem cuts, make Ornate Bands then Shadowfire Necklaces to disenchant.  This is what is suggested by wow-professions anyway until 527, I suggest going past that.  Craft it until you cant craft them anymore!  Then send em off to your Enchanter to use as enchanting mats to level enchanting.  **Note that you can now convert 5 Dusts to 1 Essence.  Do it until you have the ratio you need.  Enchanting 525-600 is a cakewalk after this, I suggest using the wow-professions enchanting guide. Congratulations!

Enchanting Cooldown!
That's right, enchanting has a daily cooldown this time around, namely to create the new Maelstrom, Sha Crystal.  These are most likely going to be in high demand the first few weeks, when raid gear won't be disenchanted (as much). The new Weapon and Bracer enchants require these (at 10 per and 6 per respectively), so the raiders will want to get their hands on these Crystals.  Since you can convert from Dusts -> Essences -> Shards -> Crystal, there are a few ways you can start out.  The Sha Crystal daily CD requires either:

5 Etherial Shards
25 Mysterious Essence
125 Spirit Dust

If you disenchant your gear as you level your enchanter or get some Shards from dungeons, you will easily be able to do this CD with all the mats you have.  Check your prices to see which of these is cheapest and convert it up the ladder!  This may not stay valuable as raid gear gets disenchanted in the future, but for the next few weeks, I imagine it will!

As always consult your servers auction house before starting this method.  Side effects include making gold, selling valuable enchanting mats, and having your friends ask you for gold.  Consult a doctor if gold making lasts more than 4 hours.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

High Pop vs. Low Pop

Hi Guys,

Today I wanted to talk about High Pop vs. Low Pop servers, specifically my experiences with them.  For those of you who don't know or don't remember from previous posts, my main server is Low Pop (until MoP when it'll probably hit medium).  Recently I participated in a gold making competition where we competed on a high pop server.  Since then I have been playing with their AH on and off for fun, and I've learned quite a bit about how size effects sales among different markets, and I just wanted to share some general observations.

Transmog
Being on my Low Pop server and having a large (~800 item) transmog inventory, I get less sales per 48 hour posting  than my character on a high pop server with ~150 item inventory.  This could be due to a few factors I suppose.  There are probably more characters with disposable income on a large server, and more characters interested in transmog as well.  One thing I'm interested in seeing the results of once MoP comes around is doubling all my xmog prices (except my highest tier which is really expensive as is :-P), and seeing how the two markets react.

Jewelcrafting/Enhancement Professions
Since my experiment is mostly for fun, I decided to use a gem strategy similar to what I use on my Low Pop server and see how it worked on a high pop server.  As I don't have a JC on the larger server, I bought up gems I would craft and resold.  As you could (probably) imagine, I actually sold less gems per 12 hour posting on the High Pop as compared to the Low.  This is due to more/faster undercutting on a higher population server, which just makes sense.  Although, when I did dungeons on the high pop, I got A LOT more sales posting in between queues.  iSold was going crazy!  For a regular player who posts from their main, a High Pop server will give you a distinct advantage for repost sales, but I can't say it makes a huge difference from a small with "set it and forget it" auctions.

Inscription
In this one I have a clear favorite.  Small servers.  If you are the type of gold maker like me, you aren't logging and reposting all the time, you either want to enjoy the game time you have, or other aspects of your life, and want to get your routine done and over with.  This is where glyphs on a small server blows large servers out of the water.  Even if you have a competitor or two, it's nothing compared to what you have to face on a large server.  You can make lots of gold not having to repost so often, and that's great for me.

Advantages of my Second Server
If you're someone like me who enjoys making gold just for the "how much can I make" aspect of it, you don't like spending gold on your main server.  If you're a hardcore gold maker you'll find it easy to get on a high pop server and start making gold relatively fast.  Although I had an extra kickstart of motivation to make my characters, I look forward to using this character to purchase high-end TCG mounts, rare pets, etc. that will be account wide in MoP.  Why spend all that gold on your main server when you can get it on another server you are not interested in?  Also even though I have the utility to make gold on that server, I don't have anywhere near as much utility as I do on my main server.  That being said when Black Market AH comes out in MoP I'm not going to be depending on my secondary server to buy things (nor would I want to, especially in the case of something like gear).  So having a large gold stockpile will be functional (maybe).  What is your favorite (or least favorite) difference between low and high pop servers?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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