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!!

Top 5 Professions to Level ASAP!

Today I figured I'd do a post on what professions I personally will be leveling as soon as possible.  Mists releases at midnight on the west coast US, which is a relatively ungodly 3 AM for those of us on the east coast.  That being said I'm still considering setting my alarm and having a pot of coffee on hand, but right now it looks unlikely. Once I do eventually log, I am going to focus on leveling my professions before stepping into Pandaria.

Living Steel

My main focus though is the new "Truegold", Living Steel.  This new alchemy cooldown is used in 28 recipes, all but 10 of which will be craftable at launch, given the crafter has the correct (and in some cases absurdly high) amount of Spirit of Harmony in some cases.  This precious metal is used in many crafts.  16 total are required to craft the new JC Epic Mount (which will require Exalted rep to get all recipes for), 1 is required to craft the new Belt Buckle, as well as quite a few needed for the BS and Engineering Epics.  Let's just say there's going to be quite a demand for this item, especially from those elite raiding guilds on your server.

Primordial Ruby

A JC's Best Friend

My second focus will be leveling Jewelcrafting acquiring all of the Jewelcrafting Primordial Ruby base cuts (Delicate, Bold, Brilliant) ASAP.  These cuts will be learned through research or doing Golden Lotus Dailies at Revered.  **Here's the thing to consider with Jewelcrafting though**, they're scaling gem cuts this expansion.  This means they're scrapping the Cataclysm (and previous expansion) model of say 40 base stats total for all gems. Instead, the off color gems will have more base stats to compensate for the lack of Primary stats (Int, Str, Agi).  This doesn't concern me because I think during the first few weeks people will still be following their old gemming ways, and I'm not too worried about these not being HOT sellers.  I may however stop once I get the Brilliant cut, so I can diversify.  The more colors of rare gems I can cut the first few weeks the better.

Without Further Ado, my list:
Top 5 Professions to Level (IMO)

1. Alchemy
• As Stated above, Alchemy transmutes will be used in many recipes, so I will be focusing on leveling the Alchemy my 4 Transmute Masters as soon as possible, to get these xmutes on the AH before the price drops 1 copper!
2. Jewelcrafting
• Again as stated above I want to take good care to learn as many cuts as possible, as soon as possible, and you can start researching once you hit 550, so after that I'm going to stop and focus on other professions.  It's also useful to note I have 2 JCs for double the research possibilities.
3. Tailoring
• Tailoring also has a new daily cooldown that will be added, which again will be craftable at only 550, so getting my 2 Tailors up to burn their daily cooldowns is necessary as soon as possible again.
4. Inscription
• Once again, Inscription is another profession has a once daily cooldown (525), which is a necessary material for Darkmoon Cards(600).
• This makes the individual Darkmoon Cards way more valuable, and will focus trinket seekers on getting individual cards as opposed to full decks.
• Take into consideration that there is also 3 BoA Staves that require 20 of these first daily CDs to make.  Priorities!!! **Note that you can acquire 7 per week doing proffesion specific (level 600) weekly quests, so this is where maxing your Scribe comes in handy.
• I'm not sure if you need to be a certain level to access the area, if so you will need to obtain that level as well. 
5. Mining
• This may seem like a curveball to some, given my (and most gold makers) "Gathering isn't the best GPH" stance.  I still agree with this, and think my profession leveling order above will payout the most, but my go to craft, Living Steel Transmute requires 6 Trillium Bars EACH, each of which require 2 of each color of Trillium Ore (so needs 24 raw ore total, 12 of each color).

• This bar cannot be smelted by Miners until 600 Skill Level, which can only be obtained by farming nodes (no smelting skill ups), so you KNOW the bars are going to be in high demand, and are also going to be very expensive for the first few weeks. By having my own miner smelt the bars, I can cut my costs, and acquire some ore for the transmutes.  It's a win win (except I don't want to level my Tauren Druid, but oh well).

So this is it, my master plan.  If anyone is curious I will be leveling my Mage (Tailor/Alchemy) to 90 first after all this, and starting my farm ASAP, so my mage will be the first one to be able to benefit from the Tiller's Bonus Spirit of Harmony, which is nice because then I'll have the option to choose between the most profitable of the two daily CDs (Tailoring/Alch) that character can craft, based on established AH prices. 

So that's my plan (and suggestion) on which Professions to level first.  Which professions are you planning on leveling up first?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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