The Duping Witch-hunt

Recently, Jim from Power Word: Gold came out with an article entitled Robes of Insight Now Being Duplicated?.  Although the number of Robes is rising, as indicated in his blog and via data from The Undermine Journal, I'd like to take a moment to take a critical look at his observations.  No hard feelings, I just strongly disagree with the views expressed.

'The Evidence'
In Jim's article, he notes that the number of Robes of Insight on EU servers have doubled since June, from 105 to 199.  He also notes on US servers the number raised 90% from 130 to 249.  Okay fair enough, this is a very reasonable observation, and it is a fact.  But does it imply duping?  No.  Here's my thought process.  Below is a TUJ graph of Bloodscale Breastplate, another popular transmog item.

Bloodscale Breastplate from TUJ, click picture to enlarge

As you can see, there is a substantial increase from May starting at ~475 and going up to 812 on September 8th.  A relatively high 70.95% increase.  Hmmm.  Let's take a look at another popular transmog chest, from the Saltstone set.

Saltstone Surcote from TUJ, click picture to enlarge

From May to September 8th, the number of these increased from 50 to 121.  For those of you who are good at mental math, you already know that's well over double what it was, an over 140% increase.

My last piece of anecdotal evidence is another great transmog cloth chest piece, Buccaneer's Vest:

Buccaneer's Vest from TUJ, click picture to enlarge

Again from May to Sept. 8th the number on the US AH went from 110 to 214.  I hope you're starting to see the picture I'm trying to paint (94.5% increase).

Conclusions I've Drawn
What I think is happening, which is also more likely than duping, is that the demand for transmog items is decreasing.  This is something most of us have observed and felt in our pockets in WoW.  In economics, when demand decreases, to stay at the same level of sales from before, prices must decrease.  Because of us though, the prices didn't decrease.  We are all stubborn transmog sellers who are set in our ways (TSM is a blessing and a curse).  For all the items listed above as well as Robes of Insight, the number has been increasing, but the price has stayed around the same number.  So what we're seeing here is more likely the result of you and I, the gold making community at large, than dupers.

Further: On the "Ban Wave" Theory
Jim also suggested that the dip in amount of items on the AH after the 28th (bot ban wave) suggests duping:

"In the US servers, in days before Patch 5.0.4 and the possible ban wave, there was a peak of 245 Robes of Insight on the servers on August 25, 2012. After the patch? In the US, Robes auctions had dropped from 245 on August 25, 2012 down to 174 on August 30, 2012 a decrease of just over 40%."
"In the EU the numbers peaked at about 190 Robes on August 25, 2012 and had dropped down to 154 on August 29th, 2012. A decrease of around 23%."
*Emphasis added by me.

Clearly looking at all the above graphs you can see that ALL of these items decreased in number after the 28th (in my 3 examples by 21%, 20%, and 27% respectively). This most likely due to huge down times for the patch, or perhaps people choosing not to play during that time due to laggy servers and server resets.  All in all this doesn't imply duping, even take a look at the least likely to be duped item:

US: Netherweave cloth July 30-Sept 10

Netherweave Cloth went from this 1,083,550 peak on August 26th, to 846,994 low on August 29th.  A 22% decrease.  Most all items on the AH felt the hit of 5.0.4 being released.  Before we go around screaming "He's a duper! He's a duper!" perhaps we should take a look at all the evidence.








What Duping Really Looks Like
The previous armor graphs all show linear growth patterns, whereas something that is actually being duped (Reins of the Crimson Deathcharger) look more like this:

Reins of the Crimson Deathcharger on TUJ, click to enlarge

Quantity available is increasing exponentially, and Prices decreasing steadily.  That's what a supply and demand curve SHOULD look like.
Also note that on this actually duped item that on August 27th there were 870 on the AH, the day of the patch, the 28th, there were still 810 on the AH (a 7% decrease), and the day after the patch there were 940 (a 16% increase) , and it hasn't dropped below that since.  Your honor, I rest my case.

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Remote AH: No Smartphone? No Problem!

This is a post written for Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival for September 2012, check it out on the 11th for other great posts on this topic!

This month's topic is "The Remote Auction House - Tips, Tricks, Strategies, Love or Hate It?"

When the Remote AH first came out for free I balked at it because I didn't have a smartphone.  Now though, there are some great uses I've found for it on my web browser.

Why it's useful
Now you may be thinking "why would I want to use RMAH on my computer, since I have WoW on my computer?" and that's a great question to ask.  Maybe Phat has gone off the deep end, but perhaps not. My favorite use for this new tool is to buy and sell items on different realms, while playing on my main realm. Now I don't know if it's intended or not, but even if you're logged in to your account on realm X, you can log into the Remote Auction House on the same account, on realm Y. Great time passer if you're mass crafting in the background, especially if you have a side project as I do.  For reference if you aren't a regular reader, I have a DK on an alternate (high pop) server making gold to buy expensive mounts/pets for my main characters on a (low pop) server.  It also allows you to snatch great deals while you're not at a computer with WoW loaded on it, I'll outline how I use it with different AH monitoring sites below.

Using WoWuction to Find Deals
Since you have no addons using the remote AH, you have to utilize some of our favorite tools to find great deals.  One new thing that was recently added was the "Bargain Hunter".  I really enjoy using this tool, and I'll outline how to do it below.

1. Go to wowuction.com and choose your realm/faction.

2. Click Reports, then Bargain Hunter

Once you do, you'll get a list like this:

Click Image to Enlarge

Now search through this list and find a deal you most like.  Aaaah it seems Darkcrest Gauntlets (one of my favorite selling xmog sets) are only 25g!  Great!

3. Go to the Remote AH and find your item!  [Horde] [Alliance] (if you're logged in these links will take you directly there)

It's pretty straightforward.

4. Relist next time you're on WoW.

I don't like using this to relist the items (especially xmog) because it's SOOOooooo much faster to do it with TSM when logged it.  This will get you some great deals to relist next time you're on too.

Maybe You Prefer TUJ!
I prefer to use both!  As I already went over most of the relevant steps above, I'm going to shorten this section.

1. Go to theunderminejournal.com and find your server/faction

2. Click Great Deals, then go to Current Deals List

3. Check out all the great deals that result from this, my 2 favorite subsections are below:

The bids section can be EXTREMELY useful using the remote AH.  Sometimes bids on items are listed WAY lower than they should be, and since the Remote AH lets you both Bid or Buyout, and you're not going to be seeing the items until you log in anyway.  This is just my method, I'm sure if you have a phone you can add to the potency of all this.  What's your personal take on the Remote Auction House?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Aftermath - How I Fared in 5.0.4

So 5.0.4 dropped a week ago today, and I personally have made 110,780g since the patch dropped.

Glyphmas 1.5
Yes Inks were still tradeable, but I made out pretty well precrafting.  I ended up with 11 of each glyph I could make (I was aiming for 20) and was able to sell off a good amount of them.  Of my 110k I made this week, 73k (roughly 2/3rds) of it was from glyphs.  This was honestly as good as I could have expected even if inks were made untradeable.  One thing that I did notice, and I don't know if it was intentional or not: one of my main competitors stopped having glyphs to post, most likely because he did not attempt to actually trade his Blackfallow Ink, and does not know about the lack of change.  I'll take it!

AoE Looting
So with AoE looting coming out with the patch, and I had to put it to it's test!  I must say I am impressed with the system.  I didn't find the system to be buggy at all, in fact it worked a lot better than I had hoped for.  The radius for AoE looting is relatively large, much larger than I had expected.  I started my testing out on the grinding spot in Deepholm using Potion of Treasure Finding.

Deepholm

The loot in Deepholm is pretty great as we all know.  The thing was did it speed it up enough to make it "worthwhile"?

Below is a table of data for what I was able to farm in one hour (using a Potion of Treasure Finding that I payed 100g for).

Honestly I'm not too impressed with the results.  For results like this, I'd rather get on an under utilized crafting alt and not waste my time farming these adds, but if this looks like returns you'd like, by all means go get it!  Personally I'm going to reward my farming (since I have the cloth) by crafting all 26 slots for my transmog seller, it's a long time coming!

Below is a table with results from 1 hour of farming

Material	Mean Price Per  (via TUJ)	Total Gold from Item
39 Stacks Embersilk Cloth	70g	2,730g
16 Volatile Fire	5g 71s	91g 36s
22 Volatile Air	12g 71s	279g 62s
7 Volatile Earth	2g	14g
21 Volatile Life	3g 35s	70g 35s
13 Volatile Water	7g 57s	98g 41s
15 Pyrite Ore	3g 74c	56g 1s
14 Elementium Ore	2g 37s	33g 18s
Assorted Vendor Trash	251g	251g
GRAND TOTAL	---->	3,624g 2s per hour

One thing I did forget while farming in Deepholm is that I now have the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth on all my alts, providing a insta-vendor to whomever needs it.  Also, I vendored all the greens I got and added it to Assorted Vendor Trash instead of trying to sell them on the AH, because I'm lazy, so you can take that into account.

Mr Grubbs
I had mentioned in a previous post I had mentioned that I was going to wait to check out farming for Mr. Grubbs as a Rare Battle Pet via AoE looting.  While the spawn time of the adds is a bit long, I just thought I'd share the method I found to be most useful.  Go up to Zul'Mashar in Eastern Plaguelands, and kill all the zombie trolls that spawn in the graves.  Log another toon for a few minutes, switch back and repeat.  Took me about 24 bags and I usually got 3-4 per slaying*.
*Results are not typical.  Your results may vary.  Discuss your general health status with your doctor to ensure that you are healthy enough to use Phat Lewts' Farming Advice.  Side effects of taking this advice may include, but are not limited to: increased gold making, extra companion pets, boosted gold making ego, and/or, in extreme cases, death.   If gold making lasts more than 4 hours, consult your physician immediately.

I'm going to be trying AQ when I get around to it, but haven't had a lot of time to actually get out and play this week, hopefully more farming info to come.

Other Notes
I was really sad Mogit wasn't available for the first few days of the patch, but it got a really nice facelift, make sure you download the most recent version and check it out!  Also, TSM performed as flawlessly as possible so a definite bump to Sapu and anyone on the TSM team helping that transition go over smoothly.  Also vendor sorting is a cool little addition that I hadn't been expecting but am so far enjoying with playing.  They have a "BoE" filter which I think can prove to be particularly useful.  That's all for me, what was your favorite part of 5.0.4?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

Battle Pet Update

For today's post I just wanted to go over some news on battle pets that you may have missed in the past 2 weeks.  5.0.4 is just around the corner, and although the Theramore event is not going to be released Tuesday, I look forward to seeing what happens with glyphs!

As prerequisite knowledge for this post, the overall limit on amount of pets is 500, and 3x is the most you can have of a single pet (for some the limit is only 1, see below for more info).

Duplicate Pet Problem (Launch of MoP)
As you may remember from my previous post or elsewhere, pets were originally slated to be mailed back to you caged if you had any duplicates.  This has been changed.  Instead, for MoP launch, the limit of 500 pets total is going to be lifted as well as the 3x per pet limit.  So on pets that are not unique you will be able to have an 'unlimited' amount (although per account, 50) of each non-unique pet, granted you have one on each character.  This is a one shot deal kind of thing, other than at launch, you will be held to the limits for the rest of the expansion.

From my point of view this is good, my idea on camping Jadefang should work out, at least in a minimal setting, if not better (being able to learn the extras and sell).  Otherwise, this will be great for those sellable blues that we have tons of across alts (for a full list see my Rare Battle Pets link at the top of the page).

SO...Which Pets Are Unique?
As of now, there are 4 types of pets that are unique:

1. Achievement Pets
2. Blizzard Pet Store Pets
3. Promotional Pets
4. Guild Pets

So these pets, even at launch you will not be able to have more than one of.  Going into launch these pets, are currently slated to not be tradeable anyway.  Also of note, the TCG Pets will be cageable/tradeable on launch, according to this recent post.

**Edit: "Standard" Pets
After I released this post, Nev from Auction House Addict pointed out to me this blue post from today, that says "standard pets" will be merged upon 5.0.4 release with a cap of 3 each.  The examples of a standard pet that they gave are "Orange Tabby Cat, Brown Prairie Dog, Crimson Whelpling" which is a bit odd, considering the Crimson Whelpling is slated to be a "Rare Battle Pet".  That being said these changes are going live before MoP release, so we should have time to fully analyze the breadth of this change before Mists comes out.

Wrap it up!

In all, these changes seem beneficial to gold making with pets.  Also, although some in the gold making community are skeptical, I expect all the companion pets that are slated to turn into rare battle pets to be so at MoP launch, until Blizzard indicates otherwise, citing the "Beta is Beta" principle.  So, What aspect of Battle Pets do you most look forward to in Mists of Pandaria?  Also, how long do you expect servers to actually be down Tuesday?

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!!

5.0.4 on the Horizon

Well it's official.  We are now currently downloading 5.0.4, the Pre-expansion Patch leading up to Pandamonioum.  If you're interested, the patch notes for the current 5.0.4 build on the PTR can be read here.  For those of you who don't like to read through patch notes to find what you need, I'll be highlighting the gold making implications here.  Also as a side note predictions and history don't put this patch until early September, so you still have time to prepare!

He's ready, are you?

Glyphs Overhauled
Blizzard is not waiting until Mists is released to completely overhaul the glyph and talent system, they're giving us a window to adjust.  For those of you whom are scribes you know the potential implications of this.  All glyphs are changing.  A few are being removed but MOST are being changed in some way.  Speculation is saying Glyphmas 2.0 may occur, especially if the inks are no longer tradeable as they were during the original Glyphmas.  Only time will tell on that one, although I know many of us have our fingers crossed.

How I'm Preparing

I'm not big into glyphs, but with all the hype I can't not have a hand in it.  I already have crafted 9 of each glyph my scribe can craft (and doing lots of research), and hope for 20 of each before 5.0.4 comes out.  I'm ignoring the info about the ones that are changing to nothing, mostly because of my laziness.  Last I checked there were only 3, and if we make out the way we're supposed to, 3 stacks of glyphs will be the least of my expenditures.

My suggestion during your grinding is to do something else while crafting to occupy your time, and while you craft all the inks, feel free to browse the web, and perhaps catch up on your favorite TV series or read your favorite WoW Gold Blog.



Mogging Wands!
This is a market I have been looking at for a while, if you don't have my ultimate list of BoE transmog wands, check it out here!  Yes, casters will be able to use their wands as main hands in 5.0.4.  If you're not a caster and don't see why this is important, previously wands were never seen on a caster unless they took them out (rare) or if they decided to cast "shoot" with their wand (hopefully never).  In 5.0.4, wands will be used as main-hand weapons for casters, so they can (and probably will) be WAY more prevalent in transmog.  Buy low now to sell high soon!

AoE Looting
I'm excited about this one.  AoE looting will be live on servers come the pre-expansion patch, which will give us gold makers something to twiddle with in the weeks before MoP.  I mentioned in a previous post that I will be using this to my advantage to go after the pet Mr. Grubbs.  I have not tried it on the PTR because I hate putting the time in to test something and even if it works I'm not benefited by it in the "real game" (yes IRG I just got meta on you).  They have nerfed overall gold/silver drops of mobs, which is to be expected, but it will be interesting to see how other keen gold makers take advantage of this in the coming weeks.  Transitions are always a fun time in WoW.

Account Wide Pets/Mounts
This may have some gold making implications on the mount side (think Mechanohog), but there are not many gold makers who focus greatly on mounts.  This change may get you better selling prices (possibly more sales).  Buyers will be a lot more willing to shell out 20k for a Mechanohog on 10 players than only 1 player.  Same goes for pets. Since the battle system won't be instated until Mists, we won't see that huge surge in pet interest yet, but consider charging more for your pets/mounts.  Although a lot of alts will now have what you're selling, a lot of them will be more willing to pay higher prices for a companion across alts.

Cool, but Irrelevant to Gold Making
Yes 5.0.4 has other cool things but alas not all of them are going to increase our wealth.

• Pre-MoP quests: I'm interested to see how these pan out, not released yet on the PTR so I know something epic is going to happen on the poor Alliance isle of Theramore!  
• Battle Tags: If you've played D3 you know what they are, basically real ID without exchanging Email addresses.
• Overhaul of Abilities: Not only are glyphs being changed, but all talent trees are being completely revamped.  I'm not the one to get the info from about this though :).

All in all it's going to be an interesting time, with glyphs being my major focus (at least on the things changing level).  What is your favorite part of patch 5.0.4? 

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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

My Top 2 Pre-MoP Lists

In the past month I came out with 2 shopping lists, one was only two posts ago, but the other was a bit of time away.  Both however are necessary to be used in the next few weeks to maximize profits based off of them, so I wanted to repost them for my readers to get if they haven't.  If this is all old news to you, I apologize 

Wands!

Wands are going to be turned into Main-hands when the Pre-Expansion patch is released.  That's right, BEFORE Mists.  I expect this patch to fall near the end of this month, so time is a-wasting on these lists!  My list consists of wands that could potentially be transmogged once wands are brought to the public eye as main hands.  The original post can be found here.



Auctionator

***Mogging Wands
Wand of Allistarj
Wand of Arcane Potency
Torch of Austen
Antenna of Invigoration
Crystalized Ebony Wand
Wasteland Wand
Gwyneth's Runed Dragonwand
Incessant Torch
Nightmare Ender
Torchlight Wand
Wand of Dark Worship
Cyu's Ornate Wand
Theresa's Booklight

TradeSkillMaster

s1@13065,18338,37824,59460,13004,66920,55823,21801,35652,36665,67104,50472,25283$@

Rare Battle Pets
This list of Rare BoE pets to keep an eye on comes from my post Rare Battle Pets Mean Lots of Gold.  If you are interested in the BoP pets that will become tradeable come Mists, check it out, otherwise keep a keen eye on the following lists, and perhaps add them to your TUJ notifications.  Keep an eye for really great deals, this one really depends on your server, so use your best judgement!


Auctionator List:

***Rare Battle Pets:
Azure Whelpling
Captured Firefly
Crimson Whelpling
Dark Whelpling
Emerald Whelpling
Gundrak Hatchling
Hyacinth Macaw
Razzashi Hatchling
Disguisting Oozeling
Guardian Cub
Elementium Geode

TSM List:
s1@8498,29960,20769,10822,48116,67282,72068,8499,8494,48126,34535$@


Hope these lists aide in preparing you for Mists!  How ready are you for the new expansion in < 2 months?  Are you on schedule or behind?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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