Clockwork Riot

Retiring from WoW & WoW Blogging

2013-06-07T16:24:00.000-07:00

Hey folks. I considered just having the blog peter out until it was but a distant memory for the readers but, considering I've had lulls and returned before, I thought it best to make it official so y'all don't have to keep checking in to see if there's a new post.

There won't be. If you're just here for WoW gold that's 100% fine and you're pretty much done with the post (and the blog) now. However, if you'd like to hear my reasons and final thoughts because you're just that bored you can read on.

I've played WoW off and on for a long time and, while it caused me some hardships (my poor decision making in putting WoW above more important things like school) I genuinely have enjoyed my time playing and feel that the people I met in-game and through blogging have truly changed me for the better and taught me many things. But I think it's time for this chapter of my life to come to a close.

I'm still seeing WoW news and from what I've seen it looks like there are some exciting changes coming to the game. I'm not leaving because "WoW's jsut not fun" or "it's not what it used to be." I think WoW is a great game and would recommend it to others. It's just no longer the game for me.

Is there a game for me? I'm doing a bit of casual Neverwinter play/economy adventuring. (I do have an infrequently updated blog for that, for those interested, but it will never be as detailed or frequently updated as this one was.) But for the most part it's just time for me to put gaming in general on the backburner and see it as a way to kill an hour here or there, not a central every-day activity.

clockworkriot.com is still mine for a year or two. I will leave the blog up but once the URL expires you will have to go to goclockworkriotgo.blogspot.com to find the posts.

I sincerely thank all of you for being fans of mine these past years. I hope I have helped you or entertained you. Good luck in everything you do, both in and out of game.

Neverwinter - A Beginner's Guide and FAQ

2013-05-10T20:47:00.003-07:00

Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows I've been talking about Neverwinter a lot over the past few days. Gimp got me to start playing and I'm hooked. I look forward to writing a few more posts about my impressions, thoughts, Auction House tips, etc. but right now I think what the internet really needs is a good beginner's guide. The wiki for the game sucks ass, to say the least, and many of the other guides I found left out important things like Invocation or Companions, so I'm going to try to give a rundown of what a new player needs and may want to know in their first days of playing.

(Don't worry, WoW fans, this blog will still see plenty of WoW content, I just want to talk about Neverwinter for a bit, if you'll allow me to.)

I. Introduction

Neverwinter is a free-to-play fantasy MMO based in Faerûn, the main continent of the Forgotten Realms, arguably the most well-known D&D campaign setting. I won't go too much into detail here so I don't get all D&D nerdy and forget the point of the post. Just know it's a fully fleshed out world with decades of lore to back it up.

It's put out by Perfect World, the same publishers of Star Trek Online. Like most free-to-play games it features a cash, or Zen, shop where you can buy things for your character, both useful and cosmetic.

So does free-to-play = pay-to-win?

No. There are items in the Zen shop which greatly impact your character (bigger bags, profession boosters, etc.) but none of them are absolutely necessary, they just help you along.

If you feel these items are necessary you're still not forced to pay. The game features an exchange allowing players to buy Zen for Astral Diamonds, an in-game currency. And so everything in the Zen Shop is available without paying, it just may take longer to get. Because of this I cannot say this game is pay to win.

II. Creating Your Character

Download the game and watch the cut scene. Be sure to watch the cut scene. You'll see a little bit of the playstyle of every class and so it can help you choose what you'd like to be. Here's the class run-down:

Guardian Fighter (Tank) - Sword and shield wielding tank.They don't do tons of damage solo, they're made for tanking, and so this is great if you intend to level with friends. You may want to choose a higher damage class if playing solo, but you'll still be able to solo with the Guardian Fighter, you just may not feel as powerful.

Trickster Rogue (Melee DPS) - Standard rogue. All about DPS and being stealthy.

Control Wizard (Ranged DPS/CC) - Decent DPS and a lot of control, as the name suggests. Very squishy but the amount of CC they have should keep them alive.

Devoted Cleric (Healer, Ranged Support DPS) - This is currently the only healing class. They can DPS and solo well (this is what I play) but the important thing to know is they're currently the only real healing class, making them very sought after endgame.

Great Weapon Fighter (Melee DPS) - Less stealth and more big swords than the Trickster rogue.

What race should I pick?

Any race can be any class. Remember you'll be staring at this character all the time so I recommend picking something you like the look of. Races have racial bonuses but none are game-breaking enough to choose one race over the other.

It's asking me to fill in a background and deity?

From a gameplay perspective these don't matter. These are for us RPers who want to think of our character as more than pixels. Read up a bit, find something that sounds good to you. This doesn't effect play at all.

III. Playing the Game

The opening quest lines give a good introduction to the way the game handles and so I won't go too much into every little bit of things, but here are some basics that I wish I'd known:

The UI

There are two modes for the UI. They're called Mouse-Look Mode, which is the mode you'll normally be playign in, and Mouse Cursor Mode, which will allow you to use the cursor and click things. You switch between them with the Alt key.

Click on the image to view full size.

These different abilities will be introduced to you as you gain them through questing, so you'll get a basic rundown of the difference between all the spell types in-game.

IV. The Noob's Guide to Starting Out

I just started, what do I do?

Play through the quests. They'll acquaint you with the basics and eventually lead you to town.

I just reached town for the first time, what do I do?

Continue along your quest lines to find the next areas to level.

Visit vendors in the Market to sell any junk in your bags.

Collect your welcome kit from the mailbox.

Store any items you want to keep but don't need to use (like your welcome kit) in the bank.

Press M to view the map in-game.

You should now also be eligible to play Foundry quests. Foundry quests are player-created content that you can play instead of the default quest lines. Access them by pressing H, searching the Catalog, and accepting a Foundry quest.

I just hit level 10-11, what do I do?

It's time to start Invocations and Professions.

Professions start at level 10: See section V below.

Invocation starts at level 11: Once an hour you can Invoke at a Campfire. Stand at the Campfire and press Ctrl+I. You will get a temporary buff and possibly currency, items, and experience. Doing this once a day will also grant one each of Ardent and Celstial coins. You want to do this at least once a day to keep collecting these coins, which can later be traded for gear, mounts, and companions.

I just hit level 16, what do I do?

You will have a quest to gain a Companion. Companions will help you in battle so you want to do this quest as soon as you can. You can choose Man at Arms, Cleric Disciple, Wayward Wizard, or Dog.

Non-tank classes will probably want to choose Man at Arms as it functions as a pocket-Tank for you. Warrior classes will like the Cleric Disciple to be their pocket healer. The Wizard deals good AoE damage and the Dog deals good single-target damage.

I just hit level 20, what do I do?

This is when you unlock your first mount. It may be too expensive now (5g) but you will be granted 3 free tokens to get temporary five hour mounts to help you in farming up the rest of the gold you need. You receive these tokens from the blue Level Up box. Alternatively you can sell items on the auction house for Astral Diamonds and use those diamonds to buy a mount from another player via the Auction House.

V. Professions
Every character has access to every profession. Unlike WoW you will not choose just a few out of a list. However you do have a choice of what you focus on.

Leadership: Grants experience, money and other currency, and items.
Mailsmithing: Creates armor for Clerics and Great Weapon Fighters.
Platesmithing: Creates armor used for Guardian Fighters.
Leatherworking: Creates armor for Trickster Rogues.
Tailoring: Creates armor for Control Mages.

I chose Leadership because the experience it grants will help when leveling my character. You may wish to choose whatever crafts items for your class. Eventually you can have everything, though, so don't worry about choosing "wrong."

Every class has a gathering "skill" associated. This means they can use the nodes without kits. So as a Cleric I can gather any Religion node without needing any supplies. Anyone can gather any node but for non-class nodes you need the right kit. All of my expenditures so far have been kits to gather nodes, which is why I had a bag full of profession items. I highly recommend having ~5-10 of every type of kit (other than your class kit, which you won't need) when you're out adventuring, so no nodes go to waste.

You open your Professions tab by pressing N. Every player can use/max every profession, it just comes down to how you want to go about doing it. In your profession screen you have available profession slots. You begin with one slot and can unlock more by completing certain tasks.

Your first move when getting started with Professions will be to hire an Asset. Think of these as workers or specialists for that profession. This is a fast task, and will be done soon. Once you have your asset you can send that asset for his first job.

When you click on the profession, in this example Leadership, you will see a list of jobs you can do. Choose one that fits your playtime. Ideally you want to be able to be there when the job is finished, so if you know you're going to be playing for a few hours you may want to do a 2 hour task, but if you're going to sleep maybe choose a 6+ hour task.

Doing a task will reward Profession Experience and possibly other rewards. As you gain more profession experience that profession will level and you'll have access to a wider variety of jobs.

As you unlock more Profession Slots you can have multiple professions working on jobs at once or you can focus all of your slots on one profession, as long as you have the assets. (You hire additional assets after reaching certain levels in the Profession.)

VI. Currencies

The only thing I don't like about Neverwinter is they have way too many different types of currencies. It's not hard to keep track of once you learn them, but it still seems like there are way too many. Let's get acquainted with what they are, how to get them, and how to spend them.

Gold (and Copper and Silver)
Gold is the default in-game currency. You gain it from completing some quests and it drops from mobs. This is the currency you will use to buy your first mount as well as to buy profession kits, healing potions, and other consumables.
Astral Diamonds
This is the currency used in the Auction House. You will earn it from quests (such as Daily Skirmishes) and from Invoking, as well as earning it from sold auctions. Most diamonds are earned in their Rough form and must be refined. (Press I, choose the Riches tab, and hit Refine next to Rough Diamonds.) You can refine 24k Diamonds per day, so do so as much as possible so you don't create a backlog of Rough diamonds.
Zen
This is the cash shop currency that is used in all Perfect World games. For Americans, in USD, it costs 1c per Zen. You can buy this at the game's website but you can also buy this from other players via the Astral Diamond Exchange.

Buy it from players here.

Spend it here.
Ardent and Celestial Coins
You earn one of each of these coins per day, the first time you Invoke at a Campfire. Ardent Coins can be held indefnitely and traded for gear, mounts, and companions by hitting Spend in the Riches tab.

Celestial Coins must be "renewed" each day. If you go more than about a day and a half without Invoking the coins will expire, and so you must Invoke every day to build these up. They can be exchanged for Profession boosters which contain useful items for crafting.
Glory
Glory is the PvP currency, similar to Honor in World of Warcraft. You earn it for participating in PvP battles and it can be spent on PvP items like potions and special mounts.
Seal of the Lion
Seals of the Lions are dropped by bosses in dungeons and can be earned through Bounties (see next item.) Vendors in the market will sell mid-level gear for these Seals.
Bounty Items
Most zones have a Bounty Hunter in them. Killing mobs in this zone will yield bounty items, such as Blackdagger Insignias. You can trade them with the Bounty Hunter to gain Seal of the Lion or random low level gear.
Tarmalune Trade Bars
When you open a Nightmare Lockbox (think Mann Co Supply Crate from TF2) you will get random items and some Trade Bars. These are a sort of consolation prize so that people who open 200 boxes don't feel like they got completely screwed. If you somehow end up with enough bars to buy something there is a vendor on the outside edge of the Market who will sell mounts and other fun items and takes the bars in return.

VII. General Questions and Such

What's the best class?
Choose what you'd like to play. But Clerics in general seem to be the most in-demand at endgame.
What is the best race?
Halflings. HALFLING POWER. (But actually I don't know. But, I mean, come on, it's Halflings.)
Which profession should I level first?
I like Leadership. If you wait till level 60 to level Leadership the experience gains will be worthless, so I chose to do it first. I'm unsure if one will pull ahead in the long run.
When do I get my first mount and how much does it cost?
Level 20, it costs 5g
What should I keep track of?
Make sure you've Invoked each hour and all your Profession Slots are in use. Make sure you do your daily Skirmish, PvP Domination, Dungeon, etc. as soon as you can.
Is there anything I should or shouldn't buy?
In the market buy several profession kits for anything other than your default profession. Never let a gathering node go to waste. Do not buy the item Bag of Holes, despite its name it is not a functional bag, it is vendor trash players put on the AH to fleece noobs.
I got an enchantment, how do I use it?
Enchantments are like gems in the Diablo games. You need a socketed piece of gear. When you have one right click on the gear and choose Enchant Item. Be careful, it will cost Astral Diamonds to remove the Enchantment.
I've got a lot of shitty enchantments, how do I use them?
Low level enchantments can be fused into higher level level versions at a 4:1 ratio. The higher the level of enchantment the more likely this fuse will fail. You can purchase Wards from teh Zen Shop which will keep the fuse from failing. TL;DR: Fuse low level enchants to save bag space.

If you have any more questions or corrections please feel free to leave them in the comments. I will do my best to add in answers to common questions and will correct anything I may be wrong about. Remember I only just started playing a few days ago as well, so I'm far from an expert. If I missed, forgot, or messed up something please say so!

Also, was there something you wish you'd known when you started that I didn't cover here? Let me know, I'll put it in!

In Defense of Glyphs

2013-05-02T16:51:00.000-07:00

Readers may remember that I began gold-making entirely with selling glyphs. For the better part of a year my only income was through glyphs. Over time I've developed a love-hate relationship with glyphs. Sometimes I've felt it wasn't worth the effort, other times I felt that Inscription was touched by the Gods, given unto us to bring in great fortunes.

I rarely see people on the fence about glyphs. There are bloggers that seem to love them and do great things with glyphs (check out Twitchie if you're interested in a glyph-centric blogger!) and there are those that wouldn't touch the things with a ten foot pole.

There have been times I've recommended against glyphs for beginners. I thought back to my early days learning the ropes and how difficult and, at times, boring it was. In hindsight I thought "Glyphs were a terrible way to start. If I'd started with, say, Enchanting everything would have been better. It was only a slow start because glyphs are a bad starter market."

But that's not true. I've only really scratched the surface of glyph selling on Illidan but it's bringing back old memories. Having only Inscription at my disposal (I could do enchanting, but meh, not interested at the moment) and knowing none of the competitors it's like starting all over again. And it's great.

As I was mulling over my thoughts on the glyph market Power Word Gold posted a fairly anti-glyph market post which I found an interesting read. Now, this isn't "I'm right and he's wrong" and at the end of the day everyone should play the way they enjoy the most. But I wanted to write this post to assuage the fears new gold makers might have from anti-glyph sentiments that sometimes crop up in the blogging community.

The Weakness of Glyphs is Their Strength

Many people are frightened by the amount of inventory a successful glyph business entails. While you can make good profit with fewer items many big glyph sellers sell all, or nearly all, glyphs in the game.

To research all of the glyphs takes an extraordinary amount of time. Luckily not a lot of effort, but plenty of time. While we are starting to see the research method enter other crafting professions as well no profession requires as much start-up time as glyphs.

And so would-be glyph sellers look at their new scribe and see hundreds of glyphs missing, which they will grab a few of each day. They see their inventory slowly begin to fill while all the glyphs they can't yet make are selling like hotcakes. Sucks, huh?

No. It's amazing. If you wish to be an amazing PvPer you need to spend time developing your skills and no matter how much you try, some day you may just find you're not good enough. If you want to be in a top raiding guild you need to get the gear, the skill, and they may still deny your application.

But not with glyphs. Anyone who puts in the time to learn the glyphs will find themselves with all the tools they need to succeed. The barrier to entry in glyphs is the most easily overcome barrier of all, all you need is patience.

Fortunately for us many players do not possess such patience. They want gold now, not in four months, and so they pick up enchanting instead. This is one factor that keeps many people out of the glyph market, and if you don't let it keep you away as well you can succeed.

Why Selling Glyphs is Amazing and Easy

The only actual issue I took with Jim's post was his section called Why Selling Glyphs is a Pain in the Ass. If he doesn't like selling glyphs that's totally 100% fine, not everyone will like it. But I didn't like that he presented several of his experiences as facts and inevitabilities for other players, or that these things should necessarily discredit glyph selling as a fun way to make gold.

You will be undercut multiple times a day, sometimes withing an hour, sometimes immediately.
Anyone who competes in a crafting market will deal with having been undercut. There are a few markets that are not susceptible to rampant undercutting (transmog, niche markets, low level greens) but for anyone who crafts for their gold undercutting is going to happen no matter what market you are in.

Sometimes glyph sellers are particularly ruthless with their undercuts. But remember: Everyone has to sleep sometime. A glyph which has undercut yours will sell out eventually. Someone will buy your glyphs. They may not buy all your glyphs. They're not supposed to. When you sell glyphs you are playing the long game. It's not about selling the bulk of your inventory; it's about consistent income over a long period of time.
If you're not cancelling and reposting often almost none of your glyphs will sell.

First off, remember the last little point. Not all of your glyphs are supposed to sell. Other than Glyphmas I can't think of a single time where I sold more than, say, 10% of my postings on a given day. So "almost none of your glyphs selling" is really pretty normal on most servers. But that doesn't mean its a bad market, it means you sell about thirty different items for any given class and not every one will always be purchased. But because you sell so many you'll sell some, and that is where the gold is.

The beauty of glyphs is that you get out of it what you put into it. If you want to sit and camp the auction house for 20 hours a day you can, and you will make a good amount of gold. If you'd like to do what I currently do and post once a day and don't check back you'll still likely get enough sales to make it worth it. I post once a day and pull in about 10k. (And that's after a 2 month hiatus where any market grooming has ceased to exist.) Glyphs are always profitable. The question is not will you make anything, but how much you wish to make.

Someone who sells glyphs 20 minutes a day will not make as much as someone who sells them for 20 hours. But in gold making you don't lose if your competitor makes gold. You lose if you cost yourself a sale by giving up on the market.
There are entrenched glyph sellers what will pull every trick in the book to force you out of the market.

I gotta stop spending so much time on Tumblr before I get hooked on reaction gifs . . . anyways.

This one is not a constant, but it's also not too far off-base in many situations. I've done some, uh, market grooming in the past myself. 30g Glyph Ceilings to drive out fair-weather competitors, alliances with other scribes to be sure we could make all the new glyphs faster than anyone else, etc.

I won't pretend this won't happen to a new glyph seller. It might. In fact, at some point in time, if you stay in the market long enough, it probably will. But why be defeatist about it? No matter where you go, if the market is profitable it will attract competitors. Some of these competitors will be fickle and will leave the market when a challenger appears. Others will dig in and attempt to push the challenger out.

But remember: Glyph selling is not a zero sum game, as much as some competitors seem to think it is. They may get 80% of the sales on the server but if you pop on at night, after they've logged off, and post them up you may snag that other 20%. You're not going to drive him out of course, but there's enough profit in the glyph market for you, too, if you're willing to stick to it.
You can spend lots of time, materials and gold and end up with nearly zero profit.

Yeah. You can spend lots of time, materials, and gold in any market and end up with nothing if you make bad decisions. I hold that it is impossible to lose gold on glyphs if you make the right choices.

Glyphs are not a vanity item. Sure, there are some cosmetic glyphs, but generally glyphs are considered a necessity for a character. Thus, as long as people are still playing, someone needs to buy a glyph. There are buyers.

Glyph materials are some of the cheapest materials in the game. First and foremost, it's the only profession I can think of where some of the most profitable, end-game-relevant craftables are crafted with materials gathered by leveling lowbies. Many of the most profitable glyphs are crafted using things like Midnight Ink, Ink of the Sea, and Lion's Ink; all of which come from non-endgame sources which usually means that the prices are lower. If the prices aren't lower? You have the option of using endgame ink to trade so you can always get the best deal on your inks.

Fool's Cap right now, across Alliance US servers, averages about 12g less per stack than a stack of Ghost Iron.

I can think of no profession with such abundant, cheap materials as Inscription and so if you are spending too much on materials to make a profit you are probably failing to set your thresholds properly, or are just buying your herbs in one fell swoop, which is not recommended. Add herbs you use to your Dealfinding/Snatch lists and pick up herbs over time. Your profit margins will thank you.

Time is another story altogether and the time investment will vary drastically by the seller. On Argent Dawn I spend roughly an hour every weekend crafting, and then about 10 minutes a day posting. So I wouldn't say I have a large time investment. On a more active server, or someone who camps more diligently, they may have to craft more often and thus invest more time. But their time should pay off. As I stated earlier, you get out of glyphs what you put into them. People who are putting in vast amounts of time and gold should also be seeing a very large gold return. If they are not they are making bad decisions and not doing it properly, plain and simple.
You are susceptible to people (often pissed off by the stress of ~~selling~~ trying to sell glyphs) crashing the prices in glyph markets on a whim.

Any market is susceptible to manipulation. Glyphs only see it more because the materials are so easy to come by and the items so cheap to make (see previous point) that it's a lot easier to toy around with the markets than it is to toy around with, say, crafted epic weapons.

I've been that person, crashing glyph markets for fun and profit. It's a valid tactic for market grooming and is also just a fun way to learn more about markets, your competition, addons, etc. But if someone else trying to mess with your profit margins is upsetting to the point it will drive you out of the market you should probably stick to dailies and not worry too much about the Auction House.

My advice if someone does crash your market: Ride it out. Real players will eventually become bored or want more gold and the numbers will rise. Bots will eventually be reported and banned. No glyph market stays shitty forever.
Effective selling of glyphs requires large amounts of storage, crafting time and often an alt devoted specifically to the task.

I guess different people will define effective different ways. I define effective as giving a good return on time and gold invested and as a result you can run an effective glyph operation selling the 20 most profitable glyphs off of your main, if you really wanted to.

But let's assume that "effective" here means all-encompassing. Selling every glyph in the game. It seems like it takes an awful lotta space when you look at the glyphs. But it actually doesn't. You need one character with 11 Royal Scribe Satchels and you will be able to hold a stack of every glyph in the game between your bags and bank. No guild bank, no multiple alts required.

This particular setup also drastically reduces the amount of time spent actually posting, cancelling, storing, etc. because you don't need to pull anything from anywhere, it's all right there at your fingertips.

If you're wondering more about how this works out check out my video about how I manage my glyph inventory using one character and no guild bank. While this video was made before Monk glyphs were added to the game I continue to use this setup and all Monk glyphs fit as well. (Be sure to check the About section on YouTube for a swapping Macro to make it even faster.)

Now you don't have to do it this way. You can sell from your main using a guild bank. You can use a mailbox as storage and sell everything ever made on one character. But setting a character up like this will greatly reduce the amount of time you spend managing inventory and let's face it, if "needing a separate character to sell your stuff" is a problem the gold game probably isn't for you.
Once you are entrenched in selling glyphs you have to constantly defend your "turf" from competitors new and old.

Once again, this is personal preference. I haven't sold glyphs for two months and came back to decent profits on all sellers. Hell, my Horde competitor, who used to watch me like a hawk, stopped caring about me and upon returning I had three blissful weeks of amazing sales numbers since he didn't think to log on after I logged off.

Glyphs are really not as serious as many people, myself included, have made them out to be. It's a market, just like any other. If you've got some to sell, post it up. If they don't sell, keep posting them. There's no magic formula or militaristic market training successful glyph sellers have: They just don't give up.
Glyphs can be one of the most complicated gold-making markets requiring knowledge of how to set up and utilize complex addons to run the market effectively.

I'll leave aside the fact you don't have to "run a market" to be successful in it.

Assuming you know how to use TSM there is no profession easier to set up than glyphs.

1. Make a TSM group called Glyphs.
2. Set Ignore Stacks Over to 1
3. Enter "glyph of" into Common Search Term.
4. Change your Post Time and Post Cap to what you want.
5. Set your threshold to whatever you want. I set it to 50g.
6. Set your fallback to whatever your server will accept. I do 280g.
7. Hit Add/Remove items at the top.
8. In "Select Matches" type "glyph of". Add every glyph.
9. Make gold.

Because glyphs are more than likely going to sell for many times their crafting cost basing the value of the glyph on crafting cost is usually not necessary to keep yourself getting sales and making profit. This allows you to just use one group for pricing settings instead of having to separate them by materials required.

I pay no more than 18g/glyph so when I sell a glyph at 50 I know I'm more than doubling my gold. Then your threshold should be the highest you think you can get away with.

Bam. One huge group, took about 10 seconds. Not too complicated.

Glyphs are Fun, Easy, and Profitable

At the end of all of this, if Jim really hates the glyph market then that's fine. I hate flipping greens. To each their own and if someone's having fun there's nothing wrong with the way they play.

I just wanted to speak up for the poor, misunderstood glyphs in case anyone out there was considering them. Glyphs are an amazing market for beginners and veterans alike. You can throttle how much you get out of them by choosing just how much you'll dedicate yourself to the market. You can make spreadsheets and look at graphs and stalk competitors or you can log on once a day, post your round and log off.

At the end of the day you will get from it what you put into it, and the only way to lose is to not play.

Illidan: The First Days

2013-04-24T16:33:00.002-07:00

Note: Videos and podcasts will return early June when I have access to my University's super fast internet for uploading.

Rerolling on a new server isn't entirely new to me. I originally played Horde on Daggerspine, a server I chose because that's where all my local friends played. Eventually they all left and I felt lonely and quit the game. When I came back all my new, local friends were playing Alliance on Argent Dawn and so I did as well.

This is, however, the first time I really left something behind: My gold-making factory. It would cost around five hundred dollars (#holycrapblizzletuspayingold) to move and faction change even half my characters. So I decided I would take the bare minimum with me.

I chose my favorite (and sexiest) Horde character so I wouldn't have to pay for a faction change as well and I loaded him up with 80% of my heirlooms. I'm an heirloom junkie so it's not leaving my AD toons shafted if I ever go back. That's how Andawe left Argent Dawn and found his way to Illidan under a new name.

The Artist Formerly Known as Andawe was a great choice, having maxxed inscription and enchanting with every glyph already learned, which made him an incredibly valuable toon for the move. This also allowed me to start making some gold right away, getting a feel for markets. I only brought the 50k allotted during the transfer and the heirlooms. I could've spent time researching what would make the move most profitable, turning gold into items to bring with me, etc. but I decided I wanted to try and build my gold up there from the 50k.

And so I set out to get the hang of Illidan-flavored gold-making.

Intitial Observations

With great population comes great scan times. The Illidan AH currently has, no joking, thirteen pages of auctions for Wool Cloth. Thirteen. I've seen servers without thirteen pages to their entire Auction House! Scans have taken so long that I've started using the TSM App to handle my AuctionDB updates. It works great and always has, I just never needed it on Argent Dawn. Now that I'm on a server that can take 30+ minutes to scan the AH I can really see the value of the application.

That's not the only thing that takes time, though. Crafting, cancelling, and reposting take up a much larger chunk of my time than they would on Argent Dawn. The only thing that doesn't take much time is actually getting a sale. With so many players my glyphs and enchants are flying off the shelves faster than I can craft them and so I find much more time being spent crafting. Once they're made it takes so long just to post them (and I'm only crafting the most profitable ~100 or so glyphs, not even a full load like I did on AD) that I feel like I"m getting next to nothing done.

Granted, in the time it takes me to do one post scan I've usually sold ~40 glyphs, but it's got me thinking about the value of time. On Argent Dawn I might spend two hours once a month crafting 10x every glyph and those glyphs would last me the entire month and so, even if a certain glyph only gave me 10g profit or so, it's not like it took much to make it and keep it in stock.

The demand is so much greater than what I am able to supply on Illidan though. It's glorious since it means even with an active, competitive glyph market everyone still makes a boatload of cash. (I've made about 30k since yesterday afternoon.) But it has me looking at 10g glyphs. To keep in stock of low profit glyphs I would have to craft all day every day for that 10g sale. I'd sell all of them, for sure, but that doesn't mean it's a wise use of my time when there are likely more profitable items to craft and keep in stock.

And so I believe I'm going to transition from a "craft and sell everything you can" to only selling the most profitable of items. On a server like Argent Dawn if you were to pick and choose only the most profitable items the sales may be profitable but they also would be sparse and so you'd use the time in between to sell the less profitable items as well.

On Illidan, a server where your high profit items can sell out before you can even think "Should I craft other things?" I have a feeling time management will come to the forefront of my gold-making strategies.

So far I'm really enjoying Illidan. Though I could do without the lag, of course.

A New Beginning

2013-04-21T15:17:00.001-07:00

I've been pretty scarce around these parts the past couple months. I know y'all don't come here for updates on my personal life so I won't go into everything that's kept me away but a brief TL;DR version is Eluniar and I split up (amicably, though I was still screwed up for a good while) and I moved home, I got sick, had surgery, recovered from said surgery, and am now much better. While some crappy stuff happened now that I've come through it all I'm in a much better place than I've been in a long time, so despite what it sounds like, this was all good news!

I sat for a time, wondering how I was going to keep playing WoW. Eluniar's quit WoW and I've been out of raiding since December so there wasn't much left in WoW for me. The game was fun still, but logging on always reminded me of the people I no longer raided with, the friends who had quit playing, etc. It was just kind of a bummer.

But there's a silver lining to everyone being gone! You see, now I have nothing tying me to Argent Dawn and the filthy, dumb Alliance. (Just kidding, no hate on Alliance here, though I personally prefer Horde very much.) Argent Dawn was a slowly dying server and I wanted to feel like my server was full of life.

And so I've set out on a new WoW adventure on a new server. A secret, mysterious server, one shrouded in mist that you can only guess at. Okay, it's Illidan. I wanted lots of Horde players and so I went big and rerolled on Illidan. I'm not made of money so I only transferred on character, a 82-or-so Belf Paladin. I couldn't afford to both faction and server transfer a character so I just picked my most valuable Horde character (Holy/Prot for fast queues, max Inscription and Enchanting with every glyph learned) and gave him 50k gold and a good round of heirlooms to assist in leveling more characters later.

I considered spending some time transferring as much wealth as possible with me; turning gold into items to bring along for the ride. In the end I decided that I wanted something closer to a real re-roll experience. Hell, if I hadn't been dying for heirlooms I wouldn't have transferred him at all. I just need that experience boost!

I haven't abandoned AD, just kind of put that on a shelf for the time being. I'm very excited about this. It feels great to be Horde again, and it'll be like starting anew. A new chapter, if you will. And I look forward to writing about gold-making from a new perspective I'll have as a reroller.

Liquidate McMoneyBags, IV

2013-03-31T02:15:00.002-07:00

This post is part of 20 Days of Gold-Making from Nev's gold blog. Be sure to check it out and read posts from the other participants as well to get lots of different angles of gold making thoughts.

Do you use a banker alt/guild? When did you start doing that & why?

As I discussed in the last post, when I started gold making I started in the most inventory-intensive market there was: Glyphs. I also happened to jump in right as we were preparing for Glyphmas meaning that I needed space for current inventory as well as a glyph stockpile to last through 4.0.1.

Liquidate has been my main bank toon for as long as I've been making gold. It's not the same Liquidate; she's probably been rerolled four or five times when I get sick of her race/class combo, but Liquidate's spirit continues through every reroll. :D

Over time I've added more guilds (Champion, is Totally Not Faid, Your Self Storage, Electronic Alchemists, Lackadaisical) and more characters (Tekelili, Croft, Kickback, Kickstart, Klockworks, Seasons) and they're pretty fluid. Each character has a job, for example Croft currently holds all the Glyphs while Tekelili's the guild master of Electronic Alchemists which holds all my Cataclysm materials.

I know a lot of people who use bank alts for anonymity but it's never been a real concern for me. The only reason I roll bank alts and bank guilds is the all important reason: Organized storage.

Day 3 is totally not late at all.

2013-03-22T05:32:00.001-07:00

Day 3 is only coming, what, a month and a half after Day 2? Excellent. Time is relative, and, uh, wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff right?

I haven't had much time to play WoW outside of gold-making yet; I've done a round or two of the new dailies on the island but I've mostly just been going through the gold making motions to keep on top of things. When it rains it pours for me and everything's sort of been going wrong at once for me in real life. I'm still in the middle of getting everything sorted out so my posts are sparse but I wanted to make sure you guys know I didn't say "I'm back!" just to vanish again. So let's keep going with the 20 Days of Gold-Making prompts!

What were the first techniques/tricks/tips you used when starting out?

I started making gold in one of the most dull fashions and it really shaped the way I made gold from there on out. I'd found out how much people were making with glyphs and I put my scribe to work. At the time, mostly due to my inexperience and less-efficient addons than we are now used to, it ended up being a lot of work for minimal payout. It was truly a grind.

I used QA3 (here's a guide video someone made back then for those curious about how it differed from what we use now) and just mass crafted every glyph and sold it if it would net me even 1g profit. It wasn't worth my time, in hindsight, but since I was new it was exciting to see gold coming in.

I eventually branched out into other markets and using other professions but the foundation of my gold making is glyphs. I think it's because I've always been accustomed to this sometimes-grindy and monotonous profession that I enjoy such things; I enjoy having a crafting list, crafting it, selling it, and seeing the gold come in. I don't do big flips and I don't take big risks and I think it's because it was never really interesting to me. I love tried and true, low-risk gold-making. Maybe I'm just boring like that.

5.2 - The Story Thus Far

2013-03-11T02:05:00.001-07:00

I didn't intend to come back to WoW so soon and because of that I did absolutely zero preparation for 5.2. When I resubbed and patched my game up I found myself wondering where to go. I knew that the farm would now have work orders, allowing me to finish up some reps I'd been too lazy to grind out and I knew there were new PvP patterns and that's basically it!

Thanks to some folks on Twitter answering my one-off questions and Wowhead's Patch 5.2 Guide I was able to get most things taken care of. I unfortunately missed the ability to get a headstart on the Thunderforge so Blacksmithing and Engineering are taking a back seat until my server's unlocked them. As those are Faid's professions this patch has me in the strange situation of having lots for my alts and pretty much nothing for my main to do, at least at first.

I've been focusing on getting everything restocked; though I'd quit actively playing I had been selling off backstock over the past few months on the account that had some time left so when I came back I was sold out of most hot items and had very little materials to resupply.

The massive need for Prismatic Scales has come as a surprise to me; they were something I'd already always run low on and now I need even more just to do basic research, and there's a lot of that research to be done.

All in all, other than having to keep tabs of who needs to do research each day and upping the price at which I'm willing to buy a few Pandaria materials, the patch hasn't changed much for me. I think that once I have more of the new patterns learned I'll have to serious rethink my alt selling set up, but for now my gold-making consists of lots of daily cooldowns, Sunsong Ranch farming, and my favorite practice: selling everything I can possibly craft.

Edit: Great news! Novitsh asked me on Twitter why I didn't just use leather instead of scales if I was that low on scales. I'd assumed that the cooldown using leather taught the leather patterns and the cooldown using scales taught the mail, but now that I decided to quit making random assumptions and look it up on Wowhead I've found they both teach both. Excellent! Thanks Novitsh!

Thank You So Much

2013-03-02T21:58:00.002-08:00

Today I went to check my PayPal account to renew the blog's domain registration. I didn't have enough but I thought maybe if I did some sort of streaming event I could raise enough to keep the website up. I was surprised to see my balance was not what it was supposed to be.

After my last post about money being tight two awesome, generous readers had donated to help me out. I just discovered this today, so I'm sorry to those two donors that this was a late-coming thank you. This was enough to renew the website domain and my WoW account. I'm still a bit "meh" about WoW but I'd be lying if I said I haven't missed it these past months. I've missed gold making more than anything else.

For as long as I am able to keep the website and my WoW accounts running I will do everything I can to keep producing content. I enjoy writing. People seem to enjoy reading it. Let's keep it up, shall we? To that end you'll notice a new button in the right sidebar. If you ever want to say "Thanks Faid!" any donations made will go directly to keeping the content coming. No pressure if you can't/don't feel like donating though, I appreciate your reading all the same.

Look forward to a new LiteCast coming in the semi-near future. I've gotta spend some time getting back in the swing of gold-making! Thanks again for being awesome readers, you guys are amazing.

Maybe the End?

2013-02-11T08:13:00.003-08:00

I'll keep this relatively brief since it's not about gold-making. Just an announcement of sorts.

The other night I cancelled both my accounts for World of Warcraft. I still like WoW but with no raid commitment and no real need for more gold I found myself logging on less and less over the past month or so. If I had lots of cash I'd probably still keep it up but with my poor financial situation it's silly to keep paying for a game I rarely play.

Because my accounts were on six month subs and they apparently renewed a few weeks ago I'm still technically around for quite a while, till summer, and maybe things will turn around by then. We'll see. For now, as I'm not really playing WoW, I really don't have much to talk about in the way of gold-making. This site will still be up for as long as I can afford the domain name.

If you're looking for super-awesome gold making news, tips, and ideas check out The Consortium. I can recommend no other site as highly as I recommend the forums at the Consortium, that is truly where the magic happens and so I hope you all will continue to learn and make boatloads of gold.

I'm hesitant to say "I'm quitting WoW and blogging, bye." I've gone on long WoW breaks before and this may be another one of those. You may want to check back in here every once and a while. Just thought I'd give you a heads up that I may disappear for quite some time.

The ClockworkRiot LiteCast - Episode 005

2013-01-27T02:01:00.002-08:00

In Episode 005 we discuss arbitrage, vanity items to show off, how to enter a new market, how I set up my TSM groups, and more!

It is highly recommended to use the video version as there may be visual aids contained in the video you will not get in the audio-only version. However, by popular demand, the audio only version is still available to iTunes subscribers.

The ClockworkRiot LiteCast - Episode 005

Notes, Links, and More!

Subscribe on iTunes by clicking here.

Question about my UI? - Click here.
My video of vendor recipes/pets route can be found here.
My glyph inventory management video can be found here.
The PetTracker Battle Pet addon can be downloaded here.

If you'd like a gold-making question answered on the podcast leave a comment on the YouTube page!

Day 2 - Gold Making Goal Making

2013-01-22T21:53:00.001-08:00

There's no rule saying it has to be consecutive days! This post is part of 20 Days of Gold-Making from Nev's gold blog. Be sure to check it out and read posts from the other participants as well to get lots of different angles of gold making thoughts.

Day 2 - If you set yourself a goal, what was your goal & at what point did you set it?

I didn't originally have a real goal, at least not a quantifiable one. Discovering the gold making community it was like I learned of a vast subculture I'd never known, people who had been operating all along, selling me my gems and enchants, and I'd never even noticed that just a few people drove so much of my server's economy. I didn't really care how much I made; I had no real item I wanted to buy or anything, I just wanted to experience it.

I also just never thought I'd make a lot of gold. Since I started out posting glyphs at just a few gold profit, if that, I knew I'd never reach the hundred thousand gold mark, but even having 50k was amazing to me, as I'd barely scraped together enough for a Chopper and never gone beyond that.

As blogging became a bigger drive to my gold making it changed a bit. While it's not really a sensical thing to do there are folks who judge the value of a blogger's advice on how much gold they have. If Mr. Moneybags gives a tip there are those who will think, because clearly he has so much, his tips are more worth following than Mr. Just Started.

You don't see it so much anymore, or maybe I just don't notice it since I'm no longer self-conscious about having a barren bank account, but there have been people who have flat out said that if someone isn't gold capped their advice isn't worth listening to, which I certainly disagree with.

It was these sorts of attitudes I saw as I began to blog and eventually I wanted to have a lot of gold; not for myself or to buy anything but just to be taken more seriously as a gold-maker. I set my eyes on the gold cap of 214k and went for it. Then once gold cap was raised of course I needed to hit the new gold cap. Now I'm going for two million. I have two million across both factions but, as regular readers know, I don't really count my Horde gold into my total wealth, so still a bit to go for "real" double gold cap in my eyes.

I'm not sure if it will ever be "enough," even if I own every piece of copper on the server. There's always gold to be made and you never know when that new gold sink is just over the horizon. At the end of the day I still am doing it for the same reason I always was; not to hit any arbitrary goal but to learn and enjoy the practice of gold-making.

The ClockworkRiot LiteCast - Episode 004

2013-01-18T20:19:00.003-08:00

In Episode 004 we discuss finding niche markets to avoid being undercut, what to do when other gatherers won't share the nodes, and more!

The ClockworkRiot LiteCast - Episode 004

Notes, Links, and More!

Subscribe on iTunes by clicking here.

Jim's posts about flipping greens can be found here.

If you'd like a gold-making question answered on the podcast leave a comment on the YouTube page!

Day 1 - The Beginning - 20 Days of Gold Making

2013-01-17T14:19:00.001-08:00

I saw Nev's 20 Days of Gold Making post a few days ago and it really seemed like something fun to do; an excuse to talk about some of my gold-making strategies and ideas that may not come up in your average Q&A or post. Be sure to check out her original post for a list of the questions you can look forward to me answering here, and check back if the subjects interest you!

For now, let's start with Day 1, the logical place to begin.

You know you've been around a
long time if you remember this is
what Liquidate used to look like!

Day 1 - When did you start gold making & what triggered it?

I began making gold about two months before patch 4.0.1 at the end of Wrath of the Lich King. I'd never really heard of gold blogs or anything of the like; I didn't even know there were players who considered "gold making" an activity. I just thought everyone had a few thousand gold, like me.

I used to hang out on a LiveJournal WoW community (go ahead and laugh, I accept my LJ days) and one of the posters made a post celebrating hitting gold cap, which at the time was 214k. I was floored. I asked her how she'd made so much and she told me she'd made everything with glyphs. "Teach me!" I didn't really care about being mega-rich, I just thought this mini-game of sorts sounded interesting.

I had a scribe since I'd been making my own Insane in the Membrane rep cards but I'd never even thought of glyphs as a money-maker. She told me I should use an addon called QuickAuctions3 to help sell. I downloaded it and was so confused. I asked her to teach me and she linked me to Stokpile's QA3 Guide. (Folks who have only known TSM go ahead and check it out, you'll be thankful for TSM!)

I was able to set up QA3 and began selling glyphs. I would often turn a 1-3g profit on any given glyph sale; I really didn't have a handle on "time is money" and felt like I was doing great! As someone who had never really looked for profit I thought this is what it meant to make gold.

With my penny here-penny there glyph sales followed by a very successful Glyphmas I was able to hit the 214k gold cap right before it was raised; a huge accomplishment for me!

Stokpile's blogroll introduced me to countless other gold blogs and the gold-making community as a whole. I found it so fascinating I began my own blog and that has kept me in the gold-making game ever since.

Where has Faid gone?

2013-01-12T15:44:00.001-08:00

You'll notice I haven't been very vocal on the blog, Twitter, etc. since before Christmas. Well, now that the dust has settled I may as well tell you why.

I quit raiding. A few days before Christmas some issues I'd been having with raiding finally became too much for me and I decided to quit. It was a big deal for me; I know some people will roll their eyes but I literally did cry myself to sleep that night. Outside of if the raid content is good or bad I've enjoyed raiding because of my raid group. I've raided with them since the release of ICC and have had the opportunity to meet a few of them in real life. Hell, I've been raiding with them for as long as I've known my boyfriend and it's always been one of our "together" activities.

I think in the long run it will be a step in the right direction; I've already made great improvements to my life (our apartment's the cleanest it's been in ages!) and I enjoy not feeling tied to my computer on raid nights. I think it will be a good move in the long run but the tremendous change has left me a bit ho-hum about WoW.

I'm not quitting WoW, nor am I quitting gold-making. No longer feeling like I'm playing to raid I've been able to focus on gold even more; I've finished getting every Spirit of Harmony pattern for every profession and am averaging 27k net profit a day. I hit two million liquid gold for the first time a few days ago as well.

I look forward to continuing to put out gold-making content; I just felt that quitting raiding was too big of an event in my "WoW career" to not warrant some mention.

I hope everyone had amazing holidays, now let's get back to making some major gold. :)

Also, if you have any gold making questions for the LiteCast please feel free to submit them, I'm going to be making the new episode in the next few days.

The ClockworkRiot LiteCast - Ep 003

2013-01-02T05:39:00.000-08:00

In Episode 003 we discuss arbitrage, vanity items to show off, how to enter a new market, how I set up my TSM groups, and more!

The ClockworkRiot LiteCast - Episode 003

Notes, Links, and More!

Subscribe on iTunes by clicking here.

Basmastersix's YouTube channel can be found here.
Basmastersix's post about this farming spot.
My post about using the Neutral AH for arbitrage can be found here.
How to Set Up Enchanting in TSM Like a Boss by Reverb can be found here.

If you'd like a gold-making question answered on the podcast leave a comment on the YouTube page!

The ClockworkRiot LiteCast - Ep 002

2012-12-19T09:24:00.000-08:00

In Episode 002 we discuss making gold without lots of Spirits of Harmony, heirloom enchants, and dealing with competitors on the Auction House.

The ClockworkRiot LiteCast - Episode 002

Notes, Links, and More!

Subscribe on iTunes by clicking here.
Find Xsinthis' Golden Crusade Shuffler here.

If you'd like a gold-making question answered on the podcast leave a comment on the YouTube page!

The ClockworkRiot LiteCast - Ep 001

2012-12-13T08:02:00.003-08:00

In Episode 001 we discuss the longevity of Darkmoon Faire trinkets, TradeSkillMaster profiles, the value of reputation grinding, and more!

The ClockworkRiot LiteCast - Episode 001

Notes, Links, and More!

Subscribe on iTunes by clicking here.

If you'd like a gold-making question answered on the podcast leave a comment on the YouTube page!

Fast & Easy Battle Pet Leveling

2012-12-05T01:34:00.002-08:00

Looking for a way to make your pets for sale stand out from the competitors? Or maybe you just like pet battles as much as I do. Regardless, leveling pets is a really fun pastime and now you can even farm Flawless Battle-Stones while doing it. (Warning: Currently they're bugged and may disappear on logging out; put them on the AH or use them before logging out!)

Either way, here's a great way to get some fast and easy levels on your battle pets, I hope you guys enjoy it.

Checking In

2012-12-04T20:24:00.001-08:00

Hey, hope you guys didn't think I'd died! I hadn't realized how long it'd been since I did something on the blog; I'm trying to do more on YouTube and I sometimes forget to cross-post the videos to the blog. I'm still alive though.

I'm re-launching the ClockworkRiot LiteCast as a video podcast on my YouTube channel. The first episode will be out any day now; it's actually already uploaded but YouTube is dragging its feet in verifying that I'm not a dirty copyright villain. So that should be coming shortly.

I've become far more interested in pet battles than I'd ever anticipated. I still raid but it doesn't give me the same joy it used to; I go to raid because I made a commitment to the other raiders, not because I'm excited to raid. Most of my time has actually been spent doing pet battles and making gold to fund my pet buying sprees.

Right now my markets are:

Alchemy: I do my transmutes each day to stay on top of Belt Buckles; I'm considering going potion spec and selling Potions of Luck but have not done so yet.
Blacksmithing: All 450 crafted gear and belt buckles
Enchanting: Trainer-taught MoP enchants; I haven't unlocked the rep ones and heirloom enchants, though profitable, move slowly for me.
Engineering: Tinker's Gears and vanilla pets like the Lifelike Mechanical Toad, I haven't been impressed with the scope market
Inscription: I sell the kite pets and shoulder enchants, both rare and epic. I'm also continuing my partnership with two other scribes on my server to sell glyphs. "Same old same old."
Jewelcrafting: I find it pointless to sell most cut blue-quality gems. I sell the 450 crafted jewelry and cut meta gems.
Leatherworking: I haven't really worked on Leatherworking much, though it's next on my list. If I did have it I imagine I'd spend my time selling 450 crafted gear.
Tailoring: I sell all of the 450 crafted gear as well as the green-quality spellthreads for pants. I use my massive Volatile stockpile to make Dreamcloth and sell Illusionary Bags.

So that's about it for the crafting professions!

I've pretty much abandoned transmog, not because it wasn't profitable but because it was boring as could be. I never liked transmog and was just slowly selling off the pieces I'd bought when testing TSM Shopping lists. I eventually just said "screw it" and I vendored or disenchanted 95% of my stock, keeping a few of the more valuable pieces for my own transmog purposes.

So that's pretty much what I've been doing. I'm not dead!

Attention Jewelcrafters: Don't miss out!

2012-10-26T14:07:00.002-07:00

I've heard a lot of people in Trade, my guild, and a few people elsewhere complaining that Jewelcrafting isn't profitable right now. I ask them what they're selling and more often than not they aren't selling 450 jewelry; in fact they don't even know how to make the 450 jewelry! That's a pretty big problem for the gold-making jewelcrafter and it's a problem we need to fix right now!

Enchanting Conversions - It's like printing money.

2012-10-24T14:24:00.000-07:00

The status quo for enchanting has been pretty constant for many years. There's dust. There's essence, usually three lessers equating to one greater. There are rare shards which may or may not have a lesser version and there is an epic crystal. That's what we've had for a very long time. Dust is dust, essence are essence, shards are shards, right?

Not anymore. Mists of Pandaria brought a fundamental change to the way enchanting materials work. Dust is no longer just dust, that dust can be traded up the chain all the way to a Sha Crystal if you have the desire. Likewise a Sha Crystal can be traded down the line all the way into dust.

This change hasn't sunk in with many enchanters, though, and my server's rife with gold-making opportunities because of it.

If I buy Spirit Dust right now it will cost me 5g90s to craft one Mysterious Essence which I can turn around and sell for 21g, essentially quadrupling my gold with a single craft.

Remember!

When trading up:

5 Spirit Dust = 1 Mysterious Essence

5 Mysterious Essence = 1 Ethereal Shard

5 Ethereal Shard = 1 Sha Crystal (1 Day CD)

When trading down:

1 Sha Crystal = 2 Ethereal Shards

1 Ethereal Shard = 3 Mysterious Essence

1 Mysterious Essence = 3 Spirit Dust

Keep this in mind for selling mats at their most valuable stage and to be sure you pay the least for your crafting materials!

Building the Perfect Farmer

2012-10-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

I don't often farm but when I do the name of the game is always efficiency. The more efficiently you can farm the more gold you will make from your play session or the more mats you can get for crafting. Arguably the most important thing to think about when looking at efficient farming is your farming location: lots of nodes, easily accessible, not too many mobs, etc.

However there are other things to consider. With that in mind I set out this expansion to build my ideal farming character. Here's what I think makes up the ideal farmer; the more of these factors you have going for you the better off you will be but just having as many as you can should help you get the most out of your farming.

Step 1: Selecting your class.

There are conflicting opinions here. Generally people will opt for either a druid gatherer or a paladin or DK for faster mounted movement speed. I side with the druids; the ability to drop down, pick an herbalism node, and fly away without having to kill that mob standing on top of the node is invaluable and will often lead to a greater gain than moving a bit faster.

Nodes are so plentiful in Mists of Pandaria that it will rarely come down to "time spent finding a node" and more often come down to effort and time put in to actually gather the nodes littering the countryside. While the druids don't get the perk for mining their herbalism perk is top-notch and beats out faster-flyers in my book.

Step 2: Selecting your race.

Horde players might instantly say "Tauren druid!" for gathering and that's certainly not a bad idea. However Tauren is no longer as necessary (see Step 5) and so race choices for Horde are now opened up a bit more. However, War Stomp will still be quite handy to stun an enemy and snag a node if it comes down to it so I would still recommend Tauren over Troll.

Alliance players have a choice between Night Elf or Worgen. For this list I'm assuming we're talking about a mining/herbalism gatherer and so Worgen's racial bonuses to skinning aren't factored in. I love Night Elf because if you grab aggro from a mob while mining, which you inevitably will, you can Shadowmeld and pop Flight Form instantly meaning you can cut down significantly on fighting you'll have to do over nodes.

Step 3: Building your farming druid.

There are a few things to consider when building the character.

Speed: Faster mounted speed will mean less travel between nodes. Faster movement speed (when not mounted) will allow you to gather faster in areas like Snow Lily Cave.
Stuns: Inevitably you will pull aggro every once and a while. Being able to stun a mob and gather before killing it or shadow melding will secure that Golden Lotus before someone can come in and take it from you.
Dazing: Non-tanks can be randomly dazed when struck by an attack. This usually doesn't matter too much if you're flying around from node to node but if you're running through Snow Lily Cave or can't fly yet you may want to consider going Guardian spec to make yourself daze-proof.

With this in mind I'm using a Feral druid (faster cat movement speed) with Feline Swiftness (even faster kitty!) and Mighty Bash for an added stun. Disorienting Roar is another option to distract mobs while you snag a node; it's a shorter duration and will be broken by damage but it's an AoE so it ensures you'll get that node no matter what's beating on you. Glyph of Dash will also allow a more frequent use of Dash, allowing you to move through caves or run out of aggro range more often.

Step 4: Inventory space.

If you don't farm for hours at a time you should be fine with regular bags. However, for dedicated farming sessions or if you're not going to return to a mailbox after each session you should look into profession bags.

Miners will want Triple-Reinforced Mining Bags and herbalists will want Hyjal Expedition Bags. For mining/herbalism druids I recommend one of each profession bag and two "normal" bags of your choice; Embersilk, Netherweave, whatever your pleasure is. This gives you a good amount of space specifically for mats but leaves several spots for catch-all if you gather a disproportionate amount of one resource compared to the other, or if you just happen to loot anything else while you're out.

Step 5: Equipping your farmer.

Here's where things might get a little new for farmers. The more of these items you can get the better, but any of them will help.

A Gnomish Army Knife held in your bags will give you +10 to all gathering professions. This does not stack with the Gatherer enchant to gloves (+5) so you will choose one or the other, essentially you're looking at +5 more gathering at the cost of one inventory slot.
An Ancient Pandaren Mining Pick will allow miners to proc Mists of Pandaria gems off of Pandaria nodes. In previous expansions it was a given that miners would sometimes find gems in the nodes but that's no longer the case; now you must have this pick if you expect to see that.

Be aware the proc rate is very low; I've had this pick for a week and have seen two gems. If you want the absolute best out of mining you should have one of these but some people may not find it worth the bag slot it will take. It does not need to be equipped and thus non-axe-using druids can still use it. It's also Bind on Account so you can send it to your other characters to use for it's rather nice 1H Strength weapon stats.

To get a mining pick head to Greenstone Quarry in northern Jade Forest. This item is a rare spawn in the quarry and has a fairly long spawn timer so you may have to camp a fair bit for it.
A set of Forager's Gloves is without a doubt my favorite new item added for gathering. These gloves drop from the rare spawn Korda Torros in Kun-Lai Summit and reduce gathering speed for herbs and mining by 1.5 seconds. (A reduction of 1 second for skinning.) This essentially let's anyone gather herbs as fast as a Tauren and allows you to mine faster than anyone who hasn't farmed these gloves. With these gloves it's usually possible to gather a node between the swing-timer of an attacking mob, making these an invaluable part of your farming arsenal.

The mob which drops these has roughly a one hour spawn time so, barring terrible luck, they shouldn't be too difficult to farm up even on an 85-86 with decent gear.

Note: These will only reduce gathering to .5 seconds; this will not allow a character who could already gather faster (Worgen skinners or Tauren herbalists) to gather instantly. Unfortunately!
A pair of Mist-Piercing Goggles will allow you to see nodes that you otherwise would not be able to see. You needn't equip them; like the mining pick they can sit in your bags. This is great since you can keep them un-bound and send them around if you use more than one farming character. This is a simple situation: Reserve a bag slot (or your helmet slot) and you get to gather more nodes. Easy choice!

Engineers make these and they require two Spirits of Harmony, so you may end up paying a bit for these but if you're going to be gathering they will pay for themselves in no time.

These are the steps I've taken to building Thrasymachus, my new farming character. It has seriously kickstarted my farming in Mists of Pandaria and feeling so well-equipped has helped make farming fun for me. I'm not a professional farmer so if you have any tips and tricks to maximizing your farming character's efficiency please share them!

TradeSkillMaster Guides - Updated for MoP

2012-10-06T15:21:00.002-07:00

It's been a busy few days for me but it's done! A lot of people were requesting an updated TradeSkillMaster guide series using the new interface. Between that, the new features (Quick Posting <3 ) and the fact it would give me a chance to make them easier on the ears I decided it was time to update the guides.

So here they are! You'll notice the "Advanced Tactics" video is just the first, implying there may be more. If you have something you want to learn more in-depth in TSM feel free to ask; it may be in a future Advanced Tactics guide.

Auctioning and Group Creation

Crafting, Shopping, and Dealfinding

Mailing and Destroying

Advanced Tactics #1

Spirits of Harmony - Determining Value

2012-10-02T13:26:00.000-07:00

The most common question I've been asked on my server is what the value of a Spirit of Harmony is. Some people want to know how much to offer, the others want to know how much to sell theirs for. It's a question many people are starting to ask now that eyes have turned on professions and gearing up.

The short answer that I give them: "I don't know." But let's get into the long answer too.

Right now Spirit of Harmony is a Bind on Pickup crafting item. When looking at the value of a Spirit of Harmony you have to think about the way the seller values the Spirit. This is affected by a few different factors:

What professions does the seller have to use it with?

Faid is a Blacksmith/Engineer while, for example, my friend Altrien is a Miner/Engineer. This means that he can only spend his SoH on Engineering while I have a choice to instead spend them on Blacksmithing.

Blacksmithing has many recipes to buy with Spirits of Harmony while Engineering doesn't require any for the purchase of recipes. This means that Altrien can immediately start funneling his Spirits of Harmony into crafted items to sell while, despite having Engineering as well, my next twenty six Spirits are earmarked for buying Blacksmithing patterns. Because of this you'll have much better luck asking someone like Altrien to make that scope instead of someone like me.

Beyond buying patterns it also comes down to usefulness. Not all Spirit of Harmony uses are created equal. Let's look at the Long Range Trillium Sniper which, due to its scope requirement, essentially costs two Spirits of Harmony. If I do not spend these two Spirits then this gun does not come into existence, I cannot make and sell this gun without these Spirits.

Compare that to an Alchemist/Herbalist with Spirits of Harmony. They have only one use at this point, using three Spirits to create an extra Living Steel that's not on the daily cooldown. In the Engineering example it's a question of "Do you want a gun or not?" while in the Alchemist situation it's "Do you want that today or do you want it tomorrow?" Because Alchemists and Tailors don't actually make anything new with their Spirits, only create something they can already make, sans cooldown, professions like Alchemy and Tailoring will likely see less value in their Spirits of Harmony.
How hard is it for the seller to farm Spirits?

A level 86 Disc/Holy priest will find it much more difficult to farm Spirits of Harmony than a level 90 Fury Warrior. Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest a better drop rate of Spirits from higher level mobs (because of this I'm working on a new SoH farming video for level 90 players, stay tuned!) and the faster a player can kill mobs the more Spirits they get.

That priest may look at ever Spirit as a sacred crafting ingredient as they might see only one a week while the Warrior can farm several in a single play session and so the priest will probably value their Spirits much more.
What is the going rate of Golden Lotus on your server?

I've seen a lot of players on my server falling for this one. (Also, it's a gold tip I suppose!) For one Spirit of Harmony you can buy three Golden Lotus by visiting Danky for Horde or Krystel for Alliance.

This means that the floor price for Spirits of Harmony should be three times the value of a Golden Lotus. I've seen people in Trade offering 300g per Spirit of Harmony. They bring you to the vendor, tell you to buy the Lotus and then they pay you 300g for the 3 Lotus which, on my server, they then put on the AH for 300g a piece, tripling their gold off of your Spirit.

At the end of the day some people will be selling theirs for dirt cheap (because there's always that guy who thinks he farmed it so it's free) and there are people who won't be convinced to part with their Spirits at any price but until Blizzard shows mercy and makes these Spirits non-soulbound these are some important things to consider when trying to place a value on Spirits of Harmony.