One more week

Exactly one week from this moment I will be standing in line outside a game stop waiting to pick up my collectors edition of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

I have been on a big break from the game for a few weeks now. My guild stopped raiding and lately the wi-fi from work has been utter crap. I just logged on for the first time since 4.0.3a hit and emptied the mail on all my toons, deleted and sold most of the stuff in my bank and bags that I wont need, and set up all my toons with new hearths and AH access.

I will be logging on at least once next week on all my toons because tomorrow marks the 6 year anniversary of wow and when you log on during this time you get a feat of strength.

The other big thing I did tonight with WoW was to try out a new AH addon that is in its alpha stages right now. Trade Skill Master is the collaboration of a few addon makers who got sick of having to use bits and pieces of 6 different addons to do all their crafting and AH needs. They took bits and pieces from all the big ones: Auctioneer, QA3, etc, and pulled them into one addon that covers crafting, AH and collaboration between different alts. I didn't get super deep into it tonight, however I can see that for any serious crafter for profit this will be the main addon we use. The interface is smooth, very customizable, and once you get it set up it will be pretty easy to use.

Trade Skill Master will scan the AH, check for items that are above an approved profit margin that you can craft, then populate a queue for you to make them. It will also tell you if you have mats on an alt or in the bank, and if you want, it will only populate the queue from those mats.

It also has a nice posting interface with the back end configuration just like you get in QA3 or Zeroauctions.

It has a few clunky things that make it not super easy to navigate, but it is in alpha and clearly its aimed at high end crafting professionals. If you consider yourself a goblin this will be your go to addon in cata.

Since it is in closed alpha the authors don't have it open to the public. To get access to it you have to email a request to brendon.does.music@gmail.com and request an invite. He is looking for testers who will help get it tweaked for release.

Once I have gone more in depth with the addon and set it up fully I will write up a solid review and a how to on the usage of this great tool.

That's it for the update. This next week should be just that last bit of housekeeping before the expansion.

Direction of the blog in Cata

With less than 2 weeks until Cata is released I thought I would put down my game plan for posting on this blog.

When I started this blog I thought it would be more of a gold making blog with posts about my experiences in a top end raiding guild sprinkled in. I have found that I enjoy posting about my experiences much more than just giving out tips and tricks that can make you gold. I still very much enjoy the gold making side of the game and plan on sharing with you things I find that will help you compete. However, I feel that posts on how to increase your gold are pretty dry and, while they can be great reference posts, they can be pretty boring to read.

Going forward I think I will be posting mostly about my thoughts on the gameplay that come from leveling and raiding, maybe even pvp now that they have rated battlegrounds. I will also sprinkle in post of gold tips as I think of them, or see them on other sites. I noticed that I tend to look at the WoW economy in terms of trends that I can take advantage of. Things like glyphmass and taking advantage of the holiday events. I plan to post on those that I see and think will influence the general populace to spend (or hoard) their gold. Finally I want to still post at least every Monday, but with better content than just an update post. I feel those are more filler and just a reason to post instead of giving you actual quality content. With the end of the expansion I just felt that I could take a break from blogging and the game or keep these weekly posts and just take a break from the game.

In the first week of cata I have a full week and a half off from work and the plan is to level to 85 in the first 15-25 hours then get some sleep then spend the week running instances, leveling professions and taking advantage of everything I can while the masses are running around crazy. I would like to do a twitter like update series on my leveling experience that first day if my sanity can take it.

It should be fun, hope to see ya here, and put in a comment if there is anything you would like to see me post about.

Last prep before Cata.

4.0.3a is dropping this maintenance and with it comes the shattering. Zones change, new quests, Dala and Shatt will be ghost towns, new race/class combos, and more. The majority of what was promised in Cata is added except for some major items like new classes, new zones, and higher level professions.

One of the things I am saddest about is not getting my tiger mount from ZG. I have always loved the tiger mounts the best. I still have my blizzcon 08 bear that is my favorite land mount and I have my headless horseman's mount that I think looks the best under my DK.

As for looking forward, I think it would be a very smart idea to stockpile the high end herbs/ore/skins that professions use in the 425 to 450 range. Get them now while people are still in the areas farming and dump them a week into Cata when people aren't there. At about a week in most people who want to power through the leveling process will then look to powering up their professions. They will be able to jump through about 20 points from northrend items. I give it about 2 weeks of good sales before the prices drop then after about 2 months of everyone dumping their stock the scarcity will drive those prices up again.

If you don't want to stockpile, another good money maker in early Cata will be to have some type of gatherer. Ore/herbs/skins will be at a premium for the first few months until there are the majority of people at max level.

My personal plan is not to gather, but to purchase those mats at an inflated price so that I can make the best learned gear from my professions and sell them to the people, like myself who will be looking to push server firsts (or 5ths he he).

Since I had been moving I didn't get a chance to get to Org and set my hearth. Kinda sucks, but I got more important things going on at the moment.

Its been nice having a break these last couple of months and I will enjoy my next two weeks away from the game. With this I will be ready to go on the 7th when I get my collectors edition of the game at midnight. Luckily for me my time zone is one hour ahead of California so I have time to stand in line, get my game, and get home to change over to the official release by 1 am when it goes live for me.

Moving this week

I am moving to a new house this week so no wow really and not much to post.

I am only logging on every 3 days for about 15 minutes to do my zg run for my tiger mount. I checked out the elemental invasion bosses. They are fun, and a good way to get some justice points for 30 mins. They drop good ilvl 251 loot so if you aren't a raider you can get some upgrades before cata.

I did pick up a disgusting oozling pet for 8k and resold it the same day for 14k (after ah cut)

The week of blah.

I have not been motivated to be on WoW at all this week.

I got on for my ZG resets and still no cat mount. I got on for my Yogg 0 run, but it fell through because of lack of players on and some politics. I got on beta when we got new heroic raid gear premades, but we ended up not trying a raid because much of their stuff was bugged out.

In live I would still like to level a few toons up to 80 to be ready, Stockpile some mats that will help me level my professions right off the bat, and maybe get back to max justice points before the expansion comes out.

Recently one of my guildies asked if its faster to level through questing or dungeons. This expansion is different than any other because of a few things. First, all new dungeons have to be discovered, meaning you actually have to find the door to the place and get within 10 yards of it before you can ever go in it. Second quests are mostly phased, sometimes the area you quest in is too.

Dungeons: yes, you can get a lot of xp from dungeons and really all it takes to get into them is to fly to the dungeon door in an area to open it. Expect to waste an hour or two doing this. The random dungeon finder will keep dungeons locked if you don't meet the minimum ilvl requirement and it shows it right on the tool tip. In the beginning weeks of the expansion don't expect lots of people to be running dungeons till they hit 85. After a few weeks/months it may be feasible to level through dungeons, but at the start stick with questing.

Questing: they way they set up the questing experience in cata is completely different from how its been before. Questing now has what I like to call "nodes". A quest node is where there are 1 or more quest givers standing in one spot. They are linked in that they give you quests that are completable together. Usually its 2 npc's standing next to each other, one says go collect 10 pieces of trash from the ground. the other says go kill 15 litterers. What is different now is that they will give you only these 2 quests until you complete them. When you turn them in the ! pops up over one of their heads and you get another quest or 3. Turn those in and poof! more quests.

There are pros and cons to this.
Cons: The quest "chains" sometimes bottleneck down to one quest and if its broken or undo-able you are stuck. In beta I had a quest to kill 2 named guys. One was stuck under the world so the quest was broken. No more quest chain, no more new quests, I had to fly around and find another starter quest node. They fixed this quest in the last beta build and I completed it. OMG the quests unlocked after this one quest covered half the zone. That one broken quest shut off close to 1/4th of a level's worth of questing.
Pros: The story is more enjoyable since you have to run through it. The areas and quest givers are usually phased to a point so you have less competition for areas/items/kills. Also with the phasing you have to worry less about pvp simply from the fact that the enemy has to be in the same phase as you. The quests flow much better. If you are done at one node you are sent to another area where a node is. Sometimes right to the node of quest givers.

Now that blizz has said that they like the speed of leveling I am going to try again with a fresh transfer and see exactly what it takes.

Engineering in Cata (so far)

In the beta I got to 85 on my transferred dk to see how the leveling process was, and now I have leveled up engineering. I want to take some time to look at all the cool things you can get from engineering.

You can get:
Cogwheels
Goggles
Guns/Bows/Scopes
Belt/Glove/Cloak/Boot Attachments
Explosives
Trinkets
Non Combat Pets
Special Items

First is the new items: Cogwheels.
These are essentially engineering gems and can only go in a cogwheel socket. So far the only cogwheel sockets are on engineering made helms (goggles). While these are excellent helms, they will be obsolete by the time we are into the second tier of content, maybe even heroic first tier. Lets hope they put more cogwheel sockets on things. As of now in the beta cogwheels are bought by turning in a previously made engineering item like the new tackle box or engineering bag.

Now Goggles.
There is always goggles. Lets look at the dps plate ones.

Reinforced Bio-Optic Killshades
Binds when picked up
Head
2784 Armor
+301 Strength
+512 Stamina
Meta Socket
Cogwheel Socket ( 208 haste )
Cogwheel Socket ( 208 crit )
Socket Bonus: +20 Strength

Lets compare that with the best plate helm I could find on Wowhead. Its on par with the Tier 11 helm but has crit instead of expertise and the socket bonus gives haste instead of strength. Slightly better as a single item but will probably be skipped so we can use the tier helm for the bonus.

Helm of Maddening Whispers
Binds when picked up
Head
2784 Armor
+281 Strength
+512 Stamina
Meta Socket
Blue Socket ( 20 str / 20 hit )
Socket Bonus: +30 Haste Rating
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 168
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 228

321 str, 208 haste, 208 crit for the goggles vs. 281 str, 258 haste, 168 crit for the helm. With stat weights of 4.47 for str, 4.28 for haste and 2.19 for crit you get a score of 2780.63 for the goggles and 2728.23 for the helm.

This means that the goggles are better than your tier 11 helm and probably all first tier raid helms. Seeing as you can make these fairly easy as soon as you hit 525 engineering, this is a must have item.

Guns/Bows/Scopes
We finally can make bows YAY! These are on par with the goggles in terms of powerfulness. Meaning they will be useful up through entry level raids. Make em early for all those just leveling to 85 and then keep a small stock on the auction house throughout the expansion for those just getting to max level.

Blizzard does have a tradition of adding new scopes so hopefully we get some as the tiers progress. Hell, lets hope they give us more gun and bow recipes too.

Side note, with ammunition gone from ranged weapons we did loose one steady stream of income from engineering.

Attachments
Right now in beta I can only find glove and belt attachments. I expect to see parachute attachments for cloaks and boot attachments, probably rocket boot style ones like in wrath.

Gloves: The only stat boost attachement known right now is for intellect. I expect to see probably strength and agility at least added to that list. What we also have is an on use armor boost, health pot, or mana pot.

Belt: We have an on use dummy that taunts enemies, a damage shield, or an invisibility cloak that can be used out of combat. It works exactly like mage's invisibility and lasts for 10 seconds. Finally a DK with stealth!

Explosives
Right now the only explosives we have are a lock/door pick and a "bolt gun" that uses obsidium bolts engineers make as parts for other constructions. The bolt gun is an on use item that you have in your bags and acts like the saronite bombs in that when used it gives you a circle to click on the ground. It does a certain amount of damage in that area and interrupts casting.

Trinkets
We have the obligatory pet dragonling that will come out and fight for you like a guardian. Usually engineering trinkets are engineer use only and sub par so don't get your hopes up for anything good from this category.

Non Combat Pets
We got 2 great pets right off the bat. They are boe so you will probably get good mileage out of selling these depending on your server. There is a robot bunny and a mini fel reaver. Both will sell well. (Thanks mmo-champion.com for the pictures)




Special Items
This is where engineering hides its soul. Sometimes useful, sometimes weird, mostly items that make it fun to be an engineer.

Loot-a-rang: Use: Retrieves the loot from a nearby corpse. (10 Sec Cool down) Item you keep in your bag and gives you a much larger loot range.

Goblin Barbecue: The new raid feast. Its utterly amazing since it gives stamina and "another useful stat" It seems to give appropriate buffs. I always got strength and the rogue always got agility

Lure Master Tackle box: a 36 slot bag that holds AN-NY-THING related to fishing including the fishing chair, your poles, fish, lures, rings that can be fished up, gems that can be fished up, fishing daily rewards such as bags, items, pets. The list goes on and on. Expect to sell these slowly but steadily to fishermen

Electrostatic Condenser: This is either the crappiest or the best item in all of cataclysm for engineers depending on if you have gathering profession as your second profession or not. What it does is allows you to sometimes get volatile air from mining skinning or herbing. You have to be an engineer to use it.
Did I mention that volatile air is only otherwise dropped from 3 mobs in the game and will be super high priced? Oh and as an engineer you need it to make one of your parts that is used in most high level engineer items? If you can use this you will be rich from farming, if not you will curse those that can.


Looks like engineers got a lot of utility and gold making love this expansion. If utilized right this will probably be the best raiding profession (by a very slight margin). Not to mention it always has been the best PvP profession hands down.

What's the brown brotha?

Just another week getting closer to cataclysm brotha.

This week I fully neglected live WoW for the beta and catching up on tv that I downloaded but haven't seen yet.

A few things on live, the girlfriend got her 98th mount and finished the meta for hallow's eve. She is one step closer to that 100th mount.

I've decided to sell off all my surplus of sellable items and only stockpile things that will help me up my professions at the start of cata. Thinks like primordial saronite and titansteel for the first few levels of blacksmithing or a bank tab of inks for inscription. The idea of going for the insane title is dead. With two of the reputation grinds going away people are inflating prices on those mats to insane highs.

On to TV. I finally got around to watching the first 4 episodes of Lie to Me season 3. Such a great show. If you haven't seen it go check it out. Also the season premiere of Walking dead came out this week. Great acting, great writing, and if they stick to the storyline from the comic it was adapted from it will be a great long running series. Watch it if you like zombie/end of the world stuff.




On to the beta stuff. Don't look if you don't want to know about beta.



Mostly this week I took my main premade DK and leveled mining. I found this horrible bug where the client and the server have trouble talking to each other mostly when you are flying from one area to another and you get a fatal error. It was like the world was pvp'ing me for mining nodes. I did get to 525 mining eventually. The reason for this was to level blacksmithing and engineering so I could see what it takes and what was available for crafted stuff at the top levels.

We have 3 ores that are mineable in cata. Obsidium for hyjal and vashj'ir, elementium for twilight highlands and deepholm, and pyrite for twilight highlands and uldum.
Pyrite is the new rare ore and shares a spawn point with elementium in twilight highlands and uldum. I got about 1 spawn out of every 10 elementium spawns.
Elementium is super easy to get in deepholm and will be super super cheap on the ah after a week.
Obsidium will be the back breaker for all the ore driven professions. There is no great place to get it in bulk, its only in the leveling areas and tons of it is needed to level professions.

Engineering: Good leveling curve, don't need as much obsidium as blacksmithing, and there are some cool things that will make money like a loot-a-rang and a goblin barbeque. That barbeque is probably the best high level feast in the game right now and will be used in raids a ton.
With the obligatory goggles and some other cool flavor items like pets and fishing lures and new bows and guns, expect to be able to make better money off engineering than ever before.

Blacksmithing: OMG obsidium! I spent easily 2 thirds of this week getting obsidium to get to 500 in BS. Not 525 like I did in mining and engineering, but just 500. Even at 500 you still need lots of obsidium to level. Its crazy. Here is an example, almost everything from 475 and up needs 5 folded obsidium. Those 5 items take a full stack of obsidium ore. And thats usually for 1 point in BS. Figure you need a few thousand ore to level BS alone.
On top of that, at 500 you have to go buy your new recipies with either, 1 stack of elementium bars, 2 hardened elementium (equals 1 stack of bars) or 5 pyrium bars. Thats just for recipies not even to make the items.

All in all expect Blacksmithing to be a major pain in the ass to level, but expect the competition to not be super horrible in the first few months. Investing heavily in getting there first will reap you big profits when you do.