At a Crossroads

Warning: extremely long post inc. For the summation of the post skip down to The Present, Cataclysm: section

Lets start with a little history.
Pre History: I started playing this game on Easter weekend of 2004. Approximately 5 months after the game went live. My first toon was a dwarf hunter and I got to about level 6 before I realized I hated playing a hunter (still do, that and warlock are not the classes for me).

I quickly found out that rogues were the most OP class ever and that horde hated gnomes with a passion. So was born my first real toon: Oneleaf the gnome rogue. I love that guy. I got him to 60, joined a raiding guild and went on some 40 man raids to MC, ONY, and BWL.

Alas, real life got in the way and I got a job working evenings that got me home at about midnight. My raiding days at 7pm were over. I did a little research and discovered a little thing called an Oceanic server. For those of you who don't know Oceanic is the moniker that is given to the time zones around Australia/New Zealand, japan and eastern Russia/Asia. The good news is that when I got home from work at midnight it was around 6 pm on the oceanic servers. This left me with about an hour to get food in me before normal raid times start. As luck would have it, I found out about this godsend of a timezone 9 days after a brand new server was started. That server was called Jubei'Thos, which leads me to...



History, Vanilla WoW:
I promptly said goodbye to my rogue and the friends I had made on my old server and went to roll on J'T. But, what do I want to play as? There are so many choices. I had plenty of time in the game to understand the basics of every class and had to make a decision. I knew I wanted to be horde this time. The sheer amount of immature people who think "more human looking" means good and "less human looking" means evil was getting to me.

So Horde it is, but what class? Well I figured I want to try all the classes, but I didn't want to put in the work of leveling every type of toon so what better than 3 toons in one. So was born Raawr the druid. Druid was perfect for me. If I wanted to melee dps it was there, if I wanted to heal it was there. If I wanted to be a caster, well in those days I would have to roll another class cause any druid in the balance tree was pointed at and laughed at. Still it was better than being locked into a single class mechanic. The biggest kicker was since I was previously a rogue I could transition to kitty and wonder of wonders! I could heal myself.

Quickly I worked on leveling Raawr and got myself into a guild, who were all leveling to 60 so they could raid. I made 60 about a week after most of them and that was about the time that the officers decided to transfer off the server and disband the guild. Luckily a few people in the guild (Ryder and UD) had some connections with a guild called and more than a few of us jumped ship and were accepted.

was my 2nd raiding guild, but it was my true first home in this game. I have made some great friends who I still keep in touch with even though they have quit the game or moved to other guilds. I have even met a few in real life (/wave Englos, Balindur, and Pirao) which is a big deal since I am in the USA and they live in Australia. When I finally make it down under I have about a dozen people from and my current guild who would literally kick my ass if I didn't come see them and have a beer with em.

In I really fell into and loved the role of resto druid. I liked being able to be an important part of the raid and to hold others fate in my hands. Looking back I was a mediocre healer at best, but I had 2 other resto druids who were plugged in, and helped me not suck too bad.



History, Burning Crusade:
had a great run and were making a bid for a top 10 spot on the server when Karazahan hit. It killed our guild. We went from a solid 40 man team guild with mostly great players (and some scrubs getting carried) to 3 and ½ 10 man teams with the politics and hurt feelings of people being split up. The guild leadership either didn't care enough or weren't able enough to make the transition work. And that's the nicest way I can say that, Englos. So split up A good portion of us split into which was reported for a name change and blizz took our name away. We ended up with (blech) and made a run at 10 man raiding.

My job schedule changed again for the worse and now I was getting home at 2am which was 8 pm server time. Great, now I can't raid with my friends again. Oh well, I always wanted to try being a caster dps and we just got moonkin form so I will do that. Moonkins were still laughed at but not as much because the people in the know understood that blizz made them viable and they could do decent dps.

I found a Singaporean guild, who raided at 3am my time (9pm server time) and with a heavy heart left to go raid with them. I lasted about a month and a half because all of my good friends were in another guild. It sucked balls. Huge stinking, pus infested balls. I decided that if I can't play with my friends I won't put in the huge amount of hours it takes to raid and ill just go casual.

I found some fun things to do, I did boomkin pvp, I made a level 1 twink troll rogue who I took to the alliance starting areas and proceed to 1 kill the new players like I was an elite mob. In fact the guild I made for him is so that the new players thought the were encountering a rare mob. I have very fond memories of being in the gnome/dwarf starting area and having a level 4 gnome mage fireball me until he went oom, all the while I was /dancing with him then I ran up to him and 1 shot him because my firey enchant proc'ed on that hit. I am pretty sure I have that on fraps somewhere too.
My hardcore days were over, or so I thought...



History, Wrath of the Lich King:
I never thought I would give up my druid, but along came the death knight class. I had to try it, it was new and shiny and reports were that the starting area was the best thing yet put in the game. The reports were right and DAMN was leveling a DK fun. The starting area was epic, the class was super overpowered in the early days and you were over-geared for leveling from the start. I especially loved the old talent where when you died you came back as a ghoul. I could easily take on 3 people and kill one get the other 2 down to about 10% before they killed me then I would rez as a ghoul and finish them off. So much fun.

My work schedule had came back to the midnight finish times and wonder of wonders there is a top end raiding guild named with a few people I knew in it. Shadoweaves, Finarfin, Ryder, Tetsukaa, and Recovery I knew from and and as soon as I got to 80 I got an invite for my toon: Bhudda.

Through competition and lots of research my skills as a player went from mediocre to one of the top 3 DK's on the server according to worldoflogs.com. Sometimes I was number 1 sometimes less. I even scored a #1 in the world ranking and held it for 4 weeks.



Then, about halfway through Icecrown Citadel the game did something to me that I never thought it could. It made me lose interest. It did this by letting me reach the pinnacle of what was possible with my toon. My guild was amazingly kind enough to let me craft Shadowmourne. I had a legendary weapon, I eventually got best in slot gear in all my spots (till they added another raid in a patch) and I truly felt I had no where to go. I even made a post about this since I had started up this blog by that time.

I was wrong, there was more to do and I still had some great friends I loved being online with so, I didn't quit the game like I was contemplating. Reaching the peak was a blow though. Because of Shadowmourne I realized how I can still be so enamored with this game after 6 years. Its the idea that there is always more to see and do. There is a stone I haven't uncovered yet. And if that stone is a harder feat to get to than the general populace can accomplish the more better for me when I do it. Killing new raid content and being in the race for server first are a few of the big things I love doing in this game. I have also learned that withought a great group of people to do it with, the accomplishment isn't worth 1/10th as much as it would be with them.
Which brings us to...



The Present, Cataclysm:
All my frustration was washed away on December 7th at midnight when I had new levels, new quests, new dungeons, new raids, new gear, new, new, new....

I did the marathon to 85. I got geared up to be ready for the first raids. I did my professions up and even made a profit while doing so.

But, now, the new has worn off. I am back to the same rut I was in during the end of ICC. I have hit the highest peak my DK will be at ever (or for a long time). Anything I do now on Bhudda will be second best, game wise. I will still get to raid with my friends and really that's a bigger draw than any gear or kills I could get for Bhudda.

There is another issue that has come up. Blizzard has changed the raid lockout system so that 10 man runs and 25 man runs can share their people between the runs. And they get the same gear. It makes it more flexible for guild leaders to actually organize a run and not have to call it and waste 2/3rd of the guild's time when a few don't show up.

What this has done is to let the guilds who are pushing for server firsts or just first week kills get in there with a smaller group because not everyone has the time to get to 85 in the first week. In we have had enough for a single 10 man run per night and we have been crushing it.
Baradin Hold 1 of 1 killed
Blackwing Descent 2 of 6 killed
Throne of the Four winds 1 of 2 killed
Bastion of Twilight 1 of 4 kiled
There is a distinct possibility that more were killed last night when I wasnt online also.


Most of the strats out there for these bosses are out of date and just plain wrong to a certain extent. We go in there and fix the strat and kill bosses. I am extremely proud of how we are doing.

And by we I mean the people in my guild who went in this week. I was not one of those people.

Our first 2 raid nights I got sat because of raid composition. On our second 2 raid nights I am sure I was slated to go, however being that I raid from work on those nights, and I work at an airport, and with the holidays work is super hectic, I wasn't available on my end. I wasn't able to do the thing I enjoy most in the game this week, and it has everything to do with my schedule and blizzard's structure. In no way am I blaming the guild leaders.

From my experiences with Kara killing a guild, and having to leave a group of people I want to raid with for a group of people who just kill stuff, I know that I prefer the structure of a 25 man guild. Thankfully our GM has come out and said we will be pushing for getting back to the 25 man structure and I think this is the right move. We can do 10 mans to gear up and learn the encounter while people are leveling or being recruited. I mostly feel the atmosphere and relationships built is better in a 25 man.

This all brings us to the crossroads I speak of in the post title. I have a decision to make on what I want with this game. As I see it I have 3 choices

1.Go casual staying in the guild but not committing my time to raiding. With work, possibility of raid spots, only being able to achieve 2nd best on Bhudda, this is not as remote a choice as it may seem.
2.Raid with Bhudda. I can excel with him and get the accomplishments I want on the larger scale if not the smaller one like gear and personal perfection for the toon.
3.Bring Raawr out of retirement and become a pro healer again. This one holds some very large promise for me. I don't know if I can hack it as a healer because its a much harder job than dps, but I fully believe in myself and am willing to try. We also need healers bad and instead of feeling like I'm taking a spot that anyone can fill I would feel much more needed. Raawr also never hit that pinnacle that Bhudda did so there is plenty to strive for.

As I type this I automatically rank these choices as to what I would prefer most. That order is 3,1,2. Although I have apprehension about changing toons and roles to something that I haven't done in a while, and back when I did I didn't excel, I really believe I can be great like I would expect out of someone in

Barring that I think I would like to go casual. I would be available on both Bhudda and Raawr for those nights (probably my weekends) where I could devote a full 4 to 6 hours to raiding if they needed me. I just don't relish the thought of committing the time for raids on a character that I feel has peaked.

Regardless of how things turn out in the next few weeks with my WoW time, I will keep updating here and bringing you all things that I think are interesting. And if you too want a trip down memory lane, plug your main's info into this link and see where he/she has been http://www.warcraftrealms.com/charhistory.php

Things are settling down

The first second and third waves of people making it to 85 are done. Casuals and world pvp'ers are dominating the leveling areas. Prices on the auction house are starting to even out. And raids are happening.

I made a solid profit from the first 10 days of Cataclysm. I got Blacksmithing, Engineering, Alchemy, Enchanting, Mining, and First Aid all to 525 across a few toons. I also got Archeology and Cooking leveled to a respectable number. On top of that I put 30k gold in my pocket. All in all I would consider that worth about 150k in gold earned give or take. Speaking of archeology, I solved 3 rare items so far. The fossil raptor pet, the druid/priest statue, and the fossil raptor mount you see at the top of the post. Thx mmo-champion.com for having such good pics for me to steal for my blog.

Most of my profits came from Blacksmithing pvp sets and converting mats to other mats. My miner made the most steady profits making about 5g per item smelting obsidium, elementium, and pyrite to bars. She sold thousands of bars this week all at a profit. I was the only one selling the BS pvp items that have recipes you buy at lvl 84 in twilight highlands. Those items were making me about 1k per and since I was the only one selling 5 of the 8, I was raking it in. Elementium belt buckles are still making me 400g a pop.

The money is still there in all these markets, but we are seeing an equilibrium now where ore is equaling the bar price, crafted items are coming down closer to mats costs, and more and more people are undercutting.

Time to be more cautious about what risks you take with your gold.


On the raiding front, My guild went in and killed the first 3 bosses in blackwing decent, downed the tol barad pvp boss and went on to the grim batol raid and killed the first guy in there. Since we are focusing on 10 man raids, I haven't gotten a spot yet this week, but the officers are working very hard to make sure everyone gets a chance to down content.

More than a few of us are well on our way to glory of the cataclysm hero and our cool stone drakes.


Speaking of dungeons, we are running tons of them to get gear and rep and orbs so we can get more gear. The first few days were great for pugs. The dungeon finder system wouldn't let you into certain dungeons and heroics if your combined ilvl on gear wasn't high enough. you had to have a 329 ilvl to get in heroics. The trick is that the game looked in your bags and bank and chose the highest ilvl item for each slot. I got my 3 last ilvl points for heroics by buying some boe items and putting them in the bank until I got an upgrade. then I resold the items.

Because of this restriction the early days of cata pugging was awesome. Only the dedicated raiders were making the effort to get there fast and early. Tanks knew how to pull, healers knew how to heal and dps weren't brain dead. As more and more people hit 85 and get the gear for heroics, more and more idiots are showing up in pugs. It's getting painful.

Yesterday I had to wait 40 minutes as dps to have my random heroic pop and the group I joined had been wiping on the first boss of grim batol. The get ready and we go and after another wipe (my first) and the tank says screw it and leaves the group. the healer is next and quickly the other 2 dps leave. Great, I just waited 40 minutes to get a repair bill and I didn't even get any rep from trash kills.


To wrap this post up, I have to say, gone are the days of zerging and sub par play. The bar is set by blizzard and if you suck, you wont kill even dungeon bosses. EZ-Mode WLK dead. Long live Cata.

Blacksmithing leveling tip

This is just a quick post, I also posted yesterday so don't miss out on it. Just scroll down.

Right now Blacksmithing is incredibly expensive to level. Especially on the early levels of cata (450-475). There is relief though. ICC patterns stay orange and have guaranteed skillups until 475. Then it turns yellow where you can still get skillups. I used 2 items: boots of kingly upheaval and protectors of life. Both cost 8 titansteel, 12 eternal earth, and 5 primordial saronite.

Using these items will get you completely past the obsidium items. I didn't use one piece of obsidium to get to 525 using this method.

Chaos=gold

Gold in your pocket or gold in another's. Right now the AH is in a great state of fluctuation. The power levelers are done or close to it, the second wave of heavy crafters are getting their fingers in the mix. Many people are trying to eek out that little bit more of profit from gathering professions and undercutting wars are starting.

I hope you have your snatch list set up. If you don't, you need to do it first the next time you log on. Don't know what prices to put up? That easy, you price your snatches at 1g below whatever the lowest price for the item is at when you make the list. The reason for this is that everything is in a steady decline right now. For the next few weeks we will still have people leveling their toons and their professions and due to too much to do, too little time, they are taking the fast route and simply undercutting on the AH.

Scan the AH and run your snatch search every hour or so because new stuff pops up as people visit the city between quests, farming or dungeons. If you start seeing a large amount of one item lower your snatch price to the new bottom end. You really are looking for the best deals.

The most important part? USE THOSE SNATCHES! Flip the items and use the mats to craft RIGHT NOW. Since prices are going down you don't want to stockpile at 50 gold per item when it will be 10 gold per item in 3 weeks. The same goes for the crafted items. Stuff that costs 1000g to make right now will still sell for 5000g. Later the sale price will probably be under 800g but materials will be closer to 500g.

For example: I leveled blacksmithing to 515 tonight. The "bloodied" set (pvp) is costing about 550g per piece to make and the mats are just 20 elementium bar and 10 volatile air. I have been steady selling these for 1600g each simply because mine are the only ones up there and people want gear for pvp. Elementium bars and volatile fires are not hard to get, the prices are just super inflated right now. I expect those pvp pieces to drop to a price of around 300g each with a crafting cost of between 200g and 250g. If I hold on to the elementium and volatiles I get now I will be losing money in the end.



Finally, don't forget its Winterveil coming up so get ready to hit the auction house with all the stuff the lazy people don't want to look for: Milk and Gingerbread cookies, red and green outfits, snowballs, etc.

The final push

I finally made it to 85!

After I posted last, I was in bed and asleep within 20 minutes. I woke up 12 hours later, when my wonderful girlfriend (she reads this blog) left for work. After getting caught up on my internet, I logged in and got back to it. 4 1/2 hours later I hit 85. I must say Twilight highlands has much better xp gains from quests than any other level. Thats a good thing too because you have so much more xp to get.

All in all it took me 18ish hours to get to 85, our guild fastest was Xzlrate at 13 hours and the first person on the server to get it was about 11 hours.

I spent the next few hours running an instance to get my gear ilvl up high enough for the game to let me do heroics, buying and enchanting/gemming/reforging gear, doing a few dailies, and finally getting tabbards for rep.

My guild wants to run our first raid on Sunday so I still have work ahead of me in terms of getting rep up and getting gear to be ready. I also want to do a bunch of archeology cause there are some great things from there. I am seriously thinking of changing professions on my main, but I need to figure out what professions I want on which toon first.

My usual Wednesday night post is supposed to be about making gold, but right now the markets are so in flux, its hard to say what will make you a profit. I do know that if you have the gold, its more than likely you will rake in the profit by power-leveling your profession and selling the items. Gathering professions are gouging incredibly right now with the cheapest Obsidium bars going for over 100g each. Herbs are cheaper, but still selling each at the price of what I expect a stack to be.

My best advice for making gold right now is to sell everything you can now and in a week or two when prices even out, restock.

Cata goes LIVE!

It is 11 minutes to 12 (pacific time) and I have gotten and installed my collectors edition of Cataclysm!

I am now logged in at the flight trainer and the whole server is here. Here is a little tip if you are there and horde.

/tar maztha and bind a key to your "interact with target" button in key bindings. Use this to be able to buy your flight training when there are a million people standing on the npc.

Update: 12:11 and I'm still trying to log in. blarg.

Update: 12:12 just restarted the client and got in. OMW to hyjal.

Update: 12:18 Amazing cutscene from the flight to hyjal

Update: 12:50 and the lag in hyjal is incredible. also pvp but I'm getting stuff done. I hear vashj'ir is just as bad

Update: 2:42 did 2 runs of Black Rock Caverns. got a few boe and shards and got to lvl 81. back to hyjal to quest

Update: 5:10 Ding 82 in 2 hours 28 minutes. off to deepholm. There are 8 level 83s already on the horde side and about 100 82s

Update: 9:00 level 83 in 3 hours and 50 mins. Running through deepholme and the instance there, stonecore. All the gathering professions have had their server first and so has cooking, fishing, enchanting, and alchemy that I have seen. No server first 85s yet but people are very close. 84 1/2 ish for about 6 peopole. time to go to ulduam.

Update: 2:00 and I finally ding 84. It took 4 hours and 54 minutes with a lunch break in there somewhere for about half an hour. The xp needed from 83 to 84 is 5.2 million xp. the xp from 84 to 85 is 9.1 million. OMG at this rate I need to spend another 8 hours questing for that last level. Most of this last level was questing in uldum. Its a great zone very ancient egypt-y. I did one instance of the vortex pinacle to do the quests and get xp. Now I am off to Twilight highlands.

Update: 2:55 after hearthing to org, setting up my breadcrumb quests for twilight highlands, and training skills I decided to take a small break to recharge. Starting fresh at barely 84 an hour later I'm ready to go.

Also of note, Xzlrate our premier dps shaman just got server first shaman at just about 13 hours in. Grats to him :)

And while we are at it I want to shout out to all the hard core of our guild who are still up and running trying to level. Keep in mind that its now like 10 am their time (austrailia) and they started at 7 pm last night.
the hard core players are:
Verity
Flyingmoo
Mikasu (My fellow American)
Zarco
Brynflux
Kaoshin
Percadu
Freeforme
Hustar
Shadowaves
Krellhim
Bawarr
Drmorton, and
Runbeck

Update: 4:20 I have hit the wall. for the last hour and a bit I have been trying to focus and keep going, but my lack of sleep has gotten to me. I have now been up for 35 hours with only about 3 hours of nap in there somewhere.

I only made it 16% past 84, but I will be logging on when I get up and finishing off that last 84% of level 84.

I hope this expansion has started out as good for you as it has for me.

To goblin or to level up, that is the question

EDIT: Welcome to all the people coming from JMTC. The post you are looking for is the next one down. Enjoy the rest of the blog. :)



With less than 2 days left, most people's plan for the first day of Cata is set. Many people will be trying for server first 85s. Some will be camping the AH taking advantage of those early mistakes by the leveling crew. Most WoW'ers will be sleeping, but those people don't know what they are missing.

I have seen some great tips on the gold making blogs on how to take advantage of the early days of the expansion.
These include:
Forgoing leveling and camping the AH
Hitting the Dark Moon Fair and getting low level greens and blues for new goblins and worgen
Gathering herbs, ore and skins for those on the hunt for server first professions
Leveling quickly to get those recipes that will make gear for server first raiders
and selling daily quest materials and rewards

I for one plan on leveling to 85 quickly and then maxing out my blacksmithing and engineering for my own raiding gear and for sales. Even with the outrageous prices on ores and crafting materials I see profits coming for those of us who can get in the market early.

WowInsider.com has a great write up on whats new with professions.
A few notable things I see to keep an eye out for:

There is a lot of recipes only found on a vendor in twilight highlands that is locked behind phased content that you have to be 84 to access.

Inscription and JC not only have their glyphs and gems, but they have blue crafted gear added in the forms of rings and relics. Also, Cut green gems vendor for 9g. Prospecting and vendoring alone will set a minimum vendor value on a stack of ore, depending on the prospecting average yield. For example: If a stack of ore on average gives us six green gems, these gems can be cut and vendored for 9g each, which means you will only ever find ore for less than 54g if a jewelcrafter hasn't logged in since it was posted.

With chaos orbs being bop, the sheer mountain of ore needed for BS, Engineering, and JC, expect prices on crafted goods to be higher than in wrath.

Leatherworking and Tailoring will be cheaper to craft so it they will be better for feeding enchanting for materials.

Alchemy has all their old items like flasks, potions, and transmutes updated and integrated more into the other professions. New things like potion of treasure finding and transmute: truegold will give this profession a little boost.

The way I see it there is 2 strategies to using your crafting professions for making gold: High volume of sales with a low profit margin, or low volume of sales with high profit margin. The way blizzard has set up base crafting materials this expansion really exaggerates this.
High volume/low margin: Inscription, JC, Alchemy, Enchanting, Tailoring*, Cooking, Fishing, and any Gathering profession.
Low volume/High margin: Blacksmithing, Engineering, Leatherworking*
*Tailoring and Leatherworking could be put in either category because they each are about a 60/40 split. I just put each one in their respective 60% category.

Hope this helps, and check back on the 7th for my live update post of my experiences of leveling on live.

Build your snatch list now

In patch 4.0.3a most of the files for cata was patched into the live game. Due to this fact you can use links to items that are not available yet. In most cases having those links are pointless, but as I found out earlier today, you can populate your snatch list to be ready for Cata on minute one of the expansion.

Here's how you do it. First log on and go to the auction house. Go to the search tab and click on the snatch heading.

Next go to wowhead or the mmo-champion item database.





Search for your item and when you find it click on the "link ingame" button. Copy that link (right click/copy or press ctrl C on the keyboard). Next go back ingame and open the text pane like you are going to talk to someone and paste (right click paste or crtl V) in the chat window.



Hit enter and you should now see the item linked in your chat pane.



Finally you click on that link and it will bring a popup on your screen and it will populate the snatch window with the item. Put in the max price that you are willing to pay for the item and hit the "add item" button.




You will have to manually go through and add every item you want to keep an eye on for snatching, but a little work now keeps you from missing out on deals in the first few days of Cata.