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.