Farewell

Well, it looks like this is the end for the blog.

I haven't logged on for over 10 days.  I just don't have the ambition to spend any real time on the game anymore.  That means I don't spend time on raiding or making gold.  The only reason I even think about logging on is to keep in touch with my aussie friends and I have even been neglecting that lately.

Thank you all for reading and I wish you all luck in your wow endeavors.

Update: I have started a new personal blog at everythreedays.com It's not wow related, but there are my rantings and big thoughts and cool videos and stuff I find.

How I get my ink prices

 Before we get to it I want to say Congratulations to my guild for being amazing and being server 3rd with 11 of 12 normal kills on raid content as of this week with only Nefarian left.

For those of you who say TL;DR I calculate my ink prices as 1 Inferno Ink = 10 Blackfallow Inks. You get 5 Bi and ½ of an Ii from a stack of Heartblossom, Stormvine, Cinderbloom, or Azshara's Veil. Likewise you get 6 Bi and 1 Ii from a stack of Whiptail or Twilight Jasmine.

For those of you who want a more in depth account and want a free spreadsheet out of the deal, read on.

First of all we need to set some boundaries. I will only be talking about the highest end common and uncommon types of inks. In Cataclysm that is Blackfallow Ink (henceforth known as Bi) and Inferno Ink (Ii) respectively. A stack of 5 individual herbs can be milled once into pigments. Two pigments are combined to make one ink. There is a chance for pigments that make Bi and Ii to drop each time you mill an herb introduced in the cataclysm expansion.

So how do you get prices for your inks? As I see it there are three ways to do this.

1. Sell all your Ii at a price that covers the cost of the stack of herbs you milled for it. This could be in the form of the inks themselves or as crafted items like the Darkmoon Fair cards. This leaves your Bi cost at 0 meaning everything you make from them is profit.
2. Sell all your Bi at a price that covers the cost of the stack of herbs you milled for it. This is the flip side of the coin that is option 1. This leaves all your Ii as a free item. Most people who use this method do so so that they can have a lower threshold price on their Darkmoon Fair card prices.
3. Calculate and sell both your Ii and Bi as a combined price so that you can know what the lowest common denominator is on every item you craft and sell.

I am a firm believer in method #3. In #'s 1 and 2 you have to hope you can sell all the crafted items from that one ink at above the herbs cost or your other ink isn't free anymore. The problem you run into regularly is that if you can't sell those inks (or items crafted from the inks) above those prices, your math gets really complicated and you end up losing money.

My premise for using #3 is that 1 Bi can be exchanged for 1 of every other common ink. Also 10 Bi can be exchanged for 1 uncommon ink (Ii and Si). This comes with the caveat that you can't exchange the other inks back to Bi so once the exchange is made you have to sell the item you make with the ink.

Now lets talk about herbs.

In every expansion there are multiple herbs of variying levels that fit into two categories when dealing with inscription. I call them low end herbs and high end herbs.

1. Low end herbs: Have a 250% chance to drop common pigment and a 25% chance to drop an uncommon pigment. These herbs are Heartblossom, Stormvine, Cinderbloom, and Azshara's Veil
2. High end herbs: Have a 300% chance to drop common pigment and a 50% chance to drop an uncommon pigment. These herbs are Whiptail and Twilight Jasmine.

What this means is for every 5 low end herbs on average you should get 2 ½ common pigment and ¼ of an uncommon pigment. For high end herbs you should get on average 3 common pigment and ½ of an uncommon pigment. The game obviously doesn't give out less than 1 whole pigment so sometimes you will get more and sometimes you will get less with each individual mill, but over the long run it works out to these numbers.

Since most people don't buy herbs in stacks of 5, but in stacks of 20. And since most people turn all those pigments into inks, the numbers for inks from a stack of 20 herbs is as follows.

1. Low end herbs: 5 Bi and ½ of 1 Ii
2. High end herbs: 6 Bi and 1 Ii

This shows that high end herbs yield more inks than low end herbs. High end herbs typically cost more than low end herbs because they are used in more recipes from other professions also.

Now that we know the drop rates and the different ways to calculate your ink prices I have a question for you.

Assuming you can use all your ink to make Mysterious Fortune Cards (Bi), and D.M.F. Cards (Ii) which should you buy: Cinderbloom at 100g per stack of 20 or Whiptail at 120g per stack of 20?

The answer is: It depends on how you calculate your inks.

If you use method #1 you want to buy the Whiptail.

If you use method #2 you can buy either since they are worth the exact same in ink prices.

If you use method #3 you want to buy the Cinderbloom.

I have built an Open Office spreadsheet to give me exact numbers on all (most) things inscription introduced in the Cataclysm expansion. Open Office is a free program that does all the things microsoft word/excel/powerpoint does but you don't have to pay for it. If you have exel I believe you can port my spreadsheet into it and have it work fine.

Get your free copy of Open Office Here

Download my spreadsheet HERE its free.

A note on prices in this spreadsheet. Prices are listed as GG.SSCC what that means is that gold is listed before the decimal point, then silver and copper is listed behind the decimal point in that order. A price of 12.3456 means 12 gold, 34 silver, and 56 copper

Now, we will only be using method #3 where we combine prices of inks. I do this because I plan on selling my whole stock of inks over the long run through various means of production. If I can figure out the price of the lowest common denominator -Bi- then I can figure out what each higher level of ink costs.

Therefore one Ii costs the same as 10 Bi

Looking at my spreadsheet you have 2 tabs at the bottom: Milling values and Crafted items.

Lets look at the Milling Values page first.

Across the top you see the cataclysm herbs.

In the blue boxes you put in the prices you pay for those herbs AS SINGLE HERBS. The spreadsheet takes those prices and calculates them into stack prices elsewhere so if you put them in as stack prices in the blue boxes you will get the wrong ink prices later.

The next section down is where the ink and herb prices are calculated.

First you see the name of each herb along with the average of low end herbs and average of high end herbs.

Next box over to the right you see the stack prices of each

Next box over you see how much each mill cost you at those herb prices

Next box over (yellow highlight) is the #3 method of calculating ink prices where 10 Bi = 1 Ii

Next box over is the #2 method of calculating ink prices where you only consider Bi prices to get your investment back.

Next box over is the #1 method of calculating ink prices where you only consider Ii prices to get your investment back.

(Collums E and F are only there for refrence for the people who use methods #1 and #2.)

The last two boxes in this section shows the average yield from a single mill of 5 herbs

The section right under the ink prices tell you what the combined average price of all your inks are in the column above and what the lowest price of a crafted glyph (at 3 inks plus a parchment) or a Mysterious Fortune Card (1 ink plus parchment) is. This is only an accurate price if you are putting in your prices for herbs in the top blue boxes.

The next section down has the final prices for a single ink in the red boxes and for pigments in the white boxes. Again this is only accurate if you are putting the prices you paid in the blue boxes at the top. This uses method #3 for the ink price calculation.

The final box on this page is for other materials that are used in items added in Cataclysm. The white boxes are for vendor bought items with no faction discount. If you get a faction discount or can buy the item for cheaper then change these prices to what you pay. Otherwise leave them as is.

On to the Crafted Items tab.

Top left is the Fortune card flip breakdown.

The first section you see is the amount of fortune cards reported to be found by other people. If you flip cards or have people willing to report which cards they get when they flip, then add to the numbers in the blue boxes. The grey section at the bottom right of the box shows how much you get back per card, just from flipping cards. The orange box next to it is the materials cost for the cards found on the previous tab. If the grey price is ever higher than the orange price then you can make a profit by just flipping cards, however you will almost alway make more profit by selling the cards at market value than flipping them yourself.

Staying on the left side of the page, underneath the fortune card breakdown is the relics you can make.

You will see the name of the item, the cost to make it, the sale price in blue that you input, the profit, and the percentage of profit.

Underneath that is Runescroll of Fortitude II.

This one is a little different, because everytime you craft this you get 5 scrolls. The blue box is the price of a SINGLE scroll. The profits and profit percentage is calculated to compensate

The box on the top right shows the cost, profit, and profit percentage of D.M.F. Cards and decks. There is also a refrence of how much each card is to make incase you want to sell individual cards instead of decks and trinkets. Always sell your cards above this price.

Under that is the Origami items.

These are made with 3 parchment each and just about any scribe can make them, but I'm sure most won't. If you bark in trade what they are you will probably get many sales.

Finally at the bottom right is the Held in Offhand items.

Same system: name, cost, price, and profit. These items will bring a steady income for you as long as you can know the cost and sell for a profit. Barking in trade will help your sales here too.

So there you have it. Change the prices in blue boxes to reflect your purchases and sales and look to the boxes in red for your ink threshold.

If you use this spreadsheet you should have a pretty good idea of what your break even price on any Cataclysm item is. From there you just add 5% for the auction house cut and whatever profit margin you want to get your final posting price.

Happy Holidays

Its been over a week since I posted last. Holiday time pretty much flattened me. Not only did I have all the usual Xmas stuff to do: last minute shopping, opening gifts, etc. My work also got super hectic. Normally I get time to blog and play from work because I work the midnight shift for an airline. I knock out all my work then use my downtime as I see fit until its time to get the planes out again in the morning. Well, not this month. Since about 5 times more people are flying for the holidays that means I have about 5 times more work to do.

Ok, enough with the excuses on to the content.

First I'd like to give an update on my last post. I have my druid at (almost) 84 and had time to do one 10 man raid on my DK. The new content is new. If you are a serious raider the new content is nice and fresh but nothing too different than what has come before. New mechanics that are similar to old mechanics, and new mechanics that are similar to the new heroics.

The only real difference in this expansion verses the old one is that blizzard seems to want us to work the mechanics of the encounters and not zerg it. That means crowd control, not standing in fire, self healing for all specs even if that means bandages. As an old school raider I welcome the change. It makes winning an encounter feel more like an accomplishment.

I have healed most of the normal versions of the dungeons as I level. As a healer I have to wait about 15 minutes for a dungeon to pop so the bottleneck is definitely with the shortage of tanks. The last time I healed on my druid was in the Burning Crusade expansion when it was just roll lifebloom on 3 people the whole time. Healing is completely different now. You really have to make some hard choices based on who is getting hit, how your mana and your regen is at that moment, if you have any procs and how bad the person is hurt.

In 5 mans my healing strategy is to roll 3 lifebloom on the tank and refreshing with lifebloom or nourish if minimal damage is going out on him. As soon as others take damage I throw out a wild growth on them and if they need more then throw a rejuv. If there is still more damage going around or even centered on the tank I throw a swiftmend to get the efflorescence proc. I try to use those swiftmends every time its on cooldown. If the whole group is taking major damage I either tranquility or pop broccoli form and spam regrowth on everyone for that last second save/breathing room. And finally the most important thing:

USE EVERY CLEARCASTING PROC.

I use them mostly on healing touch if it wont overheal and I have time before someone dies and if not I use it on regrowth. Using those clearcasting procs for big heals will be the best way to save your mana and you absolutely need to save your mana.

All and all I am liking playing a resto druid and I feel I will be able to be ready when I get to 85.



On to the gold making side of things. Blacksmithing profits have slowed down and came down to the expected levels on non orb gear. Expect to make anywhere between 10g and 300g per item over mats costs. As for orb gear I expect to be able to make a few thousand gold if I make and sell the item from my mats or sell the orb for 400g to 600g each with someone else's mats. Not horrible, but not gonna be the best profit per hour out there.

I have been reading that there is a new saronite shuffle out there. Using jewelcrafting to make carnelian spikes then disenchanting and selling the enchanting mats turns a profit. Similarly if you are an enchanter/alchemist you can make a lifebound alchemists stone and de it into a maelstrom crystal. Right now those crystals are only being picked up by raiders and the above method. I made a few for 750g in mats and sold the crystals for 2k each. Prices are coming down though.

It looks like inscription is going to be the big winner again this expansion as far as gold per hour goes. Glyph profits are a little higher per glyph right now but people are buying less since they only have to buy one of each ever. This doesnt mean stop making them by any means. If it makes a profit, craft it. Don't forget the DMF cards. Next week will be the first chance at making the decks into trinkets and expect the prices and amount of sales to be high.

Inscription did get a boost to the top gold making spot by getting some spectacular entry level relics and the holy grail: Mysterious fortune card. This card is blizzards answer to gamblers and in game casinos. When you get a card you "flip" it to turn it into a vendor item. That item has a chance of becoming one of 9 different denominations anywhere between 1 silver and 5,ooo gold. Of course the gambler's hope is that they will "win big" and get one of the 1k or 5k rare items. So far that item is INCREDIBLY rare. If you are a scribe you want to make these to sell not to flip yourself. Here is a little table of reported amounts found when the cards are flipped.

(prices are in gold before the decimal and silver after eg: 81.20 is 81 gold 20 silver)

Card Value	# found	Total Stack Price	% found
0.10	812	81.20	53.88%
0.50	299	1495.00	19.84%
1.00	253	253.00	16.79%
5.00	105	525.00	6.97%
20.00	34	680.00	2.26%
50.00	2	100.00	0.13%
200.00	2	400.00	0.13%
1,000.00	0	0.00	0.00%
5,000.00	0	0.00	0.00%
Totals	1,507	1,960	Vendor per Card
			1.44

What this shows is that over the course of flipping more than 1,500 cards the total gold earned back from vendoring is 1.44g per card. If you got just one 5k card added to that batch you would only have an average card return of 4.77g per card.

If you are paying more than these prices for a card you are losing money. By the way prices for the materials to make these cards are at about 18g each on my server so don't expect to see a card sell for less than 20g. To break even by flipping cards you would have to find 6 of the 5k cards in a run of 1500 cards. Do I need to say it... IMPOSSIBLE!

Stick to selling the cards and leave the flipping to those who can't do math.

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.

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.