Random Rewards: Mysterious Fortune Card

When I started leveling my inscription, one of the items you use to get gains is the Mysterious Fortune Card. I thought at first that this was a useless item, but the more I made the more I decided I should review the item before I vendored it.

The Mysterious Fortune Card is a card that when used changes into a random Card that lists your fortune, and sells for X amount of gold. The X is where it gets interesting. The used card can sell between 5 and 5,000g, depending on what card it is. Let the gambling begin!

Right now, Glyphs are selling for an average of 80g, which is great if you bought inks before the ink trader changed (which I did) and still have some in stock (which I don’t) – because of this, its more expensive for me to trade inks, or more work if I have to farm or purchase the old herbs required to make inks.

The lowest herb price on my server is Cinderbloom at 6g per herb, which equates to 30g per mill and 120g per stack.  If I do a rough average of 3 Ashen Pigment per Mill, then I get cost of 19.8g per Blackfallow ink ((6*5=30)*0.66)=19.8). The Fortune Card requires 1 Blackfallow Ink and 1 Ressillant Parchment (12 silver) to make, rounding our cost to 20g per card.

Currently these cards are going for 45-50g per card, but I have seen as high as 150g and as low as 25g. if I set my sell price at 40g per card, I gain 20g profit per Card not including any Burning Embers I get during the milling process.

Stack of Herbs: 120g (investment)

Ink from 1 Stack: 6 Inks = 6 Cards = 240g Return

Profit: 120g per stack of herbs bought, not including Burning Embers.

If Card prices are under 30g per, I would look at Fortune Cookie Prices as this food is a great raiding food, with the added benefit of the fortune card.



NOTE: I wrote this post a while ago, in the meantime I myself have caught the Mysterious Fortune bug and often the cards do not get past my inscriptionist before I flip them over.  I would advise NOT forming this habbit as it is not very conductive to making gold - but it is pretty fun :) 

To buy or not to buy?

Many people are leveling professions, with that comes an influx of crafted materials. The specific market I am reviewing currently is Enchanting scrolls.

People are throwing scrolls up on the Auction house for ridiculous prices, begging to be bought up. But speculation has been ongoing on wither or not these scrolls will be able to be turned for a profit.

Example "Enchant Cloak– Intellect" has been going for between 1g to 8g.  This is a popular enchant that could be used by multiple different classes.

Risk Analysis

Right now people are not going through gear quickly and are not worrying about min/maxing (at least majority) so these scrolls are not selling quickly. Couple that with the fact that enchanters can use this recipe to level Enchanting leaves us with a low demand, high supply item – not a recipe for gold success.

This is where a goblin’s patience can potentially off. If you have extra space, in either a bank or alt mailbox, you could buy up a few of these and wait a few weeks/months for the prices to rise making a tidy profit.

This is rather risky, as you are counting on the prices rising, but it could be a well worth investment. Personally I am buying any 85 enchant under 3 g and sending them to one of my obscure alts to hang out in their mailbox for a while.

A few more examples
Enchant Bracer - Expertise (going for 50s on my server some nights)
Enchant Bracer - Precision as low as 2g

Glyph’s are they worth it?

Glyph’s were a major money maker for me at the end of WOTLK. The only major drawback I encountered was the time it takes to create my large stock of glyphs.

Enter CATA – glyphs are selling at an average of 80g per on my server (some as high as 250, but many as low as 20g) and I have finally run out of stock that I saved from before the ink trader change.

Now if I want to create more glyphs I will have to either go farm old world herbs (not as hard as was previously with a flying mount) or buy/farm Cata herbs and trade.

My issue with glyphs right now is that it doesn’t seem worth it. The average price per glyph if I purchase the cheapest CATA herb is 14.79g per Glyph (80g sell, 63.43g cost).  I normally have about 350 Glyphs so that’s about 4,917g after AH fees and such.

Now, 5k isn’t bad – but it isn’t great either. Considering that it takes me anywhere from 1-2 hrs to complete my glyph cycle, I could spend that on more lucrative gold making cycles.

Right now glyphs just don’t seem worth it to me. I am involved with almost every market on my server and maintaining a sold Glyph presence doesn’t seem viable – at this at this point.

This is restricted to glyphs however, other inscription items are still on my crafting cycle – but I’ll save that for another day.

So, here’s my tip. Don’t get stuck in your old  habits. Be sure you are reviewing your gold making strategies to ensure that you are getting the most gold per hour. Don’t follow a routine just because it’s what you are used to.

Best time to buy!

I work full time, raid 4 Nights (3 hrs) a week and I am a full time Goblin, that takes up a lot of time. From usually around 6 am to 5 PM PST I am not available to do much wow stuff with the exception of some remote AH checking when I am on a break or having a slow day.

With that in mind, I look for deals when and where I can, example 5 AM Material prices! When I get up at 5 am, I make some coffee and do a quick AH scan while I get ready for my morning workout. During that scan I often find that ore and herb prices have dropped dramatically, probably because A) the late night famers have posted all their materials and B)less people are on so less buyers.

Example: Wensday 12/22 when I logged on at 5 am elementium ore was at 5g Per/100g a stack. At 4 PM it was over 15g per stack and rising. As more people logged on for the day and it started to reach peak hours, the prices significantly rose.

You can also follow this trend during the week. Monday’s elementium ore can go for as slow as 2-3g per, while Thursday and Friday tend to have 18-22g per prices. During the week between work and school, less people have time to farm for materials, but on weekends, everyone is out farming.

I used elementium ore a lot in this example, however this trend can be found across multiple markets. I don’t mean for you to get up at 5 am just to buy some items (unless of course that’s your thing), but if you’re up anyway due to work or school and have a few spare minutes, give it a try – you could get a great deal!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Golden Muse!

Update on Perfect Nightsones!

Last week I posted to buy up the gem cuts Timeless Nightstone, Jagged Jasper, and Solid Zephyrite

as blizzard was removing the proc of perfect for these cuts [source]. At the time, these gems were going for 5-10g per gem as jewel crafters dumped them into the AH after a disappointing attempt to get their daily done.

Once I heard of this hotfix, I bought up all the perfect cuts under 10g on the AH, investing approximately 1000g.

These cuts are now up to 75-95g per on my server as people buy these gems instead of their more expensive blue counterparts for their leveling gear. My initial 1000g investment has already profited about 4000g as I have sold a little under half of my perfect stock. 

Last night I purchased the Gem Cut Willful Ember Topaz as part of my PVP Gem experiment. I cut 5 and placed them on the AH for 450g per. This was pretty late last night and none have sold so far, but I am hopeful that they will sell as it reaches peak play time.

I made a tentative decision on my Tailoring route (see this post for details) with one more Chaos orb I will be able to craft my 6th dreamcloth and create the Breeches of Mended Nightmares, I am going to post them around 20k and see if I have a buyer. If not, I am going to wear them and then focus on Spellthread. This employ's one of my tenants of AHing - Never buy something you wont use.

This is the reason I chose the Willful Ember Topaz as my PVP gem cut. If I decided to PVP on my mage, then this is probably the gem I will use, therefore if this experiment ends up being a failure I did not invest in something that wont eventually get used.

Tailoring Speculation – Dreamcloth

Tailoring has always been a profitable profession for me, not just at the beginning but throughout expansions. Even at the end of WOTLK I was able to craft and sell BOE Epic Items consistently.  With the introduction of CATA I have new BOE patterns to craft and of course a new cloth cooldown to deal with. There are 6 possible ways to craft Dreamcloth, 5 of which have a 6 day cooldown.  The Destruction Cloth  does not have cooldown, however requires 5 Chaos Orbs. With Heroic’s being challenging again (which I love) it takes anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours to complete a heroic and most crafters are grabbing up these orbs like candy.

Because of the rarity of the cooldown, it makes determining what to craft rather challenging. The first two things I have been looking at with Dreamcloth are the new Leg Enchants:

Powerful Enchanted Spellthread 

Powerful Ghostly Spellthread

Each of these items requires 1 Dreamcloth and sells for between 1700-2200 g currently on my server.

Dreamcloth has an average price of 800g to create (if I don’t count the chaos orb cooldown) which results in a profit of 900 to 1400g per.

The second thing I was reviewing was the BOE Crafted items. They cost 1 dreamcloth just to purchase and between 4 to 6 Dreamcloth to create.

Breeches of Mended Nightmares

Flame-Ascended Pantaloons

Dreamless Belt

I have already purchased the Breeches of Mended Nightmares and Dreamless belt, as these were items that I could use to get my main character raid ready. The risk I see with these items is I haven’t actually seen any of them SELL on the AH.

Sure I’ve seen these items up for between 25-30k, but each day I look and they are still on the AH or have been relisted.  The investment in the purple BOE is between 3200-4000g per item and also the fact that the cooldown has been burned for a week.

Therefore there are two possible roads I could take.

Rout A) Medium Risk

Craft the Spellthreads using all of my Dreamcloth Cooldown – sell no lower than 1500g per.

Investment Cost: 4,000g

Possible Sell Price: 13,200g

Profit: 9,200g

If sold at lowest price, total sell price is reduced to 9,000g and profit to 5,000g

Analysis

I think of this as medium risk only because the majority of guilds on my server have not really begin hard core raiding and raiders are going to be the majority of my customer base for these items. Most people would not want to waste an expensive epic enchant on a rare item, and instead would rather purchase the rare spellthread for a fraction of the cost (135-250g currently, not even worth the mats as people use these recipes to level tailoring).

However, once people start raiding, these items will sell – it’s just a matter of when.

Rout B) High Risk

Craft Either Pants or Belt – sell no lower than 10,000g per

Investment Cost: 4000g

Possible Sell Price: 20,000g

Profit: 16,000g

If sold at lowest price, total sell price is reduced to 10,000g and profit to 6,000g

Alternate secondary fallback price of 15,000g returns 11,000g profits.

Analysis

BOE Epics are tricky, sometimes they sell like candy and other times you’d be better off DEing the item.  This item is high risk for my just because the customer base is significantly smaller than Rout A, as the Spellthreads are used by non-cloth wearers.

In addition, most people are hesitant to purchase large price tag’d items (Look at a Car commercials, most advertise the possible Rate/Month and the total price is in the smaller text) so I would be looking for big spenders who want then instant gratification of EPICS NOW!

Lastly, I haven’t actually seen any of these items sell. This could be because of the reasons I listed above, or it could be that the prices were just too high (30,000 g does seem like a lot), perhaps if I sold my items at half the normal price (12-15k) then I would see some sales.  The time to sell these items is now, before people start raiding and getting better BOP epics.

If the item didn’t sell, then I would either sit on it for when raiding has quieted and another wave of alts gets to 85 (4-5 months) or DE the item for 3k, taking a 1k loss.

What’s a Girl to do? When I finally decided ill post some results. In the meantime, back to work for me. Tonight I’ll be able to get the PVP gem and I can start that experiment. Have fun!

TUJ is No More

It’s a sad, sad day for Gold Makers today, as The Undermine Journal has gone offline

http://blog.theunderminejournal.com

I have been expecting this for a few days now, with the release of the new Armory, the host and developer of the site was experiencing multiple issues. I was hopeful, as it wasn’t shut off yet. But as I was skimming the items and determining what today’s blog post would be about I was taken to the closed page:

Sad Panda is Sad.

Good news is even with TUJ I still created and maintained my own personal spreadsheet  and list and kept up all my old AH habits. TUJ was more for the notification and ease of access while I was at work.

Goodbye TUJ, Hope to see you again someday!

Possible Niche Market – PVP Gems?

Choosing a gem cut on a high population server is pretty hard. The first cuts are out and now everyone is scrambling to get all the PVE cuts and sell them for 150-300g a cut. If you review the undermine journal, one thing to notice is that many times there is no data on any PVP Gems. So far on my server there is No Data for Spell Penetration or Resilience Gems. I see the possibility of profit!

My server is a high population server with a pretty even mix of PVP and PVE player base. Pretty soon, most players will exhaust their patience with PVE content and move on to serious PVP. With Serious PVP comes PVP gems!

I have not found one person on my server with a blue PVP Gem cut, mostly because the PVE cuts are making consistent money.  Therefore my next test of the market is going to be to purchase a PVP cut and see how it compares with my PVE Cuts.

I think this would depend on your sever. If your server does not have an active PVP player base I would NOT recommend doing this. Ill test it out over the next few days and return the results.

Famers are out in force and elementium ore prices have begun to plummet. I was able to purchase 1000 ore for 3.5k this morning, prospected it all and so far have made around 6.7k, with a bunch of Blue and Green Gems left over.  If you want good deals, observe the farming times on your server, traditionally – the earlier you check the AH the better. I find my best deals when I get up at 4:30 AM for work and do a quick scan of the AH.

Perfect Timeless Nightstone - Buy em up!

12/14 Blizzard Hotfix had lots of changes, one of which I see a potential for gold making.

The gem cuts Timeless Nightstone, Jagged Jasper, and Solid Zephyrite can no longer create perfect versions of the cut. [source]

This was the most annoying thing ever, as the daily quest would not accept the perfect versions of the quest.  Because of this, Perfect gems of these cuts were going from 5-10g on my server, since there were so many.

With the perfect option being removed, I imagine that the price will increase as people outfit their green gear or blue gear. Most people don’t want to spend 300-400g on a blue gem cut for gear they will replace soon. But would rather get a perfect cut for 75-100g. My advice? Buy up the cheap perfect cuts now (for the above only) and wait a week, then sell at 75-100g for a nice profit.

1 Week of Cata Update - I hate Nightstones

I’m alive!

My week of vacation is over and I’m back to work, which means back to blogging. Here is a rundown of my first week of cata.

Day 1 to 3– Farming like crazy

Once the release hit I hopped on my 80 priest with 310% speed and headed over to Mount Hyjal to farm some Obsidium Ore. The first 45 minutes were great and I was able to get 2 stacks and my mining up to 470. However the horde of characters quickly swept in and soon it was very hard to find any nodes.

Therefore I decided to take a chance and move on to Twilight Highlands. TH is the last zone most people go to when leveling, so I figured it would be the least populated.

I was correct. For the first two days I had TH all to myself (the occasional farm would drop in) and the elementium was flowing! I am pretty sure the zone was bugged because every 5 feet there would be an elementium vein or pyrite vein. After 20 hours of farm I had around 3000 elementium ore, 600 pyrite and a bunch of gems.

The first 1000 ore I sold for 600g a stack (30,000) and the rest for around 450g (once the competition started getting in(45,000) netting a total of 75,000 within the first 2 days.

I took some of the ore and grinded up my Jewel crafting on my primary toon so that I could start the daily asap (need 475 jewel crafting).  Then it was back to farming. I farmed another 1000 ore for my jewel crafting profession.

Day 4 – Max JC and Alchemy!

Day 4 hit and more people were invading TH and the amount of ore available dipped dramatically, also prices were going around 225g a stack (still nice, but not the 400-600 I was getting at first). I decided it was time to level my Mage and some professions. As I started leveling, I would periodically review the AH online, and buy up any Cata herbs that were too low. I spent about 1000g total and was able to max out my alchemy and then sell what I made for about 2200g. Once I was 525 I was able to craft Shadowspirit Diamonds and Truegold.

My first transmute of true gold proc’d 5. Yes that’s right 5. I believe I was the first to post them on the AH and I sold each one for 5,000g each. 

Now that I could craft meta’s I used prospected the 1000 ore and leveled JC so I could learn a Meta Cut. Being a Draenei helped a lot with this.

Once I was able I learned and cut the Asture Shadowspirit Diamond, and sold 6 for 1,500g each.

I decided that the rest of the time I would concentrate on leveling and getting my mage heroic ready. I spent 6 k leveling my tailoring and started making Dreamcloth.

END of Cata Gold Total

+75,000 (day 1-3 mining)

-1000 (525 Alchemy)

+25,000 (Truegold Proc)

+2,200 (Misc. Alchmey Creations)

+9,000 (Meta Cuts)

-6,000 (525 tailor)

104,200g in week 1 of cata

And I still have about 15 of each rare gem (pending cuts) and 20-25 of each green gem with the exception of nightstones.

Nightstones are evil. They are used for everything and are hard to come by. EVIL I TELL YOU!

In addition to the gold, I was able to max 3 professions with a 4^th on the way (JC could be maxed but I am waiting for a second Meta Cut) with lots of raw materials waiting to be turned into something fun. My Mage is level 85 and already heroic ready. Now the challenge will be balancing my gold making business with also being a full time raider on the one of the top guilds on my server.

Don't Sell Your Pyrite

At least not yet.

Pyrite isn't used all that much in leveling, yet people are getting a ton of it when farming elementium. My advice is to save it for now. In a week or so, when people are crafting BOE blues and Purples, pyrite should increase in price.

that's my quick advice for the day - back to farming!

16 hrs and counting!

That’s right folks, 16 hours (for US residents) until Cata is finally here! In preparation for Cata I took the 7^th – 10^th off. Tonight I plan to get off work at 4 PM and take a nice long nap, ready to wait in line at Game Stop at 11 PM.

What’s my plan for Cata?

Seriously I have no idea.

There are too many choices! I already posted the first half of my auctions in preparation for release (took me over an hour) and once I get home I plan on posting the second half which is primarily glyphs. Once all those are posted, I am ready to begin.

But begin what?

My original plan was to login and start fishing on my main. The server first title will go very well with my Salty title and fishing is one of the things I like to do in my spare time in wow. However since I am buying the collector’s edition and I am not hard core enough to buy the digital download and collector’s edition, that means that when 12:00 AM Hits, I will be driving home from Game Stop, and others will be logging in. It’s only a 5-6 minute gain, but that’s enough to cut me out of the running for server first.

With Server First out of the running what next? Again my original plan was to get my paladin to level 80 (since she is my herb/mining character) and farm for the first 2 days to take advantage of the insane prices. However I only managed to get her to level 70, I didn’t push as hard as I could have, mainly because I didn’t want to burn myself out on wow.

I could use my secondary miner, the priest, and farm up some ore. I could continue leveling my paladin to at least 75, then farm on her. I could ignore farming completely and level my main (who is a JC/Tailor) and at least level tailoring.

There are so many choices; I have no idea what I want to do.

Glyph Overflow!

I have Glyphs coming out of places I didn’t know I had. I have about 30 of all glyphs, and an additional 20 of the top glyphs, 2 guild bank tabs full of glyphs and I still have around 2000 inks (various) for making more.

Today my plan is to finish up my enchanting scroll stockpile. I want to have 50 scrolls of each of the popular lowbie enchants.

I also have about 1000 small eggs ready for Winter Veil and about 50 suits. I have that ready for when the holiday hits, as I am sure the majority of people will still be busy with new cata stuff.
The Paladin is level 70, so my plan is to grind out 10 levels this weekend and by 80 by Monday. Not sure if that is going to happen, especially since I am also going to work this weekend, but I really want to be able to mine and herb once cata hits.

My backup plan is my Priest, who is a miner/enchanter with epic flight.

I invested 1000g this morning in a Battered Hilt. The normal price for this is 7000-9000g on my server. My main character never completed this quest so I wouldn’t mind the achievement, but I think I may hold on to it for a few months to see if it will sell for a nice price.

Last Minute tip? Login without any addons. While most addons are up to date, with every patch there is a risk of the addon not working and causing you problems. 

Cata is Creeping

Been really busy the last few days, so busy in fact that the only thing I have been able to do in wow is buy up cheap herbs and re-stock my glyphs. The Fact that I am taking a week off next week finally hit home in my workplace and they are now scrambling to try to get me to do just one more project and train the other Project Manager on my applications.

In addition to working 12/hr days, I also decided to slow down a bit on my wow time, I bought and read a few new books and watched some movies. Why you ask? The next few weeks I am going to be absorbed in the World of Warcraft. Therefore, I figured it was time for a mini-break, that way I was rested and ready to take Cata head on.  No Gold updates today, I hope everyone is as excited as I am. I cannot wait for Tuesday!

Don’t get greedy…

While most markets are winding down in the final days before cata’s release, it seems like the Glyph market is really heating up on my server. There are 3-4 major contenders, with another 3-4 others trying to get in on the glyph market. While undercutting is fierce, it’s not too horrible as we all tend to stay within the same price ranges (except for the newer people, who sometimes sell their glyphs uber cheap, which get bought up by me or my competitors for resale).

The issue we seem to be facing is Overpricing, and I am not really sure it’s even overpricing – let me explain.

Prior to 4.0.3a if you were a serious goblin, you made sure you traded a bunch of Ink of the Sea for other inks, as you knew about the Ink Trading change. Prior to that, Major and Prime Glyph prices were around 25-35g per on average.  After that change, overnight glyph prices rose 30g and they keep getting higher. Right now a lot of glyph’s are being posted at 130-150g.

I am not posting at 150g. Part of me would love it if my Glyph stock sold at 150g a pop. But the other part of me is realistic.  While others post their Glyph’s for 150g, mine are being posted at 75-90g (depending on glyph).

You may ask why I am not charging huge prices. If all the major sellers agree to prices on my server (as they tend to do within a few silver) then everyone will have to buy at our insane price. Why am I not making that much more gold?

Because it feels greedy. Yes I play to make gold. Yes I believe in supply and demand, but marking up something 900% doesn’t seem like good practice to me.  At the end of the weekend, 80% of my glyphs sold and I post twice a day, every day. Since I stuck to my guns I think more of my stock sold than normal netting me around 22k since Friday in glyphs alone.  I also monitor my competitors and while some of their glyph’s sold, it didn’t seem like they were selling as fast as mine where.

What does that tell us? Don’t get Greedy!

Yes, there are people willing to pay 150g  or more a Glyph just because they want it now. However there are also a bunch of players who would rather wait for a lower price, or worse go make an alt and level inscription themselves, or go find a guildy. Personally I feel that if prices are too crazy, then you drive people away from your market – especially in one as competitive as glyphs. In my opinion its best to find a nice comfortable price, one that others are willing to pay and one that still nets you a decent profit.

With my 90g average that’s 70g profit per Glyph (average herb price 40g a stack, 1 stack = approx. 2 Glyphs). That’s a nice chunk of change for a single glyph. Some of the more rare glyphs I do increase the price, and obviously the common ones go for lower. But that’s a comfortable price for me that it seems like customers also agree with.

You may not agree, but I think that is one of the Keys to AH success in common markets.

Leveling Status update

Paladin is 67, mainly because I think I am part cat and had tons of naps over the weekend that seriously interfered with wow time. Or I would get distracted as I am attempting to enter the market on the horde side of my server. Hopefully with the holiday over I will find more focus and get the paladin to 80 before cata’s release.

Market within a Market - Minor Glyphs

If you are a goblin fond of risky roller coater markets, then you probably partake in the Glyph Market.

I am relatively new to the Glyph Market but so far it has been very lucrative.


One thing I noticed was that there was fierce competition on Prime and Major glyphs, currently the running average on my mid/high pop server is 35-55g per glyph.

But then I take a look at minor glyphs and notice that the average price for those is 125-155g per glyph and that the market is not as saturated.


I believe the majority of people are learning their glyphs from Northrend Inscription Research (which normally grants you a Prime or Major Glyph) and not doing their Minor Inscription Research which grants Minor Glyphs. Both share the same cooldown.

So what's the solution?

as Kreaton posted on his blog not too long ago, if you have a lowbie banker (as I did) make him/her a scribe and grind to 75. Once there you can learn minor inscription research and have your lowbie craft the minor Glyphs, while your main scribe can still learn the Major or Prime ones.


The Glyph Market is getting a few more competitor's on my server as people are board and attempting to make money for cata, even with this i am still able to average around 30-45g profit per glyph in sales and make around 2000g a day in glyphs alone. Vanishing Powder is still selling on a regular basis (wtf?) but Enchanting Vellum's are not. I think that's because most people who are making scrolls are AH savvy and know they can buy it from a vendor now, whereas vanishing powder is used by the general population.


I haven't made any large deals in the last few days, with the holiday I spent a lot of time cooking and cleaning and visiting family, spending little time on the AH. The biggest deal I think I made was getting 2 Arctic Fur and 40 Frozen Orbs for 100g (Seller in Trade Chat).


The Paladin has reached level 66 and I hope to have her to 72 before the weekend is over and 75 before next Friday, still trying to get to 80 before cata hits.

I hope you have a great holiday weekend filled with lots of turkey :)

The Shattered landscape …is amazing

4.0.3a was released yesterday and Azorth will never be the same. I logged into my primary AH toon and found that Vanishing powder was still available via vendors, so one rumor was indeed a bug. I posted all the vanishing powder I stocked up on the auction house anyway, and it has already sold.

Enchanting Vellum is available now via Enchanting vendors, so I bought up a few stacks of those and placed them on the AH. My hope is to take advantage of this market before it becomes common knowledge.

After I posted those items and relisted my glyphs that had expired, I decided to explore the destruction that Deathwing brought starting in Stormwind.

Stormwind is much more polished, I am very happy with the changes. I ran around checking out all the new and old vendor’s to see if there were any changes or additions.

First thing I noticed was the new bag vendor and bags such as "Carriage - Exclusive" Enchanting Evening Purse. I didn’t buy any yet but I think I may invest in a couple to see if they would flip on the AH.

The second thing I noticed was the new bank and auction house locations. Love it. With two locations there should be less crowding for my bank toon if I do decide to move her from the Exodar.

Next of course was the Cooking daily, the reward of which is the new cooking award. This means that players can start getting the recipes to help level their cooking before Cata is even released.

After I got done exploring  Stormwind I decided to get some of the new flight paths. As I was getting flight paths, I of course decided to look at the new vendors. Low and behold most of the General Vendors had limited supply green items, mainly Wrist and Back items such as Owl Bracers for just a few silver, I decided to pick up each item I found and by the end of the night I had all the flight paths on Eastern Kingdom and 15-20 green items.

Once I was done with Eastern Kingdom it was, unfortunately, time for me to go to bed. Before that I put the items on the auction house for 8-15g depending on the item.

Wake up this morning and over half of the auctions have sold for a total around 115g. Not a huge money maker, but it was nice to make a profit while I was running around exploring the new zones. Perhaps I can have the same luck tonight with Kalimdor.

If you haven’t already, be sure to go learn Glyph of Mage Armor from the trainer.  I learned this first thing last night and posted a few for 100g on the Auction house, which have already sold. This morning people are posting them between 250-400g but I think I’ll keep my price 100g or below,  I would rather sell consistently than wait for the higher price – as I am sure word is going to get out about the Glyph.

Tomorrow I’ll report on Kalimdor and see if I find anything noteworthy.

The quiet has been shattered!

At least that is what my mage thinks. Previously I would rarely be bothered with Portal Requests – once the servers  are up and people realize that they can no longer portal jump everywhere they are going to be screams on anguish from all the non-mages of Azeroth.

I also expect screams from other quarters. If you have been reading gold blogs then you  have heard the rumor that Jessica Sellers the ink trader will no longer be trading Ink of the Sea for other inks, instead she will be trading Blackfallow Ink (which is unobtainable), which means glyph prices are going to go up yet again.

Another rumor is that Vanishing Powder will not be available on the Inscription vendors, so I hope you stocked up!

Last night I spent most of my time posting. I posted a bunch of glyphs and enchants. I didn’t invest in the BOE market, but I wanted to make sure I focused on the Glyph market this time around. I have a ton of ink (about 3000 broken down into various inks) and a stockpile of common glyphs.

Let’s see what the take is once the servers come back up.

Emerald Whelp – o How I love thee

What a weekend. As you may note, I don’t blog much on the weekends – I get really caught up in gaming so I tend to not read blogs nor write them – it’s also because I want to save the content so I have something to do other than work on Monday morning.

I surprisingly didn’t play much wow this weekend; I started playing Fable 2 and got caught up in it. I did manage of course to do a daily post/scan of the auction house, while I was reviewing the auction I noticed the elusive Emerald Whelp for 11k buyout, whist I can afford it – I can’t really bring myself to spend that much on a vanity item. However I noticed the bid of 300g. Knowing that I would probably be outbid, I bid on it anyway. After that I put it from my mind and continued my endless posting of Glyphs while exploring the land of Fable.

Low and behold I login this morning to a bright and shiny new Emerald Whelp for only 300g. Somehow, no one outbid me. Before the Goblin could rear its head I sent it to my main and learned it.

To appease the Goblin, the Red Whelp which I purchased for 500g is now on the AH for 8k. I don’t expect to sell it soon, with 4.0.3a around the corner, but you never know. 

Tip of the Day:  Don't put an item up with a low bid unless that is a price you are comfortable with. That Whelp should have really gone for 3k minimum, but because of lazy or intept posting - I walk away with it for 300g.

Regardless my play time, I did manage to net around 9k in misc items this weekend. But I spent another 10k (5 of which was a loan) on more cataclysm goods (ore, eternals, ect).

Everyone ready for 4.0.3a? I’m pretty sure I am going to go insane with all the tells I am going to get (being a mage) from all the people not used to actually Flying everywhere. 

I think it would be good if they made scrolls of recall something that could be used by everyone, not just Inscriptions. That way it would be another commodity that we could sell and give non-engineers, non-mages a second way of traveling. Or perhaps expand upon the potion of Deepholm, where you can create potions for major cities. I understand that blizzard wants everyone to experience the new zones and not just port anywhere – but that is going to get really old in a few months.

A Crimson Conundrum

I woke up at 5 am this morning and started my morning routine

Ø  Login to Wow

Ø  Scan AH

Ø  Shower while scan is in progress

Ø  Once complete, review emails…

And that’s when I saw this

O…M…F…G…

I snatched it up. I have always been an avid Pet Collector and the Whelping’s have always somehow evaded my grasp. When I do see them, they are for insane prices on the AH, and the Goblin in me wars with the Pet collector and I don’t end up spending 30k for a freaking pet.

Now I have a Whelp. But now…what to do?

The average price for the Whelping on my server is 5k. That’s a 1000% turn around if I sell it for the average price.

Once again the Goblin and Pet Collector are at war.

If this was the Tiny Emerald Whelping, there would be no competition. The Pet Collector would buy the pet, equip it and strangle the goblin with her purse strings if she uttered a single protest. But its not. While I do want to collect all the whelping pets, I could sell the pet and purchase more herbs for inks or raw materials to sell and possibly make a killing in Cata.

Right now the Pet Collector seems to be in the lead and I did not put the Whelp on the AH before I left for work – but I didn’t send it to my main to equip either.

On the Gold Front I have recovered from my AH Spree and I am back at 30k on my banker (I don’t really look at my other toons personal loot) Doesn’t seem like a lot to some of the Major gold contenders, but I’m happy with 30 k liquid and 4 guild bank + 2 Character banks filled with materials.  With the weekend coming up I am hoping to drop another 10k on cheap materials once the farmers come out to play. We’ll see how it goes.



4.0.3a on the Horizon!

With 4.0.3a on the horizon many inscription changes are in the works. If you read the Consortium Forums (which you should), the Elen Posted that come 4.0.3a the ink trader change will be in effect, even though blackfallow ink will not be available yet. In addition, Vanishing Powder will no longer be available from inscription vendors – instead Dust of Disappearance will be in its place.  Last, but not least Glyph of Mage Armor will again be trainable.

Because of these changes, and because Pilgram’s Bounty is on the horizon, I don’t think that 4.0.3a will be released 11/23 , especially with reports of all the bugs present in the current beta version. I think it more likely that they will release 4.0.3a on 11/30 just 1 week before Cata goes live. Of course I could be completely wrong.

What does this mean for you? This shortens the time you have to stock-up on inks so get out there and trade your ink of the sea while you can, stock up on vanishing powder and sell those Glyphs of Mage Armor if you have been holding on to them!

Buying Herbs for Inscription – prices

One of the first mistakes I ever made when I entered the AH was to buy material at prices that when crafted would sell for less than I paid in materials. Now I am very careful to only buy materials at my lowest crafted threshold.

For Glyphs, my threshold is 10g. When I look at Herbs and Glyphs this is what I do

20 x Herb Price: 12g (.6 s per herb)

20x Herbs = 12 Azure Pigments = 6 Ink of the Sea = 2 Glyphs =  6 g per Glyph Cost (12g/2)

Therefore if I sell at my lowest threshold I will still be making 4g per glyph in profit.  I also take this into account when I am reviewing my competitor’s stock. If they are selling at below my threshold, then I buy up their stock – they have already saved me the milling/trading/crafting time by providing the glyph at below cost.

Now, many Glyphs will sell above (or way above) my threshold of 10g – but the inscription market is very competitive and risky. The prices of Glyphs change from 13g one day to 130 g the next, all in a blink of an eye. Because of this I choose to be a bit on the conservative side when buying materials.

Here is a quick spreadsheet, just plug in your Northrend Herb Prices to get a quick estimation on what the cost of crafting a glyph would be: IM A GOOGLE SPREADSHEET

Note – this is estimating an average of 3 azure pigments per mill – results may vary.

Gold Glyphmas

I'm dreaming of a Gold Glyphmas

Just like the one 403 brought

where the Auction House glistens

and Sellers listen, to hear,  buyers bitch and moan

I'm dreaming of a gold Glyphmas

with every class glpyh that I scribe

May your glphys and inks be sold

and may all your glyph-masses be gold!

Auction House Abeyance

Deals seem to be winding down on my server and it now takes a mere 2 minutes to scan the auction house (used to be 10) as there are less and less items as people are focusing more on the Elemental Invasion and Cata.  I am still doing my daily grind on the auction house, looking for deals and buying up any cheap items I can. But I have stopped my hard-core Glyph war I have with my major competitors in the Glyph Market.

I have a few competitors on my server and we are consistently trying to run each other out of business, lately some have been posting Glyphs as low as 3g per, so instead of fighting this war I decided to buy up any Glyph under 5g and just save them for the Cata-Glyphmas. Even if I only sell these for 10g per, it’s still a profit.

I was able to find a nice flip, I found Schematic: Crashin’ Thrashin’ Robot for 100g and flipped it for 1200g.

Crunch time is on for getting my Paladin to 80 before Catacysm is released, I figured if I get to level 65 by Friday, I can crank out 5-6 levels over the weekend and hopefully be in Northrend by Sunday. Then its two weeks to 80. If I get 2 levels during the week, and 3 on each weekend then I should just make it by Monday 12/6.

I am trying to stock up on Inks as I expect the prices of herbs to skyrocket. Since Jessica Sellers, the Ink Trader will be trading Blackfallow Ink instead of Ink of the Sea, then people will not be able to get the cheap inks they can get now. While I don’t expect the Cata Herbs to be in as high of a demand as Cata Ore, I am guessing that it will be a while before it is worth it to trade Blackfallow ink for anything. Also with all the new characters leveling, or people leveling their Alchemy (Mount anyone?) I expect pre-cata herbs to also spike in price.

My Goal Stockpile

2000 Ink of the Sea

600 Etheral Ink

600 Lion’s Ink

500 Midnight Ink

300 Jadefire Ink

200 Celestial Ink

200 Shimmering Ink

Nov. 16th Status and Gold Making Tips!

According to Rumor, 4.0.3 drops today – preparing the world for cataclysm. Great news as the closer we get to the expansion, the more people login and the more people there are the more people buying my stuff…

O yea and the expansion is pretty exciting too :P

Yesterday I broke down and got the remote auction house, for which I am very grateful now. Once I got the remote AH, I set up some notifications on TUJ. Within 10 minutes I found a deal, the First Mate Hat for 1g.

Afterwards I was all set; I found another few items including a few Glyphs of Mage armor.

I spent lots of time investing in some items; I just can’t resist the eternals that are going for less than 1g. I am buying up lots of water, and then I plan to flip them to Fire and re-sell or save.  I do have a method. I don’t invest in items I won’t be able to use. With Eternals and Ore, I will soon be leveling Blacksmithing and possibly engineering, so even if I don’t flip the Eternals and ore, I can use them.

Even so, I am taking lots of Risk – let’s see if it pays off in Cata.

Tip of the Day

With the elemental invasion and the expansion on the horizon there are a lot more people in the Vanilla and Outlands either with the Event quests or leveling alts, if you find yourself out and about, give a quick look at the vendor’s in your area for limited supply recipes.  Acadia at Acadia’s Gold  gives a great tip here for Ashenvale

Most of these recipes you can sell for 10-15g on most servers and the cost just a few silver. Some of the really rare ones you might be able to get 80-90g on.

Another Example is Lebowski in Honor Hold, he sells

Schematic: Cogspinner Goggles and Schematic: Ultra-Spectropic Detection Goggles both of these items consistently sell for 80-90g

Nov. 15th – Leveling and Profession Status

Paladin Farmer

Ø  Level 60

o   Now with Flight skillz!

Ø  Herbalism

o   365

Ø  Mining

o   340

Notes: I probably could have gotten a few more levels this weekend, but I had D&D Saturday and took a nice long nap on Sunday.

Rogue – Inscription

Ø  Inscription – 401 – up from 200 since 11/8

Notes: Had to spend about 400 gold between some herbs I was missing and then the training itself. But I finally made it to the 400’s. Now I will probably level up using Northrend Research. Already the return I am getting on the glyphs I made just to level is paying off.

Week of 11/15 Schedule

This week’s plan is 70 for the paladin, that way I can get into Northrend and get some more herbs, my stockpile of Northrend Herbs will soon be depleted.

Current Investments

I was unable to meet my goal of 40k this weekend and in fact ended the week with a 5k loss. However 3k of this was to my husband’s riding skill. I have stocked piled quite a few more items (ore, eternals and frozen orbs primarily) so I don’t really think it’s such a bad thing.

I spent some time on the Paladin farming Essence of Air and Earth for the Agility and Strength enchants, just to realize that my Enchanter doesn’t have the timbermaw recipes or faction. Another goal to add is going to be to get her to the correct faction level (revered I think?) so she can buy the recipes.

Also note my productivity at work will take a hit, as my Realm is available on TUJ, WOOT!

Another 5k bites the dust and Hatchlings available again!

I just couldn’t help myself. I started investing in some of the ridiculously low priced Saronite Ore, Cobalt Ore and Eternals/Frozen orbs. I have a few plans for these items but nothing too concreate on what I plan on doing with them. Good News is that since I am going to level blacksmithing, if push comes to shove I can just use this to help level that.

So I spent 2k on various materials. I was finally able to start posting again, and I posted all of my glyph stock and so far 600g has returned.

The rest I loaned out to the hubby who has finally gotten to level 70 so he can get an epic mount.

Sadly (or not depending on who you are) the Razzashi Hatchling will be available once again come cata. It will still be a rare pet, but probably will not sell for the hundreds of thousands of gold that some people where speculating. If you have done a lot of investing in this pet, you may want to get rid of them now while they are still selling for high prices (before word leaks out). (Source) 

I only bought 1 Hatchling for around 4k, so I am hoping that I can sell it for 5-6k but if I don’t, it’s the one Raptor my main is missing and she is a pet collector so I could just absorb the cost and bind it to her.

I do feel bad for all those people out there who invested a ton of money into the hatchlings, but as we all know there is risk in every venture. Actually, this makes a lot of sense, as I was surprised the Hatchling would not be available by other means with ZG being changed which is why I was hesitant to invest to heavily into them.

NOTE: did a quick check on the Undermine Journal  on Horde Side of my server (alliance isnt up yet) the quantity of these has trippled in the last 24 hours and the price cut in half (avg. 8k is now avg. 4k).

Mid-Week Status Report Nov 10 Edition

Paladin Farmer

Ø  Level 52

Ø  Herbalism – 314

Ø  Mining – 299

Notes: Slow going on my gathering professions, mainly because the herbs/ore are few and far between in the questing zones. I have entered the worst leveling bracket – 50-58 – I am hoping to get to 58 by Friday so that I can start in outlands, but I may have to detour to gather some herbs for my rogue.

Rogue – Inscription

Ø  Inscription – 235

Notes: I have not been able to farm many herbs so my inscription has suffered a bit. I kept a bunch of peacebloom and silverleaf in case I need more alabaster pigment for Minor Inscription Research – I want to make sure I get every glyph possible. I have also added the Mastery Books to my snatch list so I can save them for when I need them.

No new news on the gold front. I didn’t post any auctions today – didn’t have time this morning, but I did manage a quick scan. I should have plenty of time tonight put up all my auctions.

Blue Post: “Exalted reputation with Shen'dralar will no longer be required. As this is the only reputation that will be unobtainable in Cataclysm, we've simply decided to remove it as a requirement”

I suspect that the materials for this achievement will no longer be so sot after now that there is no pressure from it going away. I would be careful of any flipping of the Pristine Black Diamonds.