Elkagorasa the Casual

More than once, I've been sitting at work, wishing that I could comment on a Blizzard post. If I only had my authenticator, I could comment on ...  But, since, I use a physical authenticator, and it sits on my desk at home, I am typically resigned to passive participation (or blogging about something on the side). Today, I noticed something new! For kicks, I clicked on the logon link to connect to the site (I wanted to vote in the BMAH poll ) and I noticed a new drop down option, SMS Protect . Selecting this sent a text to my registered cell phone with an authenticator code. :) Not a very good photoshop Now I was able to participate in the poll. Yes I seldom have enough gold to even participate in the Black Market Auction House. Speaking of Auction House, now that I am able to logon from work, I can actually access the remote auction house!. Checking my bank alt, I see she has approximately 50 items that expired last Sunday and could be relisted. Click 'Relist' ...

Kotaku highlighted a video recently linked to a video by Bellular Gaming that highlights his 'easy' method for making gold; soloing classic raids.   He solo'd 3 Cata raids using a 600+ geared hunter. Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Decent, and Firelands. He mentions also DE'ing a lot of the items then selling that on the AH, but didn't get into that for the video. BOT: 19 minutes BWD: 15 minutes Firelands: 30 minutes I'd be curious about running BOT as a warlock. With void-tank, it should be fairly do-able. The raid is not too far from the portal spawn point and I've actually seen most of this raid already first hand. If truely 20 minutes per run, I could finally start upgrading those garrison buildings to level 3! Yeah!

Elkagorasa has been actively grinding elites all over the Timeless Isle. At 11 PM local, or 1 AM server, it's not that busy, so when an rare is announced, it's fairly safe that they'll still be fighting when he get's there. With that, I found Elk's pockets bulging with over 20,000 timeless coins. So, I bought batches of 5 keys from Kukuru  and opened chests in his little cave. Each key unlocks a treasure chest that can contain anything from 1-1000 more coins, Bonkers , timeless gear tokens, and even the highly rare burden of eternity (BoE). From my time last night, I bought approximately 40 keys, from which I got 2 Bonkers, about 10 gear tokens (mail, plate, leather and 2 cloth) and around 3/4 of my investment in coins; spend 2,500 coins, get 1,900 coins back. Still looking for my pants. I want to use my BoE on a Timeless Cloth Pants token. This should net me a pair of  Cloudscorcher Leggings . 5 hours later, still no CLOTH pants. I have mail pants. I hav...

As of recently, my dungeon queue time wait activity has been fishing. I pop over to Twilight Highlands  and start fishing up the Deepsea Sagefish . These lovely fish are now appearing (since about January) in pools along the ocean front. In about 15 minutes time, I can tend to fish up about 20-30 fish. Benefits?  Food - Severed Sagefish Head (+90 Int) or  Delicious Sagefish Tail (+90 Spirit).  The raw fish are selling individually for about 5g. Free 100g for each stack of 20 fish. Guild Achieves. Yeah, OOT is a level 25 guild, but we still don't have either " That's a lot of bait " or " Time to open a restaurant ". Guild, Go Fish. We're currently 1100 recipes from the cooking achieve and 4000 fish caught in pools. I don't know about you, but the Seafood Magnifique has got to be the craziest raid food I've seen (so far). Why would I want to eat something from a basket with a crab in it (which BTW comes from a recipe that doesn't...

I wanted to refer you to a great post over on  Just My 2 Copper . This gold making blog had a great post on getting started in the AH. Leo has posted a few pointers on more successfully selling items on the AH. "If you sell gems, scrolls, glyphs, ores, bars, enchanting mats, herbs, volatiles or cloths, than you will be competing with farmers and other people that produce these as a routine. These are high supply, but also high demand items. And these are the items I am writing about. I want to show you how to increase your sales on these." Take a look at the rest of the article. It has a bunch of good ideas for making some nice in-game gold. Check other posts in this category  for other gold making ideas.

My disc priest has been using the Wow-Professions.com guide  to leveling her Tailoring. Over the weekend, approximately 5 hours of play time, I have leveled her from 0 to 345. This has cost me approximately 2000 gold. The best return on investment has been combining tailoring with Enchanting, or Disenchanting. After I create a bag full of items, I disenchant all those items and sell the enchanting components. The dust and shards that come back, return a good portion of the gold. For Horde, I found the best area to level this profession is the Valley of Wisdom . Within 20 steps of each other are the three primary hot spots, AH, mailbox and trainer, and thread vendor. Only when I needed to grab a bunch of a odd color dye or the pattern from Shattrath, did I need to fly out of this area. Process? step 1 step 3 step 4 step 5 Train a new pattern. In Advanced Tradeskill Window (ATSW), queue up the number of items I need for the pattern...

The 4.2 patch is going to drop. MMO-Champion estimates this coming Tuesday (6/28). Sounds good, as it will give most people the long (US) holiday weekend to explore the Firelands new content and get them prepared for the new raid content. Reminder on Currency Conversion : With this new raiding tier, comes the standard currency conversion. At least, unlike Wrath, Blizzard isn't going to create a new currency, per se. They are simply going to devalue your current valor points, so that they are equivalent to Justice points. I'd like to suggest you spend some points this today and get yourself under 4000 combined total. I am a little torn about what to buy. What you could buy now for valor points, will be purchasable in 4.2 for Justice points. So no effective price difference between today and next week. If you have enough, buy a valor item now. If you have an abundance of Justice Points, then buy a BOA item and send it to that alt you've neglected. The BOA gear isn'...

I just realized the full impact of the upcoming 4.2 currency conversion. See, I have been saving my valor points in order to purchase that 700 valor point wand, immediately when 4.2 drops. Unfortunately, it appears Blizzard is not going to let that happen. With the release of patch 4.2 all Valor Points will be converted down to Justice Points up to the 4000 point cap, with any points over the cap being converted to gold at a rate of 47 silver per point. In addition, all previous Tier 11 Valor items will now be purchasable with Justice from the Justice Point vendors, and new Tier 12 Valor items will be available from the Valor vendors. ( source ) So, if your valor + justice points equal more than 4000, SPEND SPEND SPEND . Buy an heirloom piece, buy a bag of goodies.  Personally, the 47 silver for each point over 4000, isn't going to be worth it. At least, I'll get my 2 more tier items ( legs and hands ) immediately. Final note: The last PTR download was under 5mb. Besides ...

I was reading on sites like Cold's Gold , about a new companion pet introduced in patch 4.1. This site is for sale from a vendor in Everlook for 50g. So, I sent my death knight alt (yeah got one of those too) since he has the flight paths everywhere and hasn't left Orgrimmar since talking to Thrall. With his 120g, I picked up 2 of these wonderful cats . Shipped one off to both Elk and my Disc priest, Eride. Checking AH, she posted hers for a measly Buyout price of 94g. It sold for the BID price of 75g. Nothing like the 400-7000g that people were bragging about. Ah well, maybe make tips selling  transporting them for guildies.

Always looking for something to make the process of growing gold easier, I have downloaded and started playing with TradeSkillMaster (TSM). This addon looks to be a mix of various other tools that I already use. Auctioneer/Auctionator - scans the Auction House, gathers current prices of items available. Plus, post auctions to the auction house with competitive prices and undercutting values. Postal - automate the scrapping and sending of mail to/from crafter/bank toons. Lil' Sparkys Workshop - Provides me with a list of craftable items, with the cost to make, and current AH sale price (aka Profit!).  Being a combination of these various tools, has some advantages and some disadvantages. Advantage-wise, things work nicely together. Stuff you queue up for one bank toon, should present as a shopping list on another and then be mailed back when it's purchased for that toon (for example, bank toon purchases Alchemy materials for my main toon/alchemist using this tool, those ma...

Last night after an absolute fail of a pugged Grim Batol (yeah know the kind when the druid healer starts bickering about how the clothy lock dies first all the time, but fails to mention how he got NO heals. That added to the fact that my Warcraft build has been loading REALLY slow after a recent add-on upgrade, so I was always the last one to make it back from the wipes.) I decided to watch a little pre-recorded TV. At 4AM, when the TiVo kicked into 'live' broadcast, I was awoke by the sounds of a jewelry store advertisement. You know one of those stores that buys your old gold jewelry and converts it to cold hard cash ! Clicking off the TV, climb into bed, and then quickly falling back asleep to dreams of gold making techniques in Warcraft. Unfortunately, my dream included a loud announcer, touting the gold making technique commonly referred to as MLM or pyramid scheme. " Send me 5gold to learn my patented gold making techniques!! " still echoes in my brain. So,...

At my child's Elementary school, they are getting all rev'd up for St. Patricks day. For them, this means 4-leaf clovers, leprechauns and rainbows with pots of gold at the end. My youngest is looking for us to set up a leprechaun trap in the house, so we can capture one and he can share his gold with his class.(IDTS, it's all MINE !!) Guess we'll have to see what we catch.. This ' holiday ', Blizzard is not going to disappoint. In patch 4.03 (aka Cataclysm), they included a new series of quests in Felwood. This series of quests (see comment ), starts with you bagging Impsey (try not to kill him, I suggest a swift wack with your weapon), and then ends with you blinding imps with a crystal refraction. The quest chain took me a total of about 15 minutes, include flight time from Orgrimmar. Best of all, when you're done, you get your very own Rainbow Generator . Sure it doesn't do any damage at 85 (30 damage on a critter with 42 health), but oh, what a di...

With the 4.0 patch coming very soon, all your existing currency will be converted to the new Cataclysm Justice Points. (see MMO-Champion's very cool calculator ). Based on the vendor's in the Cataclysm Beta, I'd suggest buying what ever Tier pieces you want NOW. Your old Tier-10 Dark Coven Hood , is going to cost 400 Triumph (or Frost) badges (i.e. 1100 Justice points) after the patch. After the drop, your random dungeons will start dropping Justice Points also. This means that the 5 Triumph and 2 Frost badges will convert to: Lich King Heroic dungeon boss -- 16 Justice Points Lich King daily normal dungeon -- 12 Justice Points Lich King daily Heroic dungeon -- 23 Justice Points Lich King raid boss -- 23 Justice Points Cataclysm Heroic dungeon boss -- 75 Justice Points Cataclysm daily normal dungeon -- 75 Justice Points Cataclysm daily Heroic dungeon -- 75 Valor Points Cataclysm 10-player raid boss -- 75 Valor Points Cataclysm 25-player raid boss -- 105 ...

Over at Just My Two Copper , Markco has posted a great review of the various Guild Perks that are coming in Cataclysm and how they will help you make MORE gold. If you haven't had a chance, this site is an excellent resource discussing gold making methods and tricks. Personally, I am excited about a few of these per k s as they are directly going to replace benefits from BOA gear, and trinkets like the riding crop . Simply by joining a guild, you will (eventually) get all these perks. The rate at which your guild gets each perk is based on points, points you get from completing quests (and possibly more that I haven't seen). These points also add directly to your reputation with the guild. Better rep, better rewards you can purchase at the guild vendors. For a breakdown of all the various perks, check out this WowHead breakdown .

In the next two Warcraft patches your existing badges and PVP tokens and honor will be converted to the new Cataclysm currency, gold or Catacylsm Honor and Justice Points. This means that if you had been looking forward to that last piece of your pvp arena gear, or that last tier piece... it maybe in your best interest to get it before the PTR build goes live.  Here's some information on how each of the currencies will be converted in the next content patch. Keep in mind these values may change, and they can get a bit math heavy. Just know that our intent is to appropriately value each mark and provide a conversion we feel is fair. The following items are immediately converted to gold: Emblem of Heroism = 5.5 gold each Emblem of Valor = 5.5 gold each Emblem of Conquest = 5.5 gold each Badge of Justice = 1.833 gold each Your New Honor Points total will be the sum of the following amounts: Old Honor * 0.024 Old Arena Points * 0.85 Battleground Mark of Honor * 2.976 W...

Take an out of work Human Death Knight, empty his pockets, with tenacity to learn and you get, Cynwulf. His sister, Cynwise (see battlefield manual ), get's him an apprenticeship with Waylan. ”You must be Cynwulf.  You’re taller than I expected, honey.” I raised an eyebrow in response.  She laughed again.  ”Oh, this will be fun.  I’m Waylan.  And you’re my, er…” “Apprentice,” ‘wise chimed in. “Right.  Apprentice.” Check out his fun , rather player centric start at 0 gold, working up to riches! (note, start at the oldest post, it reads blog-style, oldest on bottom)

Overview - Making gold on the auction house is an easy and reliable way to increase your wow pocketbook. I have not reached gold limit, but I don't scrape by. By doing only the very basics each day, I have recently purchased a 16kg mount (March) and a 9.7k gold battered hilt (May) within a matter of months. I don't grind for my mats (who has the time??) , and I am not about to start leveling yet another alt, so that I can do multiple professions ("Elk" the Casual , remember??). I spend maybe 30 - 60 minutes each week on this. Addons -   Use of add-ons are key to running a successful gold making business in WoW. They add simplicity and consistency to the process that would otherwise require lots of organization. Keeping track of trends, materials costs, creating your auction-able items, and finally posting and collecting your rewards! Auctioneer - This addon provides additional functionality to the typical Auction House window. Straight out of the box, it allow...

With some gold burning a hole in my pockets, I ran over to the auction house today, plunked down the 9700g for a battered hilt . If you don't already know, this is the 'epic' quest chain that has you rebuild one of the "ancient" weapons. The quest chain has you piece together the pieces of the weapon, fix them, bless them then get permission to use the weapon. When completed, you get to choose from 4 different swords. I am loving the Lens of the Mind  ( comparison ) as a Warlock. Sure I'll lose some +hit, but I'll gain: 7 Int 20 Sta 54 Crit (1.18%)   107 Spell Power Once you get the hilt, you head up to the Argent tourney grounds and meet with a weapon specialist up there. He helps you identify the hilt. Once you've identified it, you get a surprise meeting with an ICC boss, who tells you to STOP. It's a very dangerous weapon that this boss helped destroy to prevent the Lich King from finding and fixing. Night Elf in Filthy Animal One...

When Blizzard first announced that it was working on a Remote Auction House , I had my concerns. Gold Farmers posting 24 hours a day, playing the markets on all servers, hackers stealing my account info and wiping me out, or even myself scanning the AH all day at work, to just be able to quest when I am at home. Checking out the links and reading through the FAQ , it looks like it won't be any of those. It will be a subscription service (free during beta), $3/month when in production. You can only do 25 transactions a day. It requires your WoW credentials, so got Authenticator?  No addons (yet). There isn't an "Auctioneer" available yet that will scan the AH and tell me how much something I should sell something for.  The major benefit I see this being useful for, purchasing upgrades from the office.The issue being 2-fold, no way do I want to pay $3/m for a new subscription and not carrying my authenticator around with me all the time. The AH Beta consists o...

Coming soon to Azeroth near you, the world is going to dramatically change. Terrain changes, class changes, even opening up new locations and progression. How can one prepare for this? How am I preparing for this? Quests / Zone changes - The most pressing issue I have at the moment is trying to capture quests and zones that I missed while leveling my main. I would absolutely love to get the Loremaster title before Cataclysm drops, but I am not pressing it hard. I have turned off my Find Herbs, and running with Find Low Level quests, when I fly taxis through Classic. I found I have about 6 incomplete quests in Kargath when I ran up to Gnomeregan . Clearing stock - With a number of the recent changes, the economy on my server is slowly dropping. Raw gems that used to see for 300% profit are now down to 150% - 200% profit. People are finishing off the end-world content, Lich King is now on farm and they're just not getting the massive gear drops. Those that aren't raiding,...