Tips for the poor: Selling vendor stuff

Yes! As amazing as it might sound, I have yet another tip for those of you out there, who struggle for a living in the World of Azeroth.  If I keep this up, I might have to make a whole section on the blog dedicated to this topic!

Today's tip: Selling vendor stuff.

What is that you say? How can you make any money at all, selling stuff from vendors? Well, let me elaborate a bit more on that:

First of all, I'm not talking about any kind of stuff, I'm not talking about buying Fine Aged Cheddar and then posting it at the AH... no... I'm basically talking about profession recipes, plans, designs, and the whole enchilada. 
You see, profession trainers are not the only way to learn recipes, some can only be bought from specific vendors around the 2 worlds (Azeroth and Outlands... duh!) and some, can only be obtained through rare drops. We'll cover the easy ones to obtain today, the ones you can buy.

Now that we've cleared that out, how can you make money out of those items? Well, some of those items are really usefull to some professions.
Lets see an example here:

• Recipe: Blackened Basilisk
• Recipe: Warp Burger

Those two items are cooking recipes, they're sold by Innkeeper Grilka (horde side) or Supply Officer Mills (alliance side) on Terokkar Forest at 3g each. They are excelent for leveling your skills as a cook. And the most amazing thing? Almost no one knows where to get them. Since you don't learn these on the cooking trainer, people forget to go looking for them.

The only good thing that we can do for these poor people in order to help them is, yes you guessed it, fly/run up to Terokkar Forest, buy a bunch of them, and them put them on the AH.

Now, here is the tricky part, since we're trying to make a gold out of a market that not many people realizes it exists, we have to keep it simple, dont fill the AH with 10 or 20 recipes of Blackened Basilisk.., someone is going to realize sooner or later and then undercut us (the horror!), so... try to post them one at a time. I used to sell them at 40g each. That's right, 40 gold per recipe, that's a big profit if you ask me. 

Eventually, some less-than-smart player realized that he too, could make a buck out of those recipes and started to list them at 17g each..., needless to say, I had to put my stock down for a while, until that person had ran out of recipes, probably a leveling toon, who saw the oportunity and took it.

Yes, I could've listed mine a bit lower, and still would've made a killing profit, but I chose to wait, and time proved me right :) I have to go back and restock now.

Ofcourse, those two recipes are not the only ones that you can use. Like almost every tip for gold-making around here, your realm is going to dictated what you sould sell and what not to sell, you just have try and err. That's how I've learned.

A few more recommendations that have served me well in the past:

• Formula: Enchant Cloak - Superior Defense If you got a druid, this one and the next one, will net you some pretty good gold, since you have a free port to the only place where they're sold.
• Formula: Runed Arcanite Rod Excelent for making some fast and easy cash. I've sold this formula for up to 50g. Only one at the time, and if someone else is selling it, I'd wait, since I don't want everyone to know how easy it is to get.
• Pattern: Imbued Netherweave Bag Bought this on the AH the other day at 30g, then realized that I could buy it for much.. MUCH less at Shatt, so I now, every once in a while, I go there, and buy some, I've been selling them at 35g each. Pretty they sell better than the actual bag... wierd uh?
• Pattern: Dress Shoes This one right here, net me a few golds a while ago, I bought them since it was one of those items that once you buy them from the merchant, you have to wait to buy it again. And since the vendor is so out of the way, I thought it would be an interesting experiment. I honestly don't remember how much money I made with it, since after selling a few, I was out of the zone and didn't care to go back. (Shame on me!)

Anyways, that's a very simple list of formulas/patterns to buy low and sell extra high :). They can be a great money maker, specially for the first few hundred gold.

Now, go on, search the AH for them, and see if anyone is selling them, if not, then get out there, and try it out :) You'll probably be pleased with the results....

Cya around!

Tips for the poor, working the AH

Today, I wanted to elaborate a bit more on the subject of making money inside the game. Sadly we're not all blessed with the brains and times necessary to hit the goldcap like others do, but we can still make some gold out of nothing if we pay a little attention at the market and ofcourse, have our trusty Auctioneer addon installed (there are alternatives to this addon, but since I've never used them, I can't really recommend them.. can I?).

Today's tip: Bags

This might not work on your server, or even on your side of the server, but since EVERYONE needs bags, I think most realms will allow this tip to work.
Since this all comes from personal experience, lets put this into perspective:

Char: Verasshen
Level: 60
Professions: Tailoring (340), Enchanting (287)

As you can probably imagine, I'll be using the amazing 340 points on tailoring to make some gold.
So, lets start at the begining shall we?

Can one really get rich from selling bags?
Let me remind you, my intention is not to make you reach, but to teach you how to earn a few extra golds here and there, so really? I don't know how much money one can get from this things, but I've done my share...


Which bags are we talking about?
The first bags that are semi-usefull to an experienced player, are (in my opinion) Netherweave Bags. This bags have a capacity for 16 items and are really not that expensive to buy/make, which makes them a perfect starter bag.
Leaving Netherwave bags aside, anyting bigger than this babies will work for our case, so if you can make or know a tailor who can me 18 or maybe 20 slots bags, try to extrapolate and see what happens :)

Lets talk about money, how much can gold can I make from this?
Ok, before getting to the revenue part, we gotta think about costs, so lets get to it:
Note: prices were taken from my realm, horde side (Alliances were different, and not really profitable for this kind of bags imho).

Materials needed for one bag:

• 4 Bolts of netherweave
• 1 Rune Thread

For those 4 bolts of cloth, we need a full stack (20 items) of Netherweave cloth.
In my realm's AH (again, horde side), the stack of Netherweave cloth sells for 4 - 5 g each.
The rune thread is vendor bought, and goes for about 50 silver each.

So, doing some really basic math, we can assume that making one bag will costs us:

5g from cloth

50 silver from thread

_________________________

5g 50s total

Again we ask.. how much money can we make from 1 bag alone? After studying the AH for a couple of days, I've seen the prices of Netherweave bags go from 10g up to 12g each. 

So, considering our worst case scenario (which you should always consider when making a decision like this), we have 5g 50s of expenses and we're selling them at 10g each, so we're making 4g 50s profit!

You're not just getting your money back, but you're also getting almost enough money to make another one (specially if you grind the netherweave cloth instead of buying it from the AH). Not too bad.. now multiply this by.. I don't know.. 10? And you've got 45g profit.

Bags sell, specially this ones, smaller bags are harder to sell, since experienced players will find them inadecuate for their needs, and the netherweave ones are really cheap.

So, is that it?

No, not really, let me share another related experience with you...

Here I was, a few hours ago, on my toon, making a few bags to sell, from the cloth my hunter (who's leveling in outlands right now) sent him... I've just put 4 bags a few minutes ago for sale.. there weren't many, and mine were selling at 11g each. When I suddendly get the beloved "A buyer has been found for your..." message :)

I had just sold all my bags, to the same person... great! So I was about to post my new batch when I suddenly had an inspiration. There weren't many bags left on the AH from other people (always talking about the same kind of bag.. netherweave), and they were listing them at 12g each (probably 5 or 6 bags left),so I went ahead and bought the whole lot, and reposted all of them at 20g each....

Sold 4 before login 30 minutes later.

So, that was 80g of gold incoming, just because I had the oportunity to take the prices a bit heigher.. this is what I mean when I say: you've got to pay attention to the market.

Pick an item, and study it.. check the prices regularly and when you see the oportunity.. take it! Buy it low  and sell it high! 

That's the basic idea behind this rant :)

Hopefully, it'll enlighten some  of you out there!

For now, catcha around...

Finally! All the 3.3.3 goodness is upon us!

Yes! On this sunny (at least over here where I live) tuesday's maintenance, we are getting patch 3.3.3 live on the servers.


Personally, I have to admit I've been expecting this patch for a while now, specially since I heard about the abolition of battleground marks. Exchanging them for 2k honor points each, that's just awesome.. 185 honor points each.. it's .. you know.. good, now I just have to find something good to get for my hunter...


There are a lot of things changing in this patch, most of them minor things mind you, but still, they all add up to a great amount, lest see the ones that caught my eyes:


- Changes on the AH

• If the Auction House on a realm is unavailable for any reason, an alert will pop up informing players who attempt to access it.
• Players can now Right-Click to place an item in the Auction frame.
• Entire stacks of a specific item type can be placed in the Auction frame and several options have been added for choosing how to list auctions.
• Stack Size: If a stack of items has been added to the Auction frame, players can select the size of the stack they wish to sell. If an invalid stack size is entered (i.e. a stack of 21 Saronite Ore), the Create Auction button will be grayed out.
• Number of Stacks: In addition to selecting the size of a stack, players can select how many stacks of an item they wish to sell (i.e. if a player has a total of 43 Saronite Ore in the Auction frame, they can choose to list 2 stacks of 20, 4 stacks of 10, 8 stacks of 5, 43 stacks of 1, etc. If the number and amount of stacks listed results in a remainder, the left-over items will be placed back in the player's bags automatically).
• Stack Size and Number of Stacks are linked mathematically so that altering the variables of one may automatically calculate the amount of the other (i.e. if a player puts 20 in the Stack Size field and 43 Saronite Ore are in the Auction frame, the Number of Stacks field will change to 2 by default. If a player only wishes to sell one stack of 20 Saronite Ore, the Number of Stacks field can be manually changed to 1).
• Price: Players can now choose to input the price of an item Per Stack or Per Item by selecting either option from a pull-down. If Per Item is selected and a player is selling a stack of that item, the Auction House will multiply the selected Per Item price by the amount of that item in the stack. If Per Stack is selected, the player can enter the total price he or she wishes to charge for each stack of that item being listed.
• Auction Post Completion Bar: If multiple items or stacks of items are being listed at once by a player, a Posting completion bar will appear showing the total progress of each individual auction being listed once the Create Auction button is selected. The greater the number of individual listings being made in a single press of the Create Auction button, the longer this process will take. Players can still browse the Auction House while the Posting completion bar is in progress, but moving around will interrupt the progress, similar to moving while attempting to create multiple bandages with First Aid. Just as with creating bandages, auctions that were completed prior to the character moving or otherwise canceling the action will successfully be listed.

So, the big new thing here, is the change to the AH's interface. They've re-worked the posting section, to make it easy for you. All I can think about when reading this is... Auctioneer *cough*. It's true, it's not the first time blizzard takes a great addon and incorporates it's functionalities into the game. Don't get me wrong, it's great that they do this, at least for the end-user. Personally, I'm going to keep using Auctioneer, since it still provides a lot more features than the in-game AH naturally does.

- Dungeon Finder

The changes to this revolutionary and controvertial system are meant to improve the gamer experience. 

For instance:

• The Deserter debuff's duration is now 30 minutes, up from 15. This right here, is a direct attempt at solving the most common issue with the new pugs form using the new LFG. Group forms, group pulls, group falls apart because people start leaving. With a 15 minute debuff, if you were the original deserter, then you'd just keep minding your busissnes and before you knew it, the debuff would be gone and you'd be ready to queue up again and mess with another group! Now it's a bit harder, 30 minutes is a bit more time, hopefully, it'll help to diminish the rate at which this happens. Personally, I think it'll help, but not that much.
• A reason for the kick: I see this as a minor but helpfull change. Normally, when a kick vote was initiated, everyone almost everyone would know why. Now there is a change to let all know why is it that you want to kick that good for nothing tank!
• More generous level requirements when creating a random group: I don't fully understand this. Does it mean you'll also look into the gear or achievements of a player when creating a group? Or does it mean that if you have 3 80's and 2 73's you'll take those 73's into a lvl 80 dungeon? Because if it's the latter, then this is not really good. Actually, it can pretty much undo everything the 1st point is accomplishing by getting lower-than-recommended lvl healers/tanks into higher instances. Let's hope i'm mistaken though.

There are other minor changes, which I chose to ignore, but they stay within the same general guide line: improving user experience, wether through changes in the UI or through obstacles to keep bad players from doing bad things.

- Changes to the economy

I'm not one to talk about WoW's economy, really, I'm not really a rich player or anything, but I try to keep an eye open for good business when I can.

With the coming of 3.3.3, a new vendor will be available at Dalaran, Frozo the Renowned. He will sell materials, used for some profesions in exchange of Frozen Orbs, here is a list, take from the official forums:

Note: They all cost 1 Frozen Orb, unless stated otherwise in parenthesis.

• Crusader Orb (6) 
• Runed Orb (4) 
• Eternal Fire 
• Eternal Earth 
• Eternal Water 
• Eternal Air 
• Eternal Life 
• Eternal Shadow 
• Frost Lotus 
• Pattern: Frosty Flying Carpet [Tailors Only] (6)

Also, recipes which required Frozen Orbs have had their materials reduced: This is meant, I guess, to cope with the extra use for the orbs. 

This will also impact, I'm guessing on a negative way, the prices of these items, since Frozen orbs are relatively easy to obtain nowadays. You can pug a few heroics and you'll eventually have enough of them or you can actually buy them for 10 Emblems of Heroism, which you should have, since you've been farming heroics for the orbs anyways :) In the end I predict (don't take my word for it though), that the price for these materials will drop quite a bit. If you were getting your money from all the Frost Lotus you've been farming, I would recommend to start looking for something else to sell.

- New Random Battleground option

Here is one of the few mayor changes into the game in this patch and, at the same time, not really. Let me elaborate:

Yes, it's mayor, since you have the whole PVP change, in which honor points for every HK will be increased by 100%, and if you queue for a random BG, you'll get more honor as a reward (amongst other things), but it's not new when it comes to assembling the group.

Yes, I know that right now it's just for lvl80's, still, I'm guessing next patch they'll let everyone queue, I see no reason for this restriction, really.

Anyways, as I was saying, random battleground is.. well, just that... queue up, and let the system chose which BG you'll be doing. There is no real change at the group assembly part. There is no gear score checks, or anything like that, groups won't be more balanced. Right now, groups are as random as they can be, and that is not going to change.

What I see here, is just an attempt at making players do all BG's not just the one they like the most, which normally, are the same ones for almost everyone else (same thing happened when they introduced the Weekly Raid quests.. giving players a reason to visit forgotten content.. this is the same thing!).

Now, thanks to this change, the daily BG quests have been removed. I'm guessing this will affect only the lvl80 quests, since all other players can't queue for a random bg just yet. 

There is also the whole "no more honorable marks" thing. This is cool, really, just give me the honor points, makes the system simpler and my life less complicated :) Making me lose 30 Warsong Gulchs so I can get my freaking pvp mount was not cool blizz and will never be >.<

Anyway, this was a minor overview of what we can expect after the patch is done, and our maintenance there are ofcourse a lot more things coming with the patch, for a complete list, go check it out here.

Have fun reading!

Chimera shot, understading the tooltip

My hunter finally got to 60, so now I have a new shot! Hurray! More shots! (after dinging 60 and learning all I had to learn from the trainer, I had to spend literally 20 minutes reworking  my entire UI >.< so many damn buttons! Sometimes I miss facerolling playing my Pally)

The thing with this particular new shot, is that I really didn't understand the whole tooltip, so lets see what it says:

You deal 125% weapon damage, refreshing the current Sting on your target and triggering an effect:

Serpent Sting - Instantly deals 40% of the damage done by your Serpent Sting.

Viper Sting - Instantly restores mana to you equal to 60% of the total amount drained by your Viper Sting.

Scorpid Sting - Attempts to Disarm the target for 10 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once per 1 minute.

So, the first part is pretty straight forward, 125% of your white damage is being done, what it doesn't say (and I don't know why), is that this damage is actually Nature damage, so it ignores our enemy's armor unless our target's got some kind of nature resists buff on him.

Ok, so far so good.., it does extra damage (in the form of magical damage) and it also refreshes the duration of your sting (meaning that if you pay attention, you won't have to recast your sting on that target during the whole fight!).

Now, on to the effect:

The ones that concerned me the most, where the first two, since I never use Scorpid Sting. My main concern was: when exactly did I have to cast my shot to maximize the damage or benefit of the particular effect?
And the answer was actually simplier than I though: As soon as the shot is off cooldown.

But wait, what if the serpent sting just ticked 3 times?.. it still have more ticks to do, which logically would mean more damage done and that 40% should increase, right? RIGHT?

Well, no, your problem is that your miss interpreting the wording on the tooltip, the truth behind chimera shot, is that when it hits the target, the effect does a 40% (in the case of serpent sting) of the total damage it would do. So, when you cast chimera, it doesn't matter where the clock of the sting is right now, the effect triggered is going to be always the same! That's excelent news!

Note that the same thing happens when Viper Sting is on the target, you get 60% of the total mana the sting would drain.

So, how do I increase the damage it does? 
Well, since it is nature damage, ArPen won't do you much help. What you should be looking into, is for instance, the Serpent Sting Glyph. That glyph increases the damage done by the sting, so effectibly you're increasing the damage done by the shot! Must have for every MM hunter.

What else?
Well, right now, the other  things I can think about, that would actually increase the damage of your chimera shot, are the following talents (which you should've already picked up btw):

• Rapid Killing 
• Improved Stings 
• Improved Steady Shot 
• Marked for Death 

Those talents will increase, directly or indirectly the damage you do with your chimera shot, so you should make sure to take them on your wait to 60! :)

Once I understood all this, my DPS in 5 man dungeons actually increased, and now chimera shot is an important part of my DPS (according to recount), which at first wasn't.

Hopefully, this little review is going to be as helpfull to other new MM hunters as it was for me.

Catcha around!

Check it out!: Pitbull Unit Frames 4 - Beginners guide

As an effort to keep giving my personal and most humble opinion about WoW related issues, today I want to write about this addon: Pitbull Unit Frames 4.0

The name says it all, it's basically a unit frame replacement for the ones blizzard provides. I won't go on about why would you want to replace the default unit frames, when they look so cool, and are (maybe for you) so usefull and well placed. This is a basic overview of the addon itself, so here we go:

Downloading & Installing

This is basically the same for every addon, it should be no biggy, just go to Pitbull's main site , click on the Download link and then unzip the file into your Interface/Addons folder. Then restart WoW and there you go! Now it's all caos!

Configuring

One thing that this addon can be, is: a pain to configure! Why? Because the average user won't try to read a tutorial or a guide on how to configurate an addon before installing it! That's right! I'm looking at you buddy!

They normaly just install it,and start tinkering with the configuration menu..., well, this is not going to cut it here, this bad boy needs a bit of time, but once you get the hang of it, you'll love it!

"How to make some gold" for Dummies

First real post.. here we go:

This may not be really usefull for someone with a lvl80 main already, since they have access to things like Daily Quests (so many that tends to be boring...), other might have capped professions able to make some of the best crafted epics around, etc, etc...

The idea behind this post, is to list some basic tips for you, the newbie, the guy who's just starting out and has no idea how other players run around with their mounts at lvl 20, and have all this cool gear, when you have barely made it out alive, running by foot and with a few silver coins on your pockets :( (Been there, done that... everyone's gotta start somewhere right?).

So, this tips are all server dependent of course, since the economy behind every realm is incredibly independent from the others (which is logical, once you think about it..., different players, different needs..), but they should be good enough to guide you in the right direction.

This is all based on my own personal experience after almost two years of play, but there is really no big fansy economic analisis behind any of this.., it's just a start.