Saturday, November 15, 2008

Bubble + Death Ray = Win!

3/7/08
Not much done last night. Panzergishi had picked up the Darkrune Helm schematic for 10 gold yesterday, and immediately flipped it into a 70-80 gold buyout on the AH. It sold! The Darkrune recipes are rewards for turning in items in Tanaris, so I know I’ll get the recipe again. I’m just amused that people don’t look up recipes on Thottbot, to see where they can get them. Kishigishi finally made it over to the spider cave in Dustwallow, after touring the northern part of that zone. I didn’t know that there was another Direhorn Tauren compound north of the spider cave, and Allies have a couple of quests that take you there. Kishi turned level 38 while questing, so I was able to equip her with a level 38 sword that Clock had enchanted with +3 damage. 5 more dps is good, because she had been running around with a level 33 sword for a long time. Looks like my first toon to reach 40 on Daggerspine won’t even pay very much for her mount, since Paladins get the Summon Warhorse spell unlocked at 40. It used to be a long quest, but now you just buy it.

I also found out that if you’re bubbled with Divine Protection, you are immune to damage from the Death Ray. I had figured as much, but I tested it on the rare Darkspinner Widow in the spider cave, and it worked like a charm. Right after that, I tried to use the Gnomish Shrink Ray, but it malfunctioned for the 1st time, and shrunk me instead. No worries though, the Death Ray had taken most of her life, so a few midget slashes and she fell over. The widow has babies inside, though, that swarm out when she’s killed. I Consecrated the ground, and most of them died quickly.

I imagine that this would work the same way for a Warlock, by Sacrificing your Void Walker to become immune to damage for 10 seconds or so, but I haven’t tested what spells you can use while protected.

Engineering = 2, Rogues = 0

3/6/08
Kishi and Ryo tag teamed on the Mudrock turtles in Dustwallow last night. Kishi needed the forked tongues, so I’d kill about 5 of them, then log, and Ryo would come in and skin them. Kishi (lvl 37) was able to take out 2 level 37 Horde Rogues last night, using her engineering skills. The first one I encountered right by the tower that they need to go to for the Dawnrunner cargo and crewmate, and he put up a bit of a fight. But, after I bubbled and healed, and used a dense dynamite, he went down. The next one was just down the trail, posting by a tree. I used my chicken/dragonling/Death ray macro to activate both my pets at once, and they helped take him down quickly. The first rogue had come back by then, but I posted right by the camp of Theramore guards, and he would just sneak in to sap me, then back away. I tried Consecrating the ground to reveal him, but no dice. I need to make stealth detection goggles, because it seems that rogues are the hardest class for paladins to defend against. Either that, or activate a different aura, so they get hurt/unstealthed when they touch me. I’ll have to put all my headgear on my action bars, so I can easily switch between them. Maybe a macro? First selection would be the CatsEye goggles for stealth detection (hunters wouldn’t need it, since they have Flare), second would be the goblin mining helmet, and third would be the Deepdive helmet for when I need to grind in the water.
#showtooltip
/equipsequence CatsEye Goggles, Goblin Mining Helmet, Deepdive Helmet.
The Goblin Rocket helmet should have its own spot on the Action Bars, so I can hit it once to equip it, then it’ll show the 30 second cooldown, then hit it again to use it.

After I took out the 2 rogues, I went on to the Inn by the entrance to the Barrens, and picked up the 3 quests there, as well as Hungry! from the neutral NPC by Brackenwall village. That way I can get the Mirefin heads while I’m getting the Murloc sword for Jarl. I always like to have quests that sequence together, so I don’t have to run across the map again. After I got the 3 quests from the Burning Inn, I hearthed back, and turned them in to Commander Vimes (evidently someone at Blizzard is a Discworld fan).
Kishi is now ready to head into the spider cave in Dustwallow, get the 20 unpopped spider eyes, and powerlevel her mining to 230+ by mining the Mithril and Iron veins in there.

Shut up before I crush you with my wallet!


3/5/08
I played Bloodshrike again last night! This is some kind of a record for him, being taken out more than once in a month. I saw I had the Dawnrunner’s cargo, and the Spy’s report from the grave by the Hermit on Witch Hill, so I flew back to Dustwallow to turn them in. Since I was there, I decided to do the travel quest to Tabetha’s farm, and kill Deadmire. A level 40 horde warrior just killed Deadmire, so I wasted some time by zapping crocolisks and killing spiders/windserpents for the guy in Tabetha’s cabin. After Deadmire respawned, I took him down, then did the travel quest to Beazil’s Wreck. Those 2 quests are easy, and kinda fun. That leads to a travel quest to Rustsprocket, the new neutral town in Dustwallow, so I went there to turn it in, and get the flight point.

I also came up with a new macro last night. I know you can’t switch out trinkets while you’re in combat, but you can do it right before combat, if you’re quick enough.
#showtooltip
/cast Mechanical Dragonling (just add in Mithril or Arcanite, if that’s what you have equipped)
/stopcasting
/cast Gnomish Battle Chicken
/stopcasting
/equip Gnomish Death Ray
I don’t know if I need to have /stopcasting, but the macro does work. You call out 2 attack pets, and have the Death Ray starting its 30 second equip cooldown before you even get into battle. If you want to, you can even have it equip 2 new trinkets if you can set it up for the specific slots, but this is a pretty easy macro. I like having the chicken on my second trinket slot, since it only has a 20 minute cooldown, so any new trinket you right click to equip will go into your first trinket slot, and not interfere with the chicken.
(Edit 11/14/08) - The macro won't work anymore, since a later patch changed it so you could only have ONE mechanical trinket attack pet out at a time. I imagine that applies to the Goblin Bomb Dispenser as well.

Funnily enough, my blacksmiths are now my toons with the biggest wallets. Usually blacksmiths can’t find customers for the items they sell, since you can usually find a lot better as green drops from monsters. But, making Arcanite rods/Shining Silver Breastplates/Green Iron Hauberks will give you a lot of cash, pretty quickly. I now have about 1300 gold on my level 41 Tauren Warrior blacksmith Bullkathos, and I just got about 1200 gold on my level 24 Dwarf Warrior Blacksmith Panzergishi. I usually check to see what available recipes there are for Panzer when I log on, then I check to see what the epic and Blue recipes are going for. Well, I found an epic recipe (Khorium Longsword I think) for 100-150 gold, and when I looked at Auctioneer, I saw it usually went for about 700-800 gold. So, I bought it, and put it back on the AH for 600-700 gold. I logged in last night to see Panzer’s gold go from about 589 gold to about 1200 gold. That’s the biggest sale I’ve ever had!!! I’m used to getting about 80 gold for each Arcanite Rod, but that was an incredible rush to see my gold double overnight. Granted, I had paid 150 gold for it, but I still made about 400 gold profit on it.

Turn left here for Expert First Aid, and go 60 yards. You have arrived at your destination.

3/3/08
I flew Kishi back over to Arathi Highlands to turn in the Witherbark Troll quest items, then I went over to Northfold Manor to take out the Syndicate Highwaymen and Mercenaries. Using Trade Junkie, it said that a vendor in Stromgarde Keep had the First Aid books, and since I’ve powerleveled all my Daggerspine toons to at least 125 First Aid, I went over and picked up 10 of the books. I got killed by 3 level 35+ Horde toons there, but luckily I was able to resurrect thru the wall, right in the area that the Scroll vendor Deneb Walker is in. I rezzed in the protected area, got my books, and hearthed back to Ironforge. I love Trade Junkie, because it tells you what toons on your account already know the recipes you can buy in the area you’re in. It also lists them if they’re future prospects for that recipe as well.

On Sunday, I also tried to get Sansetsukon on my Demon Soul account to get the Lucky Fishing Hat in the STV fishing extravaganza. No dice. I got camped by a level 19 rogue twink, and while I could take him and win, there was also another Ally hunter that was level 45, and he would come up and auto shot me to death if it looked like I was winning. I should just forget about the hat, since I already have the Green-Eyed goggles, which give me +8 Stamina and Spirit anyway. I went to the trouble of making him into a twink, so I’m going to win some WSG battles with him, before I even think of making him into a regular toon.

Beep beep! Bogey on your Six!

2/29/08
Kishigishi is still in Drywhisker Gorge, leveling up her mining. I had an encounter with a level 38 paladin engineer that I lost, unfortunately. I wasn’t aware that you could actually attack while using your invulnerable bubble, or use healing spells. The spell description says you can’t use physical attacks, but you can still use Consecration, engineering items, and you can use healing. So now, my plan of attack will be attacking, using a Dense dynamite, waiting until they bubble up, run away while they’re invulnerable and healing, bubbling up myself and healing if needed, and using the Death Ray while in the bubble. After that I can use the Harm Prevention Belt for 400 damage absorption, and using the Last Wish?? Healing spell that uses up all your mana, but is instant cast. I could probably take on a level 45 with that strategy.

I don’t know how many people look at their combat log, but it can actually serve as an early warning detection system. Whenever I log into Kishi right now, I immediately switch from chat to combat, so I can see if anyone else is battling the kobolds. If someone is, I /target TheirName to see if it’s Horde.

Oh, don't hit THAT big red button? I thought you meant the other one...

2/28/08
I finished powerleveling Ryo last night, ending at 290 engineering. That’s high enough to learn all the recipes available from the trainers in Ironforge/Gadgetzan, and the next level of Gnomish engineering recipes isn’t until 325, so I’ll have to be level 50. With the lack of Truesilver bars, I was only able to make 6 Mithril Mechanical Dragonlings, so probably Aosdanasaoi will have to make the other 3, or perhaps 12 if I want to have all of them made, and not have to worry about it later on.

I was able to send 6 Truesilver Transformers over to Kishigishi, so I made 3 Goblin Jumper Cables XL. I had Kishi put 2 on the AH at 50-65 gold, and sent 1 to Clockwrkmage to put it on at 70-80 gold. We’ll see how well they sell. I also had Kishi go over to the Arathi Highlands to get into Drywhisker Gorge, to powerlevel mining by keeping her in that cave. I had let off a Compact Harvest Reaper kit on the way up there, to help me kill the Drywhisker Prospector kobolds, but it kinda backfired on me. I’m level 36, going up against level 36-37 kobolds, and then I pass by a level 38 BE paladin. My mechanical reaper kit attacks her, so I quickly shift gears and follow suit. I would have left her alone, but I doubt she would have appreciated my saying “sorry,” and would have backed off. So, I attacked! I was doing pretty well, till the little cockroach bubbled up, then she healed herself and came back with a vengeance. I had used my Dense dynamite early in the fight, and used a lvl 35 healing potion later on, but I still had options. I was probably about 25% health, and she had 30% health, when I came up with the idea of using my Gnomish Harm Prevention belt. I smacked my hotkey, or what I thought was my hotkey, and I started channeling something. What the??? Needless to say, I got killed. It turns out I was powering up my Death Ray. Now, if I HAD gotten my Harm Prevention belt up and running, I could have beat her down, or used my Death Ray in safety, and melted her armor to her bones. Know your hotkeys, people!

After I ran all the way back from the graveyard, I got inside the Gorge. That’s a nice place to level mining, with Lesser Bloodstone veins and Mithril/Iron Veins all over the place. The Lesser Bloodstone was already gray to me, but the Mithril is yellow, so I was gaining a point every time I started a new mithril vein. Unfortunately, either because it’s so close to the Horde encampment, or because it’s a hotly contested area due to people recognizing the mining potential there…..I got killed. Some ??? mage came in and critted me with 3300 frost damage while I was mining. C’est la vie, such is life. At least when you get killed by another player, you don’t get any durability damage, you just lose your buffs. I ran back from the middle of the map to the east side of the map AGAIN, resurrected, found a spot in the back of the cave, and logged out. I’ll see how much it’s contested tomorrow, as I might just go to the spider cave in Dustwallow, and repeat Thrillkiller’s success. Kishi would level fast against level 36-37 spiders, and be able to get up to level 230+ mining while doing it. And, since she has +10 to mining from the enchant on her gloves and her Mining helmet, I’ll be ready for any Thorium vein I run across.

Ryoushigishi is planning ahead

2/27/08
Ding! Thrillkiller hit level 40 while in the spider cave in Dustwallow Marsh, after camping enough to get 2.5 stacks of Iron Ore and 1.5 stacks of Mithril Ore. Usually 2 Iron Veins, 1 Mithril Vein, a treasure chest in the middle, and occasionally a level 38 rare spider would spawn when I’d log in every couple of hours. I’d spend 3 minutes killing and mining the veins, then log back out and go back to Daggerspine. I ended up at 233 mining, which was enough to allow me to learn to smelt Truesilver Ore, but smelting it doesn’t give you any free mining points. It’s grey when you learn it. The next one, Thorium Ore, isn’t until 250.

Ryoushigishi is about halfway powerleveled right now, I just had to get enough mats to allow him to powerlevel comfortably. Since he’s my highest hunter on Daggerspine, I wanted to have him get the Sniper Scope recipe, since he’d be using it the most. Unfortunately, I also want him to make 9 Mithril Mechanical Dragonlings, and they (and Sniper Scopes) share Star Rubies as a mat, so I have to juggle my available supply. Star Rubies on Daggerspine usually can be gotten for 1 to 1.5 gold, but right now it’s about 3-5 gold, so I have to hoard what I’ve saved up. The mats required for 9 Mithril Dragonlings are pretty intensive. 9x2=18 Goblin Rocket Fuel, 9x2=18 Star Rubies, 9x14=126 Mithril Bar, 9x4=36 Heart of Fire, 9x2=18 Inlaid Mithril Cylinder (IMC).

Luckily, I have all professions, so Panzergishi is able to make IMC’s, but that’s 5 Mithril Bar, 1 Truesilver Bar, and 1 Golden Bar each. 18x5=90 Mithril Bar, 18 Truesilver Bar, and 18 Golden Bar.
Total cost = 216 Mithril Bar, 18 Truesilver Bar, 18 Golden Bar, 18 Goblin Rocket Fuel, 18 Star Rubies, 36 Heart of Fire.
And, I have to make another 9 Mithril Dragonlings with another character later on, in preparation for when I can use them to make Arcanite Dragonlings. Such is the life of an Altoholic….

Ryo also needs to leave some powerleveling skill points open for making Truesilver Transformers for Kishi, since she’ll use them to make Goblin Jumper Cables XL.
It sucks that I’m basically draining my toons dry of all my mithril and Truesilver, but I can send Kishi over to the Drywhisker Gorge in Arathi Highlands, and she can level up her mining skill with the Mithril/Iron/Gold and Lesser Bloodstone Ore that spawns in there, since I’ll need the Bloodstone for my toons to turn in to Krazek in Booty Bay for the broken Crockpot quest.

Garfield the Cat says "Hit them back first!"

2/25/08
Hehe, I had some fun with engineering this weekend. I powered Kishigishi up to 286 engineering, and now I’m only waiting for Ryoushigishi to hit level 35 and make some Truesilver Transformers, so Kishi can make a bunch of Goblin Jumper Cables XL. Those things usually are on the AH for like 80-90 gold, and it’s not that expensive for the materials, I believe. With Kishi’s +5 mining enchant on her gloves, and the +5 on the Goblin Mining Helmet, it’s an instant +10 boost to mining, great for digging up a higher level ore.

I must say that it’s fun to level up Goblin engineering, and play around with all the goblin only BOP devices. The Goblin Mining Helmet is a actually a very nice helm for its level, offering 15 stamina in a mail helm. More stamina than the Green Iron Helmet, so I’m using it exclusively now. The Goblin Rocket Helmet looks like a grayish version of the Deepdive Helmet, but it’ll be fun to use it to charge up on Horde, who are not expecting paladins to have ranged attacks. The Goblin Bomb dispenser doesn’t do a lot of damage (around 300+), but it’s essentially an infinite bomb supply. With the Goblin Mortar, I could have 3 AOE bomb blasts going on during a fight. Lead off with the Goblin mortar at super long range, charge up to the enemy with the Rocket Helmet, stun them for 30 seconds (and stun myself for a few), use a dense dynamite, and finish it off with the bomb dispenser, which will probably spawn and blow up instantly, much like an Explosive Sheep. If I had attacked a bunch of people with my first attack, and they just grouped up around me to beat me down, this would help a lot. Of course, I could use my Goblin Dragon Gun to flame a bunch of them to death, since it does 60 damage per second for 10 seconds=600 damage in a cone, if they’re not smart enough to run away. So many choices, so few enemies to try them on….. :)

Ryo had something similar to the above scenario happen to him. I was doing a few easy turn-in quests in Duskwood, then headed down to get the flight point at the northern point of STV. I picked up the cooking pot quest to turn-in at Booty Bay, and found I hadn’t gotten the flight master there. So, I found a Hordie, got killed intentionally, and ghost ran down the shoreline. I got to the Spirit Healer, logged, logged back in, and got the flight point there. I also picked up the quest to check out the Nessingwary hunter’s camp, so I flew back to the top of STV, and ran down to the camp. A level 31 orc shaman, and a level 32 BE hunter were in the camp, and so I hit back first, and sent DarkGhstness to occupy the shaman. I quickly finished them off, dropping a Dense dynamite to hurt both of them, and letting off my Mechanical Dragonling to distract them. The Shaman went down first, even though he healed a couple of times, and then I turned my attention to the hunter. Concentrated shots and arcane shots took him down, his pet did negligible damage to me, so I sat down to eat and get my Well-fed buff. No such luck, as the shaman had come from the graveyard just across the river, and was attacking me again. I took most of his health, and then a passing rogue knifed him in the back, and he was gone.

I also played Horde this weekend, surprisingly. I logged in to find that I had parked Thrillkiller in the inn at Stonard (Swamp of Sorrows), and he was camping the alchemy and trade supply vendors for a few rarely seen recipes. I accepted the available quests for the area, and then ran out of the camp and headed north, to the hills. I found a few Mithril and Iron veins, but not enough to really make this area a great place for leveling mining. I think either the Darkmist spider cave in Dustwallow Marsh or the Drywhisker Gorge cave in the Arathi Highlands are the best areas for powerleveling from 180-220+ in Mining.

I had fun with my engineering trinkets though. As I was killing the crocolisks in the swamp, my lvl 39 rogue found a level 41 NE druid doing the same thing. I couldn’t have him taking my kills, so I snuck up on him, used a Cheapshot, used those 2 points to lower his defense, used a Dense dynamite, then stabbed him to death. I kept him on /target, and just kept hitting it every so often. I continued killing crocolisks, fading back into stealth after every kill. Whaddaya know, he popped back up again. This time I waited until he was done killing a crocolisk, then used my Gnomish Shrink Ray to shrink him down. Stab stab, and another honor kill. A little while later, I noticed a red name in the air again, so I stealthed, waited until he was about half health from fighting a crocolisk, then popped him with my Death Ray. 800 damage to him, a negligible amount of damage to me, and another HK. I decided to leave him alone, since I had gotten all my unprepared crocolisk flanks, and went do to the shore to fish for the last fish in my fishing quest. I got it, turned in my flanks to the Orc outpost by the coast, and went back to Stonard. I hearthed back to TB to drop off stuff in my bank and resupply, then flew to Dustwallow Marsh to camp the spider cave there.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Kishi wants a pet Bombling!

2/21/08
It’s all about the Goblin, baby! I finally got to be able to powerlevel it, and it went pretty well. I started by having Tsuris send over the 7 Dusky Belts he had made while powerleveling, so I could make the Gnomish Harm Prevention Belts for all my non-cloth wearers. I made a few Mithril casings to get to 232 engineering, then the 7 belts, which got me to 239. Going back to the trainer got me the Gnomish Battle Chicken plans, and that got me to 240, where I was able to do the Death ray trinket (by the way, no engineering skill is required to use it). After that, engineering got dumped, and immediately relearned. I powerleveled it back to 200, and talked to the Gnomish engineering trainer in Ironforge, who advised me to go to Tanaris and read the “Soothsaying for Dummies” book to respecc my profession. I traveled to Dustwallow Marsh, then went south along the mountain coast. This brought me out right at Steamwheedle port, and I was able to respecialize at Narain’s house. After that, I ran over to Gadgetzan, got the flight point, and hearthed back to Ironforge. It says on my General Tab that I’m a Goblin Engineer, but I’m not a card-carrying one. I’d like to be but aren’t. Reading the book supersedes getting the quest, and apparently the need for a card too. While I was in Gadgetzan, I was able to talk to Nixx, and pick up a few of the lowest level Goblin recipes (Construction helmet and Mining helmet). However, he does not offer Membership card renewal, which means I can’t gamble on getting the Pet Bombling recipe as a reward from renewing the card. Unless there’s another trainer that will allow me to renew, I’m outta luck. I can still get all the Goblin recipes, but what happens when 14 days in game time go by? Will I be locked out of Goblin Engineering? What is weird is that the Gnomish engineering trainer did have the membership card renewal available still, so I tried that to see if there was a glitch, and it would reward me with the Bombling recipe. I’ll have to wait 24 hours to see if I get the schematic in the mail, otherwise I’ll have to go to a GM.

(Edit 11/14/08)- Nope, once you choose a specialization, that's it. You can never get the other spec's non-attack pet. You can drop Gnomish engineering, respecc in Goblin, get all the Goblin recipes, but you'll never be able to get the Pet Bombling. And vice-versa, if you go Goblin first, you'll never get Lil' Smokey by respeccing. I usually have my Paladins gamble until they get the Lil' Smokey recipe, THEN respecc and go Goblin.

I also was pondering where to go to powerlevel my mining skills, as I like to be prepared for any vein I run across. Dustwallow Marsh has a spider cave in the north west that has a few Mithril veins that spawn. I think Kishi will need to spend some time there, and get her mining up to at least 220, so she can use the mining enchant gloves and the mining helmet to mine Truesilver veins. There’s a few Truesilver veins that spawn in the Shimmering flats, and that’s probably where I’ll be leveling her next, so I’d like to be prepared. I sent Hangfire to Azshara to camp for Deepdive helmet schematics, and I’ll send Ryo to the Hinterlands for the Mithril Mechanical Dragonling recipe, since I’ve long since sold all the ones I’ve picked up.

I do hope I’ll be able to get the Pet Bombling schematic, since I got and made the Lil’ Smokey non-attack pet, and it would cool to switch between the 2 pets and impress people. If I do go Gnomish then Goblin with Clockwrknyt on my Horde account, I think I’ll wait until I turn level 35, accept BOTH specialization quests, turn in Gnomish first, and hopefully the Goblin one will stick around.
Oooh, one last thing, I also came up with a new Macro for paladins.
#showtooltip
/cast Divine Protection
/equip Gnomish Harm Prevention Belt
This is nice for when you’re about to get ganked, or need some extra protection for a boss. You bubble up of course, but you also equip your handy-dandy little Gnomish Harm Prevention belt, automatically swapping it for whatever belt you currently have equipped. This starts the cooldown of 30 seconds before using it, but you still have a few seconds of Protection left (depending on what level of Divine Protection you’ve unlocked), so there should only be a little bit of unprotection before you have a fresh, longer lasting bubble up. The funny thing about the belt is that when it backfires, it still protects you. With the Jumper cables, if they don’t work, it just activates the cooldown timer. With the belt, if it backfires, you get Banished. You’re invulnerable to all damage for 20 seconds, but you can’t take any action (so Thottbot says).

Beastmaster Twink in Battlegrounds

2/20/08
I didn’t really do much for a few days last week, just posting my auctions and making gold. However, the weekend started off with a bang! Doomslinger, my hunter twink, actually got played in a battleground!!!!! I turned in a couple of quests from the Deadmines to level up to 19, and immediately headed for Darkshore. I ran up to Ruins of Althalaxx, logged out, and brought Ryoushigishi over. I had him use Find Treasure tracking to easily find the Cat Statues, cleared the area of all naga, and brought in Doomslinger to open the statue. The first 3 were dummies, but the 4th had a lvl 19 Ghost Saber, so I dropped the interim pet I had picked up, and tamed the cat easily. After that I headed back to Stormwind to get the cat’s loyalty up by killing enemies that were still green to me, so the cat would receive XP. I did the quest Trouble on the Coast, where you have to kill 28 murlocs on the coast of Westfall. I completed it, but didn’t turn it in, because I was only about 300 xp away from leveling at that point.

After that I got a 100 health enchant put on the Tunic of Westfall, and on a whim, actually ran to a battlemaster and joined the queue for Warsong Gulch. I’m a very cautious player, and I hate being made fun of, so I had been hesitant of doing this with my Horde twink hunter Sansetsukon. By this time however, I have spent a lot of time playing hunters, and have a lot more of an understanding of how to use them and their pets. Warsong Gulch was fun! 10 Allies against 8 Horde, and it seemed a lot of the players didn’t know what they were doing. They were just meeting in the middle, and duking it out. Only a few players bothered running for the flags, so the Alliance ended up winning. I did find out that all my items still worked in battlegrounds, including my engineering bombs! It’s very satisfying to toss a bomb at a group of enemies, and see them all get weakened to the point where a few shots will take them out. We won the game, and I had 27 kills and 14,000+ damage, which was a few thousand above anyone else in the game. Beastmaster Hunters Rule!

I also leveled up Kishigishi (paladin) and Ryoushigishi (hunter) in Southshore. They’re my 2 highest characters, both were around level 32, and they had professions that complimented each other. Kishi is a miner, and Ryo is a skinner. Where in Hillsbrad Foothills does that complement each other? The yeti caves, of course! The yeti’s are humanoids, but they can be skinned for medium and heavy leather, and there’s a few Iron/Gold/Mithril deposits that pop up randomly in the cave, along with the occasional Solid Chest. I would start Kishi killing yetis from one of the small cave offshoots on the bottom, kill towards the middle, then log out and bring in Ryo to skin what I had killed. He would continue killing and skinning into the other offshoot, then log out to let Kishi mine whatever Ore veins were in there. They were also very good at killing any Horde that came into the caves too. After the first level 29 druid stealthed over and attacked me from the back while lvl 32 Kishi was busy taking on 2 yeti’s at once, and caused me die from the yeti’s, I adopted the same concept that most WOW pvp realm players have. “If it’s not my faction, kill it!” Every other Horde character that came down there got killed. I think Ryo got about 6 kills, and Kishi got about 4. I only died when they got a ??? Horde mage to come in and fireball Kishi to death. But, I ran right back over there and unleashed hell right back on the next Hordie I encountered. Kishi got to about level 208 Mining doing this, but I was getting bored of logging in and out, so I decided to take her adventuring, and clear out some of the quests from Southshore.

While I was doing the Mountain Lion and Syndicate Footpad/Thief quest in Corahn’s Dagger, a level 36 Warlock attacked my level 34 paladin while she was at half health from finishing off a mountain lion. He Feared me, of course, and as I ran uncontrollably towards the cliff edge I decided to go with it. I bubbled up and jumped off, and ran out of sight of the warlock. I was annoyed, and so I was like “F* it, you’re on!” I didn’t care if I died, and figured I probably would, but I wanted to make this squishie hurt. Kishi had gotten a Goblin Mortar trinket off the AH a while back, and I’ve used it sparingly so far, as I can only reload it once I’ve dropped engineering and built it back up to respecc for Goblin engineering. I ran back around, and saw the warlock chilling on the side of the hill with his void walker. I fired off the Goblin Mortar at a long distance, to stun him and heavily damage both of them. I ran up close and used my stun ability to keep him locked up, and finished it off with a Solid Dynamite blast. Incidentally, I discovered the Goblin Mortar DOESN’T have a shared cooldown with the rest of the engineering bombs. Since it’s a trinket, I guess it makes sense. I had a hunch that he might try to Soulstone resurrect, so I ran over the hill while still targeting his corpse. Once I was out of sight, he did, so I came back to stuff some more dynamite into his face.

After that, I ran over to Sofera’s Naze, because there were too few Footpad’s in Corahn’s Dagger. I finished that quest up, and decided to keep heading north to Gallows Corner to do Crushridge Bounty. Since it was a drop quest (collect 9 knucklebones from the ogres), I knew it would take a lot more than 9 ogres to get all of them. I decided to speed things up a bit. I let off a Mechanical Harvest Reaper robot, and that little guy stuck by me for 10 minutes, doing almost as much damage as I was. I was using my sword/shield combo, because the ogres tended to block my 2-handed hammer swings too much, and I was doing about 70-80 damage each hit. The little reaper was doing about 50-60 damage each hit, and helped my grind immensely! I completed the quest, hearthed home to Southshore, and found that I had cleared out most of the quests I could do in Southshore. I flew to Ironforge and Stormwind to turn in some quests, and finally dinged 35! Finally, I can make some Gnomish Harm Prevention belts and get skill points for them, and make the battle chicken/Death ray at level 240. Then, I drop engineering, pick it back up, level to 200, talk to Narain Soothfancy in Tanaris, and respecc to Goblin. After that I think I’ll have Kishi be the keeper of the Mithril Mechanical Dragonlings, by making 9 of them in preparation for when each of the characters turns 40, and another 9 to use for Arcanite Dragonlings when they turn 50.

I also outfitted Kishi in Scarlet – The Chain of the Scarlet Crusade, to be precise. I had picked up the chest for about 50 gold, and the boots for probably about 5-10 gold, and of course the rest of the items were cheap. I got a +100 enchant for the chest, and 7 stamina for the gloves, and did the wrist and boot enchants myself. I think Kishi has about 1900 health now, but she’ll have to wait until I get into the Scarlet monastery to complete the set, since the leggings are a BOP reward from a SM boss.

Monopoly - spelled I B M

2/12/08
Whew, I discovered a handy little trick last night! I took Ryoushigishi down to the Deadmines to knock out the quests outside the instance, and see how far a lvl 30 hunter can solo inside the instance. I didn’t get that accomplished, though. You know why? The Defias Miners outside the instance are lvl 15-17 normal mobs, and they drop a lot of good stuff! My first pass through, I ended up with 12 Coarse Stone, 15 Copper Ore, 6 Tin Ore, 1 Iron Ore, 3 Heavy Stone, 3 stacks of linen cloth, 2 stacks of Wool Cloth, and a few green items to send to my disenchanter. If I had a miner, I could have gotten even more Ore and Stones, but Ryo is a skinner. I’ll have to try this with Aosdanasaoi, and pickpocket groups of the mobs before I wipe them out with fast and furious dagger strikes. I did this once, hearthed back to drop off my loot, and flew back to Sentinel Hill to attempt it again, because my blacksmith Panzergishi can’t get enough Coarse Stone to keep up with the demand for Golden Rods, as well as the other twink armor he can make. The drop rate of Coarse Stone from Tin veins is very low, maybe about 1 in 6 tries. These miners were dropping them 5 at a time! I need to find an equivalent for Horde toons. Maybe the cave where you get the Miner’s Emerald and the pages of the Samophlange Manual for NPC’s in Ratchett would be a good place to do it.

As I was flying back to Sentinel Hill, a lvl 70 mage was posting that he was bored, and willing to run people thru Deadmines for free. I said heck yeah!, and tucked Ryo into the inn there for safekeeping, while I logged onto my lvl 17 NE hunter Doomslinger, a future twink. I had been run through as far as the ship before, but our runner, a lvl 40 Warlock, died and didn’t want to continue running. So, she’s been sitting in Stormwind, serving as a food material mule. I quickly switched around bags to make her battle ready, mailed whatever extras to another toon, and flew to Sentinel Hill. That mage, using lvl 1 Arcane explosion, was able to run VC in about 15 minutes, just hampered by the fact that we looted everything. We finished up with full bags, and the mage offered to run again. I said yes, and logged onto Preyonyou, my lvl 26 Priest. We got through everything, and I got some blue items, but since she was high level for the instance, nothing really was an upgrade. Even the staff that drops near the end was kind of a little below what I had equipped, especially since I had +3 Intellect on it. But, I was glad to get it done. That’s two more toons all the way through VC, bringing the group to 4. Kishigishi, Tsuris, Preyonyou, and Doomslinger. Doomslinger was my main concern, as I didn’t want to gain too much XP, and ding over to level 20. I only leveled to 18, so I have plenty of room to play with. I’ll turn in the Defias instance quests, maybe do the Wilder Thistlenettle undead miner quests outside the instance, and I should be ready to go to Darkshore for my Ghost saber. I will keep PigglyWiggly though, until I can get one of those armored boars from RFK or RFD in Southern Barrens. The Ghost Saber would match Doomslinger though, since she’s a tall, lean Night Elf with white hair, and the Ghost Saber is a lean cat that is translucently silver/gray.

Oooh, ooh! I stumbled across something that will get me to focus my efforts on leveling Ryoushigishi. I saw the Sniper Scope schematic on the AH for 60-80g, and after much consideration (about 2 seconds worth, lol), I bought it. I had Ryo buy it because duh, he’s my highest hunter, and will need scopes pretty regularly. Once I get him to level 35, I will be able to mess with another facet of Daggerspines economy, the scope industry! Sniper scopes are on there for 8.5 gold, everyday. On Demon Soul, I’m having Bullkathos post 1 for 20-30 gold for 48 hours, while Bloodshrike posts a few for 16-18 gold, and it’s turned out to be successful. I’ll do the same to Daggerspine once I get the chance to powerlevel Engineering. Mwaahahahaha!!!!!! (Be wary of anyone ending a sentence in multiple exclamation marks, I learned that from the Battlefield: Earth Decology by L.Ron Hubbard).

I’ve been buying Star Rubies for about 1 to 1.25 gold for a while now, so I have a bunch saved up and ready to be used.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Make sure to take off all the mothballs when you bring toons out of storage


2/11/08
I did a bit of leveling this weekend, starting with Bloodshrike (troll). I vacuumed the dust off of him, and sent him to Dustwallow Marsh. I started with the Supplies quest, where you have to go to the tower in the middle of Dustwallow, free the woman, and get to the top to pick up the supplies. I was level 40, Arikara is level 31, so he’s not holding onto aggro very well. We had some problems. The respawn time on the Theramore soldiers and the named officer out front is incredible….you kill the officer, you kill about 5 soldiers, and the officer is back again! I died once because I pulled too many soldiers due to overconfidence, I died another time because I didn’t run far enough away to lose aggro.

It was funny, though. I noticed I was losing health too rapidly, so I popped a health potion, then activated the Gnomish Harm Prevention Belt to protect me from an additional 500 damage. I just didn’t run far enough away to lose the aggro from the officer, and he killed me because I had stopped running. That was enough. I buffed up with scrolls, well-fed for 12 stamina + spirit, turned on Aspect of the Hawk, and I sent Arikara in first to aggro everyone. After that, I just did a BOOM!Headshot! to everyone in there, dealt with the rapid respawn of soldiers on the way up the tower, grabbed the supplies, and jumped off.

I popped my Parachute Cloak, and was surprised to see Arikara floating down with me. I’m used to pets having to stay when I jump from cliffs, or their AI sends them back down, searching for a way to reach you, aggroing everything in their path. Or, they just disappear when you get far enough away from them, letting you summon them to your side instantly. After that I went to see Jarl, and did the Searching for Information quest, ending with killing the demon on the dock. I think I like leveling in Dustwallow, as opposed to Stranglethorn Vale, since that’s always such a hotly contested territory.

I also brought Kishigishi out a little bit, finishing up the undead sailor quests in the Wetlands by killing the captain and getting the cursed orb to turn in at Stormwind. After that, I went over to Dustwallow, since I had a travel quest there. While I was there, I did the first few steps of the Lighthouse quest chain, by going to see the lighthouse keeper, getting the Thresher Oil from the threshers by the docks, and turning it back in. I didn’t bother to go see Nat Pagle yet, since I’ll be doing the fishing quest at 35. I dinged 32 while I was killing the threshers, which actually wasn’t too hard. Level 34 and 35 threshers, and my paladin wasn’t having much problem taking them down. I know that toons should be able to take on mobs a few levels above them, and maybe even multiples of higher level mobs, but I can only do that with a Hunter or Warlock. I think the level difference might get more pronounced the higher you reach. After that, I brought Kishi over to Southshore in Hillsbrad, so she could work on her fishing, as well as doing the level 30+ quests available there.

Edit: I also started out Saturday by doing the Deadmines with a PUG. It went very well, especially since I was level 31. One of the party members annoyed me by needing a little too much, but since I didn’t really want anything that dropped, it didn’t matter that much. Finally, another toon done with VC. Hmmm….I bet Ryoushigishi could solo it now, since he’s a level 30 hunter engineer. I’ll just send Pigglywiggly to build up aggro with every mob attacking, and then kill them all with my gun and bombs.

My Gromsblood buyers are doing well too. Hangfire has about 10 stacks of Gromsblood, and 29 Felcloth so far. He came to Winterspring with about 100 gold, and now has about 66 gold left. Once I sell off about 2-3 stacks, I should easily recoup that money, and have plenty of Gromsblood to give to Gwiddonyn while she’s leveling Alchemy.

Before I start this, I’m not bragging, I’m just noting this as kind of a journal entry of my progress on the different servers. On Daggerspine, Clockwrkmage has about 600 gold, Panzergishi has about 760 gold, Tsuris has about 550 gold, Gwiddonyn has about 300 gold…..I’ve got more money and mid-high level mats for crafting than a lot of level 70 players out there. I’d like to stop playing the AH, but it’s so addicting to find bargains on there. I could probably get into buying and reselling blue and epic items, since I scan level 35-40 armor so much, looking for items to disenchant. I’ll have to use BTM scanner, and see if it comes up with anything.
On Demon Soul, Bloodshrike has about 400 gold, Bullkathos has about 600 gold (he’s been selling Arcanite Rods at 80g per rod), Kukoshakaku has about 300 gold, and Banesidhe has about 300 gold. Thrillkiller has about 30 gold left after I went on a Mithril Ore buying spree, once I noticed Bullkathos was running out of Mithril Tubes to make Sniper Scopes with. Mithril Ore was cheaper than buying Bars, so, I decided to stock up.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

To craft, or not to craft: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler to be a poor, fast leveling main, or a rich level 20 alt....

2/6/08
I brought Bloodshrike (BE) back to Silvermoon, and got those first five quests out of the way. It’s so much easier when you think strategically, instead of blindly doing all the quests you come across. Is it worth traveling across the map for 1 quest? No! Is it worth doing the Lunar festival event with all your toons? No! Well….maybe it’s worth doing it to get the waypoint in Moonglade, as well as the free teleport to capitol cities, but I don’t think I’ll bother with all the other quests. I think you have to be level 45 to get the schematic for the Firework Launcher, and even higher for the Cluster Launcher.

Hmmm…..I guess this would be a good time to level my first Bloodshrike (troll), as I could get a lot of the Coins of Ancestry easily, and get multiple schematics if they let me. That way I could sell the schematics on the AH. He’s level 40, almost 41, and I know that Dustwallow marsh would be a good place for him to level. It was easy for Bullkathos to level up there, and hunters have an easy time of it anyway. I haven’t checked the teleports, but maybe one of them takes you to Shattrath? Clockwrkmage (BE and gnome) should get the hearth for Shattrath then, so they can Hearth there, and be ready for when they level up enchanting.
For this new account on Darrowmere, I’ve rethought the idea, and I don’t think I’ll try to gain rep with Thunder Bluff. Maybe with Bloodshrike (BE), since she will be able to run faster with Aspect of the Cheetah, and hunters are my favorite class anyway. But it’s worth all my toons staying to kill the level 20+ boss in Deathholme, because the quest reward is pretty nice. It’s a tough fight though, so maybe I’ll have a guild member run me through it early, and be able to use the weapon for a longer period of time.

Do I want to take up all professions on this new server again? I’m not sure……
At low levels (1-225): Leatherworking brings in money from Toughened Leather Gloves (6-8g each), Barbaric Bracers (7-9g each), and Shadowskin Gloves (16-20g each). Blacksmithing brings in money from the Rods (silver can go for 2-3g, Golden for 4-6g, Truesilver for 6-8g, and Arcanite goes for 70-85g each. Shining Silver Breastplate can sell for 15-18 gold, and the Green Iron Hauberk can sell for 20-25 gold. It’s a way to make money if you spend most of your time in capitol cities playing the AH, but if you’re actually leveling and farming at the same time, you can probably make a lot more. Tailoring can bring in money from making bags (if you farm the mats yourself), and from some specialty items like Robes of Arcana (6-8g each), Shadow Hood (6-8g each), Truefaith gloves and Hands of Darkness (probably 3-4g each).

Tailoring does have a use, though. At level 215? I believe, you can make the White Bandit Mask, which is excellent for disenchanting for Vision Dust/lesser Nether Essence/Small Radiant Shards. You could take it up for nothing but that purpose, and still make a profit (unless someone screws the economy, like on Demon Soul….)
But, is it worth taking up the professions if I plan on actually playing? A stack of copper ore/bars can go for 2g pretty easily, and I usually come back with 3 stacks after grinding for an hour or so. 1 Silver ore can go for 1g each, since they’re used by Miners to powerlevel mining on a low level toon, usually funded by someone’s high level main character.
The grass is always greener on the other side, I guess. When I’m out leveling, I wish I had mining/skinning/herbalism to pick up the mats that I pass by, but when I’m at the AH, I wish I had a profession so I could sell a finished product on there, or be able to make materials that my other crafting professions need.

On starting a new server

2/5/08
I started up 3 new toons on Darrowmere last night. All Blood Elves so far, because…..I felt like it. Bloodshrike (female BE hunter) is lvl 4, mainly because of the xp from discovering new zones. I didn’t do any quests in her starting zone, which may have been a mistake. You get a 4 slot bag free from one of the earliest quests, and it’s really easy to go up levels and get a few silver when you start up. I took her immediately to Undercity/Brill/Tarren Mill to get the flight masters unlocked, then warped back to Brill to take the zeppelin to Grom’gol Base camp for the flight master, then to Orgrimmar for the flight master. After that I ran down to Razor Hill in Durotar, since that area is pretty rich in Copper Ore. However, I only had 15 copper after repairs (since my bow took damage along with my armor when I rezzed after ghost running), so I wasn’t able to get mining or the mining pick. What to do, what to do.
I’ll tell ya what to do. I started a new toon to serve as a Mail/AH alt, with the possibility of leveling it later. Doing the first 5 quests in the BE starting zone netted me about 5 silver, along with the 4 slot bag. This second toon is Clockwrkmage (Male BE mage), and it’ll definitely be my enchanter, since BE’s get a bonus to Enchanting (I think it’s +10). After I did those 5 quests, I was level 4, so I ran to Silvermoon to hang out and send Bloodshrike the silver so she could start mining in Durotar. I ran Bloodshrike up to the X-roads in the meantime, so she’d have the flight master there. But…...she only had 15 copper, which wasn’t enough to fly back to Orgrimmar and Durotar, which is where I can actually mine in safety, without being attacked by level 12-16 monsters. So, I logged back in after my hearthstone had cooled down, and hearthed back to Razor Hill, since I had set my hearth there.
After that I decided to make one more alt, just because I could. Psilentkill is my female BE rogue, and she looks pretty cool. The racial bonuses and starting stat bonuses on characters don’t matter as much if you’re experienced at playing a class, and at the end of the day, all that matters is that you’re having fun. If you don’t like the looks of your toon, will you want to play it? I did those first five quests, and then ran up to the first town that had an inn, so she could start collecting a well rested bonus. I might keep her in the Blood Elf lands until she’s gone through level 10, and gotten her first rogue quest, but I’m not sure. I probably should bring Bloodshrike back, because the hunter quest to tame your pet usually has to be offered in your racial capitol city.

....altoholic urges rising......

2/4/08
Woo7!!!! My last toon on Horde side Demon Soul is now an Engineer! I had been wanting to give my Leatherworker shaman Kukoshakaku engineering, but his bags and bank were packed too full of mats for leatherworking (along with armor/weapons he’d have to level to use). So, I leveled him from 21-25 this weekend, cleared out some room, and powerleveled him to 225 engineering. I also leveled his fishing from 140-175 while I was in Tarren Mill, since I had to go over there for the shaman quest “Call of Water.” I was trying to get the Thick Murloc armor recipe from the tradesman there, but it never spawned, even though Thottbot said it would. So, I had Sansetsukon get it from the leatherworking supplies vendor in Booty Bay, since Sansetsukon is stationed there to try to sell off Deviate Scale belt recipes to Ally players. I finished off Kuko’s well-rested XP while running to the Horde camp in 1k Needles, since I hadn’t gotten the Barbaric Leggings recipe yet, and it’s a pretty good item to make.
Speaking of leatherworking, I maxed out Tsuris’s Leatherworking at 225 on Daggerspine. I realized that I’d want to make 7 Dusky Belts, since they’re used in the Gnomish Harm Prevention belt recipe, and I have 7 toons that can wear leather. Now I just have to level up Kishigishi to level 35, so she can use them to top out her engineering to get to 240, so she can get the Deathray and Gnomish chicken recipes from the Gnomish trainer, and then dump engineering, level it back up to 200, and click on the book at Narain Soothfancy’s house at Steamwheedle Port. That will let me take up my end goal of Goblin engineering. I’m not sure if I’ll do this for Clockworknyt, since the Chicken doesn’t seem to do much. I’ll have to see if the Deathray rocks some socks against other players, or if I should not even bother making it.
Other items of note: I picked up the Robes of Arcana recipe for 15 gold and the Shadow Hood recipe for 8 gold with Preyonyou, my Draenai Priest tailoring alt. Robes of Arcana are used for a Warlock quest, so they’re always in demand. The Shadow Hood recipe isn’t blue, but I’ve only seen it twice, because it seems to be a rare drop. It’s a very nice hood that gives 11 intellect and +shadow damage to lvl 27? Cloth wearers, so it would be perfect for Warlocks and Shadow Priests. Warlocks especially, because I always pull with Shadow bolt, and immediately put 2 DOT shadow words on the mob.
I might also be starting up some more toons on Darrowmere, Horde side. One of my friends at work, the girl who got me into WOW, moved her toon there from Demon Soul. Since it would cost me $250 to move all 10 of my toons, I think I’ll just make a few to ten toons over there instead. I think I’m going to avoid making Tauren toons, and make a lot more Blood elf toons instead. Maybe a few Orcs, if I can avoid the whole greasy hair look. Yeah, I’m a snob, but I have the philosophy that if you’re going to be staring at someone’s butt for hours on end, it might as well be nice to look at. That’s why most of my Alliance toons are women. I think I’ll make a BE hunter, bring them all the way to Thunder Bluff immediately, and have them work on the TB startup quests. That way he/she will be well on their way to Exalted by 40, and able to get their Kodo.

Stay away from my NPC!

2/1/08
The second month of the new year, already! You know what that means, sports fans! No, not real sports fans…..forget I said that. It’s Darkmoon Faire time! The first weekend of the month they setup, and they’re at that location all week. I’ll think it might be at Shattrath City this month, which sucks, because all my toons are 41 or below. I guess Banesidhe could try camping the faire, I just hope he won’t get ganked and camped because he’s too low-level for the zone.

I decided to finish off the quests on the Ratchett coastline with Morticide, since I had the Isha Awak (lvl 27 swimming dinosaur) and Northwatch Hold quests to finish off. I took down Isha pretty easily, even though I was level 23, though I must say my Fire totem and Lightning shield did most of the work. I mostly dodged and caused him to dodge with my attacks. :)

Northwatch Hold was pretty easy. As I was running up to it, I saw a lvl 21 druid taking the guards on, and asked if he wanted to party up. He did so, and considering that most of the guards are level 16, it was extremely easy. Seeing him Prowl made me miss playing my druids though, since Ghost Wolf doesn’t have stealth (yet?). The only hard part there is usually the escort quest back. Unless you’re level 25+, or an engineer, or have healing abilities, the darn NPC aggro’s so easily that you can be swarmed by multiple mobs. You’ll be fine, but you’ll fail the quest because he dies pretty quickly. Luckily, with 2 of us, we were able to engage the mobs at a distance, and keep Gilthares moving along with no fear of death.

I'm drowning in mats here!

1/31/08
Kukoshakaku, my lvl 21 Horde Tauren Shaman, was in need of leveling last night. He’s my leatherworker, and as such, he’s got a full bank already. Leatherworkers require a LOT of mats to operate, and it’s a pain to have to search for them, so it’s best to stock up when you find them for cheap. As an example, the Barbaric Bracers recipe requires 4 Large Fangs, 4 Small Lustrous Pearls, 1 Raptor Hide, 2 cured Hides (can’t remember if they’re medium or heavy), and Heavy Leather. Large Fangs stack in stacks of 5, not in stacks of 20. So in order to to make 5 of the bracers, you’d need 1x20 stack of pearls, and 4 stacks of 5 Large Fangs each. Not too mention all the heavy leather you’d burn through. Luckily, I’m in the practice of scanning through the Auction house for deals on gems and pearls for my Jewelcrafter, so I had built up quite a few stacks for both my Horde and Alliance Leatherworkers when they got to that level, and I had only bid usually about 3-6 silver for each of the Small Lustrous Pearls.

But enough of the digression. Like Morticide, I want to make Kuko into an engineer. But, he’s got a very full bank, and even his bags were kinda full. I reviewed his inventory, sent stuff he wouldn’t really care to equip over to Bane to disenchant, posted a few items on the AH, and found that I had cleared enough of the bags on my person to go out and quest. Since he was in Orgrimmar at the time, I headed over to Northern Barrens to kill Serena Bloodfeather, and turn in the Samophlange by the border of Ashenvale.

I went back to the Sludge Fen to get the 15 slugs for Wenikee, and also did the Shredder escort quest (The Escape). After that I headed into Ashenvale, to do the Warsong Scout report quest. Since I was there, I also did the moonwell phial quest at the Laughing Sister enclave in the middle of Ashenvale, and headed over to the coast to get the 3rd scouts report. I flew back to Splintertree post, filled the phial at the moonwell by Farfallen river, turned the reports in, and hearthed back to TB. After that I turned in Ishamuhale’s fang at Camp Taurajo, and did the Thunder lizard blood and windserpent scale quests. I also did the razormane quillboar quests where you have to kill a set number of thornweavers, geomancers, and water seekers, as well as the other one where you have to collect the 60 tusks.

Not hard to do, but I complicated matters by aimlessly searching north of Camp T, endlessly hitting /target lako to search for Lakotamani, one of the 3 (or 4) named monsters you can kill for a pickup quest to take back to Camp T. Otowanka is a thunder lizard, Lakotamani is a kodo, and there’s a windserpent in southern barrens you can kill as well. Supposedly, there’s a 4th monster, a scorpion, which is hiding out in the Sithilid egg hatching grounds, but I’ve never seen it, and I know I’ve spent some time looking. Look them up on Thottbot, you were supposed to get a permanent stat increase to 1 of your stats by turning them in, but I don’t think that’s true anymore.

Now I have to head to southern barrens to find Brine for my Shaman Call of Water quest. She’ll send me back up to Ashenvale, where I can finally turn in my 3 chapters of the shredder manual, since you have to be level 23 to get the quest. I believe I had Morticide be the designated mule for them while I was leveling Bloodshrike in Ashenvale many moons ago, so he could collect all 12 pages for each of my 10 characters. Anyways, I’ll be glad to get rid of them, and free up 3 slots of my inventory.I finished the night with a lot of copper and tin ore, some coarse stone, a lot more room in my inventory, and I gained 2 levels. Not bad for a few hours playing.

Oh, I just remembered I finished off the centuar quests in the Barrens too. I had killed Hezrul Bloodmark when I was killing turtles at the oasis south of Wailing Caverns, so I turned it in and did the “Counterattack” quest. I really, really don’t like that quest. The warlord Krom’zar you have to kill is a lvl 20 elite, he roams with 2 guards, and other centaurs keep spawning around you while you’re fighting him. I still haven’t made Kuko into an engineer, so he doesn’t have bombs to do AOE damage to all the centuars in the area around him, and he doesn’t have target dummies to distract the mobs for a few precious seconds that I could use to pound on one exclusively. So, I got killed about 3 times, but I was able to finally do it.

Also, while I was by the Wailing caverns, I went inside to do some of the outside quests. Since instances have been changed to have normal monsters outside the instance portal, instead of elites from the beginning, they’re a lot easier to deal with. I can do a lot of the quests on these low level instances by myself now. I was able to do the Serpentbloom, Mad Magglish 99-year old wine, and Fizzy drinks quest. I knew I’d be able to get the serpentbloom and kill Mad Magglish, but I wasn’t expecting the oozes outside the instance to drop quest items, for some reason. Oh well, any quest done is a good thing.

Hello? Tank looking for healz

1/29/08
I didn’t do much last night, I just took Panzergishi, my 27 Dwarf Warrior, into the Deadmines to try to see how far I could get. I got the Miner’s Union Cards and the locket outside the instance, then headed in to get the bandanas and the gnoam thing from Sneed. Once I got past there, it got really hard in the goblin foundry, since it was hard to pull the the mobs in singles, plus they were activating their compact harvest reaper kits. I got killed a few times, and decided to call it a night. I was lucky enough to snap up the Sniper scope plans from my Demon Soul Horde Auction House for 10 gold, and I reposted it for 65-100 gold. I had already sold one for 60 gold, so I figured it wouldn’t be a problem selling it.

Bring out the Tank!

1/28/08
I worked on both my Horde and Alliance accounts this weekend. Horde side, I worked on my druid Morticide, leveling him from level 21-25. After I had gotten through some of my equipment that I had lined up for the 22-25 level, I decided to powerlevel him through Engineering. That took a few hours, but he’s now 225 Engineering, and able to use the Parachute Cloak and Gnomish Harm Prevention belt.

Alliance side, I mainly worked on my Warrior Panzergishi. He’s been level 24 for about a month now, just sitting in Ironforge making twink armor (Shining Silver Breastplate & Green Iron Hauberk) and enchanting rods. Since he’s gotten about 600 gold, and used up a lot of his supplies, it was time to take him out leveling. I had a bow that I wanted to equip, but I needed to get the weapon skill from the weapon master in Darnassus, and I had a couple of travel quests for Auberdine and Astranaar. Since I was there, I decided to do the Remains quests on the shores of Darkshore, since it’s an easy way to get to Honored with Darnassus. I also did a couple of the “go here, meet this person” type of quests there, and then headed to Ashenvale. I didn’t really care about getting the Furlbog transforming rod, so I didn’t start it.

However, I decided to do the Dal Bloodclaw quest, since it’s just north of the village. I’m level 25, and looking for Dal outside the encampment, when I see a level 25 Horde shaman escorting the druid bear out of the cave. I decided to be nice, because I would be pissed if I got almost to the end of the escort quest, and some jerk ganked me. So, I /waved to him, and helped him kill a few of the mobs. I’m not all nice, though. After that, I decided to take the 2 travel quests to Forest Song, and as I’m running along the path, I see a level 27 Tauren hunter standing at the T intersection of the road in from the Barrens. He’s just standing there, so I decided to kill him. If you’re too stupid to seek cover in contested territory when you go AFK, you deserve to get killed. I turned in the travel quests, continued on to get the flight path from Azshara, flew back to Astranaar. I then took up the travel quest to Kaela Shadowspear in Stonetalon, and went through the pass in the mountains.

I decided not to do the “Gnomes Respite” quest, since there were 2 lvl 23 hordies playing there, and they killed me as I was running up to Kaela. Well, I did start it, since I figured they would have attacked me anyway. I ran back to my corpse, and killed one of them on the way up to meet Kaela. After that I went to Stonetalon peak to get the flightpoint, and got attacked by a single level 24 mage. I’m level 26 by this point, so I should have had no problem with him, even though I didn’t have Intercept yet. However, he knew how to Frost Nova me in place, and keep out of the way of my weapons. I think I may have gotten him with a Sunder and a Hamstring, but that was it. So, I started shooting my bow at him. He’s channeling fireballs at me, and I’m plugging him with arrows. At the last point, he hits me with at least 3 Arcane Missiles, but they don’t do much damage. I probably have 1/20th of my health left, he has the same. I kept spamming my shoot button, and took him down. Wahoo!

From that point, I picked up the Harpy killing quest, and went down to the Charred Vale, west of the Horde village in Stonetalon Mountains. Unluckily, this toon is now a Blacksmith/Engineer, so I couldn’t mine the Iron and Mithril deposits that I passed. I also completed the “Delivery for Mauren” quest from Stormwind, where you have to get 8 basilisk scales, while I was circling the Vale.

According to Lightheaded, the addon that gives you player created notes on each quest, you could do this in tandem with the basilisk killing quests in the Shimmering Flats of 1k Needles, but I was glad to get it done now. I finished with those quests, and I’m level 27, fully burned though my well-rested XP. I decided to go to Nijel’s Point in Desolace, since none of my Alliance characters have gotten that flight point before. Ehhh, not much to see, but it will be fun leaping off the cliff to attack horde characters trying to sneak past below. I turned in the Harpy quest back in Stonetalon peak, flew to Ratchett, equipped about 4 items from my bank, and jumped on the boat for Booty Bay just as it was leaving the dock. Once there, I flew up to Stormwind, set my hearth, went down to Northshire Abbey, and turned in the 5 Rethban ore that have been bugging me to complete the quest. Whew! Done with that toon for at least 10 days (probably a month), until he builds up 1.5 levels worth of well-rested again. I need to concentrate on my Alchemist (Warlock) and my Enchanter (Mage), so I can powerlevel them first, and finally start making some Arcanite bars and good enchants.

Moar time with my favorite pint-sized warlock

1/22/08
I finally got back to Gwiddonyn, my level 23 Warlock, who was sitting on the shore in Ashenvale, not getting any well-rested XP. I killed Ruzuul, got my 20 Mirefin heads, and went to kill Dal Bloodclaw and get Elune’s Tear before returning to Astranaar. After that I got the Iron Rod up by Feralas, and went into it to get the flight point. Stupidly, I tried to run back down to Ashenvale, instead of just flying back. I got killed a few times, and finally just ran back to Astranaar as a ghost. As I got close to the town, I decided to just keep my ghost status, and ran thru the Talondeep Path. I turned in “On Guard in Stonetalon” with the Ally NPC by the southern graveyard in Stonetalon, once I had logged out and logged back in. I also picked up the quest from Gaxim for the easy travel quest to Ironforge. I decided not to kill the goblin treecutters for Gaxim, since it’s a quest chain that ends in killing Dust Devils in Westfall, and the drop rate sucks. Likewise, I decided not to do the “Pridewings of Stonetalon,” because it was going to take too long, and I needed to get to bed.

So, I ran up to northern part of Stonetalon, and before I could get to the flight point, I stumbled across a level 22 Orc Hunter. We traded kills for a bit, and he did pretty well. He kept running around and avoiding my bomb blast areas, which was quite annoying. I think we got 2 kills each, and I decided I had had enough with my second win. So, I hopped a flight back to Astranaar, and tucked Gwiddonyn in the Inn for some needed rest.
Doh!!! I just realized what I’ve been doing wrong in PvP. Warlocks Fear Humanoids and Beasts. I should have Feared him or his pet, slapped my mind control cap on, and sent him into the middle of a bunch of monsters. Also, if I’m a hunter against a hunter, wouldn’t Scare Beast work? Fear is a legitimate spell to use, it just sucks when you go up against someone who uses it.

On a different note, I’ve been having every character that makes it over to Southshore stay there for while. Why? 3 fishing pools that spawn at least every hour. It’s a great place to get the fish tracking book if you haven’t picked it up, and the Alchemy supply vendor in the building just north of the inn has lvl 21 greater healing potions for sale regularly, along with the fire protection potion recipe. And, just west of that, the trade supply vendor has the lesser Deflection recipe on sale almost always. I think there’s only a 10 minute respawn on it or something, because I can ALWAYS get it when I log on. I finally flew back to Ironforge, since she was getting full of fish and items. I probably got about 45 Firefin Snappers, 25 Oily Blackmouth, 15 Stranglekelp, 18 medium leather, 3 heavy leather, and bolts of wool & silk cloth. Not bad for logging in for 2-3 minutes at a time.
I know it’s probably boring to hear about how much gold someone else has, but I am kinda excited. How cool is it to have a level 22 character open their mailbox, select open all, walk away from the computer, and come back 100 gold richer? Clockwrkmage had 257 gold when I opened it, and came back to 360 gold. My warrior is also getting to be rich too, based off of just selling enchanting rods and twink armor. I had also snapped up the mithril shield spike recipe on the AH for a 3g buyout, and immediately relisted it for 20-30 gold. It got bought out, so that was a nice bit of profit. I think the lvl 24 warrior has about 450 gold now.

A day in the life of a Fury Warrior

1/21/08
Bullkathos traveled a lot these weekend, met new and interesting monsters, and killed them. I started out by fishing for the Sartheris Striker (fishing quest) and doing the troll killing quests in STV, since I needed 30 of them for the “Cyclonian” warrior quest. Since I was there, I decided to do a bunch of the other troll killing quests that were offered in Grom’gol, then I went to scout out Nessingwary’s expedition. I didn’t do the different beast killing quests, but I’ll probably get around to it.

After that, it was off to Swamp of Sorrow for the last fish in the fishing quest. Here’s a hint: Don’t run along the southern mountains when you’re level 35-40, and want to complete the quest. Go along the northern path, fighting or avoiding the monsters and humanoids there. They’re lower level, and it gets you to a deserted shoreline, without pesky 42+ murlocs.

Following that, it was off to Desolace, to pick up some easy XP, or so I thought. I was level 39 and a half by then, so I thought I’d pick up some easy XP by doing the goblin turn-in quests, and talking to Martek (quest from goblins in Shimmering Flats). Well, I did those quests, and it wasn’t enough! So, I did the Badlands Reagent run, coupled with the Coyote tooth and the lesser elemental stone quests. Those quests take freakin’ forever! I also discovered the other quest giver by Martek gives the Blue Pearl Diving quest, which gives you the Flashbomb engineering recipe. I had already done diving there while I was in STV, so now I know where to go, if I decide it’s worth doing. Ehh, it probably is.

So now any character that goes to the Badlands will have a grocery list of easy turn-in quests. 9 Blue Pearls, 1 Frost Oil, 1 Gyrochronomatom, 1 lesser invisibility + 1 Healing potion, 2 Buzzard wings, talk to Sheena? (travel quest from Stonard). After that, I warped home to Thunder Bluff, got my level 40 skills, and jumped off Hunter Rise. I popped my Parachute Cloak, and landed right by a white wolf. It was Ghost Howl, and I guess I hadn’t done that quest with Bull, because the cloak dropped, so I was able to turn in the quest when I got my Gray Kodo mount from Bloodhoof village. I paid 76 gold for Riding skill training, and I think about 8 gold for the mount. Not bad, and I still had 240 gold remaining, hehe. After that, I rode over to Camp Taurajo, and flew to Dustwallow Marsh.

I did almost all the quests available there, with only a few from Tabetha and Rustsprocket remaining. I got camped by a level 45 rogue by North Point tower, when I was trying to rescue the crew member and get the supplies, but I logged out for a bit, and I wasn’t bothered when I came back in. Most of the quests were easy, and I discovered that they had added a bunch of new quests in the 2.3 patch. Before, when you met Jarl at Swamplight Manor, the first quest was 3 soothing spices, the 2nd was 20 spider eyes, and the 3rd was a moonsteel broadsword. The soothing spices are no problem, but the cost to make a moonsteel broadsword is prohibitive, and nobody really buys it on the AH. Now you kill 10 frogs around the house, get the 20 eyes, and go kill a level 36 murloc for his sword.

After I had finished the quests in the northern part of Dustwallow, I headed south, killed Deadmire, and did a few of the Tabetha quests. One of them was a travel quest to Beazil’s Wreck, which is a new area. Just east of Tabetha, you have to pop oozes by using electricity channeling into your body, and pick up crates of supplies. Pretty fun, actually.

What wasn’t fun was the Flamekin dragonkin/Mor’rok supplies/dragonling quests. I don’t mind the specified “kill X number of these monsters” type of quest, but I hate the drop rate quests, when you have to depend on chance to give you a quest item drop. I did pretty well fighting the dragonkin, even when I had 3 of them grouped up on me. Fury warrior means a lot of rage, and a lot of multi-hits. I’d start fights with Berzerker rage, hit my macro to lower their chance to hit and to daze them, and continue with a Dense dynamite blast. I’d have a lot of rage built up by then, so I’d activate Sweeping Strikes, then finish them off with Cleaves. After I got the flight point for Rustsprocket, I hearthed home to dump off my items, include a nice blue lvl 31 ring (Ring of the Underwood?) that had +2 str/10 agi/3 stamina that I think I’ll save for my druid. Then I teleported to Gadgetzan, did the Gadgetzan water dowsing quest (run west to a pool of water, channel for a couple of seconds, and mount up!! before 2 lvl 47 beetles kill you. I went to the Shimmering flats, turned in a couple of quests, hearthed home, flew to Ratchet for a turn-in, and then went to Booty bay for a turn-in. I’ve been thinking about how Stranglethorn is set up, and it finally makes sense. It seems that the monsters get higher in level the closer you get to Booty Bay, which makes sense, because Alliance are coming down from Darkshore, and Horde are fighting down from the Grom’gol base camp.

On a side note, I’m a big believer in buffing up my characters with scrolls, potions, and stamina from being well-fed. I also discovered the charges on the Pendant of the Agate Shield and the Aquamarine pendant of the Warrior stack on top of the previous buffs. So, Bullkathos was usually running around with +12 stamina from SpiderSausage, +12 from the Aquamarine Pendant of the Warrior, and +12 from a level 3 or 4 Stamina scroll. 360+ extra health, not bad! I’ll have to add that to my shopping list to look out for on the AH, because it doesn’t seem like you can repair the 10 charges on the necklace. I’ll have to check once I deplete it all the way. I’m not going to make them myself, that would be foolish! :)

Time to melt faces, while still looking cute

1/18/08
I decided to work on Gwiddonyn, since that gnome warlock has been sitting in Darnassus for WAY too long. It’s great for picking up the Deflection recipe and the Barbaric Bracer recipe from the Trade supply and LW vendors there, but the whole setup of that city is annoying. It takes too long to run to those vendors, run to the AH, and run back to the bank and mailbox where I log out. I think I’ll just camp the vendor, save up a bunch of recipes, and be setup for a while. So, I ran down Darkshore, picking up the remains from all the monsters washed up on the coast, killed Murkdeep, did the Master’s Glaive quest, and escorted the centaur out of the Master’s Glaive.

Finally, I was done with all the quests I was willing to do in Darkshore, and Gwiddonyn was now Honored with Darnassus, which leads to saving $ when I buy recipes from the vendors, plus a discount from the flightmasters. Once I got into Ashenvale, I explored around looking for the Ruins of Ordil’Aran where I was supposed to pick up Heartswood for a Warlock quest. Once I finally looked it up on Thottbot, it was right at the spot where you pick up the Soul gem for a quest from Maestra’s post, so I got that quest and the Bathran’s hair quest as well. I completed all three of those quests, and was running up the road towards the ally town in Ashenvale, when some ??? Horde Warrior who was escorting a lower level player killed me.

So, I resurrected in the graveyard, turned in my quests, and hearthed back to Auberdine, since I had about 6 of the remains quests clogging up my quest log. I think I’ll do the travel quests to Forest song, and maybe the cure quest chain and the Furlbog quest chain up to a certain point. After that, it’s time to go back to Stormwind, and get those darned VC quests completed. They’ll probably be grayed out by the time I get back to Stormwind, but unlike the 1st Horde dungeon, which is Ragefire Chasm, the Deadmines (VC) quests link into the next dungeon, which is the Stockades.

Panzergishi, my Ally warrior Blacksmith, also found another moneymaking recipe. Truesilver rods! I had always typed in “Silver rod” to check the prices on the AH, to see if they were worth making that day or not, which also brought up Truesilver rods. Truesilver hadn’t been selling for a very high price, so I didn’t bother making it. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the Truesilver rods were on the AH for 9-12 gold, and the recipe only calls for 1 Truesilver Bar and some Heavy Grinding stones. I have been buying Truesilver Bars for about 1g or less, so I had about 60 saved up in anticipation of powerleveling engineering once one of my toons reached 35. So, I made about 3, and put them up on the AH for 7-8 gold. That should be a good moneymaker as well.

Sometimes I feel bad about charging so much for what I put up on the Auction House, but hey, the other players could make alts as well. Nothing is preventing them from making up to 50 toons, scattered across as many servers as they’d like. Nothing that I’m doing is unique, I’m just using strategies I’ve developed over the past year. Buy low, sell high. Buy materials for cheap, sell the finished product for a profit. You just have to put a little thought into it, and you can make a lot of gold.

Arcanite in the Hills, continued

1/17/08
Well, Bullkathos is now about level 277 in Blacksmithing. I made 1 Arcanite Rod for the guild member, then made another to sell on the AH. I put it up for 65-70 gold, and it sold out in about 5 minutes. So, I made another one, and put it up for 70-75 gold. After the Auction House cut, I only got about 66 gold from the first one.

However, it’s more of a sure bet of getting more than 22 gold out of each Arcanite Bar than by selling them individually on the AH. It is nice that I powerleveled, because I was able to learn a bunch of the recipes that have been taking up space in my bank bags. Now I just need to do that for Kukoshakaku…..

Best Place to leave an Alt

Best places to leave an alt that has a bank/mailbox? Hands down - Thunder Bluff (easy access to mailbox/bank/AH/Forge & Anvil). I really, really, really don’t like trekking halfway across the city to the blacksmithing/engineering trainers and the forge (like Orgrimmar and Stormwind), and realize I forgot something in my bank, or need to buy something from the AH. Thunder Bluff is a great place for characters to hang out while earning well rested bonus, since it’s in the middle of the map. It’s also nice to leave a character who’s a miner, so they can smelt ore for your engineers/blacksmiths/Jewelcrafters if they happen to not be miners.

On the Ally side, Exodar (Draenai capitol city) is probably the best. It’s way out of the way, but people who want to log on just to check prices or get their mail, the mailbox is right by the ramp from the AH, making it easy to get your unsold items, and repost them quickly, without having to swim/run to the Auction house from the mailbox, like Darnassus. Darnassus would be the best place to leave a tailoring alt, so you can fly to Auberdine every 4 days to do a Mooncloth transmute. (Check in the Park in Stormwind, it looks like a Moonwell is there by the druid trainers). For Horde, Orgrimmar is the best place for a tailoring alt, since you can quickly fly to Ashenvale to do your Mooncloth transmute.

Faction Specific Recipes and Corpse Running

Tips for Horde Players only - Want to get the Red Whelp Glove or Herbalism Glove pattern for your leatherworker? You could check the neutral AH every day, or leave an alt there so you don’t have to waste time getting there….or you could post on player forums to trade favors with another Horde player on another server. Once you’ve agreed to make the trade(s), how are you going to make the money to buy the recipes? Easy, it’s Mining! Best place to start a miner is Stormwind (Human starting zone). Do a couple of quests to get some money to buy a mining pick, and get to pickin’! A LOT of the Copper veins around Stormwind are set back in the hills, so you won’t grab aggro like you would by Ironforge, with most of the veins being patrolled by beasts. Some people will disagree, but hey, do what you’re comfortable with. All right, now you’ve gotten a few 20 stacks of copper ore, go sell it on the AH for a decent discount over the rest of the postings on there. Don’t forget to check both Copper Ore and Copper Bars to see which has a smaller supply/higher posting price, and smelt the Copper if you need to. Ok, now you have a few Gold, how are you going to get the recipes? If you’re lucky, they’ll be on the Auction House. If not, see below.
The Red Whelp Glove pattern is sold in the Wetlands, north of Ironforge. If you’re human, jump on the tram to Ironforge, run out of the city to Khaz Modan, and jump OFF the dam to your death. You’ll be taken to the Spirit Healer that’s in the middle of the Wetlands, so resurrect at that healer, and get ready to do a lot of corpse hopping. Keep running (and dying) and resurrecting by your body to get to the small encampment at tloc XX,YY in the Wetlands. Wenna has that pattern on sale often, so if you don’t see it immediately, log out for a bit, and it’ll be there the next time you come back.
Ok, now you’ve got the Red Whelp pattern, so go and get killed one more time. Bam! No more resurrecting for a while. Now it’s time to do what Mania detailed in her Mania’s Arcania blog, which is Corpse Traveling. Stay as a spirit, and take the road to Menethil Harbor. Get on the boat which comes to the northwest dock, not the one closest to shore. This boat takes you to Auberdine, in Darkshore. I think you get resurrected when you change zones on the boat, so get the flight point in Auberdine, and get killed close to town. The Rez point is a bit north of Auberdine, so you might as well get killed early, and not have to run the same path 2 times.

Runnnnnnn your happy butt south, still in spirit form, and keep on going on the road until you get to the Ally camp Astranaar in Ashenvale. Log out, and log back in, and resurrect at the Spirit Healer in town. If you don’t log out, you’ll be resurrected at the Spirit Healer in the Wetlands, since that’s the one closest to your body. Learn it, know it, love it! This Corpse Traveling trick can allow you to get to towns/areas in contested/enemy territory very easily, as long as you know where the Spirit Healer is. Anyways, now that you’ve resurrected at the Spirit Healer in town, run back west along the road until the road curves to the right (north). At that point, you’ll want to go south to the Shrine of Aessina. Hug the southwest mountain until you come to a hunter trainer, a pet trainer, and a herbalism supplier at tloc XX,YY. Be prepared to corpse hop a lot, because that path is patrolled by lvl 20+ spiders and wolves. I can almost guarantee you that the recipe will be in stock at the herbalism supplier, so pick it up, and hit your hearthstone. Bam! Back at your starting area by Stormwind. Start running south, and you’ll get killed soon enough once you hit Duskwood. Stay in spirit form, keep running south thru Duskwood, and you’ll get into Stranglethorn Vale. Run to Booty Bay, which is the southernmost tip of STV, and run to the entrance/exit of Booty Bay. The Spirit Healer is right outside the door, but remember to log out first, so you don’t get yanked back to where you first got killed. Whew! Set up a meeting time with your Horde buddy who did the same thing for you, and get ready to enjoy your Ally only recipes.

Red Whelp Gloves sell well (15-20 gold each) on Horde AH, but you’re going to have to have a skinner alt at least level 25+, because you’re going to have to go to the Wetlands to kill Red Whelp Dragonlings for the Red Whelp scales. I’ve only seen them on the AH three times on 2 servers, in about a year, and I scan for the word “whelp” pretty regularly. Herbalist gloves don’t sell as well on the Horde AH, perhaps most Herbalists are Taurens, with a passive +15 to herbalism. I’m not sure why not, because with a +5 herbalism enchant on the gloves (total +10 herbalism), you can pick herbs that were red to you before.

Anyway, this can also be used by Ally players to build up some starting capital as well, by using an alt. Send an alt down to Booty Bay after he’s collected about 5-10 of each recipe, and post 1 of each recipe for 24 hours. You’re not always going to sell during that time, but a lot of time you will. I’d recommend 4-6 gold for the Herbalist pattern, and 7-9 gold for the Red Whelp Gloves pattern. The reason I advise not posting a bunch is because people mentally downgrade a recipe if they see a bunch of it, even if it’s from the same person. “Aww, it can’t be that hard to get!” If they only see one of those items, even if they see it’s a White (vendor) recipe, and they see that it’s one that they don’t know, Kachingg!!

New Player Tips II

11/13/07
Here’s a list of what I keep in a bag on my AH alt for easy reference, so I can just shift+click the item, instead of trying to remember what to look up. Citrine, Jade, Aquamarine, Lesser Moonstone, Moss Agate, Star Ruby, Shadowgem (it’s used in Barbaric Bracers I believe XXXX), Iridescent Pearl, Small Lustrous Pearl, Black Pearl & Shadowcat Hide (used in Shadowcat gloves? XXXX), Elemental Fire, Essence of Fire, and Mithril Bars. I usually just type in pearl to scan for all the pearls available, and I click the Elemental and Essence items I have, then delete the “Fire” part. This allows me to scan for all the essences and elemental items on the market, and bid on the ones that have low starting bids. I’m not high enough to be able to kill the monsters that drop these items, or survive in the areas where I can mine some of these gems, but I know how to take advantage of optimistic people who put items in with a low starting bid. :)

I also try to remember to check for Mithril, because it’ll come up with mithril ores and bars, along with Mithril filigree (JC) and Mithril items from Blacksmithing. If you have a Miner that you’ve powerleveled to be able to smelt Mithril, you can take advantage of the price difference that sometimes happens between Ores and Bars.
If you have a Jewelcrafter, you’ll know that it takes 3 Mithril Bars to make a Mithril Filigree, and it’s annoying to make them if you’re not getting skill points from it. It’s often posted at a very cheap price, so if you start looking for it early, you won’t be wasting mats that you could sell or use on other professions.
If you have an enchanter, know that you can often find good items to disenchant on the AH by typing in Mithril and Mageweave. Items that have those keywords are a big part of Tailoring and Blacksmithing, so people will post a lot of them at once, with a low bid price.

When buying recipes for alts, be aware that some green recipes are actually vendor sold, not drops. Cat’s eye goggles (stealth detection) are frequent rewards from renewing your Gnomish engineering membership card, so I wouldn’t bother getting them off the AH either, unless it’s a really low bid of like 15 silver, or a buyout of 50 silver. I renewed 5x one day, and the next day received 2 of the Cat’s Eye goggle recipes as gifts for renewing. But, the 3rd gift turned out to be the recipe for Lil’ Smoky (robot non-attack pet), so I was pleased.

Like I said, don’t waste your gold on vendor/trainer sold recipes that you see on the Auction House. Send an alt there to camp, and every so often check back in to see if you can buy some recipes. Since you’re there, you might as well make it profitable, so buy as many recipes as you can afford. I’ll point to Azshara’s southern coast lighthouse for the Deepdive Helmet recipe (36 silver?) that you can easily sell for 3-4 gold. The other vendor in that building has the Blue Dragonscale Breastplate recipe on occasion (sell for 20-25 or even 30-40 gold), and Chimeric Gloves (sell for 7-9 gold) more frequently.

The Hinterlands also has a engineering supplier that sells the Mithril Mechanical Dragonling plans (40 silver???) that can sell for 5-10 gold, as well as a vendor outside that VERY occasionally sells the Ironfeather shoulders recipe for 1.6 gold. The Ironfeather Shoulder recipe can easily sell for 20-25 gold on the Auction house.
The Mechanical Dragonling recipe is sold by a vendor in STV, as well as the Deadly Scope recipe.

Mithril Scale bracers are a Blacksmithing recipe that is rarely sold on the Auction house, that are obtained in the Hinterlands Ally camp, and the Horde camp in Swamp of Sorrows. If you’re Ally, the Herbalism Gloves (+5 herbalism, SW Ashenvale) and the Red Whelp gloves (chance on hit for fiery damage, Wetlands) are cheap recipes that will sell well on the neutral auction house, because they both are sold by Ally vendors ONLY.

New Player Tips

Many alts = slow leveling, but the potential for lots of fun and gold.
How can you make gold with Enchanting? Compete with yourself, with Enchanting mats. There’s no post price for enchanting mats, so you are free to play with the market! If it doesn’t sell, no harm no foul NO CHARGE. I’d recommend having a mage be the enchanter (Blood Elf mage FTW!, passive levels in Enchanting), because if you ever get to the point where people actually pay reasonable prices for enchants, you want to warp right to them, so you don’t waste time traveling.
The thing is, people are as lazy in-game as they are in real life. If they can buy the items from the auction house instead of spending time disenchanting for the mats themselves, they’ll buy it. You can either post items at cut-your-own-throat prices to compete with the people who drive down the market, or you can inflate prices by using alts, thereby ensuring that your reasonably priced items sell out.

I made quite a killing on my Horde account by bidding/buying on full 20 stacks of Mageweave cloth for 1.2 gold, making White Bandit masks (1 bolt of mageweave + 1 bleach + 1 heavy silken thread = best disenchanting item out there, hands down) and disenchanting for either 2-5 Vision Dust/1-2 Lesser Nether Essence/1 Small Radiant Shard. I sell Vision Dust at 2.4-2.65 gold for a 5 stack, with my alts posting at 2.75-3 gold and higher.

Lesser nether essence could be combined into a greater nether essence, but they don’t seem to sell as well, and you usually have to give a bulk discount to make them sell. My main seller will post Lesser Nether Essence at 2-2.1 gold, with my alts around the 2.5 to 2.75 area. Small radiant shards should sell for around 4, maybe as high as 6 gold apiece. Post your alts higher for competitive pricing. :)

Selling mats on the AH with my first enchanter got me to 700 gold at lvl 35, after buying 4 bag slots in all of my characters banks, and powerleveling a 225 Blacksmith, 225 Jewelcrafter, 300 Alchemist, 225 Leatherworker, 300 Tailor/Enchanter, and 2 x 225 Engineers.

How do you get mats? You could stockpile them on a weekend, or just take up enchanting. On my first enchanter, I would bid on linen cloth, and make tons of Brown Linen robes, and disenchant them. Not worth it, as I soon realized. Bid on Uncommon (green) items in the AH. Select level 1-19 Uncommon Armor, and don’t bid/buyout for more than 10 silver per item. A Heavy Copper Ring (JC) will disenchant to 5 Strange Dust regularly, and you can usually buy it for 10 silver or less. There actually seems to be less competition at lower levels of mats, so this is a decent place to make money.

For example, I’ll send a 20 stack of Strange Dust and a 10 stack of Greater magic essence to an alt or 2. Alt 1 will post four 5 stacks of Strange Dust at 75-99 silver for 24 hours, and Alt 2 will post four 5 stacks at 70-85 silver for 24 hours. Do the same with the greater magic essence, posting them individually for 1-1.5 gold on Alt 1, and 99 silver to 1.25 gold on Alt 2. Break some down into lesser magic essence, posted individually for 45-55 silver and in a 2 stack for 75-85 silver. Breaking it down into lesser magic essence is sometimes a good thing, remember, people will pay more for just what they need, rather then pay a bulk price for a large stack. Either that, or they’re too lazy to check the price of the Greater essences, which can sometimes be lower than the lesser essences, even though you only have to right click it to break it down.
Ok, now you’ve primed the market. Make sure to have stocked up on the items you’re planning to sell, because they’re going to go thru the roof (a good way to do this is by buying out the low sellers, or look for deals like: 10 Greater Magic essence for 1 gold on the weekend. Now, on your main selling character, post the items at a reasonable price, with an 8 or 24 hour time limit. I sometimes post my main seller’s items at 8 hours, because it creates some urgency when customers see it won’t be around at that price for very long. Also, when I log back on the next day, my main seller’s posts have been bought or fallen off, and people have been slightly undercutting my overpriced alt’s postings, making it easy to undercut them. J
On the main seller, post X number of 5 stacks of Strange dust for 50-55 silver, and greater magic essences for 75-99 silver, with lesser magic essence going for 30-35 silver for one, and 60-65 silver for a 2 stack.
Sure, it’s annoying when stuff comes back unsold on your alts, and you have to re-break the stack apart, but just think about the fact that you’re NOT losing money on posting prices. It takes a few minutes to repost the mats, and whenever you log into your main, you’ll have money waiting for you. You’ll probably even have money waiting on your alts, since they’ll be posted for longer.

Edit 2/12/08: Post for 48 hours with all enchanting mats. The AH will take 5% no matter how short you post it for, so you might as well have it around as long as possible.

You’ll make money, people will be buying stuff at a reasonable price, and you regulate the economy by raising the average cost of enchanting mats. Left to themselves, other players will undercut each other to the ground, making it pointless to try to compete with them and still make money. Raising the prices might even make other players aware of how annoying it is to have people not want to tip you for enchants when they provide the mats. “You just have to click a button!” You have to spend a lot of gold to level up enchanting, and you have to waste most of your early level enchants because nobody wants to pay for them. It’s even hard to find someone to GIVE them free to.

It’s really irritating to sit in the trade channel and spam what enchants you have available, fly or warp to the customer, and get little or no tip. No thanks.
I’ve had a person ask me for a Fiery Weapon enchant when I already had the skill grayed out, provide 5 small radiant shards (it only needs 4) and an essence of fire, and even though I corrected him and told him to take 1 SMR back, thus saving him around 4-6 gold, he still didn’t tip me. I’m not going to rip someone off, but I’d like to be appreciated for the time and effort I put into a profession. So, after that, I decided to enchant for my 10 toons, a couple of friends, and make my money by selling the enchanting mats, and not the enchants.

I started the Ally account on Daggerspine a little while ago, leveled all my characters to about lvl 10-15, and decided to play with the AH for a while so I could afford to buy 14-16 slot bags and 24-slot engineering bags for all of them. I now have about 150 gold on my main seller (60 and 90 gold on my alt sellers), all my alts have 14-16 slot bags on them and in the bank, and I’ve bid on and collected most of the level 1-300 engineering/blacksmithing/enchanting (including Fiery,Icy,Unholy, Demonslaying)/leatherworking/tailoring recipes to give to the characters that have those professions.

It’s nice having an AH alt. Give them the biggest bags they can buy (get bags that don’t soulbind, so you can send the bags to your other characters if you decide to delete the alt), and start collecting recipes. You’ll never buy a duplicate, you can look for bargains on mats you know you’ll need, and there’s no pressure to go out and level them. In my opinion, Stormwind has the easiest access to ore, so after you’ve scanned the AH, go out and make a copper run. If you want, level the alt to about lvl 10, so you can kill the Defias outlaws if needed, but you can make a quick foray from the city, warp back, and have a full stack of copper to send to a character that needs it.

Fishing and Cooking

Take up cooking & fishing as soon as you can. Check here for locations to start in. http://www.capsu.org/wow/skill_and_location.html
Level up to at least 50-75 fishing skill in the beginning locations, before trying to fish in one of the capitol cities for better drops of fish. You can level from 1-375 in capitol cities, since leveling is ONLY based on successful catches, but it wouldn’t be worth it. I prefer getting most of my skillups from fishing in the Blackmouth/Firefin/Wreckage pools that I find, so I feel like I’m accomplishing something while I’m fishing, with the chance of getting loot from the occasional chest. Fish are also the best source of cooking mats to skill up, because they rarely require spices or additional mats. Why skill up cooking? Most of the recipes that you can make with meat that drops off beasts will give you a +2/+4/+6/+8/+10/+XX Stamina & Spirit buff for 15 minutes. I like any edge that a buff gives me, and free health is nice. The higher recipes can also have other bonuses, instead of Stamina.

Fishing will pay off as well. Even in early areas like the Ratchett coastline, you can run up and down the coast in the Oily Blackmouth Pools/Wreckage Pools and get a lot of Oily Blackmouth fish, which sell well on the AH to Alchemists. You also have the chance to get unlocked lockboxes, which contain BOLTS of cloth, varying types of leather, mana/health potions, and silver. Stranglekelp is also a frequent drop. I used to sneak down to Tanaris with my lvl 25 Hunter and fish down the coastline from Steamwheedle port (needs 225 fishing skill + lure to prevent getaways), finding Oily Blackmouth/Firefin/Stonescale Eel/Wreckage pools. Those pools will often yield Mithril lockboxes, which gave me BOLTS of mageweave and runecloth, thick and rugged leather, recipes, silver, and lvl 44 weapons (which I would disenchant). This was way before I could kill humanoids that dropped mageweave and runecloth, and it was relatively safe because the turtles don’t attack you. Just watch out for enemy players and the Bloodsail Buccaneers.

Looking forward to making a lvl 19 twink for the battlegrounds? Be aware that most twinks have the +12 stamina/+5 fishing boots and +15 stamina/+5 fishing hat from the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza (insert link from the fishing page). Skill up your fishing to 150, equip a +100 lure, use a Strong Fishing pole (+5 fishing), and you’ll be good to fish in Stranglethorn. I’d recommend setting your hearthstone in Booty Bay the night before, and swimming out to Yo’jamba????? Island before logging out for the night. The fishing contest is 2-4 pm every Sunday, SERVER time. On Demon soul, that means 11 am to 1 pm California time. I hate getting up early on weekends, but it’s worth it for the bonuses to a twink. You also have a slim chance of winning the contest, with a choice of a fishing pole you can’t use before level 50, or a trinket that turns you into a fish, much like a Druid’s Aqua form.