MoP Pet Battles Tips & Predictions

Hey all, been a while since I posted, but I figured I'd get this one out while I thought about it.

I've been playing the Beta recently, with one main focus in mind. Pet Battles! As an altoholic collector, the Pokemon themed Pet Battling that will come about in Mists of Pandaria is awesome. Not only is it fun, it's also challenging, forcing you to use strategy to defeat the other team.

Hints & Tips:
Don't worry about those unique pets that other people have. So, you weren't around from Vanilla WoW, and don't have Tyrael's Hilt. You didn't go to a Blizzcon, and don't have a Murky code. Fuggedabowdit.

I ran a little experiment with the Argent Tournament Elwynn Lamb vs. a rare quality Black Lamb that I caught in a pet battle in Elwynn Forest.
After leveling them both to level 6, here's their stats.

As you can see, the Black Lamb has substantially higher DPA (Damage per Attack), Haste, and Health, making it the better choice.

So if you want the best battle pets, you're gonna have to capture them. Don't even bother leveling poor thru uncommon pets though, only put effort into leveling the rares that you catch. But how do you catch rares?

Welllll, until there's an addon created that identifies them as rare when the pet battle begins, the only way to do it is by trial and error while battling. Hover over their portraits to see their DPA/Haste numbers, and look at their health. If those numbers are a lot higher than your pets, or if they have the little chevron showing that they have first hit capability, they're probably a rare. You'll get the hang of judging whether they're rare or not after a while, so don't sweat it. You can also capture one, then on the next battle, open your Mount/Pet tab, to see if the stats on the one you own are substantially lower than the one you're fighting.

If you want to get rares quickly, you can start pet battles, check the pets, and end the battle if you don't see stats you like.

Oooh, also, Aquatic pets are the bomb! Most of them have single target or group heals, which can come in handy for restoring health to your 3 pets without running back to a stable master, or waiting 10 minutes for the ability to come off of cooldown. 1 DPS pet and 2 Aquatic = EZ mode. The frog/toad ability to /Kiss is also pretty sweet, with ramping damage, plus the ability to CC your opponent.

Predictions:
I'm gonna go out on a limb and prognosticate a way to move gold from one server to another, with Blizzard's blessing. All the pets you catch in the wild can't be put in a cage to be sold on the Auction House, which kinda sucks. However.....all those vendor bought pets CAN be. Not exactly news, since they could be put on the AH for years now. Here's the twist though; you buy/obtain a pet on one server, and you're free to transfer it to any other server/faction side you want! Since the pets are shared account-wide, and you'd be able to cage them from any character you have, it makes sense that you could sell it anywhere you choose. No more starting broke on a new server, just sell off a pet and make a chunk of gold!

Another prediction I have is that people will level those vendor bought pets. Why? For someone who is starting to do pet battles, it realllly makes a difference to have a high level pet to be able to swap in. If you're battling a level 10 pet, and have a level 5 and level 25 pet, all the level 5 needs to do is survive 1 round, then swap out for the 25. The level 5 will get a huge chunk of XP, allowing him to level up a lot quicker than by battling pets around his own level. Think of it like getting run through RFC at level 10 by an 85; as long as you don't draw aggro, you get lots of XP for just hanging around.

Anyways, just wanted to share those thoughts for anyone that's interested in pet battles.

Glyphing 101

9-20-2011
Originally, this was gonna be called "Scribbling fer fun an profits," done entirely in the style of Ratshag, just for the hell of it.

7-14-2011
Inscriptionist....scripter.....inscriber.....scriber...scrivener....shriner....bugger it, I calls meself a scribbler. The scribblin' perfession be a diffrent beast altogethers, far from the more genteel craftifications of blacksmithies, tailorerers, an them buggers what smush leather together and calls it armor.

And then I discovered he had done it already, in his own inimitable style. So, scratch that, I'll just do in my own way.













That's 6 full 32 slot inscription bags, with an additional 12 slots on the 7th. 6x32=192+12=204 different Northrend inscription research/Books of Glyph Mastery, Techniques, and minor inscription research glyphs.

Now, you've done all your research, learned the techniques, and read the books.....but what you haven't done is actually make gold with your profession. You've tried, but never seem to make a lot of sales. It's confusing, because you always give the customers a great discount, compared to those other scribes who only undercut each other by 1 freakin' copper, just to get their glyphs at the top of the list.

Sit back, while I illuminate the situation.
Ur doeing it wrong!
The thing about glyphs and enchanting scrolls is that they have NO sales price to vendors. Therefore, their posting cost to the Auction House is only 1 silver. 12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours.....only 1 silver. This allows you to post, then cancel and re-post any time you get undercut by a competitor, at a very minimal cost to you. Compare that to Blacksmithing, where the vendor price of the armor and weapons you make are so high that the deposit cost at the AH, even for 12 hours, is still over 1-2 gold apiece. Contrast that to 4 gold TOTAL for posting 400 glyphs, and you'll start to realize that the margins are higher, and the overhead costs are a lot more lenient than the other crafting professions (not including enchanting).






Like the Industrial Revolutions effects on industry, so too is the effects of addons and macros on crafting and making gold in WoW. Even having a macro that does "/Cast milling /use Stormvine /use Whiptail..../use etc" can save you a lot of time, just by not having to click on each stack that you want to mill, as long as they're in stacks of at least 5. If the macro follows its script, and encounters a stack of less than 5 herbs, it won't allow you to mill, even though there are full stacks of a herb further down the macro list.

But, I digress. The macros will only save you time, the addon(s) will make you money. The two main ones I use are TSM and Auctionator. Edit - I also remember I use Millhelp and Millhelp_Glyphs, which I guess is included in Millhelp. If you look at the first image, you can see it displaying the inks/pigments needed to make the glyph, which is very useful.

TSM (TradeSkillMaster) is probably under-utilized by me, as I only use it for posting and cancelling auctions, not the crafting queues that Mysscia has told me about. But.....for posting and cancelling, it's unrivaled. Set up your groups of items, with posting time, undercut amount, minimum price you'll sell at, and maximum posting amount (for when nobody else is in that market, heh!).

Auctionator is the addon I use for storing my search lists. It searches for what you have specified, then displays them in descending order of price per 1 unit, whether it's a single or full stack. The great part of this is the ability to quickly buy out auctions, without the annoying confirmation that you'd have with the standard Blizzard UI. The drawback is that it doesn't show the bid amount, only the buyout. Also, it doesn't show the time left, which could save you gold if you saw the item only had a short time left. Cancelling and re-posting with Auctionator....I wouldn't. The anonymity of Auctionator doesn't let you know who you're going against in that particular market, which can be verrrry important.

Dealing with Competition
There are a few types of competitors.
1) Power-levelers.
These people are leveling inscription to get to the max level, primarily with trainer taught recipes. If you decide to sell trainer taught glyphs, these are the guys that will mess you up. If you post glyphs in an open market at 250 gold each, these guys will come along and post at 10 gold each, even though the mats cost more than that.
2)"Happy, freinly peoples" - as Gevlon would say.
These people want to supply glyphs at a cost only slightly high than the material cost. They'll sell research/book taught glyphs at a much lower price than you would prefer, and mess up glyphs markets for a long time, as the next guy will post lower than them.
3) The One-percenter.
When I first started posting (manually, took me forever to post a hundred glyphs), I hated the people that would undercut me by 1 copper. "It's not fair, they'd post higher if they could." - is how I felt.
But in actuality, these are the scribes you want to be in competition with. With a 1 copper undercut, it would take 1000 undercuts to drop the market price by 1 gold. With the first 2 types, their drastic undercuts affect the market for a long time, until either a scribe buys all the glyphs to reset the market, or people stop posting, leaving the market empty for the next scribe to post at their preferred price point.

One last thing about 1-percenters. They are the ONLY safe bet to buy out when you want to reset the market. Since they're almost chained to using their set discount with using an addon, they will rarely if never undercut by the huge amounts the other classes of scribes do. And that's why I like TSM, since it shows me the other people in the market. If I have to buy out 3 glyphs at 50 gold each from a percenter, to reset the market up to 300 gold, so be it. But I'll be damned at buying 6 glyphs at 35 gold each from powerleveler who did 1 northrend research on his way up to max level, he'll just post again at the same ridiculous price point. Buyout percenters when it's feasible, undercut the noobs, and you'll gain power over a ton of markets.

Shoot, this is turning into a wall of text, but....
Stalking the Competition
Add everyone you see posting in your glyph markets to your friends list. If they do huge undercuts, add a note to that person like "idiot glypher." One-percenters would be "glypher." If you notice them come on when you're posting, do another posting scan to see if you need to undercut them when they're done. Scribes that are serious competition could also be added to your alts friends list, just so you'd know if you might want to jump back and re-post. This is another reason to favor TSM over Auctionator, since the auctions shown in Auctionator are anonymous.

Supplies and Demand
I'm trying to keep around 6-10 of each of the 204 glyphs, so I don't run out, and cause a hole in my bags. This allows me to quickly post when I get on, then run a cancel scan to clean up the remnants of my last post. It's a lot better to get your stuff to the front of the market, rather than cancelling when you first get on, waiting for the 8-10 minutes for your 400+ glyphs (I usually only post 2 of each glyph) to dribble in at 50 items per one minute mail scan, then posting for the first time that day.


Yup, it's a lot of info, but it can pay off.

Didja know?

1-22-11














Waaaay back when, I had written some posts about faction specific recipes, notably the Kaldorei Spider Kabob recipe quest. I just wanted to inform you that those hard to obtain faction-specific recipes are essentially GONE.
Tasty Lion Steak from a level 30 Alliance quest and the Kaldorei Spider Kabob recipe from a level 1 Night Elf quest have been deemed obsolete, and can no longer be gotten. However, the Moongraze Tenderloin recipe, from a level 4 Draenai quest, can still be gotten, it would just take more time to level a throw-away toon to level 4.

However, if you do happen to have the Spider Kabob or Tasty Lion recipe sitting around in your bank, they will sell very well on the AH. I just recently sold a Tasty recipe for 1,500 gold, with another one priced at 22k-25k to make it look more attractive. And on Wowhead, a commenter said that he sold it for 10k gold, with no advertising.

On Horde side, my main items for grabbing off the AH and selling on Alliance side had their drop rate jacked wayyy up, making it very hard to sell them reliably for a decent amount of gold. Yup, Elixir of Giant Growth and Savory Deviate Delight would probably not be worth bringing over to Ally side anymore if you're on a high-pop server, since there will be so many other Allies leveling up alts in the Barrens now. On a low-pop PvP server though, there's not as much competition, so if you bring them over, have one alt post a few at lower price, and have another alt post them at a much higher price, and they'll sell....eventually.

On a different note, 2 pets are no longer available post-Shattering. The Smolderweb Hatchling from the quest En-Ay-Es-Tee-Why(Nasty), and the Worg Pup from Kibler's Exotic Pets can no longer be obtained. This doesn't have anything to do with making gold, since the pets were BOP, but for all pet collectors out there, it's kind of annoying.

Sell, sell, sell!

11/2/2010

Since it's now common knowledge that the "Insane in the Membrane" achievement and title will be becoming a Feat of Strength in Cataclysm, if you happen to have any diamonds or Focus, Protection, or Rapidity Librams, now's the time to sell.

On Daggerspine, I put up 11 diamonds at 500 gold each, and they sold out immediately. I had been carefully hoarding them, intending for at least one of my alts there to get the title, but since my highest toon is 63.....it's not gonna happen. The only chance I'll have to do this would be on Demon Soul, with Bloodshrike, who is my achievement whore anyway. I figure if I can get my Zandalar rep and Bloodsail/Goblin rep locked down, I might have a chance of getting it done even after Cataclysm comes.

If you are going for the title, don't forget that those 3 libram quests reward you with Arcanums, which surprisingly aren't useless, since you can turn them in at Zanza in Zul'Gurub for Zandalar rep.

Some might say that it's price-gouging to charge so much for items, but really, people who are going for all these achievements usually have tons of gold already, and are bored and looking for something to do. You're just helping them circulate currency. hehehe.....

Edit: Apparently you will still be able to get this achievement in Cataclysm, due to the immense QQ-ing of players who didn't relish the rushed grind you would need to get it done before December 7th.

Gold making with Hallow's End

10/18/2010

Oh yeah, I had forgotten about this. The wands you need for the Hallow's End Achievement The Masquerade are not limited duration. I had saved mine from last year, so immediately when the event started this year I was able to post "Selling wand charges for the Masquerade, X,X,X,X for 20g each."

I probably have about 5-10 wands on most of my 30 toons, and I've probably sold about 400 gold worth of charges so far, just in the course of continent hopping thru Dalaran while doing Hallow's End quests.

I'm not gold hungry, otherwise I could just stay in Dalaran and constantly spam trade with it. If you wanted to do so, the first few days would be your best market, as the demand will definitely wane.