Be Prepared for WotLK: Badges of Justice

Continuing the series 'Be Prepared for Wrath of the Lich King', this time on Badges of Justice you have lying around.

In Wrath of the Lich King, there will be new "badges": Emblem of Heroism, similar to Badges of Justice, but for level 80. Badges of Justice will continue dropping in level 70 heroics and raids, but you can only use them to level 70 items.

If you have plenty of Badges lying around, you might want to make use of them now - or actually not lying around anymore, as they are in your Character windows Currency tab, but anyway.

More and less you have two options:

1) Use Badges of Justice to optimize your gear for leveling, that starts after a week from now, by buying items that will help you do more damage, and thus, level more quickly.

* use lootrank.com to evaluate which items you could possibly buy. You don't have to do theorycrafting yourself, as you can take advantage of the templates dwarfpriest has gracefully submitted to lootrank.com for all of us.

2) Use Badges of Justice to buy uncut Epic Gems, 15 badges a shot. You can use the gems yourself to help the early leveling, or you can sell'em as they're not bind in anyway to you:

* Cut the gems yourself, or find Jewelcrafter to cut them for you, and socket the gems to your current gear to boost damage.

* Sell the gems! Prices are going down fast, but you still might fetch several hundreds of gold if you're quick. Check the Auction House for the prices, and decide if it's better to sell the raw gems or the cut ones.

I'm going for a combination of these, I'll be buying couple of items I can use, which will even out my shadowpriest gear in different slots, and the rest of the badges I'll be putting on gems, which I will sell. If it happens that I can't sell'em during this week for reasonably good price, I'll get'em cut for +Spellpower & possibly +Hit gems and use them then.

One more tip: It's only a week to go until expansion is live, so make a use of it and empty your bags and bank from unneeded trash and sell'em at Auction House. After doing that you might want to empty your quest log (by doing the quests preferrably, not just abandoning them) to have a fresh start with the quests from the expansion.

If you're in a guild, or even responsible for the guild bank, you might have a lot of work to do when emptying the guild bank and selling the items, but it pays off with more room in bank for the new mats and items, and of course, some much needed gold for the guild.

That's all for now. See you in Northrend.

Blog Watch: Interview with a Gold Seller

I was pointed to the blog in question by Matticus' post at World of Matticus.

And whether you approve gold selling, buying it, cheating in a digital game or are very much against all that, I think one of the most interesting blog posts last week was Tobold's MMORPG Blog: Interview with a Gold Seller.

I found it interesting, because it made me think again (yes! it happens, thank you very much): What kind of player I am (how I play), and why do I play WoW (or any other game).

When I'm playing a single player game, I don't use cheat codes or such, as that would be cheating and what's the point in cheating yourself?

In a multiplayer game, I play with what is given to me, as doing something against the rules would be cheating, not only against yourself, but against everyone else in the game too. Remember, you are not alone.

So personally, I would never buy gold, items, leveling service or whatever these companies offer, because that would take away everything I love in World of Warcraft:

What I got, I have earned. What I got, I had others there to help me. And what I got, I can help others with.

And where's the fun in buying bytes with credit card, when I can have the most fun trying to figure out a virtual economy and play a little business game inside the fantasy world?

When someone finally gets that *ding* for level 70 or gets that Epic Flyer after hours of grinding, I'd cheer her, she worked for it: She earned it.

But if someone would pay real life currency for the same, it wouldn't be the same, would it?

I don't admire people for what they wear, I admire them for what they are.

Understanding High Level Enchanting

In case you've been wondering why I haven't posted anything for a few days, keep reading, you'll soon find out.

Leveling Enchanting

I dropped my leveling profession (Skinning) a while back, and started leveling Enchanting. Rather quickly I was up to 300 and soon I was up to 350 already. How did I level it? I used "power-leveling" guide: Enchanting 1-300 & Enchanting 300-375 from WoW Forums. These guides provide the formulas/enchants that are the most economical to level your skill.

I've had 300 Enchanting Alt for a while, but I've never had this a skill higher than that in Enchanting. Up to 300 you can just keep enchanting with the mats you get from disenchanting (and "waste money" if you have plenty). To some degree you can continue a bit after 300, but soon you will have to start finding people with their own materials as the enchants get so expensive, you'd have to be Scrooge McDuck to pay for all that. (This is why you see all the "free with your mats" in the trade channel, as players are trying to level their skills).

High Level Enchanting

For leveling, you can use the guides. But when you hit 300 and especially 350, you notice that the good'ol Enchanting Trainer doesn't have any more enchants for you. Bummer. You have to buy the formulas: from AH, normal vendor or reputation vendors. And for the most rare (and thus, most potential profit), you have to get the formula yourself, as the formulas are Bind on Pickup and only drops for enchanters. Here's the list for Enchanting BoP Recipes.

And now we get to the part why I've been a bit quiet blogwise. I've been grinding for the static enchanting formula drops in Blade's Edge and Netherstorm. And let me tell you, I don't want to see another Bloodmaul Geomancer ever again! Geomancers can be found from Blade's Edge Mountains, and has rare drop: Formula: Enchant Bracer - Spellpower. The problem with these fellows is that they share spawn points with Bloodmaul Skirmishers. So to get Geomancers, one has to grind endlessly on Skirmishers and wish that Geomancer would spawn in their place.

And while running around killing Skirmishers and hoping to see Geomancer, someone else might run in and down "your" Geomancer in front of your eyes. And the drop being rather rare, it can take a while or you might get lucky.

I didn't get lucky.

It took three days, maybe 10 hours of playing and hundreds of slayed Ogre's (I stopped counting after day 1). This morning I logged in to continue the grind, and BOOM, second Geomancer popped up the lovely "Looting this item will bind it to you" dialog. I've never been happier to click YES on that :)

Luckily, with Formula: Enchant Weapon - Major Spellpower and Formula: Enchant Bracer - Major Defense I was very lucky, as I got those from second and maybe 10th mob.

Making Money with Enchanting

So, to make money with enchanting you have two choices/options: disenchanting and high-level enchants. The Disenchanting option I covered to in earlier post "How We Make Our Gold (with Auctioneer)".

With High Level Enchants I'm not experienced enough to tell how much profit there is, but I do know that you have to do your share of instances, heroics, raiding and grinding - and get lucky while at it - to get that recipes to drop and then win a roll on it if other enchanters are around.

But one thing is certain: remember to tip your enchanter when getting the high level enchants or don't be suprised if the enchanter actually asks for gold to do the enchant.

Chances are she has grinded her eyes out to get that enchant.

Tailoring - Is There Profit?

Insider Trader at WoW Insider covered Tailoring today.

This got me thinking, again, is there profit in Tailoring? Or is it just for gearing your cloth caster (in which, it *is* that great)?

I only picked Tailoring for gearing, and I'm still wearing my Primal Mooncloth and Whitemend Sets, in addition to the Boots of the Long Road which recipe I ripped cheaply from AH. With just Tailoring I outgeared Kara in the respective slots before I even went it. So that's a no brainer.

Profit I make with Tailoring, comes of making occasional Whitemend Hood or other recipe requiring Primal Nether. I guess making Bags would give some gold, but I never got into it.

Have you made pouch-breaking profits of Tailoring? Please share your knowledge :)

How we make our gold

This topic was inspired by discussion thread at Auctioneer Addon Forums : "How we make our gold using Auctioneer"

I play a Dwarf Priest, specced Holy. So I heal, and grinding for money is both hard and boring for me. So how do I finance my raiding, gear and everything in between?

I use Auctioneer addon, or to be more precise, a collection of addons called Auctioneer Advanced Suite. The bundle consists of all kinds of tools to create profit in the virtual economy of World of Warcraft. For example, there are tools to buy items for disenchant and disenchant those items one by one. In short, all the tools are there to find profitable items from Auction House: either for resale, disenchant (to sell the disenchanted materials), prospecting, etc.

So always before and after I log in with my main, I log in to one of my Alts, who sits at one of the main cities (near auction house/bank). I go to Auction House, and start scanning the items there and start buying items that I can make profit from. When done, I go to mail box, get all items out, disenchant the ones I want, head back to Auction House, and place everything on sale (unless prices are very low at that point). This takes about 5-15 minutes per log-in, so I use about half an hour daily for this and make anything from tens to hundreds to thousands of gold weekly with only buying and selling items others have collected/grinded.

Sometimes I find super-bargains, where items worth 1000g is put on sale for 100g or even 50g. But most of my profits come from buying disenchantable items cheaply, disenchanting them and selling the materials. Sometimes I buy materials for crafting professions, like leatherworking or tailoring, create some items either for sale or to be disenchanted.

All this has given me heaps of gold, epic mount, all the materials/recipes/items gearing up I have needed to buy. I don't have to think about "can I afford to buy" potions/elixirs/flasks/other consumables, I just get what I need and want, and I know when to buy'em with good price, as I have data what they usually sell for.

Like said, I don't like to grind for primals/herbs/ore/leather, but I enjoy playing at Auction House so much, that I think I wouldn't play WoW so much if there wasn't well implemented Auction House and so great addon(s) for it.

If you want to join the fun, head to the Auctioneer Addon website, download the latest preview version, check the forums there for latest tips and start learning your way around the addon when you get in the game.

So are you an auction house addict like me?

How do you make your gold?