Real Life Strikes
Someone filched my wallet Saturday, it figures. I’d just cashed a check so I actually lost some cash. So, I spent my day off taking care of the contents of my lost wallet. You never really think about it, but replacing all of that stuff is a major pain in the ass. You have to get a new Driver’s License, then probably a new Social Security Card, cancel any credit cards, maybe even close your bank account. And of course get a new wallet, which in my case means waiting for a new Bad Motherfucker.

This of course ruined my day off, but it’s over so I’m trying to get over it.

Coming Attractions
I’m working on some posts for later this week and next week. First I’ve got info about a Clearance Sale I’ve been working on. The second is all about the Master List how to put such a list together and how to maintain it.

GUILD.news
Face on Fire is still recruiting. We’ve been burning through hard modes but still have a few left.

Updated Info:
We’re 9/12 H ICC 25 Man, working on Professor Putricide, Sindragosa, and Lich King hard modes next.

Currently Recruiting:
» Druid – Restoration
» Hunter – Marksman
» Shaman – Enhancement

Register on the forums at http://faceonfire.org/ for more details and to apply.

The Bloodscalp Report
+ HORDE
So, a good week. Pulled 20K pretty easily. Scrolls are moving really well and supplies of materials have been a bit easier to get lately. My Clearance Sale is also coming along decently, but more on that later this week.

+ ALLIANCE
Currently on hold. RL just isn’t playing nice with my interest in the alliance right now.

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading…

Video is from the 2003 film adaptation American Splendor starring Paul Giamatti

RIP Harvey Pekar
On July 12th Ohio lost the one thing worth remembering it as a state, Harvey Pekar. Pekar was a 70 year old “regular guy” with just enough ambition and creativity to make his mark on American culture. Harvey began his professional career as a file clerk at Cleveland’s Veteran’s Administration Hospital before meeting Robert Crumb in the 60s. Crumb became a renowned counter-culture artist doing weird comics for adults and even doing professional work for the likes of Janis Joplin and the Holding Company.

Crumb and Pekar met through a mutual love of Jazz music and Pekar was immediately interested in the young artists drawings. The two collaborated on Pekar’s own comic book “American Splendor” which became Harvey’s claim to fame. The comic was different from what other people had done before, and in a way was far ahead of it’s time. Pekar described American Splendor as “an autobiography written as it’s happening. The theme is about staying alive. Getting a job, finding a mate, having a place to live, finding a creative outlet. Life is a war of attrition. You have to stay active on all fronts. It’s one thing after another. I’ve tried to control a chaotic universe. And it’s a losing battle. But I can’t let go. I’ve tried, but I can’t.”

Rest in peace Harvey, and my best wishes go out to Pekar’s friends and family. Much as he’d never admit it, the man was one of a kind.

Down to Business?
What can we learn from Harvey Pekar? Well first it doesn’t matter what you look like, or if you’re a rock star, or whatever. You can still be successful. Hell, according to Pekar breathing is a measure of success. I’m reminded of some of Bruce Lee’s philosophical thoughts: “What you habitually think largely determines what you will ultimately become.” And another lesson from Lee, “Know the difference between a catastrophe and an inconvenience. — To realize that it’s just an inconvenience, that it is not a catastrophe, but just an unpleasantness, is part of coming into your own, part of waking up.” Whenever life took a swing at Pekar he didn’t let it stop him, he instead channeled that energy into his comics going so far as devoting a series specifically to his struggle with cancer.

There’s also a certain inventive tenacity to Pekar’s story that I’ve always found appealing. Myspace, Twitter, Facebook all owe a debt to Pekar’s innovative idea to present and market everyday life to the masses. Before Pekar, who would’ve ever thought the average person would care about what’s going on with the average person elsewhere? Think outside the box and you’ll be surprised what you’ll find…

RL.news
My wife received a big promotion from the schools, now instead of one cramped class room she essentially has her own wing of the school. I mean that literally. I went with her today to help pack up things from her old room, turns out I don’t have to actually move anything over to her new rooms though (the school has people taking care of that for us). The school itself has received additional funds this year, so now every single classroom has new computers and SMART boards. This is quite huge, as this is a poor school district. I’m obviously quite proud of my wife, she’s only been teaching at this school for a year and already people are learning what I’ve known since I met her: she’s amazing.

GUILD.news
Face on Fire is still recruiting. We’ve been burning through hardmodes but still have a few left.

Updated Info:
We’re 8/12 H ICC 25 Man
Currently Recruiting: Hunter, Enhancement Shaman, Restoration Druid.

Register on the forums at http://faceonfire.org/ for more details and to apply.

No application = no invite.

The Bloodscalp Report
+ HORDE
It was a good week for me, I banked 50K in sales this week. A lot of it was “opportunity” sales, but I’m still putting it down as a win. I’ve spent a bit here and there getting things done, but I’m still sitting on 60K horde side. With every opportunity for more gold this week. The fires of industry are indeed bright again…

+ ALLIANCE
I have a lot of concerns outside the game this week so spent no time on the alliance. My immediate goal is to transfer some materials and finish off tradeskills on my Alliance main, and get him leveled up so I can actually get to work over there. We’ll see how it goes.

That’s all for this week guys, thanks for reading…

RESTRUCTURING
Recently I realized that this blog is now officially over a year old. And there’s been a few things I’ve put off for way too long, with that said I’ve been working hard to right that wrong. You may notice the sidebar has changed a bit, I’ve decided to start from scratch with the buttons and add them a little at a time. No point having buttons that go nowhere right?

THERE WILL BE BLOOD
With the end of the world imminent I felt it was time to revisit my old tanking guide (previously named Runeforged). Since Blood will be the only tanking tree in Cataclysm I decided to focus there, and also give some initial tanking info direct from the Beta. The guide will of course be edited after Cataclysm releases to reflect the changes with the expansion. I am however happy with how the guide has turned out.

ENTOMBED
With the announcement of my revised tanking guide I’ve decided it was time release of my personal User Interface (ENTOMBED), this is a compilation of the AddOns I use daily for tanking on Khaas. I’ve found this UI adapts quite well to other classes as well, and will be adding features for Druids in particular in the next update. It should be noted however that this UI does not include any particularly “Goblin” AddOns, this is a PVE UI. I’ve actually moved all of my AH manipulating AddOns to my laptop to keep things tidy (and to do some AH PVP during downtime).

The Big News
Recently Blizzard announced plans to trim some loose branches from the talent trees in an attempt to overhaul the trees altogether. They also reduced the number of talents a character has available and how quickly we gain them . At level 85 each character has 41 Talent points to spend – the kicker is you absolutely HAVE to spend 31 in your tree of choice. No more Hybrid specs…

Increasing Options by Severely Limiting Them
With less total points to spend each talent point becomes more valuable. This will presumably be a challenge to developers when it comes to balance, but also in that we need to have meaningful options. The big promise with this change is that we’ll be losing a lot of fat and keeping the good stuff. Judging by the current (and incomplete) Death Knight trees, I’m hopeful. They’ve economized by getting rid of “bonus” filler like Improved Rune Tap and simply baking the Improved into the basic talent. So now for one point in Rune Tap you get an ability that heals you for 20% of your health with a 30 second cooldown.

These changes are bound to have significant impact on what talents become popular. In the case of Rune Tap there has long been a division between players on whether it’s too expensive to be worthwhile or as I’ve always put it, “It’s a freaking heal pot on steroids you can use over and over in a single fight!” Now we have the super version for a single point AND it’s synergy with the newly reworked Will of the Necropolis which, when procced refreshes a Blood Rune and finishes the Cooldown on your Rune Tap. Add to this a mastery bonus that gives us damage absorption everytime we heal ourselves. All that together results in: if you don’t have Rune Tap and you’re a Blood Tank – you are doing it WRONG!

One interesting thing to note is that some of your favorite and essential tanking talents are now baked into the tree, meaning that when you choose your primary tree you get access to those abilities immediately. What does Blood get?

+ Blood
A dark guardian who manipulates and corrupts life energy to sustain himself/herself in the face of an enemy onslaught.

» Veteran of the Third War (Currently a 3 Point Talent)
» Death Rune Mastery (Currently a 3 Point Talent)
» Heart Strike (Currently a 1 Point Talent)
» Vengeance (Mastery)
» Healing Absorption (Mastery)

The Bear in the Room
This does beg a question or two though, since we’re now forced to dedicate ourselves to a specific tree – why not give us Crit Immunity with the other abilities rather than spending 2 of our now much more valuable Talent points on Crit Immunity instead? Blame it on Druids, it wouldn’t make sense for Feral cats to have Crit Immunity, and it would probably end up being imbalanced. And it’s not likely that Blizzard will remove the kitties either. However, Ferals in general seem to be problematic in the new system which is why I mention keeping a wary eye their direction – I REALLY don’t know how they’re going to balance Feral at this point.

Back to Death Knights
The new trees are shaping up, but honestly there’s not much outside of the Blood tree to get. It’s more about what you like best in the second tiers of Frost and Unholy. With this few talents to spend outside of Blood it’s not likely you’ll see many 31/5/5 specs running around. More likely you’ll see 31/10/0 or 31/0/10 or some variation. For me it comes down to two talents Morbidity in the Unholy Tree and Lichborne in Frost. Morbidity is great on multiple mobs, Lichborne for the MT is great. So it’s a real toss up, but probably depends on what you end up doing the most. If you’re normally on add duty go for Morbidity. If you’re the guild MT go for Lichborne.

Personally, I’m going with Lichborne. What makes it so great? For starters being immune to Charm, Fear, and Sleep for the duration. And being able to heal yourself with Death Coils (it makes you Undead temporarily). Also Runic Empowerment from the first tier of the Frost tree is likely to be a godsend for tanking with the new rune mechanics.

My Current Death Knight Tanking Spec of Choice – ( here )

Final Thoughts
It’s still a bit early to say a lot about the new talent system, I will say though that I think it has the potential to be really great. As ever I am cautiously optimistic, here’s hoping the end of the world is worth it…

What is SlyProfits?
Taken from the SlyProfits Project Page:
“SlyProfits adds an extra tab to the Auction House Interface. The tab is designed to show the profits that can be made from various trade skills.

The addon started out as a tool for myself as i was manually scanning the auction house calculating which Flask was most profitable to make with the booming post 3.1 prices. At the time i was making in excess of 5k a week buying/selling Flasks and decided to automate the process so others could do the same. Since then various tradeskills have been added and a way of adding custom recipes has been created.”

TLDR Version: It does your spreadsheet-type cost analysis for you in game without Excel.

Configuration and Use
Anytime you visit an Auctioneer you will see a new tab at the bottom of the Auction Window, clicking the SlyProfits tab will take you to the SlyProfits Scan window (pictured below).

The first thing you’ll want to do is hit the Config Recipes button. First suggestion: uncheck all boxes except one, picking each profession individually will allow you to weed out any items that you don’t make regularly. I don’t suggest using the import button, this will overload your scan data with everything you can make. Let’s face it, you’re not going to make and sell everything you are capable of crafting. Cherry picking which items to scan for also has the advantage of reducing scan time.

When I first set up SlyProfits I kept a Steno Pad next to my keyboard and made a list of the items I wanted to make regularly. This was the beginning of the Master List I’ve talked about in previous posts. Once the list is completed you can start adding individual items as you see fit use the New button at the bottom of the Config window. The materials you add and their quantities are completely up to you, which is important (see below).

Creative Configuration
An example of creative input for this config window is Eternal Belt Buckle, creating five of these requires: 20 Saronite Bar, 5 Eternal Earth, 5 Eternal Shadow, and 5 Eternal Water -OR- 40 Saronite Ore, 5 Eternal Earth, 5 Eternal Shadow, and 5 Eternal Water. The difference here is that Ore is generally cheaper than bars, depending on the disparity in price you may want to get Ore and smelt it yourself (if that’s an option). As you might’ve guess you want to also input the amount of items you wish to craft, but remember that the New Item Config requires that you only input the quantity of materials for creating a single item. In other words, don’t put in 40 Saronite Ores etc when adding Eternal Belt Buckle.

Alternatively – And this is the best option since it was added, you can use Advanced Mode and simply put in the real materials needed. Advanced mode will show you the best price, be it for Bars or Ores to craft the item. It will also calculate things like Elixir Mastery procs into Flask calculations. If you put in to make 20 flasks you’ll get an estimated 26 flasks made for calculation purposes.

Scan Data
As you can see, the data is pretty straight forward. You have the quantity of items you’re looking to make (including procs). Then there’s the sell value of each item (individually) followed by the total for that item. Then there’s cost for that item. The addon automatically calculates profit based on the cost VS total profit for that item.

When scanning you may want to scan groups of items individually, for instance I scan Enchants separately from everything else otherwise, it takes a noticeably long time to scan Enchants + Everything Else.

Final Thoughts
The AddOn is easy to use and powerful, obviously it’s not perfect – then again neither are spreadsheets. The major shortcoming is that it uses the lowest cost of mats on the AH which isn’t necessarily always a true reflection of your total cost. However, it does tend to get you in the ballpark. It’s not hard to get an idea of how much to price items with this thing, or if you should bother at all. With Altoholic integration and options to buy materials in the quantities needed to craft your selected items, it’s a godsend for an aspiring Goblin. Thanks for reading…

Download it ( here )