Taking advice from a self-proclaimed “Agent of Chaos” might not seem like a great idea, in fact it sounds downright crazy. But the question Ledger’s Joker poses is a relevant one. And recently it’s one I’ve taken to heart. Read on as we find out the answer to the question, why so serious?

I’d like to dedicate this week’s poster to the best tree ever, Ysosrs.

Where Did It Start?
I started aiming for the gold cap for a variety of reasons. One because it was a goal to accomplish, a new challenge for me personally. The only way to realize your full potential is to challenge yourself constantly. Another factor was the sense that gear may become irrelevant one week to the next, but gold always retains value. Unless there are radical changes to the game 214,748 Gold 36 Silver and 46 Copper will always be a significant amount of wealth. Significant enough in fact to assure yourself that anything you might reasonably want is obtainable. Take for instance my quest for Shadowmourne, this thing is initially daunting for a lot of people because of the amount of Primordial Saronite needed to get past the first quest. I was able to get my 25 before the Plagueworks was open, ensuring I had no problem completing the quest and gaining Shadow’s Edge.

And Then the Penny Dropped
You can only hoard for so long without giving yourself some kind of reward. The point really of hoarding the gold is to have it available to spend, when you want. So that you don’t feel like you “have” to save your gold in case something comes up. I think it really hit home when I read a thread over at the JMTC forums (Original Forum Post: Father Markco…I have sinned). As I say later in the thread, I’ve decided to say goodbye to useless guilt, and spend when I feel like it (and when I feel I can afford it).

I have since then spent a bit getting professions up for various alts, grabbing materials for my Insane in the Membrane achievement. And even hooking up some guild-mates with gold for Choppers, or their own Shadow’s Edge, or whatever (I must confess that this wasn’t entirely altruistic however). I feel better, and enjoy playing more now that I’m not necessarily burdened with the thought that I have to make X amount of gold this week (or I’m a failure). It’s my own fault, I’m a very competitive person.

So, that being said I won’t be doing regular gold reports anymore really. Unless it’s for something specific like say, reaching a certain goal. Or to go over a new method/market I’ve been working in. I’m still keeping tabs on how much each of my AH alts is making and keeping things separate. And I’m dipping into some new markets right now, so I’m definitely going to come through with some numbers to support my findings and theories. I’m just not going to make it into a “race” anymore. In the end, I’m only competing with myself anyway… and that can never be anything but tiring.

With that said…

The Bloodscalp Report
Glyphs are still down. But with the new arena season having just started, and the Darkmoon Faire in town I’m seeing sales begin to rally. Now for the bad news, if you play on Bloodscalp then you may already be aware of the terrible drought of raw materials in the Auction House. The price of Frost Lotus alone has skyrocketed to as much as 100g per. Where have all the farmers gone? One theory is that many of the Asian farmers are on holiday thanks to Chinese New Year, and that after a mandatory week off they should be back at full capacity. Hopefully this proves true, in either case I’m not paying 25g for a stack of friggin Tiger Lily. Prices have been so out of whack that I even started buying mats like Icethorn and Lichbloom because it was cheaper to mill those (12g per stack for a few hundred stacks recently) compared to the a fore mentioned price for Tiger Lily and others.

So, consider this an open letter to any farmers on their lunch breaks… WTB Adder’s Tongue, Tiger Lily, Deadnettle, Frost Lotus, Eternal Life, Eternal Fire, and Pristine Black Diamond in BULK! Contact Khaas with details. And seriously, I MEAN bulk.

In other news, I snagged a copy of Mongoose this week on a whim in Karazhan. Now I’ve got an excuse to go farm those heroics for the meta achievement. I’ve already sold a few scrolls of Goose at 800g each. Other enhancement items like Buckles and the like are moving well too. I’ve been dipping a bit more into gems lately with great success. That’s all for this week, thanks for reading. I leave you with a look at my Auditor info…

Before you nerd out too much on me, let me be both frank and earnest: this post has absolutely nothing to do with the wildly popular television series of the same name. No, I just got hit by a spot of nostalgia.

In my younger and more vulnerable years…
My parents divorced when I was two, my mother quickly remarried. But my father, he was a biker fresh from the army. He rode an old beat up black chopper complete with German crash helmut. Though my father and I don’t speak much (if at all) these days, he did leave me with an indelible legacy: badasses of the silver screen. While most parents were worrying about getting their child into the right day care, my father was more intent on my real education. The first movies I recall seeing in a theater were from this time: Escape from New York, Conan the Destroyer, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Aliens, Blade Runner, etc.

So began my training in the ways of the badass…

My formative years were filled with stories of WWII from one grandfather (died when I was quite young), and Vietnam from the other (my namesake, from my father’s side of the family). I also learned as I grew to appreciate the movies of these older men, watching the Dirty Dozen and Kelly’s Heroes was a particular joy, and another level of badass.

As I grew older, I went in search of more of the same: comic books and the like. I learned more of Conan and his Hyborean adventures, a trip to California to meet distant relatives met with more entries. My uncle Herman was a lover of what he affectionately refered to as, “Kung Fu movies”. Bruce Lee was a particular favorite, but he also had some stuff on 8mm “Super 8″ that he loved, these of course were imports he managed to get while stationed overseas. It was his time in asia that led to his love of these movies, and he shared their stories with me as he translated the tales of one bloody conflict between samurai and the shadowy ninja to another. Soon I learned just how awesome “the Seven Samurai” and “Yojimbo” could be. My adolescent imagination became fevered as I grew, the Highlander, the Terminator, Mad Max it seemed there was no end to it.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
When I was older, I carried the seed of those early years. When I graduated high school, I decided to head East and see what there was to see. It was something of a “Go West Young Man” kinda thing, with a hint of Kwai Chang Caine. I ended up in Connecticut in a house full of hippies. The years that followed had me playing EverQuest and seeing as much of new places as possible. I started East and ended West, before coming back home and meeting my wife.

When I did finally return and put down roots, the wanderer spirit was still in me. Luckily I found World of Warcraft, a fitting outlet that has been kind to me since. Having become a tank, and serious wow player I’ve done and seen many things in game. Sometimes I fail, and when I do I simply determine that I will continue until I succeed. The things I have learned in my life have taught me determination, and when in game I tend to rely on the lessons learned from badasses on bigger screens. This is why sometimes I attempt those things some consider crazy or just plain unpossible. I put it down to a personal philosophy that the only impossible things are those that we do not attempt.

For example, it was once thought that soloing heroics was impossible. It has been done. Some thought that soloing Karazhan was impossible, even at eighty. Again, done. And most recently, I tried a new feat. While clearing a hard mode Ulduar ten man run, I decided to give it a go at killing General Vezax without heals. It was tricky: but it worked. I topped the healing meters, and we offed the guy with little issue or complaint. The healers were able to heal any DPS that managed to take a hit and the offtank for the add. And by the end no one was OOM.

Talking about this and reminiscing reminds me of another badass, when I started the game I was a mage on Blackrock and for a time in the guild Mediocrity. My whole reason for wanting to be in the guild was quite simple: they had Faxmonkey. Fax’s Stupid Mage Tricks Videos were an inspiration to me when I started playing my mage. And to this day, he stands out as one of the most impressive players I’ve had the privilege of being in a guild with. As I understand Fax and Medio are still going quite strong some years later, and I’m sure they will continue to do so. But certainly I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this guy, because honestly I wouldn’t try half the nutty stuff I do, if it hadn’t been for him.

So in summation, I think there’s a part of me that wants this for myself. I want to be the inspiration for others. I want to climb the mountain, because it’s there. So, it makes me happy when I do get messages from people (particularly fellow DKs) asking for advice or offering praise. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m becoming an attention whore, but I would say I want to be a positive influence on people. Personally, I want to raise people’s expectations. Finding a random instance where people groan and say, “Not a DK tank, they suck!” and then leaving them with the thought, “maybe DKs aren’t so bad afterall” is a personal high for me. And so, I leave you with a little bit of my own recent triumphs. I tend to focus on the negatives, because as long as there are negatives: they can be improved. Positives, not so much.

Today however, I try to be positive…

I leave you with a joke from general chat that actually made me smirk. Dayfall and Raynna, I’ve never heard of either of you before. But you are now officially in the book.

Postscript
A hint of what it’s like to be in Face on Fire…

We are currently on the lookout for a couple of ranged DPS and possibly a Paladin healer, if you’re interested in jumping aboard the awesome train visit our site for more information: Face on Fire.

Applicants are subject to an interview in Vent before joining, so be sure your mic works.

First, let me say I am already aware that this week’s motivational poster is completely unrelated to the topic. But what can I say, it’s been one of those kinda weeks. The search for gainful employment continues unabated, and as the end of the fiscal year is quickly approaching I am hopeful that my luck will change soon. Which brings me to my point, understanding time and timing is vital when you’re trying to make gold. One thing I think many of my fellow Goblins would agree on is that there’s a definite relationship between effort and time. If you’re anything like me you’re constantly trying to come up with new ways to maximize your earning potential with the least amount of time/effort. I’ve talked about it in passing before, now follow me as I waste time talking about time…

Gold Per Hour
Gold Per Hour (Or GPH as I’ll be refering to it hereafter) is an expression of how much gold you’re making in a single hour. It’s a simple concept to understand, but is in itself an imperfect metric for understanding your success. If you’re only playing one hour per day, then fine go with the GPH standard. But if you play for more, then you have to think in terms of your session. You have to consider how much of your playtime you’re allotting for gold farming. Once you’ve got that, you can start to maximize that time.

Obviously, not even those of us who aim for the cap want to spend all of our time trying to squeeze as much gold as we can out of the game (at least I don’t). I like to raid, run a heroic once in a while and talk to friends. It IS a game after all. That doesn’t make my time any less valuable however. Instead, I posit that limited time to collect gold makes your available time even MORE valuable. Which is why dear friends I always stress proper planing, here is where establishing a routine can be paramount in your success (more on that in a minute). The main point I want to get across is that your time is valuable, use it wisely and you’ll go far.

Effort Costs
Much like in real world business, making gold in wow does require some amount of effort. Traditionally, there are three ways to increase profits: reduce production time, effort (labor), or material costs. Essentially, you win if you can make something cheaper than your competition (even if you sell at the same price).

Before anyone gets a headache trying to wrap their head around this concept, let me provide a very simple example: If you’re making 3g per glyph, and your competition is making 2g per glyph, and you’re both selling at 5g each… you win. You’re making more money than him, and you’re both selling (obviously this example speaks primarily to lowering material costs, and not the other two).

Understanding the Effort/GPH Conundrum
Any level eighty can go do all twenty-five of their daily quests and end up with around 500g. The risk involved is minimal, in fact the only real risk you run is that others are camping the mobs you need or that you get ganked (on a PVP server). With enough patience and effort you know you can get that gold. That’s a bit different than say posting a Darkmoon Faire deck on the AH and hoping someone will buy it. In fact, you may relist the thing several times before someone buys it, if anyone does at all.

Risk is inherent when selling things on the auction house, that is simply a given. It’s something you’re going to have to square away with before you can get serious about making gold. Beyond that however, we learn a few interesting things. First, though you may be able to complete all twenty-five dailies in one hour you still have to wait till tomorrow to do more. In the case of glyphs, flasks, and other crafted goods you’re limited by supply and demand.

Some crafted items have a very low effort cost and high demand, for example an alchemist can create an epic gem each day with the press of a button. You can then list the raw gem for a quick turnover (usually around 100-150 depending on the gem) or you can cut it for a slower turnover at a higher amount of return. Here’s the question though, do you cut it or not? Again, uncut gems go fast: people grab them and get the gem cut as they need, whereas a cut gem there’s no guarantee anyone needs a Str/Crit gem right now. So, there’s definitely higher risk in cutting the gem, so it comes down to how much gold you stand to make if the thing sells.

My best advice here is this: Only you can decide if it’s worth it or not, but in either case I find it useful to toss a message in trade chat when unloading these limited quanity goods. It doesn’t matter if someone’s going to try to undercut you, because you’re only moving a finite amount of gems a day, even if you (like me) have multiple alchemists making gems each day. Personally, I sell them uncut. They sell quickly, and there’s some fierce competition for the cut variety.

Other items have a high effort cost and a high return, for example the Mechano-Hog. The problem with these items is that the amount of gold necessary to make these things profitable is honestly a bit daunting. Even the initial “at cost” value is a bit more than a lot of people are willing to spend on what is essentially a vanity item. These things tend to be a hard sell, both to me as a businessman and to potential customers. I never see many of these on the AH, and so I remain unconvinced that these things really move that well. I see these types of items as something you make one of, then post it till it sells.

My preference leans toward quick sellers like the twenty-two hour cooldown transmute type items, and high demand “low” to “medium” value items such as glyphs, flasks, etc. The essentials as I like to call them.

The Essentials
There’s a reason why so many guides have been written about making your fortune with Inscriptions: because it works. If done well, a scribe can make steady gold with minimal effort/cost. It’s consistent and can, on a good day, make 3K or more. There are tons of guides out there about this profession, so I’m not going to belabor the point. But let it suffice, it’s mentioned so much for good reason. You can keep a good stock of glyphs up, as well as making individual cards and decks for the Darkmoon Faire, and more recently the Fortitude scrolls which come in quite handy for raiders. The one problem with inscriptions, the other scribes. Seriously, there can be a WHOLE lot of competition in this market. If you go after this one, you have to go all out.

Alchemy can be a great source of income as well, Flasks and other consumables are always needed for raids. And they disappear when you use them, so you always need more! Which to me has always sounded like a good deal for an enterprising Alchemist. Again, competition can be tough here though.

Item Enhancements – Belt Buckles, Enchanting Scrolls, Armor Kits, OH MY! People need this stuff regularly, anytime a new patch comes out it starts all over again. Anytime a new arena season begins, it starts all over again. So during the course of an expansion you can make a killing by supplying much needed item enhancements. If you combine various professions over alts, you can make a killing. If you do that, and skip over gathering professions and just buy your mats from others (cheaply of course) then you have the makings of a real Goblin factory.

Again, the key idea is to minimize the amount of time you’re working on it. Gathering professions tend to take a lot out of your day, sometimes it’s the only way (really) so it’s nice to have an alt or two that can do it. But in the end it’s far more profitable to just buy it and craft away. You’ll be able to make more items to sell, and will in the end make more money with less time invested, which is a win no matter how you slice it.

The Bloodscalp Report
Glyphs are down atm, it’s that lull before Arena season starts and I fully anticipate it to pick back up this week. But it has exacerbated things slightly. The good news is that the Darkmoon Faire is coming to town, and I’ve been making cards/decks. It should go a long way in my ongoing quest for the Insane title as well as helping me line my pockets with some fresh gold. I’m really looking at some new markets now, and possibly investing heavily in their success. Here’s hoping I’m not taken to the cleaners for my trouble. In either case, I’m exercising some caution, and waiting till I have a bit more of a buffer to work with before I go all out on these new targets.

As you can see, though Glyphs are selling more slowly lately I am getting some good numbers when they do sell. So it’s not a total loss.

+ Spent: 56,000g (Helped out some friends and worked on my DPS set)
+ Gained: 23,226g
+ Profit: -32,774g

Yes, sadly I’m showing a loss for the week. I know I can make 20K per week consistently though, so why worry?

The Girl Scouts of America were founded on March 12, 1912 as a result of the progressive movement in the United States and as a direct counterpart to the Boy Scouts of America. Both organizations rely heavily on the Scouting principles developed by Robert Baden-Powell to build self-confidence and positive character traits. Likewise, they encourage social behaviors that are believed to be helpful to youngsters as they grow older. But the Girl Scouts aren’t famous for their contributions to the much maligned self-esteem movement, they are best known as door to door sales girls…

Getting Girls out of the Kitchen
In 1917 GSoA began a fund raising campaign, to support their local troop, girls would sell cookies door to door. Since then, the Girl Scouts have become synonymous with cookies. There is much to learn from study of the business practices of this organization, and let’s face it.

No, no Samoas but I’ve got 10 boxes of Trefoils!
Much like the guys at Robot Chicken, any girl who comes to my door with an abundance of Trefoils and no Samoas is likely to get sprayed with the water hose. Seriously, Trefoils are the bane of my existence. But let’s get back on topic: in the years since the Girl Scout’s decided to go into business (don’t kid yourselves, it’s a business) they’ve made some very solid choices, for one they do focus on one thing: cookies, but they also offer a range of options.

These include:
Thin Mints
Do-si-dos (F YEAH!)
Tagalongs (F YEAH!)
Trefoils (Who thought this was a good idea?)
Samoas (YES! PLEASE YES! F YEAH, a THOUSAND TIMES F YEAH!)
Thanks-A-Lots (More shortbread? Seriously? Least these are dipped in chocolate)
Lemon Chalet Cremes
Daisy Go Rounds (Diet Cookies, need I say more?)
Sugar-Free Chocolate Chips (See Daisy Go Rounds)
Dulce De Leche (Obviously influenced by current population trends)
Lemonades (Again with the shortbread, WTF Girls? Least they’ve got lemon icing)
Thank You Berry Munch (New cookie with Cranberries and Chocolate, not a fan of Cranberries)

Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice
The cookies are now manufactured (obviously) unlike the early years, and manufacturers can make as many as 28 varieties of cookies (again diverse options) which means that unless someone really hates girls or cookies, or is just really broke they’re going to buy some cookies. And that’s what they’re banking on, the organization exists based on things like this. They have a website to maintain, facilities and personnel.

Girls sell these things door to door, and receive prizes for their efforts (think carnival prizes) and patches for their uniforms along with possible other accolades. In 2008 15-year-old Jennifer Sharpe from Dearborn, Michigan sold 17,328 boxes of cookies… personally I hope this chick got a pony for her trouble. For those of you keeping up at home, the average box of girl scout cookies is a reasonable $4.00, that means that this girl brought in an estimated $69,312.00. She probably got a patch and maybe a plaque for her wall or some certificate (that she’d have to frame herself).

Ok, So How Does this Relate?
There’s an obvious similarity between these cookies and the glyph market. Anybody can make glyphs with some time and effort, but it takes “too much time or effort” for most to bother. The dividends can be amazing, but it requires several key elements. First, you have to understand your cost VS profit. If you’re paying 20g per stack of Herbs, milling them and selling glyphs at 2g each… go ahead and say goodbye to your money. Much as the fool in the famous proverb, you’ll soon be parted with it.

The Girl Scout’s are aware of this: “in 2009 , several of the cookie varieties were either made smaller or had fewer cookies per box, without a corresponding drop in price. In particular, there are now fewer cookies in a box of Thin Mints, Do-si-dos, and Tagalongs, and the Lemon Chalet Creme cookies are now smaller. The Girl Scouts have suggested that this change was necessary to compensate for rising cost of ingredients.” Tin foil hat all you want, but it’s possible. If the costs go up, they’ve got to recoup somehow. Same applies to glyph markets, if the price of the millable herbs goes up, glyph prices must as well. Or you will not profit.

Of course, this speaks to fundamental principles of economics. You have to watch your cost and labor, this is what I mean when I say that gathering professions are generally not as appealing (unless you’re skilling up a corresponding crafting profession). Most of the time, the labor cost is disproportionately higher than the material cost of the finished product. These sorts of concerns become only more important in the case of competition.

Recently for example I’ve had several people undercutting me vigorously, and that’s fine because I know who they are and I know (generally) when they’re doing it. I’m fairly certain that I’m more efficient and consistent at relisting my glyphs. But, let’s say they tried to take me on and bleed me dry. How low would they have to go? Well, I’m not going to say here because that would just be stupid. But for practical example, let’s work with some numbers.

The average glyph takes 1 ink and 1 parchment to make.
Parchment cost is negligible, they’re always available and always the same price (reputation dependent).
Herbs however are the variable in the equation, there are a variety of herbs that can be milled for the appropriate pigments/inks necessary. Of course, we’re focusing specifically on Northrend Herbs since the inks created can be traded in for necessary inks to make any/all glyphs.

For arguments sake, let’s say that Deadnettle and Tiger Lily are 12g on the AH per stack.

Practical experience suggests that milling 5 of either of these herbs nets approximately 1.5 Ink of the Sea. So each stack approximates 4 glyphs rounded down.

Using this as a model, we can assume a price of roughly 3g + parchment cost per glyph to make a modest profit. Extra inks will be used to make more glyphs, and these will be nearly all profit. However, if the numbers change… say you’re paying 8g to a farmer for stacks, you’ve got a steady supply at an agreed upon amount, and you have the option of continuing to sell at or just below the “normal” price, and going lower if anyone tries to strong arm you.

In the 8g per stack example, you’d be making roughly 1g per glyph at 3g each. Of course, you’d have to actually sell them all, wherein lies the rub.

Glyphs do sell, but they don’t exactly fly off the AH. So, it’s important also to understand your quantity sold. It’s arguable that at a super low cost the things would fly out of the AH fast as you could make them, but understand it’s not likely. More likely that you sell 50 out of 1000 in a couple of hours. If you’re only making 50g with each listing cycle, then you need to change tactics. Regular undercutting and fallback prices are your friend, establish a firm threshold, if glyphs are selling under your threshold then simply go to your fallback. It’s that simple really. And of course, tend your glyphs regularly looking for any holes, restock regularly. But most importantly, keep your eyes peeled for good deals on herbs, even if you have a bank alt full of ink, you may want to consider buying that bulk of 50 stacks from the guy for 4g each. Clean him out, if you don’t your competitor will… and that’s not good for you.

The Bloodscalp Report
Things remain stable, gems seem to be hitting about 90-100g consistently, though oddly enough Dragon’s Eyes are still topping out at 150 some days. I can only assume that means that a lot of people are getting the all stats Prismatic right now to qualify for meta requirements or something. I’ve been dealing with a lot of RL issues lately that’ve kept me away consistently, so I haven’t been as strong a force in the AH as usual. Though I have been keeping tabs on what’s been going on. That said though, I haven’t been totally absent, I’m just doing the “lazy gold” for a while.

Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice
+ Spent: 0g (No big money sinks this week)
+ Gained: 22707
+ Profit: 22707

Fell short of my goal, but in my Defense, I’ve been incredibly busy IRL.

Post Script
I forgot to mention something rather important, in fact I think I may have missed my original point for talking about the Girl Scouts entirely. I blame it on that lingering memory of Samoas and the distractions they cause. But to business at hand, one of the most important lessons you can take from the Girl Scouts and their campaign of
confection conquest is that sometimes you have to go to the people. Find your customers, and sell sell sell!

If you ever listen to the radio, you’ll undoubtedly hear an ad for some car dealership that’s absolutely ridiculous. However, you’ll remember it. That recognition tends to stick, for better or worse. And though you might not run out to buy a car from them upon hearing it, you will remember them when the time does come. The same applies for wow, don’t trust the AH to magically move your goods. Some people may not know of the existence of an item, as Tella pointed out on her blog (Hit The Cap!) some time ago. When selling Rituals of the New Moon Tella uses a silly little macro to spam info about the book. She goes on to note that she saw a definite increase in sales everytime she used the macro.

My AH alts have similar macros, so that when I dump a load of epic gems and dragon’s eyes in the AH people know. And before I can post anything else, I see yellow spam. The conclusion, a bit of advertising works wonders. Now obviously, you don’t care necessarily to do this with everything. For instance, if you’re in the glyph game and you’re on your main guy who makes glyphs… it might behoove you to curb your trade chat shenanigans. It’s just the kinda thing that gets you added to a competitors friend/shit list. And now, this post is for good and all finally done. Scout’s honor…

Again, I must give a nod to fellow blogger Cozmo D, he’s been talking a lot lately about his experiences in the random ques. And though I’ve had reasonably good experience usually, I have run into some real winners. Today I decided to do a full random que for the first time in a week, it was here that I stepped in a real pile of fail…

Forward
It was a day like any other really, birds were singing. I’d just had a lovely pair of brown sugar and cinamon pop tarts. My glyphs were freshly posted, I’d already done my JC dailies and daily gem transmutes. The previous nights raid had went well (though no tanking loot dropped that I could use or want) I had enough Emblems of Frost to pick up my new Sigil of the Bone Gryphon, I was anxious to test proc out and see what the uptime was like (I wasn’t disappointed btw). I noticed that none of my regulars were up yet, so I decided to que full random and get some testing in. My original plan was to get some anecdotal experience with the new sigil/proc and make a post discussing the merits of the various Sigils available in Wrath (I still intend to do this, I promise).

I was surprised when the que popped to see myself in Utgarde Pinnacle, not my favorite Heroic but a reasonably quick one, if the group is reasonably lacking in the failure department. Moreso, I was surprised when I looked around to see a group of what could’ve been alts from Face on Fire. The whole group was basically in 10m ICC gear, so I expected this to go reasonably well. So, we were off to a good start…

Enter the Paladin
Dontstop is a Ret Paladin from Stormscale, decently geared. Capable of reasonable DPS. However his name is not just a clever moniker, the guy seriously has patience issues. At least, I assume that’s the issue. Because I can not for the life of me think of another reason for a Ret Pali to pull a 4 pack of mobs instead of letting the tank, unless of course he’s trying to pad the meters. Which, I guess is also quite possible. Or he could be a simple facerolling ape, this is also possible. In either case, we got to a 4 pack and I was waiting on runes to drop DND. He decided to pull it, and I let him die.

Why?

Because nothing teaches like failure.

Think of it as a child, you may not remember the first time you touched something hot. But there is now an instinctual memory inside you. When you see a flame, you know don’t stick your hand in it, it will burn.

And so, with that in mind we have the following scenario, provided by screenshots:

To be fair
First, my GearScore is NOT 5900. It’s 5862, I know… let’s not split hairs here. But, I pride myself on the facts.
Second, this guy made a mistake. As proven by the fact he was taking a dirt-nap. I wasn’t rude (I don’t think) I simply spelled out the situation for him and the rest of the DPS. Let me pull…

I could’ve spent 20 minutes explaining the niceties of threat, and why I can’t hold aggro on multiple mobs with my runes on cooldown, or that how if the DPS pulls I start behind on threat. I could have done that, I opted instead to simply let him die and tell them in no uncertain terms that the same would happen to them if they decided they could do my job better than me.

He complained for a little while, by the time we were at Svala however he’d shut up. I kept pulls fast, so if they were typing they weren’t doing DPS. And in the end we cleared the place in short order. Of course, when I thanked the group for a smooth run the pali left without a word. He made several sad observations that proved his own ignorance (beyond y’know, pulling a pack of mobs and dying when he could bubble).

He mentioned that I could’ve gotten my gear by being carried…

Now, I want you think on that a moment. I suppose it is possible. But for me, that leads to the conclusion he thinks I did something similar to Gevlon, and bought a place in a raiding force. That, or that maybe better/more equipped tanks carried me through instances to get my gear.

Well, assuming those are true… there’s a problem.
First, I’m the second best geared tank on Bloodscalp. And I had one of, if not the first Shadow’s Edge on the server. To make the axe required no small amount of gold. But I can’t imagine a guild selling off their first Edge to someone with no skill. I mean seriously? Even assuming I’d just gotten the axe this week (which I didn’t) that’s still at best the 2nd one that guild will see. I simply do not see this happening. Guilds will likely be doing something similar to what ours does, giving it to the primary people first. Then handing them out to people who’re wanting to “attempt” the feat for an offspec or something afterward. Logic dictates that the carried guy is going to have to wait in line. In fact, I doubt you even could pay a raiding guild enough gold to warrant first dibs on cutting edge raiding gear.

Similarly, carrying someone through Festergut and Rotface is no mean feat. And forget about carrying someone through Putricide (right now).

So, in the end I think what we face is a bruised ego. Someone who’s not used to having someone tell them they were wrong: that their badass AE DPS on trash pulls is fucking secondary to getting the job done, and done right.

To his credit though, he did perform admirably for the remainder of the fight. I think he realized I wasn’t kidding and that I definitely would let him die, again and again until he got the fucking message. He shut up, did his job. And we all walked away better for it.

I dedicate this one to Cozmo D. And to my buddy Sharpobject, Failadin extraordinaire! <3

To all fail DPS, Stop Crying Already!

P.S. Just to show I’m not just whistling Dixie about the gear rating… Here’s a couple of screenshots from wow-heroes.com.

There is some argument as to who actually invented the hot dog, some say it was German butcher Charles Feltman in Coney Island (1867). Others, that it was German peddler Antonoine Feuchtwanger in St Louis, Missouri (1880). Personally, I lean toward the Feltman theory. But my point isn’t to argue the merits of one weiner over another, it’s to talk about innovation at it’s weirdest. In both of the hot dog birth theories one thing is common, they faced a problem and ended up solving it in a way that initially seemed odd, but in the end proved to be the perfect solution. Read on, there’s weiners aplenty below…

An Innovative Weiner
I don’t claim to know all there is to know about making gold. I do however have a reasonable understanding of how to make it. Sometimes I like to think of new ways to make more, it’s a fun challenge. Sometimes, the quest for innovation leads to some weird places (niches). It’s left me with some, shall we say “unorthodox ideas” about how to make gold. It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention, but in my case I don’t really “need” more gold. So, for the purposes of our discussion we’ll amend the proverb to: boredom is the mother of invention.

Boredom Bread Gold
My gold farming day consists of logging on to my Glyph maker first, I do my daily research and make the new glyphs. I then check to see if there are any glyphs that I can make that I don’t already have posted. I make a set, then list all of the freshly minted glyphs on the AH. After that, scan for undercuts, cancel/relist. Then it’s off to the alts, I transmute epic gems, do JC dailies. And make some scrolls, flasks, and other miscellaneous items to toss on the AH (these are mostly posted on Tuesdays however to get the best of the “fresh raid” crowd). Afterward though, I’m left with the decision: What do I do while I wait for my auctions to clear?

Of course, I’ll do my daily random heroic for Frost emblems. But, afterward it’s just waiting for a raid to happen (not likely, we kill everything Tuesday and Thursday) or go farm. One day while deciding if I should log off and make some hot dogs or stay on and be bored, I got a whisper from a Mage friend “Dude, I’ve been waiting in the que for 45 minutes can I group with you so I can get this damned random heroic done for the day?”

That’s when it hit me, I’m a tank. And moreover, one of the highest geared on the server. I’ve got a pretty solid reputation on the server… So, I decided to try out a little macro “/2 Are you a DPSer tired of waiting in the que? Tired of tanks that can’t hold threat? Well join me, for the low cost of 20g I’ll guarantee you a near instant que and non fail tanking.”

In all sincerity, I didn’t expect it to work. I was however, inundated with whispers. I grabbed the first 3 DPS that whispered me and collected the 60g. We qued up, and 10 minutes later, we all had 2 more Emblems of Frost. The interesting thing is, I didn’t even have to hit the macro again… As soon as I showed up in Dalaran again, there were more ready to pay. I’ve now got a solid list of repeat customers who’ve so far been happy to pay for the quick ques. Certainly, it’s more than charging a group for ports to Dal, but it also requires a bit more heavy lifting than porting a group of people (unless said people are fatties). So, I’ve become a mercenary, a sell-sword. A grinding Goblin.

Now, I’m not gonna quit my day job over this. Making glyphs by itself makes more gold overall, but while I’m waiting for auctions to clear this makes a good use of my time. Better yet, once I’m done with my regulars I’ve usually got enough Emblems of Triumph for a couple of Epic gems for even more gold. All in all, I’m making about 500 per day this way, 1000g if I hustle. That alone doesn’t seem significant, but when you consider 7 days a week, along with everything else I’m doing … it adds up. Actually, it adds up to about 30-40K each week pretty easily (with all of my gold making schemes together).

The Bloodscalp Report:
Epic gems have been fluctuating a bit lately. Overall, the price appears to be trending (slightly) downward. However, weekends are looking like prime time to buy, Saturday and Sunday I saw prices under 100g for several epic gems… Today they’re up to 125-150. Enchant Scrolls are selling, however I can only recomend the low cost ones atm. These don’t generally offer a lot of profit, but they do move and usually fast. And you can make up for the low profit ratio in volume if you have the available stock. Higher cost scrolls such as Zerker aren’t selling as well however, either you have to cut dangerously low or sit on it for a week before it sells. Flask prices are going kinda goofy atm (I’m sorry) the price of the herbs is going up, while the price of Flasks have gone somewhat down. Conclusion: there’s more active flask makers on the market right now, and there’s probably a handful of people trying to clear their stock to recoup losses.

Keeping the Books:
+ Spent: 10,000g – Harbinger’s Bone Band
+ Gained: 28,601g
+ Profit: 18,601g

Not bad, and definitely a sign that I’m back in the saddle. This week, I will break 30k for the week.

I’ve just finished editing my DK tanking guide ENTOMBED which can be found by clicking the Tank Guide link or the banner image in this post.

The new wing is open, it’s time to tackle the plagueworks and get back to work on the quest for Shadowmourne….

Finishing the Sacred and the Corrupt
With the Plagueworks now open, you are finally able to complete this quest. You’ll need to kill Festergut and Rotface however to get the Acidic Blood needed to finish.

Tankspot’s strategy videos:

Festergut is the easier of the two, Rotface kept bugging out on us Tuesday night, but was hotfixed by Friday (those oozes not merging made for a real difficult fight, but we still got him to 10% Tuesday). The Acidic Blood is a 100% droprate, each boss only drops 1 at a time. But your guild should already have a pecking order sorted out, which should making doling these out a lot easier. After you get these, take the portal back to the entrance and go to the runeforge next to Darion Mograine on the left (as you enter the instance). Darion will show up, there’s more lightning, smoke, and fire thrown around than at a KISS concert… slowly a form appears hovering in the air between you and Darion, which becomes: Shadow’s Edge.

Shadow’s Edge
At this point, Darion gets a quest icon over his head and it’s time to accept the quest Shadow’s Edge, he tries to talk you out of taking the weapon (for fear of your immortal soul, lol pussy). Of course you accept, and claim your new axe.

A Feast of Souls
Now we begin the quest in earnest. Feast of Souls requires you to kill 1000 of the Lich Kings minions in ICC 10 or 25. Originally, it was thought these had to be undead, but not so. First, summoned adds count, such as those lovely Essences called by the Harbingers in Plague. Also, the opposite faction NPCs on the ledge before the Gunship count, as well as all of the adds on the opposing gunship. Even the zombies summoned by Precious count. After doing a run through 10m to Putricide, I found that there were about 200 kills that gave credit. So, don’t sweat this one too much. Tuesday when everything opens up again, you can even do like I plan to and run a few rep runs before raids to bump it up (and hopefully) finish it off, before you hit the instance for real.

P.S. If You Haven’t Guessed
I got my axe Thursday night, and as far as I know I was the first on Bloodscalp with it. Though a Paladin from Team Sportscoat was spotted with it the following day. So, I can’t say for sure. I do know however, that the axe looks sick and hits like friggin truck. And so far I’m loving it. I’ve gotten a lot of whispers about it (and not just from the Lich King) mostly from players who either know what it is and call me a waste of space for having it, or that have no idea what it is but wanna know how they can get it for their Altadin. So, good luck all who’re trying for it. And don’t let the haters get you down. A hater will always hate you, because that’s what they do. And they don’t really “need” a reason.

A Brief Note to My Guild, Face on Fire
I want to thank you, not only for choosing me to get this great weapon, and not only for killing these new mobs so quickly. But also for sticking it out, putting in the extra time and effort, and being quite honestly the best bunch of people I’ve ever had the honor to raid with. Thank you.

It’s a New Year, and I’ve decided to change things up a little bit. I’ve decided that henceforth my Business as Usual posts will begin with the tried and true method of gratuitous use of stimulating motivational posters, such as the one that heads this post. I think they will serve their purpose nicely, I hope you’ll enjoy and I also hope everyone reading had a pleasant holiday…

Inspired by Tella
Sometimes we forget the old tried and true, but not Tella of Hit The Cap, who recently started selling pets from a vendor Dalaran on the AH. This is nothing new, infact it reminds me quite a bit of the nearly forgotten days of Bulletin Board Systems and text based games over the modem. One game in particular that I played was a piracy game, remade as I recall as a freebie now called Tradewinds. You buy items in one port at a certain price, then sell them in another port for a profit. You use the profit to buy more ships, more guns, etc.

This concept of buying one place and making profit in another is a very old tradition, and one we sometimes forget about in WoW. After reading Tella’s post however, I decided to open up my own little petshop on Bloodscalp, of course I started with these Dalaran pets as they are obviously the easiest to get. But afterward, decided to branch out a little.

Dealer Rashaad Offers the Following Pets:
Blue Dragonhawk Hatchling cost 10g
Brown Rabbit Crate cost 10g
Cat Carrier (Siamese) cost 60s, also drops in Deadmines.
Cockroach cost 60s, also sold in UC.
Crimson Snake cost 60s, also sold in Org.
Mana Wyrmling cost 45g
Parrot Cage (Senegal) cost 60s, also sold in Booty Bay.
Red Moth Egg cost 10g

Note: In the case of the Cockroach and Crimson Snake, you might want to pass these up. But check your AH first, since these are available in cities with Auction Houses. The Senegal however only has a neutral AH, and that area tends to be generally pretty dead, aside from some random low levels occasionally grinding some quests. My advice is to grab one of each and list them till they sell, the listing fee is minimal for these and the possible gains are considerable. It’s a niche to be sure, don’t expect to hit the cap just by selling pets. But, if you set things up properly you can definitely make a nice little profit to add to your weekly take.

You are reading that right, 150g paid for a pet purchased for only 10g.

So, my petshop now has my Alchemy (Transmute) alts pulling double duty as buyers, setting them in strategic locations to buy older (exotic) items like this, and sending them to my AH alt. In the case of these Netherstorm pets for example, there is an Inn and Mailbox steps away from the vendor, as well as Flight Path. So I simply log on my alt, do my daily transmute, and mail the epic gem(s) and pets to my AH alt. Very quick and painless.

Current Business:
Things are working rather well, I’m in a build up phase currently, which is eating into profits. But, should prove to boost my profits a bit once finished, for starters I’m getting some more popular Jewelcrafting cuts on Khaas, that means one less Dragon’s Eye to sell each day. Also, I’ve set aside a stack of Dragon’s Eyes for personal use. I’ll be getting Shadow’s Edge tonight, and will need more Solid Dragon’s Eyes for it and Shadowmourne down the line. As well as for my warrior once his JC skill is up to snuff. Likewise, I’m building up my remaining Alchemist alts and my remaining professions. I’m not concerned about gear for any of my guys, but I will likely be building up a stock of uncut gems and enchants as I get them all geared with random heroics. Again, these things all eat into profits, but I think in the long run getting them out of the way sooner rather than later is probably a good idea.

The Bloodscalp Report:
I’m always tinkering with my business, I’ve been adding more things lately to my available goods. Titansteel Bars are off the list, the cooldown is nice, but the profit to cost ratio is kinda meh, I’d rather just sell the cooldowns than make my own bars for sale. I have however seen a renewed interest in Eternal Belt Buckles which have picked up considerably (as expected) since patch 3.3 dropped. Similarly, it looks like the enchanting market might be evening out on Bloodscalp, so I’m taking some tenative steps back into the market, seeing how the popular and low cost enchants fare. Gems are down slightly, but still selling well in uncut varieties. I find that the uncut gems I make sell incredibly fast compared to cut versions.

The Glyph business is actually doing better than ever, some tweaks in my system have actually increased productivity by staggering levels. And I’m making an average of 1.5K per day on the profession. Now that Darkmoon Faire is here, I’ll also be getting some much needed rep on Khaas as well as a bit of a boost in the gold from selling finished trinkets and Nobles cards. Flasks appear to be somewhat dead in the water atm, the price is going down since the first night of 3.3, several people have been inundating the market with cheap flasks, and the price continues to drop. Sadly, material costs of the flasks have remained largely unchanged, making for a low profit market, or worse completely profitless.

Bags remain a chaotic market, some days there’s no bags at all for sale all day but my own, and then others the second I finish posting a large quantity someone else does the same (only deeply undercutting my own price). I’ve got a lot less interest in this market of late, since it’s highly competitive atm and for little actual gain. Anyhow, that wraps it up for this week.

It’s a New Year, which is a time for reflection. How did we get here, where are we going? All that… Well, with that in mind, and a nudge from another blog, I decided to take a look back at Khaas, where did he come from? How did he get where he is, and where is he going? I’ve always thought of Khaas as a little bit of villain, and all bad guys need an origin story right? Well, here’s mine.

Khaas, and How I Chose to be a Death Knight
The character Khaas was actually inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, Kas the Betrayer (or Kas the Bloody-Handed as he is also known) was a pretty heavy dude, anyone familiar with D&D knows surely of Vecna, the Lich who was betrayed and had his eye and hand removed in an epic struggle with his right hand man… that’s how Kas got the title “the Betrayer”.

I’ve been a fan of Death Knights since I first encountered one in a D&D game as a kid, to me the DK has always been about being a Paladin but about a billion times more badass. Would you rather have a squire or a shambling horde of undead minions? Tend the wounds of a fallen comrade, or raise them from the dead to do your bidding? Yeah, it’s good to be bad… Of course, I could’ve gone with someone like Lord Soth or something, but that’s a little too pretentious and also a little too predictable. I wanted something identifiable, but not to the point of being a Hunter named Legolasxx.

A little muddling with the letters left me with Khaas, an Orc with a cool fantasy name, easy to pronounce and memorable. With a little something special for me and anyone else who played D&D way back when. Basically though, he followed my cardinal rule of name creation, if you’re gonna steal from popular culture/fiction under no circumstances use the main guy’s name. Steal a “lesser” name.

Beyond D&D there was the influence of Warcraft II and III to think about, the first time I used Death and Decay and Raise Dead in WCII I was hooked. Add the storyline of Arthas in WCIII’s human and undead campaigns and I was a ravening fan of the class. I was so hooked in fact that one of the primary reasons I didn’t rush out in support of World of Warcraft at launch was the absence of my favorite class, the Death Knight.

Humble Begininigs
I began my MMO career with games like EverQuest, by the time I got to WoW I was playing a Mage. Not my first choice, but I was with friends and they needed a nuker. In Vanilla I played the Mage, then a Warlock, and then rerolled to an Alliance Warlock, which later was turned from Human to Orc and transfered to Bloodscalp with Khaas. Throughout Burning Crusade I had what you might call MMO Schizophrenia, I rolled and rerolled multiple times. My MO was to get a character to max level and then gear up with arena gear, then grow bored and repeat the process. That was how I spent the entirety of BC, until that is the announcement of the Death Knight with Wrath of the Lich King.

I was galvanized by this news, and immediately announced to my guildmates “I will be a Death Knight when Wrath drops, and I will be tanking”. I’m sure there was some level of cynicism involved, everyone knew I was a FOTM kinda guy. But I don’t think anyone ever realized why…

Wrath of the Lich King
Toward the end of BC I started five-boxing, I had actually done my fair share of dual-boxing in EverQuest and 10 boxing in Dark Ages of Camelot, and was having a good amount of success running a 5 and 10 man setup in WoW. I even ended up participating in an interview with various members of the boxing community for an online magazine called the Escapist (The Article in Question, I am referred to as Hor).

When Wrath was released, I had very little tanking experience. And absolutely 0 with the new content. So, I decided to continue boxing with my DK and 4 Shaman group. This is where my real tanking experience began, I started running heroics with my little group and learning the fights. This had the great advantage of letting me mess up without any real consequences, I didn’t feel like I was wasting anyone’s time while I “learned” and I didn’t build a rep as a noob for myself. When I actually did start tanking in pugs and in raids, I actually knew what I was doing. And it really helped; I think, to distinguish myself from the mass of Death Knight rerolls in existence through a large portion of Wrath. Early on especially there were a lot of DK “tanks” running around with no real idea what they were doing.

The introduction of dual specs seems to have exacerbated the problem, now people are slapping on a tanking spec for their secondary and saying they “can tank”. In the end, experience I think is the best teacher. Nothing teaches like repair bills, for me five-boxing through my failures was the way to go, it made me learn and focus in a way I wouldn’t have in a regular group. Sure, I didn’t come out of those first boxed runs being an expert tank, but I was certainly no noob. And now, after experiencing the raiding content that Wrath has to offer, I feel safe in calling myself an accomplished tank.

Thank you Cozmo D for inspiring this little trip down memory lane.