Synergy, I Has It

Synergy
You hear it a lot in movies like Office Space by people who are trying to sound professional. But understanding synergy is paramount for maintaining a business at peak efficiency. A Goblin must embrace synergy if they intend to diversify stock, and thereby maximize earning potential.

How Does a Goblin Achieve Synergy?
First, you need to understand what I’m talking about here. I’m talking specifically about making your alts (more specifically the professions of your alts) work together. Understanding how these various skills interact is even more crucial if you have a smaller number of high-level characters. If your main character is a Scribe/Alchemist, what should your alt be? And why?

The average player has at least one alt, Goblins may have more. For the purposes of this exercise, let’s assume a main and a secondary eighty. The trend for most goblins will be to have Inscriptions on one of these characters. Herbalism of course defers cost for Inscriptions, in fact you can quite easily skill up with nothing but your own herbs (given enough time). But you have 2 other profession slots to use. Herbalism is likewise a great companion to Alchemy, Flasks, Elixirs, and Potions never go out of style. (Tip: Load up the AH Tuesday following maintenance, you’ll find a lot of raiders quick to buy their pots before raid time). Now, for the not so obvious option, Enchanting. If I had to choose, this would be how I would set up two level eighties. With Inscriptions, you will be able to generate plenty of Vellums (and likely will as you skill up anyway) then create Scrolls to sell on the AH. Now, with this said you have 2 characters feeding each other materials and producing products that will sell, and sell consistently.

Having this type of synergy makes your alts work efficiently, and it helps to get your hands into other markets when/if possible. Ideally, having multiple eighties to cover each of the professions. But, with a little scrupulous planning of professions can go a long way into making your job easier as well as increasing your profits.

WEEK.one
Right now I have two major sources of income: Noncommittals and Professions. The Noncommittals are those things I do regularly that are pretty much a gimme. 100g per day from doing dailies, at least 130g from my Alchemist doing an epic gem transmute (he’s xmute mastery, so sometimes it’s 260). Then there’s the Jewelcrafting Dailies, which get me 110g each (4 total) from the Dragon’s Eyes. Similarly, I get about 5 Crusader orbs per week, which is another 2K under current Bloodscalp conditions. The latter of course, I keep expecting to drop anytime now with the impending release of 3.3 and Icecrown Citadel, since the announcement of the patch the Orbs have dropped to under half their pre-announcement levels.

The point is after getting things squared away with my daily run is 6690g per week, before repairs and any incidentals like potions, stat food, etc. I have likewise stopped purchasing items for the Insane title (for the time being). Much like avoiding the home shopping network, skipping out on vanity items or other “useless shit you don’t need” results in a healthier cash flow (no surprise there). I will of course finish the Achievement someday, but for now I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

As for the Professions, right now these are not running at full capacity. The bulk of my profits are being reinvested into my business here, buying Books of Glyph Mastery, and other profession recipes to ensure a diverse stock. I have however managed to buy a large quantity of the Books already, and fully intend to complete my hunt for all of the Glyphs in the next couple of weeks. My rogue has gone to Skinning/Leatherworking. Leather always sells well, and I want to dip into the armor kit business. Not only would it be nice for my main not to have to hunt down a leatherworker or overpay for a kit on the AH, it would also diversify my business. These kits, like potions and glyphs aren’t going to be going out of style.

After finishing up Leatherworking Engineering will be my next target, I’m not sure I can do much with it money-wise. But perhaps making bullets and arrows will prove lucrative. I know there are epic bullets/arrows in the patch though, so I’m somewhat hesitant to go full tilt into Eng just yet. I am in the process of buying up bank slots on my AH alts, and filling those slots with raw materials. Despite being in a build up phase, my business has done well this week. I feel the patch has a great earning potential in the first few weeks, before things normalize again.

It’s that age old story: new patch brings new instances, new instances bring new gear, new gear brings new and old customers alike to the Auction House in search of Scrolls, Consumables, Gems, and Materials. So I make my preparations and hope that when it’s over, I’ve done a little better than break even. That’s all for this week, thanks for reading…