Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Stuff, Status, Progress

My last post was an evaluation of personal goals and where they have shifted to, and my progress on them if I have indeed maintained the goal.

Mostly it revoled around preps for Pandaland release.

My single most flexible goald is currently which toons to level first and fastest, as well as what grinds for rep and such to start first etc.

leveling 1-90 a new Monk is likely not realistic given my robust plans to invest a lot of time in gold making.

First I called, and called, and called again, then called the next day a few more time to finally get in the Account services que w/ Blizz.  They were able to merge my to active wow accounts and put them under one battle.net account since I created the second one for my kids, it is in the same last name, and same billing address, as well as all the the personal questions I was able to give them the correct answers too for verification purposes.  As far as security goes, they seem to do a really good job.

What that did is get my new 7 bank alts on an account with an authenticator... So getting them going with more bags and storage stuff, good to go.  Most now have the 11 bags of the biggest size set up.  I went with the smaller 20 slot vendor Jewel bags for now, since the 36 slot ones are pretty spendy.  And leveling tailoring, I will just wait to get the cloth guy set up with more bags till I actually can make my own.

Gentle leveling efforts on the tailor engineer and the farmer toon Miner/herber continue, with a recent push on the professions for the tailor engineer.

The second thing the account merge did is get me 20 toons that on 2 accounts that can instant mail each other.  Before I had a 1 hour wait for mail between accounts unless they were in the same guild with the guild perk.

The last thing it did is give me access to my mountain of heirlooms on the second account.  It has been noticably slower leveling with out that 35% xp from the heirlooms or the trinkets/weapons on the farmer toon.

So, I got a new bug in my bum, and finally logged on, updated and got into the Beta... Made a couple premade toons, rather than copying a toon over.. and it has been good.  I have spent most of my time on a monk.  Okay, all of it except taking the quest on a druid to get to level 86... I leveled a new monk to level 5 or 6, that was fun and I will finish that up some time.  But most of my time has been going through most of the available leveling quests in the zones, valley of four winds, karasong wilds, kun lai summit, towlong woods.  Probably misspelled that.  I can say for me the monk is a blast.  I has been like when I went from wrath Pally tank to wrath Warrior tank.  As a pally tank I had the 9-6-9 rotation and a few other CDs for a total of like 9-12 abilitys to use routinely, with a core group of abilities in a rotation being like 5 abilities.  Then the warrior had like. 18-20 abilities to use, and more like 8-10 abilities in a core rotation... abilities that stacked and and buffed and played together and off of each other...  I fell in love with the active playstyle of warrior tanking.  The demand for active tracking self buffs and debuffs and cool downs and on the debuffs and times and rage and stuff on the target too... It was just soo much more inter-active and I loved it.  Later I found I really like the rogue resource tracking, and combo points and management of buffs and debuffs and such, timers on SnD, Rupture, energy, CPs, CDs line it all up and AWESOME.

 Now the Monk has brought that back both of them in one with some exciting changes and interaction and play... From what I did, which is level windwalker DPS from 86 to 89, I found that the DPS spec is reasonably simple to pull off decently though to maximize it will be a new challenge of managing resources, CDs, self buffs and such... its going to be cool.. there will be a lot of good/average windwalkers and a very elite few that do amazing.  At 89 I switched to Brewmaster (tank) and really struggled on my own to figure out what my prioritys are.  I did no reading out of game just  the tool tips ands such... Also with out addons its even tougher.  Tanking, is going to have an even bigger delta... there are going to be a lot of average to poor tanks and some really really bad ones, and then there are going to be the amazingly good ones... Like I mean they in the good controls of good players going to get the class/spec nerfed, and further amplify the problems with the average to poor remainders... You goin in with leather armor and a flat 25% dmg reduction.  So you go in pretty squishy, then buff yourself for an additional 20% parry, and often buff yourself for another 30% dodge, but not sustainable, its like a mini CD, then all the dmg does not hit you right off w/ stagger, you only take 70% now and stagger the remaing 30%, buffed by mastery over the next 10 second, then you got DPS moved that buff a potentially big self bubble, and self heals buffed by that bubble and then dmg CDs and then Raid CDs and the ox statue that does stuff and more stuff and OMG I am loving how much you can do... And its good... that was most of last weekend... leveling on the Beta... I like monks...

I will likely level and raid one on live and it may even become my main. 

... Good hunting in the gold mine...

Friday, June 22, 2012

WOW time slips through your fingers like sand

Okay, anyone else feeling that gut punch asking, "Will you be ready for MOP?"

I kinda got it in the last couple days, that swift kick in the attention getter that begs the question, "Am I ready? Am I going to be ready?"

The catalyst is the announcement that Beta Raid testing is comming up, and I have not been on, and I have not leveled a toon and I want to got check out the new raid, get some first hand idea of whats up.  That even just put it in place how far away MOP could be.  And how I am spending time and what productive thing have fallen to the wayside in favor of other interests. 

I am not way behind, but here are the things I am set out to do, and where I am with getting set up.
-Level a tailor engineer bank alt - gone from in the 40s to 68 atm and power leveling profs for NR.
-Level a farmer on a second account - going well, and in the mid 70s, but stopped since that account is not on an authenticator, and because it is not UG'd to Cata.
-Learn to use TSM.  Have not even started this task... who knows, maybe TSM goes away in MOP and is replaced.  Since I am not running markets, its a mixed bag
-Continue raiding - This goes well, My main is RL in a 5 hrs/week group. tues and thurs for 2 1/2 hours each,  Semi casual, and we just knocked off our 5th HM, now its into the painful run on the last 3...
-I still have 5 DS HM capable toons and run in pug or am the RL running pugs a couple times a week...

Things I added in:
-Doing dailies in TB for various reason, #1 being the trinket "Mirror of broken images"  Its still very useful for the lightning phase on hagara, and potentially on Warmaster too..
-Running most of the toons in Kara for the mount... its just a short fligh really, but it does take time
-Running the fishing contests - I won the Booty Bay contest last weekend BTW...
-Making more bank alts - I made a post on those girls, 7 level one blood elfs all got ported to Dal for a base of operations.  A couple got set up with 11 starter profession bags... some still need bags to get a boost, and each of them could certainly stand to get a guild bank tab or 2 going, though they are also on the non authenticator account, so I am being a little slow about setting that up too much.
-Lastly a growing urge to spend some time in the Beta and be more familiar with some parts and mechanics before it actually releases...

The remaining things to do, and the question of do I have enough time to do it all?
- Merge battle net accounts if I can and get an authenticator or the second if need be
- Level the farmer, Taruren druid miner/herber to 85
- Level the tailor engineer and the professions
- Finish setting up the bank alt and guild banks and such so things are more organized for future use... Or in some cases abuse
- Play and level on the beta to raid and be familiar with the heroic dugeons
- Continue raiding with the main group and couple times a week on the alts...
- Build good stockpiles for MOP

It just seems as my attention is spread out more and more, sometimes, I question rather or not I will get it all done and build the stocks and such and be ready in a way I will be happy with for MOP... time will tell, but at least now, having thought through it, I am pretty sure I have a much clearer way forward on how to get it mostly done.

Have a great weekend

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Maybe you can guess why FBE!!

FBE = Femal Blood Elf
I made 7 of them, different classes for w/e reason.  I have a second account that is "my wifes" that she never plays.  So this is not an option for everyone.  But it was the begining of action, rebounding from my thoughts I put out in my last post. 

So with seven new bank alts out in eversong woods, the question was next where to home base them.  For now its Dalarn.  I dual boxed my main account and summoned 4 of them straight out of ESW to dalaran.  2 hour cooldown left me waiting to get the other 3 move into my new business hub.  I chose Dal because I like the City.  Cowtown in Org is likely more efficient, but mehh... The next steps are in progress.  It takes about 115 gold to get all 7 bank tabs of the toons personal bank.  So getting each one that starting capitol is foremost.  I got a crafter for 11 each of the LW crafted scribe satchels and Mining satchels.  36 slots each.  boom...  Off to  a good start. I have an LW that I was going to do the Molten front dailies on myself, but ughhh... I just spammed trade for a couple minutes and got a nice reaction from the crafter when I tipped them 1500 gold for the 22 bags they made.  They said they were expecting like "10 gold".  I said its for doing the dailies.  Molten front dailies are still a really mean grinde... really mean.  1500 gold tip... ehh

 I cleaned out the AH of the 3 listed 36 slot chanting bags and will watch and finish getting the other 8 or those I want for this enterprise as well as the others.   Thats where I got to on bags, so more summoning and trading starter cash for those guys, and finish getting the bags all lined up.  Hmmm, just thinking, there is no "tailor" profession bags.  Grrr.  Thats going to be expensive for the 26 slot regular bags.

Also I came up with fun names for the girls... The cloth storage toon is a mage "dressmeup", the others have fun names, I forget some at the moment, but was surprised that my ink storage toon got the name "Tatoo".  "Orewhat" for the Ore bank... "Skinsrshirts" for the leather banker, "Flowersforme" the herb bank.  Why all this? because it amuses me and I hope to make a lot of gold... The next considerations will be to figure out if I want to start guild banks on each one, it will be a pretty big time investment to get the 7 guild charters signed, but not too expensive for the first couple g-bank tabs.  its the last couple that the gold valuation has to come in.  But the simplicity of having a banker toon for each main type of material?  good to go, well worth it for the ease of finding stuff.  And not too bad for relisting stuff on the AH.  I guess with leather, ore, herbs, cloth, ink, jems, chanting mats all on separate toons the only thing I could still benefit from would be a place for elementals? and pets? if I was to get into those markets again.  However, I think I will keep those going into my current banks.

Simplicity and organization are key with the use of addons, records and spreadsheets to making lots of gold sometimes.  Being able to find your goods to sell and still list them for good profits even when addons go broke in the days following patches.  These toons are the "find stuff" part, and Spreadsheets will have the prices of goods listed that I bought at to look for good spikes in demand/price to sell them off at.  Nominally, I am hoping to sell things at a 100% markup... or double my money... I could lose a lot by unloading my goods to early at that profit margin, but to wait and gamble could also mean I miss the wave of  demand/price spike before the market reacts and people start flooding the market...  AOE looting is going to impact this... some things are going to be much easier to farm and so the prices will not hold.  the limit will be the size of storage bags.  Example in particular, is I would expect most types of cloth to only see a brief spike in price as the instance one pull -> AOE loot -> run out -> reset -> repeat will become popular for a lot of cloth.  Probably the less valuable of all comodities in time.  However bolts take time to craft, so cloth to bolts could become a "time is money" strategy to making gold. 

Good luck, and good hunting

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

How much is an investment worth

What is the value of a Guild bank for storage?  Its a pretty hefty investment of time and gold to get a guild bank unless you are looking for one in trade casually.  Often people want more for the g-bank than it is worth IMO.  But I continue to look for one.  I am just out of space for some of my stock piles in the 2 I already have.  Part of my problem is the packrat tendancies I can not get over, and sometimes it pays off.  I sold one fish the other day for 500 gold... One old BC era fish for the cooking achieve to some guy.  He posted in trade, I moused over it and saw through altoholic that I had 5 of them in a bank... Logged over, one fish and 500 gold.  But that is so rare. 

Why do I want more bank space, well, inflation.  I would like to have one Gbank for each of the following, cloth, jems, ore/bars, chant mats, and leather.  So overall 5 guilds.  It would make some organization really easy.  Who to mail stuff to? answered, name the bank alts would be something like, "Tuxedo" for the cloth, "Jewler" for the gems, "Ironworks" for the ore/stones, "Dusty" for the enchanter, and "Tanner" for the leather.

The idea would be that I could fill up a full tab with dust from BC another with Dust from wrath and antother with lower level stuff and and another with essences or take your pick (chanter rods?)  and the same with leather and heavy leather... Then each of those bankers would have the biggest profession bags possible for more storage in the bags and personnal bank... Think abou that for a second.  7 36 slot enchanting bags in the bank, and 4 more in the bag slots and the 16 slot default backpack.  If my head math is correct that is 412 storage slots in bags and bank, plus 6x98 guild bank tabs for 588 more storage slots.  So, about 1000, stacks of itmes per banker toon potentially.  Of course lower in the professions that dont have a 36 slot profession bag like LW, 28 is the biggest that I know of currently...  but still over 900 stacks of lether bought now at low prices and then sell later to the leveling profession grinders power levelers. 

Really, look at the number of frostweave required to powere level tailoring  or the amount of borean, heavy borean leather etc to power level a profession... then take that number and compare it to the number available in the AH... its pretty interesting, you might find stockpiling strategy gems on where the demand is going to be high, and the supply is going to be low.

The guessing part of the game is this.  What professions are people going to go with?  JC, enchanting and leatherworking are my guesses right now.  Consider how many people will be trying to power level those professions in MOP and what the supply of mats will be.

Good luck in your stocking plans...

Monday, June 4, 2012

Still here

Just saying I am still around, there is just so little at the moment I have to write about in the blog.

there is a gold making tip at the bottom...

Lately, I have been mostly leveling alts, and playing with various other ventures of amusement.  I started doing the Dalaran fishing daily on 4 toons for the waterlogged recipe.  I awards 5 cooking tokens and will get me my chefs hat sooner.  Why a chefs hat? not really sure, but I am going for it, and slowly leveling fishin on several toons, something I have not done yet.  Additionally, I am leveling fising on a toon here and there in the fishing tournaments. 

I run my snatch list routinely to snatch some ites for stockpiles, and sell off excess drops of greens and other items from time to time.  I saw someone selling sands of time for 700gold each and bought 200... there have been people selling vial of sands for 23-24K lately, but I think when MOP launches that will dry up.  The server I am on is one of the highest hoard pop PVE servers in the US.  So as we wait for MOP, player bases diminish, and players take breaks or spend more time in D3, I think there are a lot of people attracted to this server and the surpluss of cheap sand is from that. At least that is what I am hoping.  I am hoping people brought stacks of sand from an old server to move gold above the 50K limit and not that there is a bug somewhere...

The Darkmoon fair is in town, so capitalizing on that for somr profession points on toons too, though its not that big a deal either really.  I can confirm however that fishing the islands waters for the debris pools is a great way to farm cloth.  Things to consider if you want to check it out.  look up where the pools spawn before hand and plan a route.  there are some islands that have spawns around them and some that dont.  Pools are really spread out, so you will spend a lot of time running.  There is only one or two catches of stuff before the pool is fished out.  If you like fishing a bit, its a good investment of time IMO in short doses.  Potions of water walking are great for running around too, and will cut down on time.  some parts of the island are cliffs to the water so you either have to swim or ride/run w/ water walking.  DKs would be a good choice, if you have one.  Even if your fishing is dismally low, its a guaranteed catch...

I also managed to finally get HM Warlord Zon'oz last week and will be going to HM Hagara this week if the whole group makes it.  IMO, its a good balance of a group.  We only raid 2 nights/week and only for about 2 1/2 hours each night... its slower on progression, but few have hit the burn out stage either and really started talking about quiting or taking a break due to raid schedules.  Our progress is hampered since we do not have any bench players, and when we dont have everyone there we end up pugging and changing our plans for the evening.  It happens a fair bit, someone has to travel for business, or gets a shot at some overtime at work and does not make it.  Thats cool, I would rather raid with them, on our schedule than some of the options of building a raid group around serious progression.  Though progression times can be really rough, and hard when it takes a couple weeks to get a boss down, we earned it on our own and do enjoy the times we have.

As far as gold making, not doing any right now.  Just spending on stockpiles... and goofing off. 

I will say this as a gold tip, and it changes some of my strategy on a couple levels for MOP... Scribes and inscription.  Shoulder enhancements are going to be a scribe crafted item in MOP.  This will make scribes more popular and could impact the potential for glyphs in a negative way.  Or it could be that if you already have a leveled scribe, and have learned all the glyphs it might be monster profession.  As always servers and markets will vary, but a scribe will probably be a bit higher on my priority list for leveling now.  I think I am also going to start stocking up on a lot of inks since my scribe already knows all the current glyphs.  More to follow in this market.  It may also make inscription a more popular profession to level  a new panda or monk with.  JC, inscription and Leatherworking, not necessarily in that order will I think be the most popular professions on the new toons, and enchanting may be in that list too.  Having mats for those toons to level their profession in stockpiles... that could be a great way to beat inflation. 

GL with your plans, and haping gaming...