Just My Two Copper - WoW Gold Guide

Leave Your 'Tude At The Door

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 2:40 PM

Going Looney over the Lunar Festival
Cleaning Out The Closet (Achievement Edition)
WOD: Future Catch Up Zones
Ebay Warriors Prepare For Battle

Mommar here.

If you want to refer to my 'career' with World of Warcraft, I should be thankful to many of the people I have met in and out of the game itself. There are people even to this day that I consider close friends, others that I have had the honor of meeting even if it was for a fleeting moment.

But then some weeks tend to be more difficult than others. To the point that you start to wonder whether the reputation, gold and experience is truly worth it. As I have said before, I am running some of the older Mists of Pandaria raids for gold and reputation. There is this mental itch I have that when I see a non exalted reputation I must finish it off. In this case I do all of the Throne of Thunder raids i can get during the week. These raids include the dreaded LFR that everyone finds so tasty on the brain.

Most of the time these go off without a hitch. Poke Durumu in the eye with a big pointy stick, ride Tortos like a bronco even get a little shock to the system with Lei Shen.

But this week seemed to be a cavalcade of grumpy players. Players looking to pick fights for the smallest problem. Then a full blown meltdown if there was a wipe. Remember this content was the new shiny raids not 6 months ago. Most players are overgeared for the content, but there is still a certain amount of possibility of dying a horrid game death. But no one really signs on to be the target of someone's abuse.

Having spent easily 10,000g on repairs over the years I have been playing, seeing a raid fail to a boss is a normal experience. You just pick up, look to see what can be fixed and move on. If nothing can be solved, then it is time to leave the raid and go find something else to do. But there are times I feel I am in the minority when it comes to this attitude.

Noob, idiot, *&*$ and other words that would get you punched out in the real world get slung around as normal conversation. My raid can joke with me and tell me I'm weak sauce, but everyone has their limits. Lately my patience to have to listen to people go off for silly reasons has become less and less. Most of the time players will just direct it at the random player, but occasionally someone will shoot their mouth in my general direction. One raid i ended up dying due to poor tanking/healing and was accused of taking 'too much damage'. If I had failed in the mechanics I would have completely agreed with them. The wise player knows they are never 100% perfect, but in this case every movement out of raid damage was done correctly. Seemed this player also didn't understand how an arms warrior works when well geared. Hearing 'why is the warrior doing so much AOE damage' finally got me to respond. After explaining in a slow, precise matter that an arms warrior has 3 different cleaves that automatically go off you will get AOE damage. Along with this explanation was the fact that this player needed to be more worried about their low dps (under 100k) than putting the blame on everyone but their own shoulders.

Later this bothered me not because of the words I had used. What bothered me was that I had let his rash silliness get to me and take away my enjoyment of the raid. There will always be hotheads, always be players that troll for attention. There will always be players to be carried with a dps wheelbarrow. Raid wipes will occur no matter the skill of a group. But my attitude is what I choose it to be. I can choose to react or I can choose to walk away. Either choice is viable and functional.

The same goes for the good days and bad days of making gold. Our attitudes attach themselves to whether we can be successful or not. Making lots of gold is fun. Making lots of gold in the game without losing all mental sanity is even better. So enjoy the game with a good spirit and less stress. And remember there is always the choice to turn off the game and take a breath. It is a game and you make the choice of what attitude you bring.

Good Luck and Good Gold Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbear @ gmail. Dot com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up, and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Going Looney over the Lunar Festival

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 11:15 AM

Cleaning Out The Closet (Achievement Edition)
WOD: Future Catch Up Zones
Ebay Warriors Prepare For Battle

Mommar here

Over the months I have given a lot of grief to the powers that be that they need to update many of the best holidays in World of Warcraft. Just adding a few holiday bosses would add a lot to the draw of these older holidays.

The Lunar Festival is not one on my list that needs to be updated. There is already a world boss, Omen Having been around in the old days of watching him wipe out entire raids quickly and seeing multiple people needing to run back to take another whack at him brings the way world bosses used to feel. Not to just kill a boss because he dropped great loot, but simply because that is what you did with friends.

As I was flying around on one of my characters picking up the different Festival elders for the holiday and collecting Coins of Ancestry. I still had all of the frilly dresses that you could purchase with the coins in my bank so my major interest in getting coins on all of my toons was for the Festival Lanterns. When these first came out they were a hot commodity to transfer to an alliance toon/buddy and sell for obscene amounts of gold. Now the transfer over to the opposite faction is much easier since pet books are linked across factions and across servers.

Setting aside the quest for gold (I know, blasphemy here) but this holiday is just beautiful to see and enjoy. From dropping into a alliance controlled zone to pick up a coin to looking at the coordinates you downloaded from the guide to figure out the fastest way to get to the next zone. Combining this with the occasional pick-up of pets that I didn't have it becomes a change of pace from just running Timeless Isle and Siege of Orgrimmar.

Where many people are stuck inside from the latest blitz of cold weather finding something that brings warmth and joy is important. Escapism is the biggest draw for Warcraft and this holiday is the best place to escape from.

The Lunar Festival it hasn't changed that much so here is a link to the Icy-Veins guide for 2014 which they deserve all the credit for putting together. Link

Take this weekend and stop and smell the Lunar Festival. Not just for the profit, but just because this is one of the most enjoyable holidays of the Warcraft Calender.

Good Luck and Good Profit Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbear @ gmail. Dot com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up, and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Cleaning Out The Closet (Achievement Edition)

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 10:47 AM

WOD: Future Catch Up Zones
Ebay Warriors Prepare For Battle

Mommar here.

On the server reset day I tend to be a busy little Azerothian beaver. Pushing 5 toons through Ordos and Celestial runs can fill up a lot of time. Add to this list wanting to finish up the epic quest line for my hunter, which ends up running TOT looking for raid runs when they pop up. Also include my timeless isle farming, plus two favorite shows being on TV I tend to stay busy on Tuesdays.

Then things start to slow down into the normal questing grind and picking up spot flex raid runs during the week. By Saturday night or Sunday I have started to need a palette cleanser of sorts. I have said before that I tend to keep Sunday's open to running old instances and raids for fun and profit.

One of the things I wanted to pick up before Warlords of Draenor was a Hellreaver Polearm before the next expansion. When this first dropped while leveling it was the coolest thing to lug around. Being the time well before Transmogrification was available to players I had to Vendor it to clear out some bag space. Now with a large amount of spaces to put things I finally picked up another one by soloing Hellfire Ramparts. Then proceeding to work on my Raids that I wanted specific items from I went over to Northrend to run the Eye of Eternity. Two Mounts, Reins of the Azure Drake and Reins of the Blue Drake drop from here. As I was finishing up with smacking Malygos around the achievement You Don't Have An Eternity popped up as completed. This was one of those achievements that I had forgotten about and had never completed during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

Popping up the Achievement browser I started eyeballing through all of the achievements that I had not completed. Little bits and pieces started jumping out at me of items I could complete. These didn't offer any gold or mounts or titles for myself. Finishing them would purely be of the 'yay, I did that' variety of life.

As I was running around and flying in a different area I ended up getting tied into a Wintergrasp fight. It had been a long time to be in Wintergrasp, but six of us got together and whooped some Alliance around the field of battle. Then I decided to give a try to finish up the Earth, Wind and Fire (10 man) achievement. This is the achievement that you have to kill all four bosses inside the instance within 60 seconds of each other. After doing a quick lookup I gave it a try. Failing miserably (don't worry true believers I killed them all but couldn't get them all together in a pack to smack them around inside the 60 seconds).

There are plenty of other achievements that are floating around the World of Warcraft for players to finish up. Instance, raid and even PVP achievements sitting there ripe for the picking and completing. So the next time you get bored and sitting in your home city go run out somewhere and look up what achievements you can finish. Not just for gold, but purely for the enjoyment of the game.

Good Luck and Good Profit Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbear @ gmail. Dot com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up, and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Ebay Warriors Prepare For Battle

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:34 PM

That ripple effect that you felt has nothing to do with the announcement that anyone watching Blizzcon knew would be happening.

Blizzard announced in some blue notes that with Warlords of Draenor anyone purchasing the expansion would receive a free level 90 boost. Not that earth shattering since many players will be looking to boost alts or toons that they have played before.

But here is where things get a little bit more tricky. TPTB have also half way announced that you will be able to pay for the rights to boost other toons. So anyone that has the cash can boost any toon to level 90 and instantly get them into Warlords of Draenore content.

Boo, hiss, boo, lynch them right? But wait a second. Hear this out before you start to get a rope for these California boys. There are some pluses that go with getting more players into the game quickly.

- Faster Instance times
- Might help with the subscription loss from players
- Eliminates the sticker shock of having a new player level all the way to 100
- Allows players to test out new classes (maybe new tanks and healers?)

There is one big negative that is being brought up over the blogosphere. First a little history lesson. When the World of Warcraft MMO started you were able to purchase/sell items on auction sites such as ebay. There was a rash of gear and characters that were bought and sold digitally. Many of your old school players still refer to these as 'ebay toons' because they were able to instantly jump into high level raids and frankly they sucked. Having no time to spend leveling their skills and learning their abilities from 1-60, these players generally dragged down good players. 40 man raids were much more unforgiving at the time and if you ever ran old school Onyxia than 'more dots' was the battle cry for every lock.

But there is a large distinction between the game at that point and the game now. If you have leveled a toon up to 90 since around patch 5.2 you can see just how much 'learning' players get from leveling. Any instance, that someone says 'crowd control' is laughed at or with responses of 'what is that?' Most quests and instances up to around level 85 are tank you grab everything, healers keep the tank up, dps blow the snot out of them. At level 90 it takes 30 minutes of study and a little bit of work on target dummies to figure out what someone is going to do. Mostly a player's ability comes down to gear quality. It is highly possible that when you purchase your level 90 toon that you will be outfitted with basic green/blue gear so that you are not buck naked for the world to see.

The other argument that people have against buying the level 90 boosts is that it will bring about the effect of being able to buy your way into high level content. Run a couple of the Siege of Orgrimmar that someone says 'I have this buddy, I want to bring' and then tell me that people aren't already being carried in high level content. With the new LFR system in place and invite system, it will become much easier to be more choosy about who you bring to the party.

As far as making money goes. More toons always means the ability to have more professions available at your fingertips. A player who is just starting out with one or two toons can instantly have a third set of professions that they only need to level. Being able to instantly level to 90 might cut out the glut of low end materials that are prevalent in the Auction House. Very few players are going to take the time out to run in a low level area just to do some farming. This change could drive up the cost of materials. With this level 90 change don't be surprised if all of the professions receive major overhauls that allow players to level each profession quickly. You can already level Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting very quickly. The idea is to get players quickly and painlessly into the new content.

Personally, I have no problem with the ability to purchase boosts for a fee. A lot of the feeling of dread that players have is coming from old school feelings of elitism. There is something to say about leveling 10 toons to level 90 and beyond. No one wants to think that their last 4-6 years of work can be bought for the low, low price of 25 bucks (or whatever they choose to mark the boost mechanic at). The best thing I can say to people who are already to chuck their warcraft careers is let the panic subside and see what the WOD brings. There will still be high level play in the game. High level gear and excitement raid boss smashing galore.

Good Luck and Good Profit Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbear @ gmail. Dot com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up, and I will buy you a glass of juice.

Pitty Pat Sales

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:35 PM

He's Not Heavy... I Will Carry Him
Prideful Goes Before the PVP Sales (Season 15)
1k gold by level 10
WOD Speculation: Future of Jewelcrafting
You Can't Make Gold????
Post WOW Holiday Hangover
A Christmas Eve Tale
Monday Morning Nickelback
Targeting Sales
WOD Speculation: Future Gold Making
Santas Rotten Little Helper

I grew up in the heyday of professional boxing. Where I was the epitome of a casual fan, recognizing many of the big time fights that occurred during this time.

One of the biggest when it happened, still sitting at one of the greatest of all times was the 06/04/1987 fight between 'Marvelous' Marvin Hagler and 'Sugar' Ray Leonard. I was able to watch this fight on Wide World of Sports long after it had happened. This was well before the Internet could tip you 10 minutes after a fight occurred.

While watching the fight one thing came into prospective. Hagler was a power puncher known for packing a wallop with each hit. Leonard was your classic boxer. All during the fight Hagler would give one or two shots while Leonard was peppering him with punches that appeared to not have as much power still was scoring points on the scorecard. At the end of the fight the multiple hits of Leonard defeated the power punching of Hagler.

This can easily apply to how you work your gold making system. Many players look for that big ticket item to sell. There is nothing wrong with hitting the big time with 1000g or even 10,000g sales. I Avg a 5000g sale every week with the bulk of my sales are the 'Pitty pat' sales. Some examples:

Netherweave Bags (my favorite) 20g per sale
Arcane Dust 5g per
Elementium Ore/bars
Lich King basic gems (Sun Crystal, Bloodstone, etc.)

Each small sale can equal to a big sale. Building on a base of sales, allowing more flexibility to create your profit pyramid. Keep plugging away at selling not just the big ticket items, but also the crafting items that can net you my suggested 20% profit line. These small sales become the adhesive to keeping your normal income stream coming through more trying times to come.

Look for those small sales opportunities along with your big ticket items and you will find your own judge to give you the split decision.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbear @ gmail. Dot com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up, and I will buy you a glass of juice.

He's Not Heavy... I Will Carry Him

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:25 PM

Prideful Goes Before the PVP Sales (Season 15)
1k gold by level 10
WOD Speculation: Future of Jewelcrafting
You Can't Make Gold????
Post WOW Holiday Hangover
A Christmas Eve Tale
Monday Morning Nickelback
Targeting Sales
WOD Speculation: Future Gold Making
Santas Rotten Little Helper
Christmas Presents for Good WOW Players
Combined Realms: Profiting From The Changes
Grinding Out To Old Hits
Half The Gear.. Twice The Funds
5 Tips To Survive Cross Realm Raids
Farming Darkmoon Faire
Know Your Gear... Know Your Gold
Ruler of Your Own Gold Garrison
Busy Busy Wednesday
It's Called An Epic Quest For A Reason
Chain Flipping

To give a little perspective, currently my raiding guild does not do much when it comes to normal and heroic content during SOO. The guild I belong to has more 'mature' members, with many of them having other hobbies that keep them busy. One is a writer, a couple do lots of travelling for work etc.

One of the things I have found as I've geared my two raiding toons (Hunter, Arms Warrior) is that without the benefits of a weekly Seige of Orgrimmar raiding run I have had to run many many MANY flex and looking for raid runs to get a high gear level. This has given me lots of practice with my rotation and knowledge of the fights.

Now understand this isn't to toot my own horn. This idea that I have a relatively high gear level and have worked to obtain it will set the tone for what I'm about to speak about. Having a discussion with a fellow guild member about the pitfalls of running LFR one item came up to mind. Just how much carrying there is in flux and looking for raid runs. We had slightly differing opinions on just how much personal responsibility should be taken when it comes to be geared for the next step in the progression. Currently the progression goes LFR-Flex-Normal-Heroic. In theory, this has people running LFR runs until they are able to hold up on most of the fights and contribute. Some will draw that line at 100k and others have no problem with lowering this bar significantly. Tanks have to be able to survive and healers should be throwing out decent numbers to be able to keep up with the rest of the raid.

But anyone who has run flex lately can see that there is a stiff drop in some of the players. Some fights provide monster numbers on trash (cleave arms warriors rule, multi mob fights) but put us in the Thok fight and most melee has significantly lower numbers. Many of these questions about who is carrying who has to be taken with an overall view of a run.

Let's take for instance a Flex 2 run. The first two bosses can a lot of stand up and fight moments. Little movement is necessary on the first two fights other than repositioning. Both fights contain single target and multi targeting moments. This gives a good baseline on what a raid member can bring to the party.

For me, I like a baseline for Flex of around 75k (my guild mate argued at 100k). Anything less than 50k and someone is being carried through the fight. Having spent some time in flex with multiple toons I understand that trash doesn't count. You can beef up your numbers and look awesome, but when the boss hits the numbers drop significantly. This is where most people's kick button starts to get itchy. It becomes too easy to blame DPS for not being high enough. Or heals to not being high enough etc. Tanks take the most abuse in flex, which has caused them to be more picky and more scarce. Why run as a tank and take abuse when you can run as a dps, get carried and then get the same tank gear?

One of my biggest 'carry me' moments I have seen has happened through a friends guild. I went along with a friend of mines guild for a weekly run. Their raid leader asked what everyone else wanted to do. Their progression had Normal 1 and Normal, 2 on the farm. The raid leader chirped out and said that, let's try wing 3. Feeling a little froggy I jumped and started looking at any changes. The cringe in my heart happened when the raider leader and many others said they had never been in wing 3 even on LFR and flex. I knew I was going to be facing a large repair bill right then and there. The bosses in wing three can be the most demanding and unforgiving when it comes to tactics. You can get away with one mistake with higher level gear, but two mistakes and everyone are running back and resetting. After an hour and a half of dying over and over again, it was obvious that no progress was going to happen today. I mumbled to a online friend over what happened and how a few lfr/flex runs would give them the tools to be much more successful. Basic knowledge is a prerequisite to being successful

All of this becomes concerned with the changes that will be happening with Warlords of Draenor. Flex will be the new normal, with bosses and difficulty scaling to the amount of players in a raid. Blizzard revamping the group finding system and the LFR system to allow much more selective choice when it comes to what players come to the show. LFR will still be the default gear grinds and learn the tactics. The looking for group/flex runs will be the bread and butter learning the tactics and how to raid successfully Truly, I'm hoping that Blizzard adds a part that requires players to run LFR at least once to open up the next wings. It will irritate the hardcore raiders, but save a lot of heartache and frustration for your normal readers who become annoyed with carrying the unprepared players.

Now that my Soapbox is a little dented with some stomping. Let's get out there and enjoy the upcoming weeks of the Seige of Orgrimmar. Don't worry brother, I will still carry you. Just Bring Noodles.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbear @ gmail. Dot com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up, and I will buy you a glass of juice.

1k gold by level 10

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:47 PM