Prime Time Professions

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 10:52 AM

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Mommar here.

Get ready for a big shock.

Professions and crafting is one of the major backbone elements to your gold fortune.   Okay,  so it isn't that big of a shock.  The basic tenant is that if you don't craft you don't make gold.

I've shown over the months of talking to you that you could technically make gold without ever needing a crafting profession.  Between questing,  gathering and reselling you can make a large amount of gold.  Add onto this a network of crafters you can request items to be made and resold you never have to have a crafting profession of your own.

But then a man with a bad leg could technically walk around without a crutch.  It will be slow,  tedious and painful, but it is possible.   Every so often the popular question is 'what is the best gold making profession?".  It could easily be on repeat for every time it is spoken in forums and in game.  Players want to know what profession to jump to making their small fortune. 

But choosing that first profession is a personal choice.  Three rules that I set up when I tell anyone what profession they should choose.

1)   Choose a profession that looks beneficial to your character.

A freshly laundered Druid will get more benefits out of having a Leatherworker/Skinner than they will have a Blacksmith.  The same for a warrior running around with the tailoring profession.  This doesn't mean that you shouldn't ever have a profession that seems odd for the class,  but as a first profession look at what will be the most beneficial.

2)  Do not choose a crafting profession till you are close to the maximum level of the expansion pack.

I have always believed that the first two professions a player should take are gathering professions.  Mining/Herbalism/Skinning are all very strong base professions to have when you look to start building a gold fortune.  With the benefits of receiving experience points with each gathering node/skinning mob you get, the quicker leveling opportunities along with sales.

3)   Market conditions can tell a lot about what professions to choose.

Just looking at the market and seeing what sells will answer a lot of questions on the best profession that you take.  This is affected, especially if you have someone teaching you the ropes on what to sell and where to sell it.  Most players do not have a guru sitting around with them helping them to not make mistakes their first time out.  Looking at the conditions of the market should tell you what will be the best items to sell from the crafting professions.

4)  Have fun

The biggest item when choosing that first profession is to choose one that you will have fun with.  Even with the removal of profession quests there is a certain amount of enjoyment of crafting that plate item to strut around your home city to wear.  That uber awesome sword that people go ooo and ahh about.   Or just simply flexing your crafting muscle to raise your ilvl gear to shock and awe factor.  Making gold with professions, isn't just about putting items on the Auction House to sell.  Making gold becomes a new profession in itself.  If you are not having fun doing it,  then you will slowly drift away.

Keep in mind that choosing that first profession is a personal choice.  Everyone has an opinion about what to choose the same as everyone has a... well you know the rest of that saying.   Choosing your own profession path and your reasoning behind it is why every character is different, unique and enjoyable to come back to time and time again.

Good Luck and Good Profit Hunting


Retrain Your Gold Instincts:  Trigger Words
It's Patchy McPatch Day
Timeless Coins They Are A Changing
I'll Buy That For A Gold Piece
The Value of Garrosh BOA's
It's Monday Already?
Adopt A Warcraft Child Today!
Welcome To The Tuesdaydome 
Not My Server.. No No No
Maintenance Of Your Toon Army: Garrisons
The Art of Negotiation: Warcraft Style
Cooking For Fun and Profit

Road to WOD: Finish Your Chores

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 11:37 AM

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One of the most difficult things to do is to keep motivated.  Wait,  I think I've said that over and over again.  You probably get the idea that the next 3-4 months will be a little bit more of a drag for the average player.  Many players will be logging on less and less during the week as the Mists of Pandaria expansion gets a little bit less shine on the content.

Getting prepped for the next expansion, Warlords of Draenor, can add a little bit of purpose to your gaming life.  One of the prep items is your long abandoned farm in Halfhill.

You remember Halfhill?   The place that was o so awesome at the beginning of MOP?   Finishing your daily runs to open up new land to farm.  Yes,  that's right World of Warcraft had become World of Farm Craft.

So why should these plots of land become important in your future setup during Warlords of Draenor?  One item that will continually be able to be made are the Motes of Harmony.  Right now most players have a stockpile of these things in their inventory.  Turning them in every so often for cash and prizes from the different vendor.  I spend many of them on the Black and White Trillium ore for crafting purposes.   Come WOD this won't be as important.  Except that material could easily become much more scarce come WOD.

Look at the logic.  We know that there are massive changes coming with WOD when it comes to gathering.  No longer will players be needing to go to older expansion zones to gather items.  This could easily mean that items such as Trillium ore and herbs become that much more valuable.

The other thing to look at is your own crafting needs.   Engineering has received a long term blessing because they have pets that can be crafted.  Right now they are much more expensive due to the length of time to craft (Jard's Peculiar Energy Source) and many people not continuing to craft these during the next expansion.  Older crafting pets can be a good source of income with the next expansion.  For 10 minutes of work a day (farming your crops,  replanting) and then finishing your daily you could easily next a large amount of coin.

Other professions might not be as lucky when it comes to pets, but they still have opportunities.  Simply just flipping purchased ore and herbs on the Auction House can add more money into your coffers.   Where the main profit making of these items might not always be available,  alternative options of selling can add much more profit into your bank.

Many players will just start with a clean slate when the WOD expansion opens its doors.  Taking advantage of your knowledge and your preparation can give you that gold making advantage that others won't have.

Good Luck and Good Profit Hunting

Some Day I Will Learn
Garrosh Is My Friend
You Lost That Alpha Feeling
Too Many Coins On My Hand
We All Make Mistrakes
World Without The Auction House
Not So Smart Loot
It Was A Great Day
WOD:  Prepping For The Storm
Special Brand Of Stupid
Silver And Gold Have I None
Worth What Someone Will Pay For It

Some Day I Will Learn

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 10:04 AM

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Mommar here.

Another Tuesday has come and gone,  resetting the loot tables for Garrosh runs as well as world bosses.  With the change in the most recent hotfix that made world bosses taggable by everyone celestial runs have become a lot easier.  Running in there,  tagging an active mob that players are already killing and getting credit (along with your world famous Bag o' Gold) makes running 7 players through the grinder that much quicker.

After the success of adding more gold (and the occasional piece of gear) to my alts I then look to tackle the wonders that if flex 4.  Having said it many times I like to get my flex 4 runs done early in the week simply because the better players during this time and my chances of success are that much better.

So I popped open the Oqueue extension and watched the filling of run requests.  Words like 'quick' 'easy' 'no noobs' (my personal favorite) flash through each group loading up.  Usually I ignore most of these simply because they rarely are quick and if you only have 3 players in your group how do you really know it will be quick and easy?  To borrow a line from a favorite movie of mine "... Quick and easy is how you bake a cake,  no run a multi-million dollar business such as ours ".

I queued up for a couple of seemingly interesting groups forming.  They were listed as being run by 10/14H (shorthand for 10 of 14 bosses down in heroic) and waited to see if I got invited to the dance.   Getting my magic golden ticket I was ready to go.  I bring my own food and go and repair before I even queue.  Similar to my views on queuing for groups on the Timeless Isle (be on the island,  be ready to go, don't expect summons) etc.

After finishing off Garrosh and receiving my bag of nothing I logged onto my Hunter to see if she wouldn't be as successful.  Being a Hunter generally I get chosen to run belts on Seigecrafter and end up killing the engineer for the Garrosh kill.  Luckily, there was another hunter that volunteered to go.  Both Seigecrafter and the Bugs went down pretty easily.  Then it was time for the main event.  Even the trash between the bugs and the Garrosh went down pretty easily.

Having high hopes that this would be a 1 shot kill we got set up.  Lately the big strategy is to stack up on the spot just in front of Garrosh and kill the weapon as it pops.  Seems to make things a lot easier because of less required running around and more DPS on the boss.  But the RL decided that we needed to dance for the run.

First attempt we died pretty quickly.  Second attempt we made it a little bit further and then the tirades began.  Players blaming tanks,  tank blaming healers and my little 170k dps sitting there deciding if it was time to call it a night and try the next day.

But being a little bit stubborn I stuck it out and we went at it with 11 people.  Now generally the sweet spot I have seen is 13-14 players (or a full 25 grouping) when it comes to being successful.   After the fourth attempt being a complete and utter failure I decided it was time to retire from the group and check on some auctions.  Politely I thanked them for the attempts and went on my merry way.

Moral of the story?   Even heroically attuned players are not always successful.  Maybe I should have gone with the quick and easy cake.   mmmm Cake.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Garrosh Is My Friend
You Lost That Alpha Feeling
Too Many Coins On My Hand
We All Make Mistrakes
World Without The Auction House
Not So Smart Loot
It Was A Great Day
WOD:  Prepping For The Storm
Special Brand Of Stupid
Silver And Gold Have I None
Worth What Someone Will Pay For It

Garrosh Is My Friend

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:18 PM

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Mommar here.

Every week,  even if I'm looking to do other things to cleanse my pallet of World of Warcraft, I go and finish my flex raid runs on Garrosh.  The pets that drop from the two bosses previous to him are bonuses but my main goal is to obtain the BOA's that he drops from time to time.

I have two toons that are Garrosh worthy. (I refuse to be carried through a Flex 3 or Flex 4).   If I cannot do 125 dps then I need to upgrade.  This is just my personal view of raids and other raid leaders will have different views.

The thing I find a little funny is the cursing that occurs after the Garrosh kill happens.  Many players are in the same boat that they only reason they run Seige of Orgrimmar is for the BOA gear.  Obtaining one of these items sets a toon up for leveling if not all the way up to heroics.  I can see the frustration that people will have when the item they need won't drop.

Having played this game for years I have gotten used to grinding for gear that is useful.  During the Burning Crusade expansion I lived in Terrokar working on heroics for as many times as I could scrape 4 other people to run.  Shadow Labryinth was where I lived and breathed easily for 2 months plus just to obtain one or two pieces of gear.

This is why I switched to making sure that I had gold to craft the items that I needed.  Even now there are belts that can upgrade players over and above what drops in Timeless Isle.  As the Mists of Pandaria expansion matures gear becomes less and less important.  With the Alpha notes having been seen, it is obvious that the quest for gear will change completely.  Main stats will no longer be as important as the secondary and tertiary stats.

So as others curse and gripe about how Garrosh has stiffed them again (I know,  stiffed isn't the word that they use) remember that the benefits of having the entire summer for Garrosh runs gives players plenty of time to fill in the BOA weapon slots that are desired.

Good Luck and Good Profit Hunting

You Lost That Alpha Feeling
Too Many Coins On My Hand
We All Make Mistrakes
World Without The Auction House
Not So Smart Loot
It Was A Great Day
WOD:  Prepping For The Storm
Special Brand Of Stupid
Silver And Gold Have I None
Worth What Someone Will Pay For It
Please.. Wait.. I Wanna Tag
WOD: Waiting Til The Fall?
Boost Me, Buy Me, Pay Me Gold
Save That Boost for a Rainy Day

Lent.. Mighty Lent... Super Lent

Special Brand Of Stupid

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 1:00 PM

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It happens to everyone.   At some point the day will come when you hit that edge of hearing the same repetitive words over and over.  Whether it is your little sister telling you to wake up,  your parents telling you to go mow the lawn.  It will happen to you at some time in your life.

To set the scene,  I believe in being helpful in World of Warcraft.  You will not see me running around places jumping up and down like a hyperactive chichuaua looking to do good deeds.  But if I'm running past someone who is killing a mob I will take a few steps back and help out.  Usually a wave is thrown in my direction or a thank you.  Not a big deal but if it helps someone I score one in the win column.

One of the ways many people on servers is answer simple questions over the trade channels.   This happens especially when it comes to the rare monsters that pop up on Timeless isle.  Chants of 'when is Houlon', 'Timer on Houlon' etc happen all the time.  A quick answer is given and everyone moves on.

But occasionally you get one person that seems incapable of looking up anything.  For the next two hours you hear questions like 'Is there any rare up'.  'Where is [Insert Timeless Isle Rare]' or my favorite one of the bunch 'Please wait for me'.   Patience still kicks into the game play that answering these questions are easily answered, even if they become monotonous.

This weekend where I had to draw the line was arguments that happened when it came to some answers that I 'helped' with this weekend.  One of them started with the timer on Houlon.  I had helped with the kill on my hunter and was running to finish up some of my dailies.  If you have looked up Houlon on Wowhead you know there are three spawn points that she can pop up at.  The most common spawn pop is just past the bridge on the upper side of the hill.  But occasionally she will spawn further up the hill or even all the way past the second bridge.  In this case she popped on the first spawn point, but wasn't tagged.  So she popped up at the second spawn point and was engaged.  After the kill a player asked 10 minutes later about what the timer was on Houlon.  Trying to be helpful I told them that she had already showed up and was killed.  For some reason the person proceeded to try to argue with me that I hadn't killed her and that they had been at the spawn point all the time.  Then explaining that there are still three spawn points they responded with 'I know where she spawns.  Obviously they didn't cause if they did, they wouldn't have been griping about waiting for her.  Sometimes you just cannot win and it is better to retire from the field of stupid and do other things with your game time.

The other event that proved to me that there is a special brand of stupid was the incessant amount of questions there were about where rare mobs were.  I use an add-on called rare coordinator to keep track of timers on the island.  When a rare is announced on the add-on coordinates are also included in where the rate is.  Some of them, such as the Emerald Gander, can only give general area directions.   Most players get the coordinates and hopefully they are close enough to get there and get a tag on the mob.   But occasionally people miss their chance and have to wait til the next round.  What ground I was the complaining that no one waited for them to arrive.  No one waited for them to be escorted to the promise land of the rares and let them get the first shot.   Coming off as a requirement that everyone should help them to obtain all their goals, including the mount form Houlon because they had just arrived on the island.  The answer to this is a resounding NO.   No one truly owes anything, anything other than to let them figure it out themselves.  When people take their time to help,  be nice and say thank you.  Otherwise, there are information websites such as wowhead and mmo-champion that can give 90% of the answers.  Expecting someone to walk you through everything is insane.  Not being grateful for the help that people offer and complaining just gets other to shut up and leave you to your own ignorance.

Not everything is bad with helping.  But sometimes helping is to let people swim in the deep in for a bit til they learn to at least float.  

Okay, time to put my soapbox back up.

Good Luck and Good Profit Hunting.

Silver And Gold Have I None
Worth What Someone Will Pay For It
Please.. Wait.. I Wanna Tag
WOD: Waiting Til The Fall?
Boost Me, Buy Me, Pay Me Gold
Save That Boost for a Rainy Day
Lent.. Mighty Lent... Super Lent
Who Is Your Nemesis On the Gold Market
Keeping up with the Black Market Auction House
I love me some Oqueue In The Morning
Will They, Wont They, Will I Care?
The Importance of Quick Decisions

Leave Your 'Tude At The Door

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 2:40 PM

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

The True Cost of Goods

Pitty Pat Sales

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

Going Looney over the Lunar Festival

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 11:15 AM

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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)
WOD: Future Catch Up Zones
Ebay Warriors Prepare For Battle

The True Cost of Goods

Pitty Pat Sales

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

Cleaning Out The Closet (Achievement Edition)

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 10:47 AM

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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. 

WOD: Future Catch Up Zones
Ebay Warriors Prepare For Battle

The True Cost of Goods

Pitty Pat Sales

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

5 Tips To Survive Cross Realm Raids

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:46 PM

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The latest PTR (Player Test Realm) just popped up on the boards.  The biggest change was that Blizzard has created it's own cross realm version of Oqueue.

If you have not used this mighty addon yet,  go out and download it.  It makes Flex raiding much easier because it adds your name into a swarm between servers allowing you to get involved quicker than just waiting for a raid to pop up on your own server.

But as always,  there are a few tips that will help with surviving these cross realm raids with your sanity in tact.

-----------

1.   Know Your Role and Shut Your Mouth

The odds are that if you jump into an Oqueue raid then you will be with 13 or more strangers.  They do not know how good (or how bad) you are.  The only time that I would suggest saying anything is that if you do not know what you are supposed to do.  This doesn't mean that Oqueue flex raids are the best source of learning what your role is.  That's what LFR is for.  But if you are a tank,  then tank.  If you are dps then soak up those puddles in Flex wing 3 and say thank you very much.  If you get involved with strategy and 'my guild does it this way' you will only irritate people and the raid will break up that much quicker.

2.   Your Raid Will Fail At Times

No raid is perfect.  Someone will probably die in the raid.  Having your finger on the abandon button only will drive you bonkers.  Repair bills are part of the game.  If your raid starts to wipe continually on the same thing over and over again.  Then look for the eject button and move onto a better group.

3.   Oqueue will probably flag you PVP.

This doesn't occur all the time.  But 7 out of 10 you will be transported and flagged PVP.  Too many times have I ended up right dead smack in the middle of 10 or so enemies all flagged and looking to put uncomfortable items into my body part.  If this happens then just look for your happy flight path and stay there for a while.  Where you can do some farming,  being in a raid keeps you from being able to complete most quests.  So sit around and chat with your new found raid buddies and get a lay of the land.

4.   When Looking For Raids in Oqueue,  Look For Raids With 6 or More People Already Joined.

This tip will not make everyone happy.  Mostly because those raids that are looking for 'fast clears' need quality people.  You probably are quality simply because you read this journal.  But your awesome abilities might also be carrying someone that is not as good as you.  The Oqueue gives a lot of information including how many are in the queue,  and even how many wipes on bosses have occurred with that raid group.   If there is a lot of wipes and no boss kills then reconsider whether it's going to be the group for you.

5.  Be Geared For The Content

If your new shiny toon is running around in ilvl 502 gear,  you are not prepared for flex 4 Garrosh.  Sorry to say that you will be probably dragging down the group and cause more problems.  The odds are that you won't even be invited into the group.  For me a good idea of what ilvl to expect is

Wing 1 496+
Wing 2 510
Wing 3 515
Wing 4 525

Of course your mileage may of course.  your 502 gear might be awesome and can solo everything.  These are tips and not laws.  But being a good part of a team,  even a pickup team like flex raiding is to be prepared to carry your weight.  Everyone has been in a raid where there is someone dragging the raid down.  If you look to your left and right and cannot find the person who is dragging the raid down,  there is a good chance it is you.

Bonus tip

Mind your tongue.  The temptation is to let loose your four letter word prowess when your angry for that last failure.  It is frustrating to crash and burn in something that not just last week you cleared quickly.  No one is motivated by calling someone a *(*&( nub.  If you feel that your point cannot be made by calling everyone your entire cursing repertoire then you are taking this game far too seriously.  Unless you are getting paid to play and players are taking money directly out of your physical pocket,  it might be time to go and play some Angry Birds for a little bit.

Just keep these tips in mind when you go into your next flex run and enjoy the game.  It's just that a game and not real life.

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. 

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My Timeless Coin Heart Is Full

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 11:47 AM

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For multiple weeks players have been running around the Timeless isle killing mobs,  looting rares and even the occasional PVP scuffle.  The Timeless isle hub is the new endgame expectation that Blizzard has presented.  Its design is to get players caught up on armor requirements to raid and to be able to survive.

If you are like me you have multiple toons running around finishing up the dailies (my two mains it generally takes thirty minutes depending on how many rare mobs pop up and how fast of feet I am that day).  My other two that peruse the loot pinata island tend to take things a little bit slower.   Either way most of my time is spent running from one spot on the island to the other.

Which gives me a large cache of timeless coins to play with.   Having already obtained three Bonkers (putting them on the team named Three Wise Men), as well as multiple pets from the different mobs available (Team Beer is currently my favorite) it is easy to see how monotonous that the Timeless Isle is getting to be.   Also seeing just how many stacks of coins that are in my game portfolio there is a limit of things that can be purchased.

There are two things that can occur after you've purchased all the useable and vanity items for your players.  There are the satchels for the specific armors (cloth,  plate,  mail,  leather) that can be sent to your current enchanter to obtain a Sha Crystal.  You can obtain the Burden of Eternity at 50,000 coins to upgrade all of your armor.  You can even bow down to the gods of Blizzard in the hopes that they might add something new to the vendor later on in the game (probably not going to happen but we can always hope).

This might be the fatal flaw in the new Timeless isle hub is the largest amount of coins that can easily be obtained.  The draw to play the same area over and over is goal orientated.  Players see something they want,  they get enough of whatever is needed to buy that item and then they go and purchase that item.  The process repeats over and over again ad infitem.  Once that draw to repeat an area over and over is removed then you only have raiding available as well as finishing up old quests.  PVP is always an option as well but many players don't like PVP so they just ignore it completely.

Changes might not happen in this expansion,  especially since there is a high possibility of an announcement of the next expansion happening next month at Blizzcon.  But this 'catch up' technique if it occurs in future expansions will need to have some minor changes to keep players coming back for more.

But don't just throw all of those coins out yet.  Blizzard has surprised us in the past so once you have your awesome mount ready to fly keep grinding out some coins for the time being.  If anything you get that imaginary fullness of being rich at least on the Timeless Isle.

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. 

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