Love is in the air: By the numbers

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 4:34 PM

With this years Lunar Festival and the introduction of the [Festival Lantern] and [Lunar Lantern],  a gold mine was introduced to the casual player.

Almost all of the events previous,  the pets and mounts were BOP and non transferable or able to be sold.   The changes brought along a new commerce,  one that has it's own benefits and pitfalls.


The lunar festival pets were straight forward.   Go to the different areas in Azeroth,  Outland,  Northrend and Cataclysm areas,  get 50 [Coins of Ancestory],  buy the pet and sell it.   If you were completely ruthless you would transfer it over to the opposing factions side to gain more gold.   These have been steadily selling between the 9000 and 11000 mark on many servers (undermine has the mean avg at 11312g) on the exchange servers.    


The lunar lantern showed the same amount of profit on the opposite side,   easily adding 4000g to the asking price.   Not a bad amount of cash for maybe an hour worth of running around (I personally used this guide here http://wow-pro.com/ with the leveling add-on to get the job done faster.  

Just 3 days ago started the Love is in the air event.  This added a new wrinkle to the gold making process because you could buy and sell not just the pets and mounts (Peddlefeet and Swift Lovebird).  Each of the [Lovely Charm Bracelet] turned in giving you a [Love Token].  Making a bracelet required 10 of the [Lovely Charm],   which was received if you had the charm making kit in your inventory and killed "level appropriate mobs".   Reported drop rates were between 50% to 100% depending on the area.   That means you need to kill at minimum 2700 mobs to get enough to make the 270 bracelets,  turning them in (the bracelets do not stack so you will have to empty your inventory multiple times and find storage).   Rough estimate would be over 4000 mobs to get enough to get enough bracelets,  or more if your drop rate is horrendous.

The [Lovely Charm Bracelet] are able to be sold (but not mailed to alts,  though you can drop them in guild banks and transfer them between characters that way).   I've seen these going from 1g all the way up to requests of 30g a piece.  They aren't able to be sold on the AH so you would be adding both time of searching for them,  plus the initial cost.   Here's a simple graph on how much it would cost if you purchased all of the bracelets.

Cost of Bracelet	Cost for Peddlefeet	Cost for Swift Lovebird
5g	40 x 5g =    200g	270 x 5g   =  1350g
10g	40 x 10g =  400g	270 x 10g =  2700g
15g	40 x 15g =  600g	270 x 15g =  4050g
20g	40 x 20g =  800g	270 x 20g =  5400g
25g	40 x 25g = 1000g	270 x 25g =  6750g
30g	40 x 30g = 1200g	270 x 30g =  8100g

The mounts are showing to be sold easily over 20k per.  Though the longer the event occurs,  the more apt that you will have them being placed on the AH as well as being in trade chat.   Most players are not going to want to drag their alts to farming spots.   So they will depend on their high levels for the bulk of the work.

If you haven't gotten a headache up to now from the math,  here is why all of that is important.   Earlier in the week we talked about farming spots.  The best presented as the Throne of the Tides farming spot that gave between 600-900 of the [Lovely Charm],  which becomes 60-90 of the bracelets.   So you can amass multiple hours farming enough to purchase the pet.   Giving you a nice GPH (Gold Per Hour) profit if you have the time,  and the inclination to farm.   There are other spots that offer more of the tokens,  as well as trash drops and BOE's.   Deepholm and Icecrown have become popular farming spots.   Also wrath heroics can drop many items as well.  Depending on your enjoyment of farming you can get a tidy profit just from this as well.   bring a couple of [Potion of Treasure Finding] if your going to be farming in Cataclysm zones.

The final way is to do the daily quests.  If you do all of them (honor the 3 different horde/alliance leaders,   the random perfume/cologne daily and the crushing the crown daily.  Adding the boss daily that can be queued up at 84.  This gives you the opportunity of between 25-30 tokens per day.   For approximately 30 minutes of work per day you can have your mount by the end of the event,   or multiple copies of the  Peddlefeet  to sell or your Swift Lovebird.    Both can hold a tidy profit as the event winds down.  If Blizzard continues with this practice,  the cost of both items will probably drop as it gets closer to the anniversary of the event.  

For myself personally,  I have been doing a combination of both farming and also the dailies.  Between my 85 alternates I will end up with approximately 5 mounts and 4 pets to sell.  Once more information is given about the new pet battle mechanics with MOP,  and what pets will be valuable I can see this being a long term investment.   As far as the love flamingos,   Feel sorry for them when I put my tauren butt on him and he gets squashed.

Hopefully this gives you an idea of the best course for your time and effort.   Leave a message on your results.  

Good luck and good hunting

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


Past Articles and Readings

The Nerf, the nerf, the nerf is on fire

Love is in lunar faire

Just call me patch Mommar

Liquid Assets

There is a mote in your eye.. and more

Eat your vitamins and do your fireland dailies


Secret of my success

Straight to the hearth

Dont flip out