Be Prepared

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 8:55 AM

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Mommar here.

Saturday is one of the days that is set aside for raiding with my Guild.  We are the definition of casual in the idea that we only get together one day out of the week to do an organized raid.  Other days we are on our own to pick up runs to gear up,  play around in different groups or just relax and finish up dailies.   Where it is enjoyable it also means we probably won't be on the progression list that high anymore.

Part of my job here is part cheerleader (no you cannot look up my skirt),  part wow financial 'guru' and a part humorist.  Most of my guild members know that I write for this journal and occasionally I get some flack for doing it.  Stick and stones and such,  assuming they are not epic sticks and stones because those tend to hurt.

One thing that my guild members have gotten to be is very self sufficient.  Having many of them been playing this game for years they have almost all have multiple toons with multiple professions.  With extra gold reserves they also have the ability to buy what they want if they cannot craft it themselves.  This can be both a blessing and a curse. 

So from that large buildup came last night's run.  We did a flex run and finished up the first four bosses in Seige of Orgrimmar.  As we progressed,  players received their loot which of course excited some and irritated others.  A couple of my guilders wanted to equip the items immediately but wanted to enchant the items first.  So on a break they jotted over to the local auction house to pick up the required enchant.

One of the things that I"ve kept up on is the current professions for most of the guilders that I run with or spend time with.  So I knew that one of the players on the run was an enchanter.  With the access to both personal and guild banks being readily available (guild perk + Argent Gruntling for the win).  The guilder popped up to his stash,  grabbed an extra enchant and offered it to the fellow guilder for free.  This may seem very strange to many because many guild charge each other for these type of services.  That has never been the way that we run when it comes to professions.

But one thing that can be taken away from this is to always be prepared for a sale.  I have said it many times you never know when you can make a sale.  You cannot carry every enchant with you wherever you go.  But you can easily carry the materials in your bag for one or two weapon enchants. As a leatherworker you should always have a stack of Magnificent Hide to craft a new armor patch for a player. 

A gold goblin never stops hustling when it comes to being prepared.   In today's game there are more and more players learning how to make gold.  This spreads out the opportunities to everyone to make gold in the strangest of places.  Keeping your eyes open and ready can add more profit to your portfolio.

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. 

Poor Poor Spirits of Harmony
Not Enough Loot On My Hands
10 Rules To Price My Golem.
Timeless Isle Tagging Is For Rich Chumps
Bring Me the Alchemist
Welcome To Loot Pinata Island
Last Minute Buys and Sells
Patch 5.4: Mental Preparation
You Found What????
Hearthstone:   The Beginning
Patch 5.4: Budgeting for the Patch
Get thee To a TradeSkillMaster 2.0
Patch 5.4 Prep:  No Sleep til Brooklyn
Customer First

Poor Poor Spirits of Harmony

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:39 PM

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Mommar here.

At the beginning of Mists of Pandaria the number one item that players with crafters wanted were the Spirits of Harmony.    These were it,  these were what you needed to make the big bucks.   Almost all of the level 90 armor and gear required these.  They were (and still are) BOP so they would never see the auction house steps.   You farmed them from either Half Hill or from killing mobs, and you hoarded them like they were air.

Now fast forward to today.   Most of the gear that is crafted from these are barely worth the time.  Yes some will sell to the occasional player but being three patches from their introduction most players consider them worthless.

But the shrewd investor knows this isn't completely true.   Some of the crafting items do sell to newly level 90's.   Professions such as Jewelcrafting can craft the Sapphire Cub pet to sell on the AH.  scribes (that's the inscription profession for those playing the home game) still have a group of powerful level 90 staves that can be crafted and sold for a decent profit.

But what about the non crafters.   They just show up in your bag and sit there,  taunting you.   Making you feel less of a player if you don't put them to use.   Your answer is here.   From the beginning there was a vendor in the Shrine of the Two Moons (on the upper deck) there is a vendor named Danky.   Danky gets ignored most of the time because he only has materials for sale.  Stacks of leather,  Stacks of ghost iron ore.  But one of the most important things he sells is Black and White Trillium Ore.

So this again seems a little strange.  A non crafter really cannot use trillium ore for anything.   Why just trade one slot filler for another?   This is where you contacts come in handy.  You can either drop these on the AH (some servers have these listed for 15-20g a piece) or talk to your favorite miner to have them smelted into Trillium Bars.

With the higher demand from Alchemists and Blacksmiths for Trillium Bars  the prices have been steadily rising for these materials.  Time for the non crafters to get into the profits for those leftover abandoned spirits of harmony.

If profit is not your forte these lone poor Spirits of Harmony can be exchanged in the same area that you get your daily archeology quests for Restored Artifact.  If your working on older expansion archeology projects these can give you a boost in your progress of finishing up.

So take those much maligned crafter materials and give them a new place into your heart.   Let them bring profits and fun into your life.   Or at least some profit into your collection.

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. 

Not Enough Loot On My Hands
10 Rules To Price My Golem.
Timeless Isle Tagging Is For Rich Chumps
Bring Me the Alchemist
Welcome To Loot Pinata Island
Last Minute Buys and Sells
Patch 5.4: Mental Preparation
You Found What????
Hearthstone:   The Beginning
Patch 5.4: Budgeting for the Patch
Get thee To a TradeSkillMaster 2.0
Patch 5.4 Prep:  No Sleep til Brooklyn
Customer First

Craft Me Some Pants.. Or Something Else

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:06 PM

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Mommar here.

It's Monday,  the Darkmoon Faire has arrived for another visit and all is well in the Gold Goblin World.   Okay,  so maybe not all is well in the gold goblin world.  For some it has become more and more difficult to eek out the thousands and thousands of gold they have become used to.   There has become a large difference between players willing to spend extensive amounts of gold for items that they will replace quickly in Looking For Raid or Guild Raid Runs.  

But never forget the army of alts that players have at their disposal.  Where they may not be as interested to put in 10,000g into a main's piece of equipment,   it is very possible that they will spend that same amount to get an Alternate up to Raid spec.  

Most players have a limited amount of time to play,  but as guilds progress many players are asked to have not just one toon ready to take a spot but even two or three.   And with progression for some guilds becoming the crux of their interest,  they want to put the best team on the floor.   Even in tonight's NCAA championship game,  if a player needs replacing the coach will use his expertise to find the best player in the game.   In World of Warcraft the guild master or raid master will look to put the best equipped player in the raid for maximum success.

So if your target isn't buying for their main toon,  then you can target the equipment that will place that secondary or tertiary toon into the fray.   Where the 100,000g equipment might be few and far between,  burning through a couple of Spirits of Harmony and Living Steel can add up to big profits as well.

Thinking outside the box and finding new avenues to sell your services can make up for the loss of the big ticket items.   Diversify your crafting portfolio and you can be on the top of the heap.

Good Luck and Good Hunting


Previous Entries

Flipping the BMAH off
Dear Blizzard:   Noblegarden Edition
Throwing A Line
Prepping For the Death Of PVP
Patience is a Virtue.
I Choose You....: Reputation Choices
Thunderforge Ready for Business
Determine Value: Spirits of Harmony
Hearthstone:   The New Wow Killer?
What Days Do You Sell?
Loot Pinata
Taking Advantage of The Market
The Inportance of being Hot(fixes)
Don't Fret Young Farmer
Patch 5.2: First Take
Do you Own Your Tree?

Determining Value: Spirits of Harmony

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:42 PM

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When Mists of Pandaria expansion was released Spirits of Harmony was the original crafting material necessary to make high end armor and weapons.   As the expansion continued different spirits were introduced (Blood Spirit,  Haunting Spirit etc.).    In this discussion we're going to talk about the Spirits of Harmony.

If you have done any dailies in Isle of Thunder you should have a decent amount of Spirits sitting in your inventory.  While finishing my dailies I usually end up with between one and three a day.   Combine this with having my farm in Halfhill producing 16 motes of Motes of Harmony I generally can end up with 5 or more per day to work with.   As with any crafting mat,  the higher the mob killed generally the better chance of having one of the Motes of Harmony drop for you.    So at level 87 mob will probably not have as plentiful a loot table when it comes to Motes of Harmony as does the level 90-92 mobs sitting in Isle of Thunder or Isle of Giants.    Now I'm sure someone will point out that this is faulty calculations because they know if they sit farming in one place for long enough they will stock up on motes.   Your milage always may vary depending on what farming technique you have.

The easiest way to determine the value of your Sprit currently is based on your professions.   Blacksmithing, Tailoring and Leatherworking has the most outlets to determine value.   Here's an example.


Masterwork Ghost Forged Blade
(prices based from theunderminejournal.com)

This item takes

Ghost Iron Bar x 12 (88g)
Kyparite x 30  (88g)
Spirits of Harmony x 5 (to be determined).

If the sales price of this ends up being 5000g then you walk away with a profit of 4700g.   Rough math would show that each of those spirits of harmony = 900+ per.   Technically they aren't truly worth 900g because if you were only able to sell the weapon for 4000g that would lower the value per Spirit.  Also you are not including labor time and the amount of time it cost to farm.   Still this gives you a baseline value of what a Spirit would cost.

The assumption also has some difficulties with the idea that you put a sword in the Auction House and it's guaranteed to sell.  Anyone who has sold on the Auction House knows this isn't always true.

Let's look a higher value item with our base calculations.

Bloodforged Warfists

This item takes

Blood Spirit x 6 (4798g)
Living Steel x 6 (2982g)
2 Spirits of Harmony

If our sales price for this ends up being close to the mean Avg sale (22000g) then you end up with a much larger profit (14220g) per Spirit of Harmony).   Again this becomes a rough calculation based on how many sales you are able to obtain.  The farther along that the raiding schedule becomes,  players are less apt to buy high end items instead of just waiting for looking for raid items.

Many of the new patterns that drop from the new profession mechanics also use Spirits of Harmony for their crafting.  Being ilvl 522 these will be in high demand.  The problem being the availability of Haunting Spirits which are only obtainable from Disenchanted 522 raid items.   The Haunting Spirits aren't available from disenchanting looking for raid items which will put a kink in obtaining them for crafting.

So what sparked this expedition into simple math?   It was an advertisement found in trade chat a couple of days ago.  A player was advertising the creation of a Masterwork Phantasmal Hammer.   The player had all the materials and was willing to pay 250g per Spirit used.   This would net a profit of 250 x 5 = 1250g.  Not a bad amount of profit.   But if you do the simple math you can see that it isn't such a good deal.  When I can take 4 of those Spirits of Harmony and craft a Bloodforged Warfist and net almost 6-7 times the profit.

Determining value for your Spirits of Harmony can be as easy or as difficult as you make it.  It all depends on  just how much research you put into your sales.   And how much your time is truly worth.

For me,  I don't roll out of bed unless 250g is involved.

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 "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice. 

Previous Entries


Hearthstone:   The New Wow Killer?
What Days Do You Sell?
Loot Pinata
Taking Advantage of The Market
The Inportance of being Hot(fixes)
Don't Fret Young Farmer
Patch 5.2: First Take
Do you Own Your Tree?
Patch 5.2:  Tap That Mob
Patch 5.2:   The Great Ghost Iron Ore Rush
5.2 Watch: Capping Justice Points
Language People.  Language
Patch 5.2: Know They Economy
New Leatherworking Pattern.html
Patch 5.2: Jewelcrafters
Patch 5.2: Thanks Uncle Blizzard for the Valor
Something Stinks In The Air
Get a Grip On Your Pricing
Patch 5.2:  Prepping for the rush
How Do You Effect The Market?
He's So Great He's A Fivefather
Patch 5.2:   Farming For Rep.. With A Farm?

Don't Fret Young Farmer

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 11:25 AM

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This is the first full weekend of Patch 5.2.  The story will be told just how the different patterns and changes in the auction house market will come forward.   Since Tuesday it's been lackluster on some servers on some of the items that were predicted to go higher.

One of the lackluster changes to me as far as marketing goes was the reputation orders done at half hill.   Each turn-in (at revered for the chosen faction) ends up netting 800+ reputation points.  This is assuming you have the bonus stone that you can purchase at revered.  For non crafters this might be a benefit if you're not farming for cooking materials or selling raw materials.

But for crafters,  I am having a difficult time seeing the benefits of eating up 8 slots for reputation to a faction. Unless you are desperate to get as much reputation every day towards a faction (ends up maxxing out around 3000 if you do all the dailies at revered + chosen faction for instance + farmed for the faction the day before.   Compare this to storing up 8 motes of harmony towards crafting patterns.   Currently the new Blacksmithing patterns are not available direction (there have been reports of exploits to get to the boss needed to obtain the patterns).   Either way you would have to farm those extra 8 motes towards a crafting pattern through mobs or instances.

Unfortunately the past ability to plant and then dig up isn't available this time for half hill quests.   To fill the requirements of the reputation quest you must both plant and cultivate.   Again this eats up the 8 plots necessary to finish the task.  

The different seeds available do seem to be giving more random materials other than intended.  The Enigma seeds seem to be popping more Golden Lotus.   If the Ghost Iron ore market begins to climb them Snakeroot Seed.

Your determination of what to plant is based on your needs at the time.   But if you're a crafter then your big ticket item should remain the Songbell Seed for the near future.   Non crafters have a much bigger decision to make.

Now,  someone make me a snozzberry seed and I will be a happy farmer.


Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbearjoe @ 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. 

Previous Entries

Patch 5.2: First Take
Do you Own Your Tree?
Patch 5.2:  Tap That Mob
Patch 5.2:   The Great Ghost Iron Ore Rush
5.2 Watch: Capping Justice Points
Language People.  Language
Patch 5.2: Know They Economy
New Leatherworking Pattern.html
Patch 5.2: Jewelcrafters
Patch 5.2: Thanks Uncle Blizzard for the Valor
Something Stinks In The Air
Get a Grip On Your Pricing
Patch 5.2:  Prepping for the rush
How Do You Effect The Market?
He's So Great He's A Fivefather
Patch 5.2:   Farming For Rep.. With A Farm?

The Non Crafter Harmony Blues

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 10:26 AM

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Mommar here.

When I started writing on this little island found in the great sea of the internet,  I wanted to enable players to think outside the box.   My intentions were to make sure that Gold Goblins expanded their mind to the ability to not just have to be 'go here and farm this' type of gold makers.

But occasionally I see something that was obvious to me,  that a player is doing that makes my head spin just a little bit to say 'huh?'   As I was trucking along finishing up my Loremaster achievement for my shiny Nimbus disc I was chatting with a guild mate of mine.   They had asked me to craft some items for them to raise their ilvl.

As we were chatting I told them that I would need to farm a few Spirits of Harmony for the requirements.   They said that was fine,  but they threw those things away because they were not a crafter on that toon.

Somewhere a couple of kittens just clutched their little chest and flopped on the ground at the sound of those words.   They tossed those poor little Motes of Harmony away like they were worthless.  I wanted to find the ethereal trashcan these poor abandoned motes were at to try to save them.  

But seriously,  I explained to them that the best idea was to save these for later use.   There are two vendors (Danke at Shrine of the Two Moons and Krystel at Shrine of Seven Stars) sitting on their little perches ready to grab those hard earned Spirits of Harmony.  They have various BOE items included some crafting items that can be given to alternate crafters or save some gold for personal enhancement needs.

But the best bet to me is to stick those little gold mines into the bank and save them.   Sometime in a future patch the Spirits of Harmony  will probably be made Bind on Equip.  And those will be happy days of trading newly freed Spirits of Harmony on the open market.   It's a long investment of time instead of grabbing the short term benefits of trading for the items from the two vendors.

So as we continued our chat and I sucked back the tears,  poured some root beer out to my spirit homies,  I hoped that just a little information could save my guild mate from future torture and abandonment of poor defenseless Spirits of Harmony.

Just remember,  Save those spirits.  Little Kittens will be proud of you.

Good Luck and Good Hunting


Really????
For Whom Does The Songbell Toll
To Level 90 and Beyond
Tales of a Gold Goblin Bully
Chess Pieces Taking The Field
When Numbers Lie
Arrow to the Knee
Must Have Farming Equipment
But How Much Is It?
You Just Can't Fix Stupid
Trick or Treat Time 
Can Pokewow be saved?
Buying Patterns For Investment
How Not To Influence People
Long Term Plans
The Measure Of A Goblin