When you run as many auctions and toons as I do, having enough bag slots can become a serious issue.  I will buy out hundreds of auctions every week for resale, as well as having to manage the items for my rolling auctions as they expire every couple of days.

Add to the auction items the little piles of BoE greens, consumables and commodities (cloth, leather, metal) I pick up while leveling and raiding and it can end up being quite a mess if I didn’t use a toon for the sole purpose of asset management.  If you do everything with your main character log on right this minute and create two more characters to help you with your item management.

Even though I want to tell you how to work your trade mule, let’s start with the concept of using a dedicated banking toon.  On every server and every account I will have a single toon who does nothing but go back and forth from the mailbox to the auction house.

For Alliance choose a Gnome or  Dwarf and run them up to Iron Forge.  Horde players should use a Tauren in Thunder Bluff.  Those cities are simply the best places for commerce because the ah and mailbox are very close together.

Instead of taking time out with your main (or any other alt your are leveling) to do your ah business, always use your banking toon.  This will help more than anything to avoid mistakes and confusion.  Simply mail every single item of value to your banker and then you can deal with the whole pile at a time when you can concentrate on what to do with each piece.

Use your banker to post all your auctions and hold your gold.  I also use my banker to buy items for my toons to use as well.  My main rarely visits the ah, I’ve got more important stuff to do with that guy.

Now that you’ve got a banker, create a mule toon.  With a mule, it makes no difference what race you select although I will normally use a human for Alliance and an orc or troll for horde.  Just run this level 1 toon to the nearest inn with a mailbox and there they will stay forever.

The really neat thing about using a mule is that you can take advantage of a little exploit in the way the mail system works.  This tip will make it so much easier for the new player who doesn’t yet have the gold to blow on a full set of big bags for all their toons.  It will also make life easier for you power ah users since I don’t think we’ll ever get 250 slot bags!

When your banker’s mailbox and bags are jammed full and you’re waiting for the weekend to post all of those goodies at the auction house just use the bulk mail system and mail everything to your mule to hold.  Every mail you send can contain up to 12 items.  You can clear hundreds of items out of your mailbox and bags in just a few minutes.  I also recommend mail mods such as “Open All” and “Postman” to help speed up this process even more.

Once your Mule has everything in the mail you can let it sit there for up to 30 days.  I never leave things in there that long, but that’s the max.  After 30 days, those bulk mail items will just get returned to the banker - it doesn’t even cost you the mail fees!

But here’s the cool trick.  When it’s time to send everything back to your banking toon, just log your mule, open the mail and hit “return.”  You can return hundreds of items to your banker in a few clicks and zero postage fees.

Using the mail this way gives you hundreds - even thousands of absolutely free bag slots.  If you use the mail system to it’s maximum advantage, you’ll never have to worry about running out of space or blowing too much gold on bigger bags before you can really afford to.

You will also know exactly how to handle extra items.  Everything just gets mailed to your banker - simple.  When you have time to concentrate on what to do with everything, your banker will either post items on the ah or mail them to the mule to hold until they are ready to be sold or just to hold if you like.  Your banker will almost always mail things exclusively to your mule, and all your other toons will almost always mail everything to your banker, it makes visiting the mailbox short and sweet.

You’ll notice that the screen shot for this article shows my mule in Booty Bay.  On most servers I keep one mule for each faction in Booty Bay so that I can take advantage of moving things back and forth between Alliance and Horde auction houses.  This is a topic for another time, but if you can stand running your mules to booty bay (multiple deaths are often inevitable, especially for ally) then you really set yourself up for some dominating moves between faction auction houses.

It all sounds too simple once you read through it.  But there are so many players I see on their main toon at the auction house day after day that I thought it would be a great tip for those of you who do not use banking toons and mules up until now.  It will make your life a lot simpler and expand your storage space to near infinity.

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18 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

I OWN THIS AUCTION HOUSE - USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

There’s a new commercial out for a video game where this guy jabbers about crushing his peeps in a game of video football.  At the end of it he says: “Doing things like that makes you wanna say things like - ‘DUDE, I own you; pass me that soda!’”

How would you like to so thoroughly Dominate the AH that there just isn’t any argument left.  You can just tell other players you own them and pass the Mok’Nathal Shortribs!  It’s pretty hard to do, but there is a way it can be done if you have the knowledge and gold to pull it off.

A lot of you probably won’t like this.  Many of you may not be able to do it on a large scale.  Most of you will need to practice before you can really use it like the serious weapon that it is.  Almost none of you will have the patience to wait for the right timing.

BUT - if you don’t mind being an uber-greedy capitalist pig, have a decent amount of gold to play with to begin with, a lot of experience working the ah, and can wait like a ninja to strike; I can guarantee you there is simply no faster way to make enormous piles of gold, period.

All of our amazing gold-making secrets are in our Auction House Mastery guide (Which we will be releasing as soon as it’s perfect)  This little tidbit is only a small section.  What I’m going to tell you how to do today is how to corner a market segment and watch the gold pile up in heaps.

Cornering A Market

Depending on the size and prices of the AH on your server, don’t even try this unless you have between 5,000 - 10,000 gold you can blow.  In order to do this properly you are also going to have to use Auctioneer Advanced and have several months of daily scans in your database.

You will also need to have the ability to watch the AH like a hawk.  That means logging on every few hours to your banker to peel the newly posted items off the market before anyone else can buy them.

This technique is only possible because the WoW economy is a closed market with limited fluctuation.  What you’re going to do is pick a niche of the market and OWN it.  At least for a couple of weeks every month or two.

Here’s how this works - Pick an item type and buy out every single one that gets posted during the week (suck up the entire supply) and then stick it back on the market on Friday at +200% markup.  In order for this to work you really have to be the only guy at the AH with that item type for sale.  You have to buy every single thing so that you completely control the market segment.  You have to have absolute and total power over supply.

I normally pick enchanting mats.  I have the most experience with those and the market tends to be fairly stable for these items.  This technique also works best with the very highest end items, thus the need for so much gold in order to begin.  In order to truly make this effective you need to buy up a complete niche such as Large Prismatic Shards, Planar Essences, Void Crystals, and Large Brilliant Shards - basically all of the high-end enchanting mats.

You’re also going to have to figure out what things actually go into a niche, that is why this is really risky unless you have a ton of gold already and don’t mind losing a big bunch of it if you guess wrong.  In my example above I found out that on several servers Arcane Dust just has too much supply feed to corner, it’s almost impossible to do.  But keep in mind that not every server is the same, so you’re going to have to be a real gambler with serious skill to guess right every time.

You will sell a few things the first weekend, and maybe get back 50% of what you spent the first week buying up your niche.  You have to keep it up for at least another week.  Keep buying everything and post it all up the next weekend.  The next weekend you should clear back what you spent plus a hefty profit to boot.

Why does this work?  Because people have the attention span of gnats.  When they need something, they would rather pay 2-4 times it’s market value than wait a few weeks hoping prices will drop.

Yes, it makes people mad - laugh at them and shrug while you make thousands of gold.  You can snicker at the people yelling in trade chat about the jerk who is jacking up the market with his stupid inflated prices and giggle when you open your mail full of big piles of gold.

After two weeks of this, stop buying and just sell.  Those folks who post the same stuff will by this time tend to match your new price and only undercut you a little bit.  You will normally find that prices will re-stabilize at your much higher rate for some time.

At this point sell down and stop buying for a while.  You can watch while prices continue to drop until they reach the level they were before you did this.  Now it’s just lather, rinse, repeat.  When prices return to historical averages, you can do it again.  This is where the waiting part comes in.

You see, as prices rose, you need to stop buying everything because your profit margin is shrinking.  Once prices drop again the margin returns.  When prices spike, you can move on to a new niche if you like, or just take a break and do other things for a while.

If you couple this with rare events such as a patch or the recent Season 4 arena start, it can mean wicked profits.  We posted the experience of our editor - Lawbringer, doing exactly what we’re talking about here during the Season 4 opening in Lithanial’s article “Season 4 - A Unique Opportunity.”

Lawbringer began with 5,000 gold to work the market.  He cornered the enchanting mats mentioned above and was able to turn 5,000 gold into a little over 12,000 in two weeks.  Now, during the sell-down phase it’s closer to 15,000.  That means he tripled his gold in right at two weeks - not bad!

We’ve also done this with Darkmoon decks right before the Faire hits town, epic recipes, high-end cloth items, and on and on and on.  The possibilities are vast.

We also have developed a system that makes us over 1,500 gold every single week with less than 2 hours spent working the ah.  Oh, and I don’t ever farm - I mean EVER.  Nor do I grind out dailies for chump change, dailies are for rep and the itty bitty bits of gold that go with them are a bonus.  Why spend 2 hours a day to make a hundred gold when I can make 1,500 a week in two hours at the ah?

I also used this technique when Shaman got dual-wielding in a previous patch.  I bought up all the axes for a few weeks before the patch and marked them up severely the day of the patch.  I made about 4,000 gold in two days when all the Shaman rushed to the AH to get another axe.  Once you get the hang of this, it’s almost too easy.

So get out from behind your farming plow and join the world of the power AH broker.  The cars are faster, the gold piles are bigger and you can walk with that extra swagger that comes with Dominating!

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18 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

The Midsummer Fire festival won’t last forever!  You only have until July 4th to take advantage of all the buffs, gold making opportunities and last (but certainly not least) some really killer loot from Frost Lord Ahune.

Ahune <The Frost Lord> is a new boss which can be summoned inside Slave Pens, in Zangamarsh. Ahune can be completed on both normal and heroic modes, both with differing difficulty and different items dropped after defeating him.

Ahune  is a frost lord in Neptulon’s service. The Twilight’s Hammer plan to have him battle Ragnaros to start an elemental war on Azeroth. Players summon Ahune in the second room of the Slave Pens, at the Ice Stone to the left. He is only available during the Midsummer Fire Festival.

If this is your first time killing Ahune, he will drop an item called Shards of Ahune which starts the quest Shards of Ahune. Accept the quest and bring the shard to Luma Skymother, and she will reward you with Burning Blossom x20 and your choice of a unique tabard: the Tabard of Summer Skies or the Tabard of Summer Flame. You can only complete this quest once, so you will not be able to receive both tabards on the same character (well, not until next year at least)!

The quest to summon Ahune can only be completed once per day, per person. Which means that if you have a five person party, each person can complete the quest to summon him one time (provided you didn’t actually save yourself to the Heroic) and you could potentially do five runs, one after another. Even if you have killed the boss, as long as at least one person in your party is able to take the quest and summon him you’ll have yet another chance at some of the phat loot he drops!

In Normal Mode Ahune Can Drop:

Shared Loot for both Normal and Heroic Mode:

On Heroic Mode Only Ahune Can Drop:

Don’t dawdle any longer!  If you have a level 65 or above find you a group and start whacking at this big icicle until you get you some of this stuff.  Special event bosses have great gear and Ahune is certainly no exception.  You’ve only got a few more days - go dominate that dude!

Contributing Author - Slavrix

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6 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

So everyone knows its Midsummer’s Fire Festival. Everyone’s farming the new boss in Slave Pens, trying to get that new epic scythe. Everyone’s doing the dailies, to get the petals for that Brazier of Dancing Flames. Afterwards, most people make the mistake of going back to doing their regular dailies.

Outside most settlements in Azeroth and Outland have been placed festival bonfires. They look a lot like the ones in the major cities that I’m sure you’ve seen. Alliance and Horde both have their own fires burning. At both factions bonfires you will find a quest.

At every friendly fire you will find an NPC with a quest called “Honor the Flame.” At any level, this will grant you 5 Burning Blossom. Even better, if you’re level 70, you will also receive 5g95s.

At every hostile fire you will find that the fire itself gives a quest called “Desecrate this Fire!” At any level this will give you 10 Burning Blossom. At level 70 you will also receive 11g99s. That’s the same as a daily!

For both these quests all you have to do is talk to the NPC or fire and you complete the quest automatically. A very easy way to make gold.

Now, last but not least, the four hostile cities. Within these are the big fires. These will be harder to put out, due to having to sneak past the guards as well as avoid combat with the opposing faction. However they are well worth it. For each one you will get a selection of some basic holiday items, 25 Burning Blossom and 9g10s. On top of all that if you turn in all of the opposing city flames, you will receive 5g70s and the item Crown of the Festive Fire.

Now you may think that’s all well and good, but you might think that if the gold is similar to what you get from dallies, surely it’s quicker just to complete all the quests in Quel’Danas for the same amount of gold - wrong.

I have done this with two of my level 70s so far and I’ve found the same thing. It should take you roughly 3 hours to reach every fire. I visited every bonfire in the game, and I was very surprised to find out that by doing so on one character I made more than 550+ gold.

As a Horde player at level 70, if you visit every bonfire you will gain a total of 178 gold 50 silver for the Horde bonfires and 383 gold 68 silver for the Alliance bonfires (562 gold 18 silver total).

As an Alliance player at level 70, if you visit every bonfire you will gain a total of 190 gold 40 silver for the Alliance bonfires and 359 gold 70 silver for the Horde bonfires (550 gold 10 silver total).

Eastern Kingdoms

• Arathi Highlands: Refuge Pointe [50,44] (A) / Hammerfall [74,41] (H)
• Badlands: Kargath [4,49] (H)
• Blasted Lands: Nethergarde Keep [58,17] (A)
• Burning Steppes: Morgan’s Vigil [80,62] (A) / Flame Crest [62,29] (H)
• Dun Morogh: Kharanos [46,46] (A)
• Duskwood: Darkshire [74,51] (A)
• Elwynn Forest: Goldshire [43,65] (A)
• Eversong Woods: North Sanctum [46,50] (H)
• Ghostlands: Tranquillien [46,26] (H)
• Hillsbrad Foothills: Southshore [50,46] (A) / Tarren Mill [58,25] (H)
• Loch Modan: Thelsamar [32,40] (A)
• Redridge Mountains: Lakeshire [24,59] (A)
• Silverpine Forest: The Sepulcher [49,38] (H)
• Stranglethorn Vale: Booty Bay [34,73] (A) / Booty Bay [33,75] (H)
• Swamp of Sorrows: Stonard [47,47] (H)
• The Hinterlands: Aerie Peak [14,50] (A) / Revantusk Village [76,74] (H)
• Tirisfal Glades: Brill [57,52] (H)
• Western Plaguelands: Chillwind Camp [43,82] (A)
• Westfall: Sentinel Hill [56,64] (A)
• Wetlands: Menethil Harbor [13,47] (A)

Kalimdor

• Ashenvale: Astranaar [37,54] (A) / Splintertree Post [70,69] (H)
• Azuremyst Isle: Azure Watch [44,53] (A)
• Bloodmyst Isle: Blood Watch [55,69] (A)
• Darkshore: Auberdine [37,46] (A)
• Desolace: Nijel’s Point [65,17] (A) / Shadowprey Village [26,76] (H)
• Durotar: Razor Hill [52,47] (H)
• Dustwallow Marsh: Theramore Isle [62,40] (A) / Brackenwall Village [33,30] (H)
• Feralas: Feathermoon Stronghold [28,43] (A) / Camp Mojache [72,47] (H)
• Mulgore: Bloodhoof Village [51,60] (H)
• Silithus: Cenarion Hold [57,34] (A) / Cenarion Hold [46,44] (H)
• Stonetalon Mountains: Sun Rock Retreat [50,60] (H)
• Tanaris: Gadgetzan [52,29] (A) / Gadgetzan [49,27] (H)
• Teldrassil: Dolanaar [55,60] (A)
• The Barrens: Crossroads [52,28] (H)
• Thousand Needles: Freewind Post [42,53] (H)
• Winterspring: Everlook [62,35] (A) / Everlook [59,35] (H)

Outland

• Blade’s Edge Mountains: Sylvanaar [42,66] (A) / Thunderlord Stronghold [50,59] (H)
• Hellfire Peninsula: Honor Hold [62,58] (A) / Thrallmar [55,40] (H)
• Nagrand: Telaar [50,70] (A) / Garadar [51,34] (H)
• Netherstorm: Area 52 [31,63] (A) / Area 52 [32,68] (H)
• Shadowmoon Valley: Wildhammer Stronghold [40,55] (A) / Shadowmoon Village [33,30] (H)
• Terokkar Forest: Allerian Stronghold [55,55] (A) / Stonebreaker Hold [52,43] (H)
• Zangarmarsh: Telredor [69,52] (A) / Zabra’Jin [36,52] (H)

Major Towns

Alliance:

• Darnassus (57, 93)
• Ironforge (64, 25)
• Stormwind (41, 61)
• The Exodar (41, 26)

Horde:

• Orgrimmar (47, 38)
• Silvermoon City (70, 43)
• Thunder Bluff (21, 26)
• Undercity (68, 9 [upstairs])

So get out there and start hunting down all the flames, honoring your own flames will grant you rewards, but remember that desecrating your enemies bonfires will not only get you more gold and blossoms, but will also grant your faction the zone buff, and remove it from your enemies - just be prepared to fight your way in, and out again.

Contributing Authors: Slavrix and David Norton

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13 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Over the next 11 days you have a unique opportunity. If you’ve been thinking about starting a new toon or cruising one of your current alts up to level 70 don’t waste another minute!

The midsummer festival is in full swing right now all over the WoW landscape. While there are events associated with the festival that we will cover tomorrow (such as some serious gold to be made) today we wanted to let you in on how the festival can really buff your leveling runs.

In each zone there are bonfires burning. The bonfires are lit every midsummer to symbolize the hottest part of the year with flames. This all seems a little silly to me, but hey, people do silly stuff all the time when they are making up excuses to have a party! Wouldn’t ice cream be better for this time of year? Oh well, I guess fires when it’s already hot outside is fine.

When you visit a bonfire controlled by your faction (Alliance or Horde) there are several things you can do that will give you rewards or buffs. You can also earn some nice change by visiting bonfires controlled by the other faction and snuffing them out! Here’s how this festival is a once a year opportunity to level those alts.

When you complete midsummer festival quests you will receive an item called Burning Blossoms. These blossoms can be used at the bonfires to light them or you can collect a lot of them and turn them in for some fairly decent rewards. The quests are easy and mostly involve running to talk to various NPC’s so it’s pretty easy to collect the blossoms.

As you are out questing be sure to keep a few blossoms in your bag and be aware of the locations for all the bonfires in the zone as well as nearby zones. Whenever someone lights the bonfire (of your faction) for the zone you are in you will get a buff that adds a 30% chance to add fire damage to each attack you make. The amount of fire damage is pretty big and scales with the level of your character. At lower levels it normally results in a one-shot kill when it procs. At level 70 this buff adds a chance to do 700 fire dmg. But the fire damage buff is only the beginning!

You’ll want to stock up on burning blossoms for this next buff. If you use a burning blossom near a bonfire that is already lit you will also gain +3% to your critical hit rating. This buff also adds fire damage to each attack! You can actually gain this buff as well as the bonfire buff every time you light the fire yourself using a Burning Blossom. With both of the fire damage buffs and increased crit chance you will be blowing mobs up like an elite.

At each bonfire there is also a pole. Dancing around the pole gives you an experience per kill reward of +10%! To dance all you have to do is toggle the gear cursor when standing near the pole. Your toon will go into a frenzied spinning dance and you can watch the experience buff increase as you spin.

Be sure to dance for about 60 seconds every time you visit the pole. This buff has a sort of “slow fill” on the countdown timer. The longer you dance, the longer the buff lasts - up to 60 minutes.

You can see how stacking these three buffs can really speed up your leveling times. Don’t waste this chance to scoot through about 50 levels over the next 11 days. You won’t get an opportunity like this for another year. Get out there now and Dominate with those alts!

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9 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

By now you know that we’re big fans of fishing for your main character. We know it seems like a big pain to level fishing, but it can become a good money-maker when combined with cooking in the end game. Beyond that, you can get lots of decent buffs from cooked fish - most of which are just as good, if not better, than buffs from high-end alchemy potions; and the mats are so much easier to get.

In the career of an angler, you can train the first two levels at the fishing trainers to get to skill level 150. after that, you have to get the book “Expert Fishing - The Bass and You.” From Old Man Hemming in Booty Bay. But once you reach level 225, you have to do a quest to get the Artisan level training. This guide is going to walk you through that quest chain. Once you finish this quest and can go to 325, all you have to do is grab the next book, “Master Fishing - The Art of Angling” from Juno Dufrain at Cenarion Refuge in Zangaramarsh.

But let’s take a look at the Artisan Quest and tell you the easiest way through the thing. There are a couple of starter quests you can do to help you find Nat Pagle, but we’ve never done them. Just go straight to Nat. He’s on a little Island in the bay almost due west of the piers of Theramore. His coordinates are 59,60 and here’s what the fellow looks like, just chillin’ on his own little island (and drinking a bit too much we might add).

It’s a little easier for Alliance to get to Nat than Horde, since Ally toons can just jump off the docks after taking the boat from Menethil to Theramore. Horde toons will have to run from the Barrens and then through the Dustwallow Marsh. Or they can fly to Brakenwall Village and then run over to the Bay.

The following Screen shots will walk you through getting to Nat if you’re Alliance. From where the boat docks, run to the second red block as shown on this shot from the mini map.

Pay attention to which way you should be facing - like this:

Now that you’re facing about the right direction, this is what you would see if you were looking back toward the docks.

From here, Swim straight toward this little lump in the distant mountains.

After swimming for about 20 seconds you’ll see this Island straight ahead:

Swim around this Island on the left side as shown with the red path. As soon as you round this island, you will be able see Nat standing on the one behind it.

If you take a look at the mini map, you can see what that will look like when you get close, as well as the path you should swim in red.

Here we are standing behind Nat, looking back toward Theramore, so you can get an idea of how to get back, as well as a shot of his location on the World Map.

Please note the level 42 Thresher in the water near the other Island. Those guys are all over the place, so swim carefully if you are under level 40.

For Horde, just take this path to the coast, and then hug the coastline, staying out of the water as much as possible until the coast breaks back to the west. From the Barrens, follow the Yellow path. Yes it is easier to run up the road and avoid as many mobs as possible. There are lots of Lobster guys in the water along the coast, so the going can be a little rough since they have a frost bolt attack that will slow you down and make running from them difficult - especially if they catch you in the water.

You can get this quest only after level 35 and only if you have completely maxed out your fishing skill at 225. And, honestly, you wouldn’t be able to go to the places you’re going to need to go until at least level 40, so don’t sweat this quest until then.

Here’s the link to the Quest on WoWhead - http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=6607

Nat asks you to go catch four unique fish and then return to him when you bag them all. In part two later this week on DYS we’re going to do is show you the fastest order to go get these fish, and the best spots to fish. If you follow our directions you should be able to complete this entire quest in about an hour, and that is truly dominating!

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20 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

One of the best ways to maintain you dominant advantage on your server is to be one step ahead of everyone else. The very best opportunities are often found in the patch notes for the PTR (Public Test Realm). If you don’t make it a habit of watching for updates and patch notes, you should.

The patch notes are great because they let you in on what’s coming well before it happens. I made a fortune in gold when I read that Shaman were going to get dual-wielding in a previous patch. All I did was go buy up all the axes on the ah for a couple of weeks and then put them all back up for sale the day the patch went live!

To see the latest patch notes, bookmark this link: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The next patch is 2.4.3 and while there isn’t anything of interest from the gold-making perspective, it does contain some really big news that will get everyone in a tizzy. We wanted you to hear it from us first.

Mounts will now be available at level 30! That’s right, and not only that, but the cost for the apprentice riding training has been reduced to 35 gold. This is really going to speed things up when working on a new alt since your travel times from quest to quest will be drastically reduced for those classes without travel speed forms or talents.

Some other interesting tidbits in the next patch:

Tailoring - The cooldown for regular mooncloth will be removed completely
Rogue - Cheat death seems to be nerfed to a large degree
Shaman - Lightening Overload will also be nerfed, although it’s almost impossible to tell how much
Warlock - Curse of Shadows is gone completely, while Curse of Elements takes on shadow buff properties
Quests - Several quests have been fixed. One, the Blueleaf Tubers quest in RFK, has been broken for as long as I can remember - I’ve actually skipped it for years now.

Head over to the link above and check out the hundreds of minor details. It’s definitely worth the time to read the patch notes, there’s always a few exciting fixes, otherwise they wouldn’t go to the trouble to change them! OH, and get ready to enjoy your mount at level 30! Mounts at level 30 is a dominating occurrence in my book.

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33 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

We had such awesome feedback during our writing contest, I decided to give you guys the floor one more time. During our writing competition we had so many players submit entries with a very high level of expertise that it was quite startling. So now what I want you to do is help us explore a very overlooked aspect of the WoW playing experience.

We could go on for months and months about action bars, UI mods and macros without ever getting close to covering even a fraction of the things you can use in those areas. We will certainly do our best to give you some major players in the UI mods genre in the coming weeks, and our staff writers are hard at work paring down the options into useful articles.

But first, we’re going to take a closer look at how our readers actually interface with the game by finding out what hardware master players are using. I mean, what good is having all those extra bars and macros if they are difficult to access because you use a crummy stock mouse and gooped-up keyboard?

I personally use a programmable mouse that activates macros and other functions. When I play a hunter, my right clicks go through a complete shot cycle, so I have far greater control over the combat sequence. I am able to do everything a hunter is good at without ever really worrying about what should come next, my mouse takes care of most of it for me. That way I can spend more time (especially in raids) watching for those surprises and changes in the combat environment that require my special attention. But without my particular mouse, it would be virtually impossible to accomplish.

Our editor, Lawbringer swears by a particular game pad he uses. I gives him 36 extra keys to play with. He actually goes in a very different direction with his play style. While I never take my hand off the mouse, he rarely touches his. With a compact keyboard, a little clever hotkey assignment, and a bar mod, he has over 60 hotkeys at his fingertips without ever having to do anything like press [shift]+F1 or [Cntl]+5. He plays fast, fast, fast. Since virtually every skill is at his fingertips, the only thing he ever has to wait on is cooldowns!

If you have a setup that enhances your game play, now is your chance to tell us about it. Keyboard, mouse, peripherals, headsets, monitors - anything that you use to increase your ability to dominate!

Post your setup and why it helps you dominate as a reply to this thread. We’ll review the submissions and then do a series of articles about the very best products you guys actually use. It will be a huge help to the new and intermediate player looking to advance to serious raids and PVP action. Those of you who have already been through the process of selecting the very best equipment to use can give them a little great advice and we’ll help you by giving everyone links where they can find all the cool toys you recommend.

I know you guys like to brag, so let me have it. Show Gavin how your setup rocks the competition, and gives you the ability to truly Dominate!

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18 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

So you’ve got your cooking up to level 225, and you’re level 35 or higher. Now it’s time for your cooking quest. You cannot do the cooking quest until you are level 35 and your cooking is maxed out at 225. After that, grab a boat and a bird and get yourself out to Gadgetzan in Tanaris. Go in the Inn and Talk to Dirge Quikcleave, the butcher. He’s going to ask you to bring him a few things so that he can make you a Clamette Surprise. This quest is super easy to complete, you can just bring everything you need to turn in to Dirge.

The easiest way to collect everything is just buy it all in advance from the AH. Since the items for this quest are not unique quest items, you’re not forced to go and get them yourself. There are almost always a few of these available on the ah, since many people know that someone will buy them for their cooking quest, or use them in cooking.

That being said, you may find the prices not to your liking. If that is the case, you can go and get the stuff yourself. Here’s what Dirge wants from you:

• 12 Giant Egg
• 10 Zesty Clam Meat
• 20 Alterac Swiss

The Swiss cheese is a snap; it’s sold by 35 different vendors, so it’s not exactly rare. The other two things can be farmed in Tanaris, but the drop rates are pretty pathetic for the Clam Meat. For the Giant Eggs you can kill the Rocs around any of the big Bones sticking out of the ground.

In our screenshot just west of Gadgetzan in Tanaris, you can see the Rocs circling the bone pile, as well as two other spots where you can see even more bones on the horizon. Birds always congregate around piles of bones, so those other two piles are also swarming with Rocs.

The Zesty Clam Meat is found in Giant Clams which will drop from the turtles anywhere along the coastline.

Now this is where we set ourselves apart here at Dominate Your Server. Everyone on Thottbot will tell you to go to the Hinterlands to get the eggs and clams - they are WRONG! It turns out that the very best drop rates for the Giant Eggs is from the Rocs in Tanaris. So you can go right outside of town to find them – as well as a few extras to sell at the ah.

For the Giant Clams, the best drops are in the bay west of Theramore Island in Dustwallow Marsh. Almost everything there drops Giant Clams. If you have trouble getting what you need in Tanaris, you can just fly back to Theramore or Brackenwall Village and run over to the water. Our screenshot shows the map of the area.

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Once you get all your mats, all you have to do is turn them in to Dirge and you’re set with artisan cooking up to level 300. At 300 you can buy the Master Cookbook either in the ah or from various vendors in Outlands. Good luck, and remember - even if all you’re doing is cooking; Dominate!

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8 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

The writing contest is over, the judging is complete, and we have a winner! We received more than 45 entries for the competition and the quality of the entries was terrific. But only one can win first place. This young man really stood out and made choosing a winner much easier than we expected it to be.

Congratulations to Marco Piccirillo, the hands-down champion. Marco receives the $500 First prize and a staff writing position here at DYS. Marco followed the contest directions to the letter, and wrote several articles that were everything we look for at DYS. The information was fresh and he had some great new tips. His style was easy to read and his grammar was unimpeachable.

Once you begin to read some posts from Marco, we’ll sure you’ll agree with us that he will be a very welcome part of the information we give here at DYS, and we fully expect him to have his own groupies!

Second place and $250 dollars goes to Gareth Morris. Young Mr. Morris hails from England and he really knows his stuff. Gareth already has some WoW fame for his guides and in-game play with druids; many of which have been stickied on the European forums. He actually tanked Grull in Moonkin form, a class play style he calls a Panzerkin. We watched the video he made of the kill, it’s one of the most out-of-the-box impressive things we’ve ever seen. Check it out for yourself here: http://videos.curse.com/details/816/

Third Prize of $100 ends up in the very capable hands of Jacob Towles. Jacob’s expertise is in the rogue class, and his rogue information is outstanding. He’s also done a little video work of his own in the form of an impressive piece of machinima you can view here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyydJbzcWvA Those of you familiar with the frostsaber mount grind will appreciate it immensely.

It took some lengthy discussion and we had to get wickedly picky to choose between these guys. In fact, the work of the Mr. Towles and Mr. Morris is so good we have also asked them to be regular contributors to DYS as well. You are going to love their unique view of the WoW universe as well as their uber information on Druids and Rogues.

Next, we don’t want to leave out some other contributors who did some really excellent work. Special thanks to Cameron Jones, Scott Smith, Mj Nix, Kaeshan Nallanathar, David Norton, Nick T, and Dave D. All of these authors provided us with difficult decisions when it came time to sort out a top 3.

Now is the time for all you DYS nuts out there to start begging to see the work of our winner. All we’re waiting for is his acceptance speech! And we really do appreciate the response we got from every one of our readers for the contest. Some of you were wondering how good the entries would be based on the example of the posts to the contest thread. All we can say is that it blew away our expectations.

So again, Congratulations to Marco for writing his way to the grand prize. Three cheers for Jacob and Gareth for the silver and bronze medals. These guys really know how to dominate!

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8 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post