Two Trade Skills That Fit Great On Bank Alts

Alright kids, let’s review.  We don’t farm here at DYS – well almost never.  From time to time the perfect conflagration of once per year occurrences happens that makes us do it, as we have mentioned in this post: Investing And Farming For Gold.

Next, we recommend banking be done in certain ways.  First, a bank alt is by far the best use for a DK we’ve ever seen, and we’re going to tell you which two professions suit bank alts best.  But a DK banker is perfect because you only have to get to level 65 from a level 55 start to train all the way to Grand Master in any profession.  But over the last six months we’ve figured out two professions that just stand far and above the others when it comes to making gold quick and easy.

The first one will come as absolutely zero surprise to anyone who reads DYS.  Enchanting – the gran-daddy of them all when it comes to gold making.  I recently had to change my tune a bit when it comes to Jewelcrafting, but I still don’t make as much from Jewelcrafting as I do from enchanting – not by a wide margin.  Just in case you missed it, here is another post if you want to read about the true power of enchanting for making gold: Best Profession For Those New To Gold Making.

Currently, you’ll want to focus on DE items between level 200 and 300 skill.  With everyone doing 5 million heroics per day, the market for Northrend mats is pretty depressed already – flooding it with another 50 stacks of infinite dust will just generate even more downward pressure on the price by inflating supply that much more.

A few months ago we suggested using a DK as your bank alt and giving them Enchanting, it’s a little more complex than that if you want it to be, as in this post: More Banking Toons Make It Easier To Make Gold At The AH.  But after working with that system for a few months, another profession has jumped out of the woodwork as absolutely perfect for the single DK bank alt.

You will need one DK, a desire for more gold and enough patience to gain 13 levels.  You’ll need  to hit level 68, but with a DK that’s pretty easy to do in just a few hours if you concentrate.  Then it’s off to the profession trainers for Enchanting and . . . Alchemy.

Alchemy is perfect for a bank alt because it requires zero rep to get all the recipes, so you can stand all by yourself in the major city of your choice and end up with every recipe in the game through discovery.  And you’ll make all the accidental discoveries in record time.

In our last post – Alchemy, Wow Quest Tricks, we talked about how to get the Elixir Master profession bonus for Alchemy without doing the Elixir Master quest, which is a pain in the tookus.  At level 68 your DK can do exactly the same thing and end up with Elixir Mastery and that’s where the real dough starts rolling in.

On an average day I will have my DK bank alt brew up around 200-300 elixirs and flasks.  Now that’s just the number I have mats for.  Since the proc rate for Elixir Mastery is a little higher than 10%, I generally end up with an extra 10-15 flasks for every hundred I make, sometimes more.  With flasks on our server going for about 60g, that’s 600+ gold for zero extra work.

All I do is put all of the herbs and other mats for the best alchemy potions (Lil’Sparky is a must here) in my Snatch filter for AADV and grab everything under 100% market price a couple of times a day.  Then I just afk brew, post the products and profit – generally while raiding or watching SportsCenter.

Alchemy is ridiculously easy to make gold with, and unlike Tailoring, Jewelcrafting, Leatherworking and other professions that can be lucrative, they also all require that you be level 80 and gain exalted rep with certain factions or acquire recipe drops in raids to get the patterns that will make you serious gold.  (yes, I have seen the stupid youtube video of the guy DE’ing the JC rings a bazillion times, but with northrend DE mats prices being what they are LilSparky’s tells me I would lose a lot more than I gained doing that right now.)

So My main DK banker does Inscription and Alchemy.  Inscription is another good fit for bankers, but if you only have 2 to work with.  On a single bank alt, alchemy and enchanting is the only way to go.  Between those two professions you should be able to knock down an easy 2,000 to 5,000 extra gold each week and not spend more than a few minutes each day fiddling with it.  It’s easy, fast and very Dominating.

9 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Retrospect on Raiding in Wrath

Welcome to my 3.3 preview live from my time on the PTR, this is Gustava, and this week I am going to talking about dungeon updates.

Let’s look back for just a second, since Wrath is little over a year old now and the story of this saga has really changed raiding. We started in Obsidian Sanctum and the return of Black Dragons.  Twilight Drakes showed us the first taste of hard modes and fire avoidance. Then we return to a classic raid: Naxxarmas. Raised from  the depths of vanilla WoW raiders’ nightmares as a new level 80 raid with Tier 7 gear. New raiders could learn the joy of slimes, Patchwork and Deep Breaths/Frost Tombs all over again. Once you got  a key in Naxx, you can go fight Malygos bringing new meaning to fighting fire with fire – with drakes.

Ulduar opened its gates in 3.1 where hardmodes abound and new Tier 8 gear. From the massive tank opening that was way better than flying drakes in the Malygos encounter to the madness of Mimirons’ fight with a giant robot and an old God with a thousand maws. Ulduar was truly a challenge with its epic scale with some of the hard modes offering more replay value  than ever.

Following that: the Trials of the Crusader opened its doors in 3.2. The fights were new and challenging with monster beasts,  demons, champions and undead – plus the Tier 9 gear. Now all that’s left is the icy fortress of the lich king in 3.3 and a conclusion to the epic tale of Northend once and for all.  At least, we think so . . .

Icecrown Raid Difficulty Functionality (source)

We chose this particular functionality because we didn’t want to use the Trial of the Crusader method, and have four versions on a raid of this size. We felt the Ulduar method of having to know a certain trick to do on the boss was difficult to communicate and tied too heavily to achievements. We might eventually convert Trial of the Crusader over to this new system but Ulduar and Naxxramas will likely never change.

• Many bosses and creatures have had their total health reduced.
• Several bosses and creatures have had cooldowns on specific abilities increased, effect durations reduced, and damage on some of these abilities reduced.
• Ring-Lord Conjurers and Sorceresses now hang out in packs of 4 instead of packs of 5.
• Vehicle scaling on the drakes based on the rider’s item level has been increased to make them more powerful.

Icecrown Citadel: The Frozen halls (New 5-Man Dungeons)

The Frozen Halls

4 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Optimize Your Profession Selection For Maximum Low Level Earnings

Whether you’re starting your first toon or your 20th, you have one of two goals in mind. One is to get to 80 as fast as possible, and in that light we tend to tell folks to not even mess with professions until 80. But if you are making a toon to end up being a gathering profession alt in the first place, then you certainly want to maximize your time and effort. It is entirely possible to keep skinning, mining and herbalism completely maxed out as you quest.

Not all zones are created equal when it comes to the gathering professions. In case you didn’t notice, Teldrassil is a giant tree, so there isn’t a single copper node on the whole thing. Your new Night Elf warrior is going to be completely out of luck until you hit Darkshore if you choose to do the Nefl starting area. There are way around this, however. You don’t HAVE to use the Orc starting area just because you’re an Orc. In other words, once you decide which profession you want to level, go level in an area that lets you gain levels and skill-ups in both.

With that introduction, here is a list of all the starting areas and what gathering professions they support better than other professions or zones. It’s not unreasonable to hit level 20 or so with a couple hundred extra gold just for picking a few flowers or swinging your pick along the way.

Alliance

• Dun Murogh – Dwarf/Gnome:  This is probably the best gathering profession zone in the entire game.  No matter what you choose, there are plenty of mines, herbs and almost everything is skinable.  It just doesn’t get any better than this.
• Teldrassil – Night Elf:  Teldrassil is good for both Herbalism and Skinning, but there isn’t a single mining node.
• Azuremyst/Bloodmyst Isles - Dranei:  The Dranei starting areas are bigger and more spread out than Dun Murogh.  Although there is a bit of everything, it’s the worst of the areas for gathering overall.
• Elwynn Forest – Human:  You won’t do much skinning in Elwynn, and it’s better for mining than herbalism.

Horde

• Durotar – Orc/Troll:  Durotar isn’t terrific for any of the professions, you’ll have to wait until you get to the Barrens to start cleaning up on Mines and Herbs.  It is, however, far better for mining. Both areas are OK for skinning as well, but the place is so huge that you can spend a great deal of time running from node to node.
• Silverpine – Undead:  This is by far the best place for Horde toons for both Mining and Herbalism.  There isn’t a better Herbalism location anywhere else, actually, as it beats Dun Murogh and is very close to UC.  Not terrific in the skinning category.
• Eversong Woods – Blood Elf:  Decent all-around for gathering professions, but nothing like Silverpine.
• Mulgore – Tauren:  Not bad for herbalism, and just ok for mining and skinning.

The best overall choices for each faction run toward Silverpine for Horde and Dun Murogh for Alliance.  The proximity to both IF and Undercity make these two zones perfect for getting training without having to run very far, and the zones are packed full of almost every type of node or skinable mob.

If you like to run instances at level – SFK is also a really good option for Horde, although there really isn’t a great choice for Alliance.  Well, maybe Balckfathom deeps, but as a general rule we skip instances unless we’re just leveling for the heck of it.  Getting to 80 faster is our typical advice, but breaking up the monotony of a speed leveling grind with an instance here and there for gear isn’t all that bad.

This information will probably be the biggest help to those of you who are firing up a new toon on a new server.  Getting that first toon grabbing some sellable stuff right off the bat to begin your banking life can be important.  DK’s are the best for this sort of thing of course, but if a DK is not going to be your main (and please tell us it’s not) then you’ll be leveling up something else anyway.  Might as well earn some decent gold along the way by using gathering professions while you level, and then switching to your end game professions at 80.

But at the very least, you now know the best zones for each gathering profession, and in a small way it can help you be more efficient and earn more money on your next new toon.  It might not win you any awards, but it’s at least a little Dominating.

13 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Anyone Can Make Gold Using Enchanting For Disenchanting – Here’s How:

Enchanting can be a very lucrative career profession. The only thing I hate about it is standing around in a major city spamming the trade channels with: level 435 ‘chanter LFW can do [some enchant] [another enchant] blah, blah, blah. Only to have to get into a 2 minute conversation with everybody anyway after linking my stuff and what the mat price is and what I charge for it. It can really be a hassle. But you can still make a TON of gold with enchanting and never enchant anything but your own gear.

Just like fishing and cooking are great for new toons and making bags is perfect for the mid-level characters, there’s just no beating enchanting for making the big bucks for your epic flying mounts. Questing in Northrend will land you the most amazing greens, and I would personally swear that they drop twice as often as in Azeroth & Outlands. Most of these greens are better than the level 70 dungeon gear from before the WotLK patch. However, because of the stats most people need on their items, about 50% of these drops are completely worthless. I mean you can’t sell them in the auction house at all. You can’t even give them away. So the greens in Northrend can be pretty hit-or-miss. They will either leave you agonizing over whether to equip it, sell it at the ah, or vendor it away.

Don’t worry about that if you have enchanting. The great thing about this technique is that you don’t have to mess around with maxing out your enchanting skill to make money at it. At skill level 375 you can disenchant everything in the game.  Combine your DE work with just putting minor enchants on your own gear as you go from 70-80 and you can easily hit skill level 400-425 and sell most of what you DE along the way.

So you can do this without having to spend a ton of money leveling up your skill. The greatest thing about disenchanting items for money is that there are NO auction deposits for enchanting mats. Which means you can go for the highest price possible and re-list them all 100 times if necessary to get the very maximum price. On top of that, if you run just a few heroic dungeons you can easily farm enough Dream Shards to buy all of the top end recipes for yourself or your guild mates. So the materials are in high demand no matter what your server. Plus, at the level of the people buying these materials, money has usually ceased to be a big deal, because you can easily earn a few hundred gold just off of trash items in a few hours grinding, or from dailies.

So when you begin dreaming about that flying mount – you might go retrain in enchanting and spend a couple hundred gold getting it leveled up. After about three weeks of casual questing in Northrend, a famous nub I know was able to disenchant enough mats to sell the whole pile on AH for well over 2,500 gold, enough for half her flying mount (and she’s only level 73 so far). So whether you are farming, questing or raiding, enchanting is one way to make some serious dough without having to advertise.

9 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Patch 3.2 Implications On Your DE Mats Business Means You Need To Make Some Changes

Change is the name of the game when it comes to World of Warcraft.  Nothing really stays the same over a one year period.  That’s why it is important to stay up to date and why we work here at DYS to keep you abreast of the changes that have the most significant impact on your game-play in WoW so that you can continue to Dominate.

With that in mind, there are some changes you need to make in the way you use enchanting in patch 3.2 to keep the gold rolling in.  DE mats have always been a cornerstone part of our gold making, and the patch signals a major shift in where the profits are in that aspect of the game.  Any good investor knows how to spot trends and move to new strategies – and it’s no different in WoW.

We told everyone not too long ago that the 3.2 patch was a serious re-do of the way people were going to play once they hit 80.  And you can see it in trade chat almost every 5 seconds: “Healer LFG Daily Heroic.”  The number of folks running the dailies and regular heroics for emblems has gone through the roof as people collect Conquest and Triumph emblems for all the sweet new loot.  This massive shift back to the heroic dungeons also trickles down to DE mats on the auction house.

With thousands of heroic runs every day comes a far greater number of worthless loot drops, and by default, the volume of items being disenchanted.  Greens drops going to an enchanter will almost always get the axe, as well as the BoP blues and Epic items.  People simply don’t have a need for many of them any more.  The Dominate guild has used the heroic runs to bolster our own collection of Abyss Crystals and Dream Shards – and even guys in pugs are using the items for DE on a level never before seen.

All of this points to a big increase in supply of all of the DE mats in the 350+ enchanting range.  On the low end Greater Cosmic Essences and Infinite Dust will see some increases, and the supply of Dream Shards and Abyss Crystals will be significantly higher.  You may have already seen prices dropping on the latter mats on your server.  as a result, it has, or will, become increasingly harder to find items for DE on the AH that will give you a profit on the mats themselves.

Traditionally, it takes far longer for the price of items to drop than mats.

On Fenris, the price for Northrend greens runs around 15g or so.  These items had a DE value in the 20g range for the Infinite Dust and Cosmic Essences, but with the price on those mats dropping the margins have already begun to disappear because the 15g price on the greens just hasn’t dropped yet.  Typically, non enchanters will post a green a couple of times at market value and then vendor what doesn’t sell.  This depresses the supply of those items and keeps the price roughly even over time.

It’s even worse for the blues and epics.  Prices for those items has dropped fractionally, but not nearly as sharply as mat prices.  Dream Shards had been in short supply before the patch because of the changes in enchanting recipes in the previous patches, but with all the new blues dropping every run the Dream Shard market has seen supply come far closer to demand – and this despite people enchanting new gear like crazy as they replace significant portions of their gear sets.

So in spite of demand for enchants rising, supply of mats has risen far faster, and that means it’s time to make some changes in what mats you depend on in your DE business until the market stabilizes over the next couple of months.  You’re’ just going to have to live with lower income from your DE operations for a while, but that certainly doesn’t mean it has to stop entirely.

For the time being; concentrate on different item levels for your DE purchases and mat sales.  Set your SearchUI Disenchant module custom levels to 125 Minimum and 275 Maximum.  That means item levels between 41 (requires level 37 to use) and ilevel 108 (requires level 66 to use). This will give you everything from Nether Essences to Arcane Dust and Planar Essences (which are selling very well these days) but none of the Northrend mats.  Tes, you’re going to end up with a bunch of dream dust (which is a hard sell most of the time) but you will still be able to turn a tidy profit from DE even while the top end of the market crashes and recovers if you move down the food chain a bit and concentrate on the market segments that haven’t changed.

It’s a quick and easy fix that should take you about 10 seconds your next visit to the AH, but it should keep your DE business doing well without having to worry about beating a sagging market.  Eventually the supply and demand curves for the Northrend mats will even out and you can turn your SearchUI back up to 375 Maximum.  But for the time being you should drop your sliders to the levels mentioned above.  It will keep the gold rolling in – and you Dominating.

11 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post