Getting Ready for MoP: An Overview

This post is a part of Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival, hosted by Cold of Cold's Gold Factory. 

The World of Warcraft is all abuzz lately with news of the next expansion, Mists of Pandaria. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that a lot of Annual Pass subscribers already have access to a (rather unfinished) beta. Speculation about the release date is rampant. I won't speculate, because I'm terrible at evaluating the situation objectively; I just want MoP to come out this summer because Dragon Soul is a drag. I'm ready for new content.

Since I'm new to goldmaking, I've never before prepared for an expansion in terms of anticipated profit. I don't necessarily recommend following any of the strategies I'm using, but I'll give a quick rundown of each tactic and my reasoning for it. I'll continue to make posts as we learn more and my strategies change.

Companion (Non-Combat) Pets
Since the announcement of the Pet Battle System, I've been keeping an eye out for somewhat unique BoE pets. Vendor pets don't qualify (unless they state that some of them will go away) since they're easy to acquire and would just take up valuable bank and bag space. It's a fairly popular theory among goldmakers that pets will rise in value as players get involved with pet battles. There are a few things that might affect this value; for example, if Blizzard makes your pets account-wide the market will be smaller. And there's the question of whether we'll be able to sell pre-leveled pets -- frankly, I have no idea what will happen with that. I'm not going to fill an entire guild bank, but I am trying to get one or two tabs' worth. Word on the street is that Cataclysm drop pets like Elementium Geode will be less prevalent once folks aren't grinding in Cataclysm zones anymore. That's code for "buy them now when they're cheap and sell them later when they're not." That's just one example of what I'm looking for in pets.

Leather Transmog Gear
I hate the transmog market; it doesn't seem to do well on my server, and I find it tedious and frustrating. However, I'm collecting another one or two guild bank tabs' worth of leather gear I think monks will find appealing. Jim at Power Word: Gold has a good post on transmog gear that might appeal to monks; I agree with some of his conclusions but am also trying to draw my own based on what I like.

Profession Leveling Mats
Specifically, TBC, Wrath and Cataclysm mats. If you've ever leveled a profession, you know there are chokepoints -- materials you really need but which are in short supply because nobody's farming them anymore. Most of what I'm stockpiling are the Cataclysm mats. For example, I'm keeping a lot of my Hypnotic Dust which is almost always below 1g right now on my server. But the dust from Wrath goes for about 8 times that much, since you need a ton of it to level, and you don't get nearly enough just leveling through the zones. I'm also keeping gems, elementals, etc. This is a long long term investment; I anticipate that at the beginning of MoP, everyone will be unloading their excess Cataclysm mats and the market will be saturated. However, three to six months in, the prices should rise.

Getting Professions Ready
I have three alts at 85 and one at 80, all with maxed professions: JC x2, Alchemy x2, Enchanting, Inscription, Herbalism, and Leatherworking. I'm working on leveling my alts and maxing their professions so they're ready to go when the expansion hits. As far as I know, we don't know yet what the level requirement will be to train max professions, so I'm going to try to just get them all to 85 anyway. My plan once MoP is actually here is to spend a few weeks gathering, since mats should go for high prices initially. I also plan to level my Inscription as soon as possible. The other crafting professions will wait, since their items tend to be more important once players have reached the endgame (flasks, cut gems, crafted gear, belt buckles, enchanting scrolls, and so on).

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So those are my strategies as they stand now. What do you think? What are you doing to prepare?

Guest Appearance on the PW:G Podcast

Hey guys! I was honored to be asked to guest co-host the Power Word: Gold podcast with Jim Younkin. The podcast is awesome and you should definitely check out the archives if you're not already a regular listener. And make sure to listen to the PW:G Podcast episode 32, starring moi! Thanks, Jim! We talked about transmog, Cata greens, MoP, and lots of other cool stuff.

ATGT: Quarter Million Edition

Start: 209,339g
End: 252,000g (approximate)
Profit: 42,661g

No, it's not April Fool's related, and I'm a couple days late for that anyway. I was actually not in game last week as much as I normally am, since I was running around trying to get RL stuff done. That means this post won't be as detailed as I'd like. However, I had a goal of 250K gold, and I did manage to meet that goal. Big woohoo! I had to estimate the week ending gold amount because I forgot to write it down, but that's about accurate within 1-2K -- it may have been more, not less.

For some reason, as I was pulling mail last week, I felt like I wasn't making as much gold "as usual," but apparently I was. A brief rundown on markets:

Cata Greens
Sales of these items have slowed down considerably for me, but they are still moving; I'm just not collecting 5K every morning anymore. I bumped the prices back down to 400g per item as of yesterday, since even over the weekend sales were slow. I'm torn on how many pieces I should continue to pick up. On one hand, I want to keep them off the AH; on the other, I have a ton of 'em already. I'll probably keep buying at a good pace for the time being.

Glyphs
I managed to get a decent number of glyph sales this week, though the competition here is still fierce. I've had a new strategy suggested to me by Alto, so I'm going to try it -- posting for 48h is the short version. Since I'll be at work all day, I won't be able to repost constantly, so I needed a change in strategy anyway.

Shuffling
I didn't finish out the shuffle all the way last week, but I did manage to sell every cut inferno ruby I had as fast as I could post them, all on Tuesday night at raid time. That represented a nice chunk of change. I also sold a few other rare cuts. I didn't even make and DE jewelry, so I missed out there, I'm sure.

Vendor Recipes
I made a new bank alt just for these recipes, and she pulled in 6K this week. Yup. Worth doing.

Other Stuff
Leathers and ores from my leveling rogue; a very few transmog pieces, all at lower prices; random leveling gear; a few herbs, gems, pets, and other stuff I can't remember.

So that's it. Overall it was a better week than I thought it was while it was actually going on, and I'm over a quarter of the way to gold cap, which is really exciting. So far this week I'm up to about 262K, but I expect I won't see as many sales since I barely have time to play.

Professions: The Darkmoon Faire and You

The Darkmoon Faire is in town again this week, from April 1-7. That means lots of fun (well, they were fun until I did them 1000 times) mini-games and relic turn-ins, but don't forget the profession quests. Right now, I've noticed a lot of people are leveling alts to have max level professions ready to go when MoP hits. If you're doing the same, or if you're just trying to eke out the last few skill points on your main, make sure you do these quests! They grant 5 skill points in the corresponding profession, as well as XP/gold, DMF rep, and 4 DMF tickets and one DMF game token each; you need a skill level of at least 75 to pick them up.

If you can, it's ideal to arrange to do these at a chokepoint in your profession leveling (e.g. when you need Golden Draenite for jewelcrafting, Goldthorn for herbalism, etc.) or as close to max level as possible, since those are usually the points where you'll otherwise spend lots of gold. If you can't do that, though, just make sure to do them.

Some of these quests require you to bring materials with you to the Faire; none of the items are sold on the island, so pick them up before you head out. Here are the professions and the required materials for each, with a slight Alliance bias on locations. In addition to the sources listed, you can get many of the trade supply mats from any Trade Supplies vendor, so check in Mulgore and Goldshire:

• Alchemy: 5x [Moonberry Juice], available from any innkeeper that sells stuff. In SW, the Pig & Whistle in Old Town is good because you can also buy Simple Flour there.
• Archaeology: 15x [Fossil Archaeology Fragments]; you'll need to dig these up from a Fossil digsite.
• Blacksmithing: No mats required; you need an Anvil but can find one on the Island.
• Cooking: 5x [Simple Flour], available from cooking supply vendors. In SW, check the kitchen/back room of the Pig & Whistle.
• Enchanting: No mats are required.
• Engineering: No mats are required.
• First Aid: No mats are required.
• Fishing: No mats are required.
• Herbalism: No mats are required.
• Inscription: 5x [Light Parchment], available from Inscription supply vendors (ask a guard for the trainer location).
• Jewelcrafting: No mats are required.
• Leatherworking: 10x [Shiny Bauble] from a Fishing supply vendor; 5x [Coarse Thread] from a LW or Tailoring supply vendor; 5x [Blue Dye] from a LW or Tailoring supply vendor.
• Mining: No mats are required.
• Skinning: No mats are required.
• Tailoring: 1x [Coarse Thread]; 1x [Blue Dye]; 1x [Red Dye], all available from a Tailoring supply vendor.