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.

Darkmoon Deck Experiment: Part Two

I kind of let this project slide over the weekend because I really wanted to get my mage from 51 to 65, which I have now accomplished. (Now I just have to come up with a metric asston of Frostweave Cloth and switch her alchemy to engineering, since I don't really want a third alchemist just at the moment.) This afternoon, I got back to it. So here's what's going on.

First, you may recall that earlier I made 8 Rogues Decks and traded them in for 3 Darkmoon Vests, 2 Darkmoon Chain Shirts, and one Darkmoon Robe. I posted all those on the AH at 100g per, and also posted one deck. (I kept one for later.) I really like the purple Darkmoon Vest look for leather, and I was hoping someone else would too. I sold one Darkmoon Vest and the deck I posted, for a total of 123g 43s 66c after the AH cut. The vest that sold was of the Monkey, so I think whoever bought it did so for the stats and not the look. The other two I have are of Power and have yet to sell.

This afternoon I made 25 Strange Tarot, resulting in only 5 complete Swords Decks. I turned these in for 2 Azure Shoulderguards, 1 Cloaked Shoulderpads, and 2 Darkcloth Shoulders. I thought the mail Azure Shoulderguards might look good for those trying to create a mail version of the SW Guard type look; the Cloaked are just generally nice for low level rogue mogging; and the Darkcloth are small, low-profile cloth which I think is always appealing. I'm going to list those up at 200g each and see how it goes.

I also made 20 Arcane Tarot, resulting in 3 complete Mages Decks. I turned these in for 2 Darkmoon Pendants and 1 Darkmoon Necklace. Obviously I'll be selling these for stats, not mogging. I got two of the pendants because if they don't sell I'm going to give one to my rogue as an upgrade. Market average for both of these on my server is 89g but since none are posted right now I'm going to try them at 100g.

I've still got other decks to make and turn in, but for now I'm going back to my mage for a little while.

Darkmoon Deck Experiment: The Beginning

So I'm a little bored today, and I have a whole lot of uncommon quality inks of the lower ranks. I've already got several of each offhand made from them, so I thought instead I'd try a little experiment.

Because of Argo (@EpicPennyPouch on Twitter), I already used a Swords Deck to get some decent looking leather shoulders for my rogue. (See Argo's post here.) The low-level decks themselves don't move particularly well on my server, and I don't have a lot of luck in the mog market yet, so this is a total "just for fun" experiment. I'm making all the low-level decks, trading them in for the gear, and posting that on the AH. There aren't a lot of options at really low levels for transmog -- at least, not options I like -- but at least a few of these items aren't hideous. I won't be able to track the ink costs well because these have just been sitting in my bags for a while; we'll just see how sales go.

Starting at the bottom, I made 29 Mysterious Tarot cards, and got 9 Aces, 12 Twos, and 8 Threes -- 8 Rogues Decks overall, plus some extra cards. Here's what I'm going to do with them:

• List one Rogues Deck on the AH.
• Turn in three decks for Darkmoon Vest.
• Turn in two decks for Darkmoon Chain Shirt.
• Turn in one deck for Darkmoon Robe.
• Keep one for later.

I've posted the gear at 100g to start with. We'll see where it goes, shall we?

My WoW client just crashed but I'm going to do this with more of the decks and will update this post with the initial information, then make a new post later with any sales or lack thereof.

UPDATE: Within three hours, I sold one of the Darkmoon Vests and the Rogues Deck. Whee! I'm leveling my mage to try to get rid of some of this cloth I have sitting around (she's my tailor) but I will continue with this later.

Alchemy Leveling: Oily Blackmouth and You

If you're like most goldmakers I encounter, you probably level alchemists all the time. If you don't have at least one, you should (and not just because it's one of my favorite professions); the transmutes are great and getting four hours out of one flask is maybe even better.

Because (I think) of inscription, even low-level herbs can go for ridiculous amounts of money since max-level toons are willing to pay higher prices for stuff to make inks. That makes alchemy expensive to level, too, so any alternate methods are welcome, at least for me.

Which brings us to my friend the Oily Blackmouth. Check out the map on Wowhead showing where it's fished... yeah, Darkmoon Faire. With a lot of people still out there fishing for the profession quest and for their Sea Pony, there's a huge surplus of Oily Blackmouth on the AH during Faire week. This seems to carry over throughout most of the month, too. On my server right now it's at 31s, down from a (TUJ) mean of 1g 32s 83c.

How is that useful? Well, take a look at this popular profession leveling guide for Alchemy. It recommends making Lesser Healing Potion from 60-105, which takes 50 Minor Healing Potion (presumably you have these sitting around) and 50 Briarthorn. Briarthorn is killer, at least on my server -- 2g per right now, which is where it normally sits, and there's often none at all posted.

But then there's Blackmouth Oil. Once you get your alchemy up to 80, you can make these with 2 fish per oil.  It's a trainer recipe, so no need to make a special trip to pick it up. I will point out that it's yellow when you learn it, and goes green at 90, grey at 100, so this isn't quite an apples to apples comparison. Lesser Healing Potion goes yellow at 85 and green at 105. If you have the Working Overtime guild perk, it's not as big a deal.

I'm not leveling an alchemist at the moment so I can't give you an exact breakdown, but here's a plausible scenario (I think) from 80-100. Neither of these recipes needs a vial.

• Lesser Healing Potion - let's assume you get a skillup from every craft, so we need 20. Briarthorn at 20x2g = 40g (if you can find them all, and you need Briarthorn further along, too). We'll pretend the Minor Healing Potions are free, since you have them already. So, 40g.
• Blackmouth Oil - let's assume you have to make 1.5 oils per skillup, or 30 total.  2 fish per oil x 0.31g per fish x 30 oils = 18g 6s. Even if you have to make a few more, we're still looking at about half the cost.

But wait, there's more! I don't know about you, but I couldn't give Lesser Healing Potions away. Blackmouth Oil, on the other hand, can be used to make stuff that actually sells:

• Elixir of Water Breathing -- can also be used to level your alchemy all the way to 160 if you so desire; takes 2x Blackmouth Oil, a Stranglekelp, and a Crystal Vial. Stranglekelp on my server sits just under 1g average and sometimes goes way under that. Sells for 3g-ish but is a slow mover, IME. Still, gets you more skillups with less Briarthorn.
• Swim Speed Potion -- goes grey at 170; takes one each of Blackmouth Oil, Swiftthistle, and a Crystal Vial. On my server, Swiftthistle is expensive and the swim speed potions are really cheap and barely move, so I don't make these.
• Free Action Potion -- this is the good one. It uses the same mats as the Elixir of Water Breathing and doesn't go grey until 215. You need to buy the recipe for it in Darnassus, Ironforge, or Orgrimmar. And people love it for PvP. So if you have a decent PvP market on your server, just make a ton of these and sell them off as they go. Market average on my server is 5g per, for something that costs 1g 38s to make (per current TUJ numbers)... and there are hardly ever any listed, so people ask in Trade.

So there you have it. Even if your alchemist is already maxed out, as most of mine are, I sometimes snap up the cheap blackmouth so I can make the Free Action Potions.