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?

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.

Herbalism: Secret Cinderbloom Farming Spot for Lower Levels

If you have an alchemist or especially an inscriptionist, or if you just want to sell herbs as-is on the auction house, leveling through herbalism can be quite profitable. The amount of XP granted per node is pretty decent, especially if you're wearing heirloom gear. I leveled my druid from 75 to 80 solely through herbalism.

At level 75, you'd naturally be in Northrend, and on my server those herbs are more profitable on the whole than Cataclysm herbs. Also, Inscription uses a whole lot of Ink of the Sea, which is milled from Northrend herbs. However, your server may be different, and making tons of Blackfallow and Inferno inks isn't bad either. If you're also leveling alchemy and inscription, still, you'll probably want the Cataclysm herbs. Or maybe you're just sick of flying circles around Sholazar Basin and need a change of scenery. What to do?

Everyone probably knows by now that you can fly yourself to Hyjal and farm before you hit level 80. (If you don't, you'll need EK/Kalimdor flying. As a druid, it's easy to teleport to Moonglade and fly from there, but you can get there from anywhere in Kalimdor.) However, the giant difference in gear and mob health/hitting power can be a huge problem. Luckily, there's a great spot to farm (mostly) Cinderbloom in Hyjal, and until you've quested through the zone, it's almost entirely mob-free. That spot is the area near the Seat of the Chosen in the southeast corner of Hyjal, where the Twilight Cultists will later be hanging out. Until you phase the area, though, the only things you'll see are a few basilisks here and there. They are easily avoided at lower levels, and once you get to 77 or 78 (especially if you're wearing Cata greens) you can take them down without much trouble.

Here's a map of where to go:

Look, Ma, no mobs!

Prospecting: This Week's Ore

As I mentioned in my last part, I was pretty lax about prospecting last week. I took a look at ore on the AH this morning and found a metric ton of elementium at about 40g a stack. I bought 159 stacks; there were about as many left, but I kind of got tired of spending money. I probably should've bought more, but I'm just going to go with this.

Since I just did all of this, I figured I'd give you guys a breakdown of how long it took and what I got. So here we are; I'm going to focus on the highlights rather than every little detail.

Elementium Ore

• Cost: Approximately 6360g.
• Given my available bagspace, lack of CKS, and slightly slow PC, it took me about 40 minutes to prospect all 159 stacks.
• 38 Inferno Rubies. Pretending that these are the ONLY things I sell from the prospecting results, as long as I sell them for 167g each I'll break even. At the moment, the prices for cut and uncut infernos are really low on the AH, but it's 7am Sunday. I'm going to hold them for raid times and post them then.
• All the stuff:
   

Alchemy:

• Totally didn't transmute anything because I was out of Heartblossom, for Inferno Rubies, and I have enough metas in stock at the moment.

Jewelry Go Boom, which needs to be further broken down. I mailed all the full stacks of uncommon gems to my JC/Enchanter to make into jewelry and disenchant. It took me an hour and 20 minutes to make and DE all of this.

Carnelian Spikes: 26.

• Spent 80g on settings (I had 2 sitting in my bags for some reason).
• 58 Greater Celestial Essences, at a current market price of 64g = 3712g (presuming they all sell)

Jasper Ring: 120.

• Spent 126g on settings.
• 193 Hypnotic Dust, which got mailed to my banker since I'm kind of stockpiling it for MoP.
• 59 Lesser Celestials = 19 Greater Celestials = 1216g.
• 7 blue-quality rings, mailed to another banker to sell. If the blue jewelry doesn't sell after a week, I mail it back and blow it up. Assume 350g sale price = 2450g.

Alicite Pendant: 60.

• Spent 63g on settings.
• 86 Hypnotic Dust, again went to the banker.
• 26 Lesser Celestials = 8 Greater Celestials = 512g.
• 5 blue-quality necks, same as above rings = 1750g.

Hessonite Ring: 60.

• Another 63g on settings.
• 114 Hypnotic Dust, to the banker to store. (Look, I have >500 on my enchanter anyway.)
• 36 Lesser Celestials = 12 Greater Celestials = 768g.
• 10 blue-quality rings = 3500g.

Nightstone Choker, 50.

• Spent 52g on settings.
• 76 Hypnotic Dust, to the banker.
• 40 Lesser Celestials = 13 Greater Celestials = 832g.
• 4 blue-quality necks = 1400g.

Very Rough Profit Estimate

If we assume that everything is going to sell at the prices I detailed above, and pretend that I don't sell anything else from this mess (no, I didn't make any scrolls; most of the prices are tanked on my server and have been for a few weeks), I got 16,140g worth of enchanting mats and 6,346g in raw Infernos. The latter will probably sell for more, but we're just pretending here, right?

So that's a total of 22,486g worth of stuff for an initial investment of 6,360g = 16,126g profit. Potentially more, possibly less.

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.