Posts with tag consumables

Gold Capped: Making ridiculous sums of money on the auction house

by Basil Berntsen Feb 14th 2010 at 3:00PM

Want to get Gold Capped? This column will show you how, and is written by Basil "Euripides" Berntsen, also of outdps.com, the hunting party podcast, and the call to auction podcast.

Hi folks! Welcome to Gold Capped. There are many games to play in World of Warcraft: PvE, PvP, achievements, and today I'm going to introduce you to the one that people overlook-- gold making. Not just making enough to cover your expenses, but making unimaginably large quantities of gold. Making it easily, and enjoying the process.

Before I jump in, I want to introduce myself and learn a little about you guys. I have a gut feeling that the majority of players are living "paycheck to paycheck" and treat the auction house as an expensive vending machine where they can spend their hard earned dailies money. Am I right? Please select one of the options on my embedded poll!

Filed under: Gold Capped

BlizzCon 2009 Insider Trader: Cataclysmic professions

by Amanda Miller Aug 23rd 2009 at 4:00PM

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Over the course of several BlizzCon panels, we've been treated to a preview of how professions will be changing in Cataclysm, the next expansion pack.

Pass through the break to learn all about:

The new title and level cap.
Revamped skill gains.
Archaeology, the new profession!
Reforging, a new dimension to crafting professions.
Hints about the future of Engineering, Fishing, and Gathering.
Information about things we wanted to see, but won't.

Filed under: Fishing, Engineering, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Expansions, Features, Insider Trader (Professions), BlizzCon, Cataclysm, Archaeology

The state of Engineering in 3.1

by Amanda Miller Mar 31st 2009 at 11:00AM

In case you missed the memo, the short list of changes to the Engineering profession that have been posted for patch 3.1 are all you are going to get come patch day, like it or not. Bornakk confirmed that Blizzard feels that the "perks work out" compared to what other professions offer, and that they "have no changes planned at this time."

The relevant forum thread has grown to over 1300 replies and more than 50,000 views, suggesting that while Blizz might be satisfied, much of the Engineering community is not.

In fact, many are threatening to drop the profession and take up Jewelcrafting, which is something I hear about a lot. Of course, if your profession is really, honestly inferior to all others, then why is everyone trading up to the same one?

Pass through the break for a list of the upcoming changes, the major gripes, and a comparison of Engineering to other professions in order to put this all into perspective.

Filed under: Enchanting, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Jewelcrafting, Features, Buffs, Enchants, Forums

Insider Trader: All about flasks in 3.1

by Amanda Miller Mar 27th 2009 at 8:00PM

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Patch 3.1, for all of its grand changes, has also dedicated itself to imposing smaller tweaks aimed at making some mechanics more convenient, logical, and fair.

The application of applying a glyph is one of the latest in a line of positive changes that we'll be seeing on patch day. While the old (current) process is a~~n annoying~~ charming ritual, the new method is better for the Azerothian on the go.

Currently, applying a glyph requires that the player be standing in front of a Lexicon of Power, usually found in main cities. With patch 3.1, this will change, and we will be able to re-glyph at will.

This means that if you asked your buddy to hook you up for the raid that night, and it arrives in the mail a few minutes before go time, you can just switch it in without having to hearth and be re-summoned. Heck, I'll just be happy to be able to do it from the mailbox rather than having to ride through the city!

While some may complain that this makes the process less special, it might be wise to consider the glyphing change that is accompanying dual specs. Once we glyph our main and off-spec, we will not need to glyph again unless we change our minds on which glyph we want, or spec to our third spec.

The only hitch is that you cannot switch them during combat, in Arenas, or in Battlegrounds once the fight has started, which sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Another major, and welcome change, relates to flasks, which brings us to our topic of the week. I will be addressing the new mechanics of flask creation, and discussing the benefits of the new system.

Filed under: Alchemy, Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Features, Raiding, Buffs, Insider Trader (Professions), Inscription

Insider Trader: Patch 3.1, profits and preparation

by Amanda Miller Mar 13th 2009 at 6:00PM

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Patch 3.1 is looming ever closer, and things are about to change in a big way. Today I'll be discussing how the patch is going to affect your professions, and how you can take advantage of this by maximizing your profits on the Auction House.

Players have become increasingly bored with raiding because the content that was released with the expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, was too quickly conquered. Across the board, players are showing up to raids on an inconsistent basis, and many people now spend much of their time on the Public Test Realm playing through Ulduar.

This has contributed to falling prices on the Auction House for raiding materials and consumables, because not only have many people stopped raiding, many others have decided to save their gold and raid without being buffed to the gills.

What should you do in these tight times? Aside from the things for which you are currently saving, the patch will bring with it a 1000g bill to learn how to dual spec, costs to fund raid wipes, bring new consumables, and enchant and gem new gear.

By learning what to sell and purchase and when, you can minimize your post-patch costs and make some gold while you're at it.

Filed under: Herbalism, Fishing, Mining, Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Cooking, Leatherworking, Tailoring, Enchanting, First Aid, Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Economy, Jewelcrafting, Features, Raiding, Guides, Making money, Buffs, Enchants, Insider Trader (Professions), Wrath of the Lich King, Inscription

Scattered Shots: Raid consumables for Hunters

by Jessica Klein Mar 5th 2009 at 4:00PM

Scattered Shots is your weekly guide to improving your Hunter skills, brought to you by Jessica "Lassirra" Klein of The Hunter's Mark, covering a variety of Huntery topics. Today, we'll be talking about Hunter consumables.

Getting ready to run heroics and raids takes time. You need certain gear, enchants, glyphs and plenty of ammo to see you through the content you face, and there's one more thing you can add to your bag of tricks to help give you the extra edge you need to down those bosses and top the damage meters: consumables. Flasks, elixirs and that handy Well Fed buff are there to help you maximize your performance and it's important to know, as a Hunter, which ones you should be looking for on the Auction House or farming before it's time to zone into your instance of choice.

Flasks

We'll start with the easy one first, since there's really only one flask (at least for Wrath-level content) that Hunters need to be aware of: the Flask of Endless Rage. This flask increases your attack power by 180 for two hours, and the effect lasts through death so if you wipe for some reason you're not out the cost of the consumable itself or the materials you used to make it.

Filed under: Hunter, Tips, Instances, Raiding, Guides, Buffs, (Hunter) Scattered Shots

The economy of Honor

by Zach Yonzon Feb 8th 2009 at 6:00PM

Honor is currently capped at 75,000, a legacy from The Burning Crusade when the most expensive Honor item was a little over half that number. There's a sensible rationale behind the Honor cap, which is in place to curb stockpiling of the currency for future, unreleased rewards. Honor as a currency, unlike badges or emblems, is the same across the board. Players can start accumulating Honor starting at Level 1, while players must be Level 70 to obtain Badges of Justice or Level 80 to collect Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and in Patch 3.1, Conquest.

This works to prevent players from purchasing on-level epics as soon as or even before they ding 80. At most a player can purchase one or two pieces before using up his or her Honor. Emblems work in reverse. It's impossible to obtain emblems below the appropriate level, but there is no upper limit to the number of emblems you can store. Unlike badge gear from The Burning Crusade, where higher tier items for more badges were made available later in the expansion, Blizzard has created different tiers of gear for different emblems. This means it's unlikely that there will be new items available for Emblems of Heroism or Valor.

This means you won't progress gearwise just doing the same thing over and over. In order to get better gear, players will need to raid. In contrast, because Honor is the single currency a singular currency across all levels for PvP gear, Blizzard is constrained as to how to limit accessibility to better gear. They do this by putting a ratings requirement on the best PvP items, requiring successful participation in Arena play. Arenas are to PvP are what raids are to PvE. It's not a perfect system, but it will do for now. But what happens when players reach the Honor cap and have every item they need or want?

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Battlegrounds

Ready Check: Preparing for Ulduar

by Jennie Lees Feb 7th 2009 at 3:00PM

Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we look to the future...

In amongst detailed tactical explanations of the various bosses currently residing in the available level 80 raid instances, let's take a break to look at the bigger picture. Many guilds are in a situation several of you can relate to: having cleared Naxxramas, the Eye of Eternity and the Obsidian Sanctum (let's not pretend Vault of Archavon's a proper raid instance), there's nothing left to do but clear them again. And again. And again...

Welcome to farm status. Whether you struggled to defeat the final denizens of these dungeons or facerolled it all in the first week, eventually raiders reach a common plateau with everything killed and these kills more or less easily repeatable. When at this point, there are several different directions you can go, and I'm sure we've all seen other people do one or more of the following: get bored and simply stop showing up; get greedy and focus entirely on loot, playing sloppily and angsting over drops; level an alt and suddenly have the world revolve around that character, trying to get it into raids because your main doesn't need loot; or hunker down and start preparing for the future.

This week's column deals with the latter, but if you're seeing people exhibit less-than-savoury behaviour now you clear everything in one night a week, it can be very telling -- especially if they're a recent recruit. With the leisure of a farm period, you have time to deal with these people as your guild sees fit, although boredom is a real problem when farm periods are long (such as the gap between Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau). With nothing to interest hardcore raiders in the game any more, real life starts rearing its head, and many guilds lose important players at this time, replacing them with untried raiders who might seem great on farm content but whose skill on progress raids is an unknown. There's no real solution to this, it happens, and it's up to your guild how you deal with it.

So how does a guild prepare for a raid instance nobody knows much about?

Filed under: Tips, Instances, Raiding, Bosses, Ready Check (Raiding)

Insider Trader: Finding your niche

by Amanda Miller Jan 17th 2009 at 7:00PM

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

In the World of Warcraft, just as in real life, your professional duties seem to extend beyond your job title. Perhaps most of your guild can cook, but are they all farming and contributing raid food? Which guildmate is the go-to-person for enchants, and who is donating materials instead of selling them on the Auction House for personal gain?

Don't get me wrong, here. Personal gain is a perfectly legitimate pursuit. We all have to support ourselves, and we all have expenses as well as things that we simply want. Still, there is a difference between someone who has maximized a skill and someone who really works it.

What is your niche? Are you the master of profits, a provider, or someone who brings the goods that no one else can? Today I'll be talking about how we practice our professions, and the roles and styles that we can adopt to enrich our in-game professional experiences.

Filed under: Tips, Economy, Features, Making money, Insider Trader (Professions)

Matticus' powerleveling tips for shooting to 80

by Mike Schramm Nov 21st 2008 at 1:30PM

Our good friend Matticus is one of the WoW Insider bloggers who's already gotten up to level 80 (we've got three or four of them floating around), and over on his own site, he's shared a few powerleveling tips for those of you who'd really rather just get right on back to the endgame again.

A lot of it is common sense, but it's mostly "go fast, and go big." Get as many quests as you can, and do them all at once. Pop all your cooldowns whenever they come up, and even while you're looting something, be looking for the next quest target or the next thing to kill. Professions are out the window, of course, and reading quest text will just slow you down, so just click accept, and read what you're supposed to find while you're running out to find it.

In case you're wondering, no, I don't recommend playing the game like this (it's fine to be a slow leveler), and even Matt admits that you'll miss out on pretty much everything pre-80, including all of the lore and story Blizzard's baked into the game this time around. But if getting to 80 is your only goal, his tips will help.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, How-tos, Virtual selves, Leveling, Wrath of the Lich King

Raiding consumables for Discipline and Holy priests

by Eliah Hecht Nov 21st 2008 at 9:00AM

I just hit 80 last night, and was the first in my guild to do so, so we won't be hitting Naxx for probably a couple weeks. Still, when I get there, I want to be prepared, so I did some quick spreadsheet math to figure out what consumables I should show up with as a deep holy priest. I'm basing the numbers off this very well-research post on A Dwarf Priest. Since I'm sure Disc will be rising in popularity with its newfound tank-healing viability, I did the math for Discipline values as well, but it didn't change the rankings in almost all cases. The best consumables are best for both Holy and Discipline.

I'll be giving the values in parentheses after each item, first Holy and then Disc; for the math behind these, see MK's post. Old-world (BC or classic) recipes will be italicized.

TL;DR version: Use Firecracker Salmon/Tender Shoveltusk Steak and Flask of the Frost Wyrm.

Filed under: Priest, Raiding, Guides

Sharpening Stones, Mana Oils gone in Wrath

by Eliah Hecht Oct 31st 2008 at 9:00AM

It didn't really hit me until I saw this post about it, but there are no sharpening stones, weightstones, or mana or wizard oils in Wrath of the Lich King. Verimonde, a blue name that's unfamiliar to me, confirms that this is by design, saying "While they were something nice to use once in a while for most people for many raid guilds they were simply another burden to the cost of raiding." This is essentially my reaction to the change, although some other Insiders are of the opinion that it's another step in the oversimplification of WoW. I'm happy that typical raid consumables will be down to flasks and food.

There's another problem with this plan, though. Unless they remove the current stones and oils, progression-oriented raiders are going to be running back to Outland and farming up the mats for old stones and oils all the time. This is nothing new really; dedicated raiders have been going to great lengths for buffs since the days of mind-controlling fire resistance off UBRS mobs to go to MC and BWL. Still, I don't think it's what Blizz had in mind in removing them, so my bet is that old stones/oils will either be removed, or prevented from working on players over level 70 (like the Riding Crop).

Update: Looks like they went the latter route. Stones/oils will not work on post-70 items.

Filed under: Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King

Profession News: Potion Sickness gone, Herbalists get new ability

by Daniel Whitcomb Aug 9th 2008 at 6:00PM

It was perhaps one of the most unexpected and controversial changes to hit Wrath Beta: Potion Sickness, the debuff that spelled the end of chain-chugging by allowing only one potion to be quaffed per combat and no more. Some people loved, since it would cut down on pre-raid farming and perhaps allow for bosses to be balanced more around classes and roles and less around Haste, Ironshield, and Destruction potions. Some saw it as a major nerf to Alchemists and to casters who were used to chaining mana pots to stay in the blue.

Filed under: Herbalism, Alchemy, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Expansions, Raiding, Making money, Wrath of the Lich King, WoW TCG

What's brewing in Northrend

by Eliah Hecht Jul 22nd 2008 at 9:00AM

I love you, WotlkWiki, I really do. First you bring us specifics on Inscription, and now we get the effects of the new potions, elixirs, and flasks that your friendly neighborhood alchemist will be cooking up in the frosty north. We got all the names for these items a few days ago, along with details on the transmutations (I'll take any excuse to make a pretty diagram), but the effects of them had not yet come to light, until now.

There's nothing stunning, I'm afraid; more like some nice upgrades to current favorites. But I certainly expect be popping flasks and pots in Naxx at least as much as I currently am in Zul'Aman. Anyway, let's see what we've got. I'll compare to the BC or old-world versions where appropriate.

Filed under: Alchemy, Wrath of the Lich King

Buying your way through raid content

by Daniel Whitcomb Jul 5th 2008 at 6:00PM

There's a new game in town, and Artirius of the Aerie Peak server has noticed it, and admittedly, so have I. With attunements gone, it is now possible for any level 70 to go in and see tier 5 and 6 content whenever they want. Of course, they don't generally have a prayer of actually downing bosses unless they have 20-24 well geared people to help them out.

That's where gold comes in. With a few thousand gold, you can buy your way into a tier 6 group that doesn't need the tier 6 armor and go along for the ride. A few hours later, you come out on the other end with Illidan dead and a few shiny new drops, even if you've never set foot in Karazhan.

It's not just people trying to buy these slots in the trade channel either. As Artirius observes, many raid groups are actively soliciting for buyers for their raid slots. On my own server, one Horde group is trading tier 6 runs for large quantities of certain herbs, promising that all but a few select drops will go to the people who buy their slots with stacks of Netherbloom and Ghost Mushrooms.

So what's causing this?

Filed under: Herbalism, Mining, Alchemy, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, Instances, Raiding, Bosses, Making money

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