Windfall
I have a few alts running around on servers other than Kel’Thuzad, and always I go with 2 gathering tradeskills so that I don’t have to worry about money. On one server in particular, the only thing that seemed to sell for a decent price was ‘light leather.’ I went for about a gold a stack where everything else, such as copper bars, bronze bars, medium leather, even gems, was going for less than 50s. It was pretty pointless to try to sell anything else. I happily farmed it, bought it cheap from people who didn’t know what the going rate was, and had almost enough for my first mount, and several blues before I hit 30.
Then just 10g away from my mount, for whatever reason, the market dropped. 20s a stack became standard, and that price was actually less than the ‘cheap buys’ I had picked up. I had 25-30 stacks I had bought for 40s. I was losing money on the deal, and even if I sold everything for 20s, it still wouldn’t be enough for my mount (6g). So I just sat on it for a month and hoped that the prices would go up. They didn’t.
Now it’s time for drastic measures – manipulating auctioneer. Personally, I love the addon, but you have to watch out for people that are doing what I’m about to tell you.
I created an alt and sent him 5 stacks of light leather. I then had him list each stack for 10g / 48 hours. Two days later, the price is up to 40s. Repeat – 60s. There’s the occational listing for 20s still, but I just buy them out again since I know the price will go up. It’s now at 80s or so, and I’m seeing people list for over 1g, and none for less than 40s. I’ve sold my inventory and will be riding around in just a few levels. </MarketManipulation>
Now here’s the great part.
I logged in to my cheat character and found in the mail: 4 stacks of light leather and a paycheck for 10g.
Nerfing scorpids without nerfing them.
My previous post, was part of an overall discussion on hunter pets not being able to hold agro, particularly for SV. To summarize my idea, take each families highest stat modifier and make it apply to threat generation as a bonus for health and armor and as a reduction for DPS. So my raptor would get a 10% reduction in threat, nice for instances, while my crab would get a 13% bonus to threat great for soloing. Also, BOOM! diversification.
As I was making a new reply to that thread, one of the hunters mentioned his scorpid poison was so buff, he was worried about it pulling agro. It got me thinking, making these changes would nerf scorpids in raids without reducing the awesomeness of scorpid poison, like they did with windserpents’ lightning breath. His scorpid poison was doing something along the lines of 1k/tick. Now if my threat idea went through, that would increase the threat by and extra 100/tick with the 10% bonus. And we all know the first time that scorpid pulls the raid boss would be the last time that scorpid would be on a raid.
Going 0-60 in WoW Seconds
First of all, I apologize to anyone that is searching for a level guide. Alliance one. Horde one.
This post is actually about I’m proving the 0-60 grind. If you read nothing else in this post, I hope you read this. Anyway, I guess it’s actually about 20 up to 58 since the new BE/Dra areas are good to 20 and 58 is when you can finally get to outlands. Here’s a list of current problems:
- Gear really sux. Spirit anyone? Drops seem to be ok if you can find them on the AH, but quest rewards and tradeskills are often not.
- Good gear is way too expensive. Due to twinking.
- Battlegrounds can suck. Due to twinking.
- Quests are spread out over several zones. I did 32-34 Desolace, 34-35 Arathi Highlands, then back to Desolace, then back to Arathi.
- Grinding is often faster than questing.
- Hard to find groups for group quests.
- Hard to find groups for instances.
The hardest thing here is that it needs to be balanced for both newbies and for player alts. Further, there are newbies that need to learn how to play while leveling since they are alone, and those that just want to get to the level cap to play with their friends and will L2P from them.
Overall there are really 2 issues: gear and questing/elites.
Gear
The solution here is actually fairly simple: make tradeskills craft good gear for leveling. Those wanting to level alts can send mats to their mains as they find it. Those that want to catchup to their high level friends can do likewise. And those going it solo will have a reason to actually try to skill up. Just need to make a complete set for each spec every 10 levels or so. For the most part thats two (one int/str/sta and one str/sta) blacksmithing sets with 2 more added for tanking and casting post 50, four (caster/melee/ranged/tank) sets for leatherworking, and some decent caster gear (ie less spirit and more spell damage) for tailors. This also helps solve the twinking in BGs. If everyone is twinked, then no one is twinked.
Some examples: Green Iron armor is really nice DPS set. Silvered Bronze… not so much. Again, there needs to be a good set for every spec every 10 levels.
Another idea I particularly like for alts, is for there to be 375 patterns learned from trainers that yield low level gear that is BoA (that’s Bind on Account). The mail is obviously set up to determine whether items are being sent to the same account or not, just alter it slightly to only allow certain BoP items to be mailed.
Of course for the sloppy but sweet change, just take every piece of gear that currently has spirit, drop the spirit, and add a gem slot. Everyone wins. Jewelcrafters, twinks, newbs, alts, everyone.
Questing/Elites
To change every quest reward, focus the zones to fewer levels, cut traveling time, and generally make the current azeroth more like outland would take too much work for very little effect. If they every introduce a new 20-60 expansion with new zones and rewards, the old world would be a graveyard. So the only alternative is to work with what we have.
If tradeskills become the main source of gear, then questing needs to be the best way to gain exp. A X% increase to all quest exp would be great incentive to stop grinding and start questing. The other thing that would be necessary is that, if there is a blue quest reward, there really needs to be a reward for every spec. I had the worst feeling when I completed killing some boss after hours of LFG, groups falling apart, and hunter loot arguments, only to find that the reward I really got was a shard to sell. If nothing else, make quest rewards various self only enchants like this only with stats.
What’s the best part about questing? Those nice questlines than tend to end up killing elites in the zone, or instances. BLARG! LFG for hours on end. Solution?
Since they have created a nice formula to create 2 and 3 man elites, why not make all world elites 2-3 man versions. Someone at the high end of the dungeon’s spectrum may even be able to solo, but doesn’t that fit with the overall design concept of making the player feel like a hero? There have been several times when I’ve been asked to help out with a group only to find that there aren’t even 3 more people in the zone to take on the elite.
Furthermore, I’d love to see ‘easy’ mode for instances where all the mobs inside were 2-3 man elites. Being able to grab a healer and 2 DPS or a tank and 2 DPS or even straight 3 DPS and be more concerned with having fun than the right group configuration would be huge and tons of fun. There’d have to be a trade-off with gear I think, but being able to complete those nice quests would be reward enough, provided they take my earlier suggestion of something-for-everyone. Or turn it around and only have drops, but can’t complete quests. I’d love to solo LBRS at level 70 and finally get my beaststalker shoulders.
What would you change about 0-60 to make it better?
Tradeskills and Money in WoW
I just read this post on wowInsider talking about how much it costs to skillup each crafting tradeskill. Here’s a copy of the chart they created. (Note: There were too many variables for Jewelcrafting from 300-375 so there’s no red bar.)
You can easily see what skills really cost you in the game. Not to mention the cost of all the annoying loot arguments that tradeskills can cause. I guess my only comment about that is Alchemy looks like a pretty good use of your hard earned gold, since they also have some profitable potions to sell on the AH.
Now take a second look and ask yourself “Will I every make 4000g from blacksmithing?” No. What are you stupid? Now number 2: “Are the BoP items I can make from blacksmithing worth 4000g plus the price to craft the BoP.” Well, seeing as I’ve never seen an epic on the AH posted for more than 2500g, I’m going to say “no.” Now it might help you get that first raiding spot or something, but I think there are other ways to improve gear that do not involve all the time, money, and effort that a tradeskill does.
I would like to talk a bit about something else this shows. Who the biggest suckers are. That’s right. If you want to makes some g, it looks like you should really invest in mining to get some money off of blacksmiths, engineers, AND jewelcrafters. You can also see that if you make it to 275+ in enchanting you can make some pretty good money off your fellow enchanters trying to get to 375 (which I did and can attest to the profit). Skinning for leatherworkers isn’t a bad choice either.
My Tradeskill Experience in WoW
You may be wondering why I seriously advocate not taking crafting tradeskills. Here’s my personal experience.
The Mystic Hunter 