Weekly Sales Update - 29th July 2012

Fyzz, my new banker

Well what a week it was last week! Monday I received the news that I'm cancer free at last, Tuesday my RL finances got sorted out & on Wednesday of course, we all found out that Mists of Pandaria will be released on 25th September! On Thursday I decided that my current banker would need to get to 85 & finally get around to maxing her Engineering so this little lady was born. Meet Fyzz, my new banker & proud GM of yet another guild & guild bank! Also on Thursday I guested on Power Word:Gold podcast so watch out for the new episode this week! It was great catching up with Jim (Flux) again & if you're an older reader, you'll remember I did a few episodes with him last year.

I've moved all the random stuff I was selling from my old banker, tidied up her guild bank to stuff I think I will still want or need & moved all my glyphs & gems from my scribe/JC alt too. This little girlie ended up with over 400 auctions running, which I know is not that many by some standards but for me, that's a heck of a lot!

So in between all the happy faces & excitement round here, how did my sales go last week? Well not too shabby at all really, considering. Total sales for the week were 33,000 gold most of which came from existing glyphs & emptying out alts banks. My Gold total as of last night was 394,000 gold - but I did have a major spending spree last week as I mentioned & I bought this new guild with an absolutely epic name this week. I'm thinking I may open this guild up & invite lots of randoms, not so much for the weekly gold cash flow boost but more for leveling the guild with a view to selling it later.

screenshot from MySales addon

I thought I'd keep it fairly short this week so I've only included the one screenshot. At some point earlier this year, I snatched up a few stacks of Pristine Hides for well below their usual price. I've been dribbling them back onto the market this week at about 150-200 gold profit per Hide. I still have another stack to move so that nice big chunk of change I spent will probably double itself once the last few sell. I like little deals like that!

I've also started moving some of the pets/companions that I'd tucked away. Christmas in July seems to be quite a thing online in my craft circle so I thought I'd dig out my few Christmas pets. The Green Helper Box & Jingling Bell were nice little earners & I'm hoping I can move the others at around the same prices too.

Glyphs always feature heavily in my sales reports & no change this week. What has changed is the variety of glyphs that are selling - there rarely seems to be one glyph that sells more than others - always just 1's and 2's in the top half of the sales table. But as always, the glyph prices are healthy & net me 3000-5000 gold a day easily with just 2 or 3 cancel/relist cycles. Now that Fyzz is selling them for me, I could possibly increase that number of relists & I may try it as an experiment for a few days, see how much of a difference it makes, if any.

Looking forward, I'd like to claw back as much cash as possible before Mists of Pandaria arrives but I also want to level a few more alts. I still have a fair few achievements I want to try for as well so I'll have to balance my gold making activity with play time otherwise it could become quite an obsession! I'm also hoping to be moving house & doing a bit of travelling before Mists hits so I could be a very busy little bee for the next couple of months!

Farming - Globe of Water & Essence of Water

There are 3 main areas suggested for farming Globe of Water, Winterspring, Ungoro Crater & Swamp of Sorrows. Similar to my other 'where to farm' posts I spent about 30 minutes in each area & noted my results. I farmed these on a level 85 for speed but these spots are worth noting if you are questing in any of these zones too.

Un'Goro Crater - Golakka Hot Springs

The mobs you are looking for here are the Steaming Fury - water elementals that drop Essence of Water, Elemental Water & our target, Globe of Water amongst other random rubbish & as always, the possibilty of a green item. I didn't have to wait for any respawns but some of them are quite far apart & I felt I was spending more time moving between mobs than actually killing them! Results after 30 minutes weren't too bad though

6 x Globe of Water
7 x Essence of Water
12 x Elemental Water

If you have a miner then you already know that Un'goro is fantastic source for Thorium Ore - just one or two laps around the outer edge of the zone can produce multiple stacks of Thorium. Herbs are in fairly good supply too and if your farmer is a skinner then it would be fairly easy to round up all those lovely dinosaurs & skin to your hearts content.

For pet collectors out there, don't forget to check for the Ravasaur Nest with the Ravasaur hatchling egg - unfortunately it's NOT one of the pets listed as being 'rare' quality for the upcoming pet battles in Mists of Pandaria. Both Cold & PhatLewts have done great posts breaking down the rares list if you want more information.

Winterspring - Frostwhisper Gorge

I think the easiest way to get to Winterspring for a level 85 is to use the capital city portal to Hyjal then fly north, unless you're a Goblin Engineer with the transporter thingy of course! Here you will be killing the ice elementals Ice Avatars along the length of the gorge. I found that I could make one run along the whole length then fly back to start point & they would have respawned but it felt very slow & I don't think there are as many mobs here as in the Un'Goro Crater area.

Results after 30 minutes

4 x Globe of Water

4 x Essence of Water

5 x Elemental Water

Other stuff found in Winterspring includes the Winterspring Cub pet you can buy from the vendor in the inn at Everlook and as always, plenty of herbs & again Thorium mining is ok here. Whilst you are running towards the eastern end of the Frostwhisper Gorge, look out for a grell vendor - he sells Gromsblood so you may as well snap that up each time you pass him.

Swamp of Sorrows - Purespring Cavern

I like Swamp of Sorrows for several reasons, not least of which is its proximity to Stormwind. For this farming post, we will be killing Purespring Elementals around this small pond/lake area in the western part of the zone, marked in red.

I have to say, this originally gave me similar results to the Un'goro area but when I revisited it last night, I had beaten all 3 zones results within 10 minutes! I have previously spent a fair bit of time here, herbing & mining. Originally I tried farming for one of the whelpling pets but that changed after cataclysm hit.

Results for my 1st visit here
9 x Globe of Water
12 x Essence of Water
15 x Elemental Water

Last night, in just 30 minutes again
23 x Globe of Water
18 x Essence of Water
17 x Elemental Water

I also pick up some gems (Aquamarine & Star Ruby), a Formula Enchant Boots - Spirit & 3 green items - one of which was the Lord's Breastplate - a mid range mogging item.

Other stuff in the zone includes plentiful herbs & Thorium Ore. This is also the place to farm for the Disgusting Oozling pet. I've marked the area in blue where you need to mindlessly kill the Shifting Mireglobs to gain their Oozing Bags. If you are lucky, the Disgusting Oozling may drop for you. I tried it last night for 30 minutes & received 19 Oozing Bags - no pet this time though, sadly. The Disgusting Oozling is on the list of Rare pets for pet battles so it could become even more valuable once Pet Battles come into play

So there you have it - if you need Globe of Water or Essence of Water, I would have to say Swamp of Sorrows is the place to go. Why would I need to farm these? Well on my server at least, both are either fairly plentiful but highly priced or non-existant! They appear sporadically on the Auction House & I want a regular supply. I use the Globe of Water for the Engineer made Mechanical Yeti pet. These have been selling fairly well for a while but with them not being on the rare Pets list, I am kind of expecting sales to drop off a bit.

Essence of water was a new one to me - until I read Soco's post on her daily routine! I had never realised that there was a Transmute Essence of Water to Essence of Air before & with 2 transmute alchemists just doing Living Elements transmutes sporadically, it seemed silly not to make the most of them. I'd been farming Essence of Air in Silithus when I felt like it but not any more!

Do you farm these items or just wait for them to appear on your Auction House? Do you have any other spots you'd like to share? Let us know in the comments if you'd like to :)

Restarting My Weekly EU Sales Updates | Mists of Pandaria Release Date

My lvl 44 Warlock, out of her banking gown & ready to level up

I was a little ways into writing this post when the news hit today - Mists of Pandaria official release date is 25th September! Yay! Eeeeek! Why eeek? Well I was hoping for a mid-October release to be honest. I have a lot of RL stuff to do over the next few weeks which is going to slow down my final preparations for Mists, not least of which is to get my little warlock leveled to 85 as soon as possible now.

But in the meantime, I thought I'd restart tracking & discussing my weekly sales. It used to be a popular post when I was writing more regularly last year & it will be interesting to see how things have changed & will change now going forward. These screenshots represent about 25 days of sales upto the 22nd of July so I'll be posting updates on Mondays (if everything goes to plan of course!). I forgot to make a note of my gold balance but having treated myself to a few expensive mounts, it's under 500k now.

Luckily I'd already made a start on clearing out all the accumulated goodies (aka rubbish) in my various banks to make space. I've also restarted my glyph posting which as you can see from my screenshots, is going quite nicely thank you very much!

I'd also hoarded a fair bit of Netherweave Cloth so I joined in with the bag market although my attempts to push up the price a little has been fairly futile!

Another oldie but goodie source of healthy profits is the Enchanted Thorium Blades being disenchanted for Greater Eternal Essences. At 45 gold each on average, I have managed to raise the price a little although it does tumble back down regularly. I just dip in & out of that market when I like the prices. With the removal of thrown weapons in Mists though, we're going to have to find an alternative cheap source for GEE's - Cold over at Cold's Gold Factory suggested the Wizardweave Turban from tailoring when we spoke about it on the new Gold Bloggers On Air Hangout - a new venture.

One of the newer bloggers, Brandon, managed to herd a bunch of us gold bloggers together on a Google+ Hangout & you can watch & listen to us nattering about gold making over on his blog - Goldshields.  We're hoping it will be a fairly regular thing so if you have any questions or topics you would like us to discuss, leave a comment over there then join us for the next one and of course, you get to hear my British accent :P

One of the nice surprises from my bank clearout was the Arctic Furs - averaging 68 gold each, they are almost at the price they were in Wrath, if I remember correctly. I guess the boom in chopper sales & leatherwork being leveled for the expansion has something to do with that!

I was disappointed with 600 gold for the Mooncloth Robe I found in my guild bank - when transmogrification first hit, I was able to sell a few at 1200 gold each but then I moved away from game & everybody else set the various prices.

Another change coming in with Mists of Pandaria is the enchanting rods - everyone will only need an enchanted copper rod - this is disappointing news for those Blacksmiths who make tidy sums of gold selling the rarer, higher level rods such as Eternium or Arcanite. I only had a little Arcanite Bar in one of my banks & I'd already managed to sell it before this information was released. The general Twitter buzz seems to be get rid of it now unless you have the plans for weapons that use it.

The sheer variety of glyphs selling at high prices has pushed all the other random stuff further down the MySales list but on the first day of bank clearing, I listed over 200 auctions & cleared 4000 - 8000 gold in the first 2 days. I still have 3 more major alts to sort out . Will be interesting to see how much the market changes now with the release date known.

I haven't really sat down & thought through my preparation list of to-do's yet. I definitely want to level my warlock for her Engineering though - I think the new pet battles will make good use of the various Engineering pets but even if they don't, it's the only profession I don't have so it's been bugging me to get finished for a while now.

I also have to re-level skinning - yeah yeah, I know I shouldn't have dropped it but I was racing a guildie to 100 mounts & I wanted the flying carpets so I took Tailoring but I already have 2 tailors so back to skinning for my paladin :)

I'll post my To Do list soon - once I work out what it is myself! What about you? have you got most of your preparation done or are you a last minute panicker like me? let me know in the comments if you like :)

Mini-post - Quick Update on My Story

Time to Fly Again :)

So once again, I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who's sent me messages of support via twitter, FB, in game & of course, in RL. It's been a tough couple of months but yesterday I had my post-op results. The Doc basically told me to go away & come back in 6 months for a check up! When he told me I didn't need chemotherapy, I had to ask him to repeat it 3 times before it really sunk in as I'd been told from the start that chemo was virtually guaranteed. Obviously, I'm not totally safe yet - there will be a lot of regular checkups in my future but the odds are definitely in my favour now.

I'm surprisingly not annoyed about cutting my hair off as early as I did. I wouldn't have been able to wash it properly anyway & the money raised so far is going to a very very good cause & a well run charity. I'm a long way from my target still but I'm going to keep trying to reach it.

If you haven't donated yet, the link is https://www.justgiving.com/Helen-Shorey - Breast Cancer Care is a British charity so if you are UK based, any donations will qualify for Gift Aid - the charity can claim back some tax so if you donate £10 for example, the charity can claim another £2.50 back. We all like getting cash back from the Taxman, don't we?

As for my European, Oceanic & American friends, the website takes all sorts of currencies so nothing stopping you there :P

I know times are tough for everyone right now, myself included but even a $5 donation will help - it all counts. If you're embarrassed by not being able to give very much, there is an anonymous option too.

So it's fantastic news for me but there are still a huge number of women out there who can benefit from the work this charity does. Remember, this cancer can hit anyone, it's not just for the ladies so please, please, please, check yourselves regularly.

Thank you all one more time - you're a fantastic bunch of people out there

Nev
xxx

PS Yes, that is me in the photo - just one of my past oddball adventures & now many more on my list to be completed :)

Nev's Glyph Strategy | Lazy Girls Guide to Glyphing

Laid back glyphing © Nev 2008

I received a reader email the other day asking about 'Nev's glyph strategy' after they had listened to an old PowerWord:Gold podcast & I realised that I'd never actually written a post about it! The timing is also fortuitous as there has been a fair bit of glyph talk on Twitter too so here we go - how I do glyphing - laid back, get there eventually style - my Lazy Girls Guide to Glyphing!

Some scribes like to make a few of every glyph, they have bags & bags of stock, they 'wall' prices in an attempt to control the market & to be honest, I admire their dedication & organisation skills but I just don't work that way. If you want to read more about hardcore glyphing, have a look at Twitchie's latest post 'Two Character Glyph Operation', Faids 'Glyph Competition: A Primer' or Huntermastery's 'Return of the Inscriptionist'.

I have my TSM groups set up by ink & I cherry pick the highest priced glyphs to craft & list. I suppose this is a variation on the 'Buy Low, Sell Normal' theory although I do prefer 'buy low, sell as high as possible' version :) I am also averse to hard work in a game so my method works well for the more casual gold maker.
Each morning I empty my mail, do a cancel & relist at the Auction House then do an Inscription only scan - it's very quick & gives me the information shown below in the screenshots. As you can see, someone else is raising glyph prices on my server & doing all the hard work for me. The bulk of the glyphs I craft are Ink of the Sea or Ethereal Ink ones & depending on herb availability, I may only craft glyphs above 400g or 200g if there is a good supply.

I've only recently returned to the glyph market but without spending huge amounts of gold on herbs, I am happily making 4-8k gold per day with just 2 or 3 cancel/relist sessions - each of which takes only 5-10 minutes. Ink is currently costing around 10 gold per ink so I have changed my Threshold price to 50 gold. This means that I don't have to worry too much about what price TSM wants to post a glyph. Even a sale at 50 gold is making me some profit - not much, admittedly but the time saving effect is worth the loss of a little profit.

Now before you saw 'wow, look at those crazy prices' - yes, my server does seem to be a bit special when it comes to glyphs but I did a little experiment on another server using only a level 10 scribe & I still made a fair bit of gold. The trick is to control your herb costs & only buy inks or herbs when the craft cost is much less than the glyph prices. When leveling your inscription, don't make 5 of the same glyph just to get points! No, just make the glyphs that show up as profitable in TSM & watch the skill points accumulate painlessly!

The above screenshot is a sample of my listed auctions - you can see the wide range of prices TSM has listed them for. Now I've only been crafting glyphs that TSM says are above 250 gold but as the market prices move, TSM adjusts & undercuts other listings, hence the 104 gold glyph - but that is still way above my crafting cost so I have no problem with that.

As a very extreme example - look at this screenshot! Some random scribe has listed glyphs at 1000 gold each - TSM automatically undercut him by my few silver preset & I left my auction there, even though I had zero expectation of it selling! Well, I'm happy to say - it did sell!

Project Shoofly - Update 14th July

Distractions

So I finally got my little project priest to level 40 & bought her the fast ground mount & training. Dragging through the Hinterlands & feeling so slow, I treated myself to a little alt for a change of scenery. I went for a Tauren Paladin with the idea of leveling as holy spec - my main & first ever character was retribution & protection through most of Wrath of the Lich King but it was only last summer that I dabbled with holy spec for her - at level 85! Learning a whole new playstyle at 85 proved disheartening hence this new alt.

My project girlie will keep going, I do enjoy the priest at 85 so I will persevere with her & keep her banking/auction house activities seperate, I just need a little break for now. I've almost managed to sell everything she's picked up so far & just topped the 2000 gold mark so I'm fairly pleased with that. I think it will be interesting to see just how much she can accumulate by 85 just by leveling via questing.

So the screenshot is a summary of all my sales on this project so far (well, the top half anyway) so you can see how random the stuff is that I am selling!

Now I mentioned my new Tauren Holy Paladin but I kinda got a little bored with her too - the Tauren starter zone seems very slow but I did get her to level 10 before getting sidetracked by my new Goblin Arcane Mage! Bearing in mind that I've only ever rolled about 5 Horde alts before, all these starter zones are new to me, especially the Goblin zone. I quite enjoyed it even though the mage is my least favourite & most deleted class. This time, I was nudged into leveling as arcane spec & already she is level 20 & nowhere near being deleted!

But my mind is kinda all over the place at the moment so I soon got a little fed up her too & rolled a Troll Druid! I've tried leveling as feral before so this time, I think I'll try either resto or boomkin & maybe that will suit me better. She's only level 6 for now but I'll move her along too in dribs & drabs probably.

Last but not least, my new Undead warlock - yet another class that I've never really got to grips with. She's only level 1 but I liked her look so wanted to show her off!

So yeah, a bit distracted in general & hopping all over the place but should be fun to build my new empire from the ground up & actually plan which professions go with which alt. I wonder if I can take over the Auction House before Cold gets bored with Diablo3 *insert evil laugh*

Maximising Your Gold Making Potential In Time for Mists of Pandaria

Not daydreaming, planning! © Nev 2007

I will admit I'm pretty bored in game right now but then I have a lot going on & am struggling to focus on any one thing! I have started dabbling on my EU server again, just little bits here & there to get myself back up to speed. But I haven't been keeping up with much of the Mists of Pandaria profession information that is coming out or the changes to glyphs or pet battles etc.

So I sat down & had a think about what I need to do now to maximise my gold making potential for when Mists of Pandaria is finally released. When I saw the topic for this month's Carnival over at Cold's Gold Factory, I thought my list might fit quite nicely so here it is!

"What Do You Recommend Players Do During The Current WoW Lull To Benefit Gold Making In The Future?"

• Have a good rummage through all my various banks and bags, clearing out stuff that has been sitting for those 'I might need it' moments that never happen! So far I've made about 4000 gold on just those bits & that's just from 3 alts. I still have 4 more to go.

• Read up on other blogs to see what others are recommending to stockpile, make a list of all of them & then decide which bits I agree with & start building my own little pile.

• Read up on Mists of Pandaria in general - try to get a feel for how changes will affect my stable of alts & their professions. I'll be looking at Inscription in particular - it's been my main gold making source in World of Warcraft since I started trying to make gold.

• After all that reading & list making, I'll have another look at which alts have which professions. My main server is still the one I landed on when I started playing, so my professions weren't thought out carefully. I know I need to drop the partially leveled Engineering on my Paladin. She is my Leatherworker so I want her to have skinning again although that does mean I'll probably have to move my Warlock banker on a few levels - she's also a partially leveled Engineer!

Stockpiling

This is my first expansion event since I started making gold in any serious way so stockpiling is a bit new to me. Yes, I could have stockpiled for some of the major patches during Cataclysm but I was having way too much fun elsewhere to worry about that too much! With the current lull however, I am thinking much more seriously about building some reserves. I don't have a list yet, I have a lot of reading & planning to do but I'll post it when I get there :)

Professions

I have all professions except Engineering & Skinning so I need to look at those in detail to see if anything jumps out at me as a possible opportunity. As I mentioned above, I'm going to re-level skinning on my Paladin main so I'm thinking I will keep all that leather & hides - there will be a lot of new monks (leather wearers) & new alts being created who might pick up Leatherworking.

If I level skinning effectively, I may be able to put together a 'profession leveling kit' & sell all of it for one large sum of gold or I could put the individual stacks on the Auction House for exhorbitant prices & take advantage of the need that some people have to power level as fast as possible, regardless of the cost!

If you are thinking of leveling a gatherer yourself before Mists of Pandaria, this may be a thought for you too. You can check wow-professions & make sure you have everything needed to level a related profession.

Leveling an Alt

There's a lot of talk about leveling alts now before the new expansion hits. It's one way of expanding your gold making machine but if you do level another alt, think! There are lots of things you pick up whilst leveling that may make you more gold later than if you sell it now. Those items that you had a hard time finding on the Auction House when you were leveling a profession or the ones you had to look up & go farm yourself.

Conclusion

If you made it all the way to the bottom here then gratz! My conclusion is that I have a lot of reading to catch up on & a lot of list making to do! This will actually be quite a change for me - I'm very much a laid back, get there eventually kinda gal when it comes to gold-making! Most importantly for me, it's something I can be doing in little bits & pieces as my energy allows but it will also be a challenge. I've been looking forward to Mists of Pandaria anyway but a new angle, a new plan of attack will bring back some of the fun that has kind of drained away in the lull.

So that's it so far :) have fun & happy gold-making xxx

A Big Thank You!

Before & After

It's been a hectic 10 days since my last post 'Introducing Me'. Various tests & check ups to make sure I'm fit for surgery, having my haircut & getting my ponytail sent off to the Little Princess Trust charity amongst it all. I've also been playing WoW much more - I guess I'm hiding in that wonderful world because I'm playing Horde now & don't know where anything is so I have to concentrate :)

I'd especially like to say a big THANK YOU for all the twitter retweets, comments on my post, private tweets & emails I've received. I won't list everyone - there were so many but I really appreciate that you all took the time to send a message to someone you've never met!

I'd like to make a special mention to my lovely friends & fellow bloggers for their support - I was overwhelmed when I read the first post or two - I honestly had no expectation of such responses to my own post.

First to surprise me was Alyzande over at The Gold Queen, she adapted a WoW icon and made it available for all to use to show their support. You can read her lovely post 'Pink Ribbon for Nev'. She's also been keeping me sane late at night on Facebook! mwah!

Then my kind & generous friend Jim over at PowerWord:Gold wrote a heart warming post 'Help Nev Support The Fight Against Breast Cancer'. Jim was the guy who persuaded me to join him on his fab podcast last year - an experience I thoroughly enjoyed & hope he'll have me back again sometime soon :)

Phat over at Phat Lewt's Gold blog also added a header to his latest post 'Lull Gold Making' sending his readers to my post in droves!

And then there was Focushot over at HunterMastery.com - a relatively new person in my circle of friends but one I've been following for a while :) His post 'Support Nev, The Fight Against Breast Cancer' made me choke up a little too.

A nice surprise for me was a brief post by Euripedes over at Call To Auction - one of the most popular podcasts that is making a comeback. Short & to the point 'Cancer Sucks' says everything :)

And last but not least by any means, my dear friend Cold over at Cold's Gold Factory shocked and amazed me with his post 'When Bad News Turns Good'. We had spoken in the days before his post came out so I knew he was planning something but I have to admit, I never expected that! I will also admit that I cried buckets when I saw what he had done for me - happy tears though. I just hope he forgives me for pinching his skype piccie! lol

Many others have added Alyzande's Pink Mageweave Shirt to their blogs & some have changed their Twitter icons for me. Retweets have been bouncing around & messages are still arriving. I knew there would be some response but I had no idea it would be this big!

So what next? Well, my op is next week with an estimated 4-6 week recovery time - but that's for normal peeps! I'm hoping I'll be able to play WoW & type blog posts long before then! Poor little Shoofly is kind of lonely at the moment but I hope to get her moving again soon so look out for some updates on that project. I've also been doing some more farming so if I can get my head into writing mode, there'll be another post or two there for lowbies & newbies :)

But in the meantime, I still need your money peeps! We're only at 27% of my £1000 target so please, spread the word however you wish & maybe donate a little bit too. Every Pound, Dollar or Euro counts so if you are embarrassed by donating a lil bit, you can stay anon by clicking the relevant box. My charity page is https://www.justgiving.com/Helen-Shorey - please, dig deep for such a worthy cause & don't forget Ladies - check, check & keep checking - early detection is vital! Love you all, thank you so much for your support

Helen/Nev :) xxx