Engineering Pets - Part 2 - Yetis & Toads

© Fractalized Toad by Andy Mc on Flickr under CC Licence

In my previous post, I listed out all the materials required for the lowest level Engineering pets - the Mechanical Squirrel, Pet Bombling & Lil Smoky. This post is for the next two pets, the Tranquil Mechanical Yeti & the Lifelike Mechanical Toad - two very different creatures in many ways & two that I cannot make myself yet! Having a master list of materials is very useful though - I am buying the less common materials cheaply whenever I see them on the Auction House so once I have the plans, I can go into full scale production.

Tranquil Mechanical Yeti (Skill 250)

This schematic isn't quite as easy to get as the earlier pets but it is still not difficult either. Your engineer needs to be level 56 with a skill level of 250 to be able to see a quest given by Umi Rumplesnicker (I love that name btw!) called 'A Yeti of Your Own'. I won't go into the whole chain of quests required to see this quest as it is well explained on the Wowhead comments for the quest (link above).

Materials

1 Cured Rugged Hide
4 Thorium Widgets
2 Globe of Water
2 Truesilver Transformers
1 Gold Power Core

Thorium Widget = 3 Thorium Bar + 1 Runecloth

Truesilver Transformer = 2 Truesilver bar, 2 Elemental Earth & 1 Elemental Air

Gold Power Core = Gold bar (gives 3 power cores though)

Summary of Most Basic Raw Materials

1 Rugged Hide
1 Deeprock Salt
12 Thorium Ore
4 Runecloth
2 Globes of Water
4 Truesilver Ore
4 Elemental Earth
2 Elemental Air
1 Gold Ore

If you have problems obtaining Elemental Earth & Air, you can farm these easily from the Elementals in Silithus whilst farming for the expensive Essence of Air (always a good seller either 'raw' or as part of heirloom enchants for Agility weapons).

I also did a post recently on farming for Globes of Water although if you can get them off the Auction House, it will be much easier of course.

As I mentioned above, I don't have this schematic yet but checking The Undermine Journal for my server, I'm kicking myself for not leveling a bit faster! The average price is listed at about 2500 gold & with the materials cost for under 100 gold usually, I like that price for sure! There are also very few on the market. I'd guess not many have bothered with the quest chain so I'm adding that to my to-do list right now!

Lifelike Mechanical Toad (skill 265)

Now this is probably one of the rarest schematics in game - my only advice is to watch your Auction House & if you see the schematic for 10,000 gold or less, snap it up! I would perhaps be a little careful though, until the Pet Battles go live in Mists of Pandaria, I have no idea how the demand for a mechanical toad may change.

Personally I'd go for it but then I like to tinker with various markets & have a fair bit of cash tucked away, if you are a bit strapped for cash then I'd say proceed with caution on this one.  If you see this schematic for super cheap though - don't hesitate to snatch it up. There are many players like myself who are watching for it & will pay very good money for it so you will make nice profit just from selling the schematic.

Materials

1 Living Essence
4 Thorium Widgets
1 Gold Power Core
1 Rugged Leather

Thorium Widget = 3 Thorium Bar + 1 Runecloth

Gold Power Core = 1 Gold Bar (makes 3)

Summary of Most Basic Raw Materials

1 Living Essence (farming post coming soon!)
12 Thorium Ore
4 Runecloth
1 Gold Ore
1 Rugged Leather

What does The Undermine Journal say about my server? Well the average is 500 gold per pet but there are 2 players battling it out at the moment so recently the price has dropped to around 300 gold. The EU average is around 600 gold. As for the schematic? well that has an average price of over 17000 gold across the EU servers with only 1 seen on my server in the last 3 months or so.

Summary

Both these pets are fairly easy to get materials for & have good selling prices. If you can make either or both, you should have a constant income from sales of these pets. It may not be the largest income stream but as a steady sideline, I'd say go for it!

Engineering Pets - Part 1 - Squirrel, Lil Smoky & Pet Bombling

Cute Puppies © wsilver under Creative Commons Use via Flickr

I've been leveling my Engineering Warlock for over a year now but with the release date for Mists of Pandaria, I thought I should promote her from 'stuck in Ironforge banker' to 'let's get this done at last' leveling project. As part of that leveling push, I'm also trying to raise my Engineering skill whilst making some gold too. The Engineering pets are a big part of the gold making arsenal & now that pet battles are on the horizon, I'm sure these pets have a pretty good potential to be more profitable.

But one of the problems that many newbie Engineers face is the sheer variety of bits & bobs required to make almost anything! I know I often go round in circles trying to work out which materials I need for what gadget or gizmo so I thought I would take a few posts & summarise the materials for all the current Engineering pets.

This post will cover the Mechanical Squirrel Box, Lil' Smokey & the Pet Bombling, part 2 will be the Tranquil Mechanical Yeti & the Mechanical Toad & part 3 will be the De-weaponized Mechanical Companion & the Personal World Destroyer. I'm not certain & haven't been able to find confirmation but it looks like there will be at least one more mechanical pet available once Mists of Pandaria is released. I'll add a part 4 later if there is!

Mechanical Squirrel Box (skill 75)

Probably the easiest to make & the easiest to get the schematic for, I love this little fella! It only requires an Engineering skill level of 75 & although the schematic is a world drop, you can usually find it on the Auction House for 50 gold or less (depending on server of course!).

Materials

1 Handful of Copper Bolts (uses 1 Copper Bar)
1 Copper Bar
2 Malachite

Yup! Just 2 copper bars (which is just 2 copper ores) & 2 malachite gems - I usually sell these squirrels in the 25-35 gold range - I call that good profit although looking at The Undermine Journal, it would seem the mean price for EU servers is over 100 gold!

I have malachite on a shopping list & I buy all of them below 1 gold each. If I am running short & squirrels are selling well, I will go to 2 gold each but that is rarely necessary. Depending on the prices of the other gems prospectable from copper ore, it may even be profitable to buy some ore & prospect for yourself if you have a jewelcrafter.

Pet Bombling (skill 205)

This is another fairly easy to get schematic - it drops from Mechgineer Thermaplugg in Gnomeregan so as long as your engineer can get into the instance, you will get this from the boss. As far as materials goes, it's not too complicated but one spanner in the works is the fused wiring required. Fused wiring requires a skill level of 275 so you will either need to buy some, find someone to craft some for you or wait until your own skill is that high before you can make a Pet Bombling.

Materials

6 Mithril Bar
1 Big Iron Bomb (190)
1 Heart of Fire
1 Fused Wiring (275)

Big Iron Bomb takes 3 Iron Bars, 3 Heavy Blasting Powder(125) & 1 Silver Contact (90)

Heavy Blasting Powder = Heavy Stone

Silver Contact = 1 Silver Bar

Fused Wiring takes 3 Delicate Copper Wire (jewelcrafting) & 2 Essence of Fire (makes 5 fused wires though)

Delicate Copper Wire = 2 Copper Bar, JC skill level 1

Summary of most basic level materials

6 mithril ore
3 iron ore
3 heavy stone
1 silver ore
6 copper ore
2 essence of fire
1 heart of fire

I am currently selling these for around 165 gold each although the price can vary quite widely. The Undermine Journal says the mean for my server is 156 gold and for all EU Alliance servers of 220 gold. I think I'm underpricing here somewhere! lol

Lil' Smoky (skill 205)

This is also a fairly easy schematic to obtain but it will depend of the RNG this time. There are 3 types of NPC's in Gnomeregan that drop this schematic - the Crowd Pummeler, Arcane Nullifer & Peacekeeper Security Suits. Luckily the drop rate is not too bad so if you are lucky, you may get it on your first run through.

Like the Pet Bombling, this skill level 205 pet also requires Fused Wiring, a skill level 275 item (see note above).

Materials

1 Core of Earth
2 Gyrochromatom (170)
1 Fused Wiring (275)
2 Mithril Bar
1 Truesilver bar

Gyrochromatom takes 1 Iron Bar & 1 Gold Power Core

Gold Power Core = 1 Gold Bar (makes 3 cores)

Summary of most basic level materials

1 core of earth
2 iron ores
2 gold ores
6 copper ores
2 essence of fire
2 mithril ores
1 truesilver ore

I don't have this schematic yet - I didn't get it on my first run through & my dungeon running buddy is taking a break for now. Once my leveling gets a bit more advanced, I'll go back & solo Gnomeregan for it as many times as necessary!

I'd say this is one of the more profitable pets if you can get the materials cheaply enough. The Undermine Journal mean price for my server is 477 gold & for the whole EU is 296 gold. However I rarely see this on my Auction House so I'm guessing there may be only 1 or 2 players crafting them & keeping the prices high.

Materials Snatch List for these three Pets

Malachite - 1-2g each
Heart of Fire - less than 50 silvers
Essence of Fire - less than 2 gold each
Core of Earth - less than 2 gold each

Truesilver ore/bar - less than 5 gold each
Gold ore/bar - less than 3 gold each

Heavy Stone - less than 50 silvers each

I haven't included the basic ores as there is always stock on the Auction House for when I need it. I also tend to keep a basic supply of various ores anyway - it's part of my pack-rat mentality! The other materials to look for are the component parts - sometimes leveling engineers sell stuff to make space & don't realise that they will need them later. So I also look for cheap listings of

Big Iron Bomb
Gyrochromatom
Silver Contact
Delicate Copper Wiring
Handful of Copper Bolts
Fused Wiring
Gold Power Core

Summary

If you have an under-used Engineer, maybe now is a good time to at least look at these pet markets. Mists of Pandaria will definitely have some kind of effect although with the crafted pets not being counted as rares, there may not be as much of a boost to these as to some other types of pets. It's always been a small but constant market for me, even with my Engineer stuck at 275 skill level! Next time, toads & yetis!

Weekly Sales Update - 19th Aug 2012

My favourite bit of Zangermarsh

So I finally got my new place sorted out & my internet all connected up so I only missed a day of sales this week. But I got sidetracked by my US account, as I decided to level another scribe over there so my EU sales have suffered again although not as much as last week!

Sales of almost 21000 gold with purchases of about 5000 gold means an overall increase in liquid gold of 16000 gold. I'm still below the half million mark after my mount spending spree a few weeks ago but I'm quite happily just poodling along, keeping my fingers in various markets & looking for new little niches here & there.

Late last summer, I decided I wanted the Dark Iron set for my DK's transmog outfit so I spent a little time farming materials in Molten Core. Then I took a break & it all got forgotten until recently but I've since found out that I can get very similar stuff from a vendor in Shattrath so I put my Blood of the Mountain on the auction house. It took maybe 2 weeks but they did sell at last which put them at the top of my sales value list.

The Pristine Hides & the Noble's Monocle are also 'clearing out my banks' items - I've already made maybe 10000 gold from random stuff out of the mess of my banks & these were a nice bonus this week!

My glyph sales are fairly poor overall, I have more glyphs unlisted than I ever have before. I mentioned last week that there is someone tanking the prices so much of my 5000 gold expense this week have been low priced glyphs. I wasn't in the mood to buy him out completely but where there was only 1 or 2 low priced ones before a decent price one, I bought them out to relist at the higher price. For some glyphs, this has worked well but for others the tanker just listed a few more. I'm not worried though - they are all below my crafting cost so I'm looking at it as building some glyph stock for Mists :)

Items that don't show up on this screenshot include level 77-80 green armour - each day, I have been checking several times a day to try to find some good deals. For me, that means purchase cost below 50 gold & I then relist them immediately at 199 gold.

I also had an interesting conversation with Cold a week or two ago & he gave me a heads up on his Bargain Blues Stockpiling post. Now I've never really done many battlegrounds & I certainly have no idea about twinking so this was an interesting sideline for me. I have managed to pick up a few items but rather than keeping them in my bank for Mists of Pandaria release, I've put them back on the Auction House for a healthy mark up. I've sold one or two pieces but again, these are a more long term investment for me.

So that was my week - ok but nothing spectacular but then my server is very quiet now. I'm pretty sure it will liven up again soon of course but if it doesn't, I'll be ok - I just like to poodle along & faff at my own speed anyway :) have a good week peeps, Nev

Quick Basic Tip to Find Great Deals on Auction House

© JD Hancock, used under Creative Commons License from Flickr

Just a quick post today relating to a happy accident I had this week. I was going to list my few Firefin Snapper, but the starting price was only 7 coppers! When I looked at the details in the Auctionator Buy tab, there were a few others too - also in the mere coppers sell price. So I grabbed them up & relisted them straightaway with my own Snappers.

Now I could have left it at that but then I wondered if the same person had listed anything else this cheap. I haven't worked out a quick way to see all of a players auctions within the game yet (although you can on The Undermine Journal) so I just did a general search on some of the Trade items. Auctionator will let you search all the herbs at once & sort them by price. Sure enough, there were a whole load of herbs listed at mere coppers.

So what does a good goblin do? Buy them all up of course! You can see from my screenshot that I also managed to snag some wool & medium leather too. Ignore the Cinderbloom in the screenie - that was cheap on the day although prices have plummeted since then!

So here's the screenshot of my auctions page after I relisted all my bargains! This is just a part of the haul that day but 5 briarthorn for 5 silver flipped to 7 gold is the kind of flip I like! I've been double checking the general searches I created that day & have since picked up quite a bit of other stuff posted at similarly stupid low prices.

Now before you say anything about why a WoW millionaire is messing with this low value stuff, this is on my US account. I don't have any professions sorted out yet, no heirlooms or much cash so this is how I make a lot of my starter cash. I'm posting this as a lesson for any newbie goldmakers out there. It's a two part lesson as well - how to search for stuff to flip & also a cautionary tale of watch your listing prices when you post your own auctions!

If you've just installed an auction house addon like Auctionator, Auctioneer or TSM (Trade Skill management), double check your settings & watch those listing prices like a hawk at first. There are many tales of woe amongst the gold making community of items listed at the wrong price - a forgotten 0 on an epic armour item or mount price is a very expensive lesson to learn!

The Hunt for Infinite Dust

A week or two ago, Huntermastery sparked a good discussion with his post about what not to stockpile for Mists of Pandaria. One of the items on his list was Infinite Dust. His argument was that abyss crystals were a more effective way of storing stuff that could be turned into Infinite Dust & Cosmic Essences, rather than storing multiple stacks of dust & essences. It turned into quite a good discussion which you can read about on his follow up post about Abyss Crystals if you'd like to.

Now I'm not trying to resurrect that discussion but I've never had much luck with the Abyss Crystal shatter as a source of infinite dust, I've always used my Jewelcrafter to make bloodstone bands, crystal citrine necklace & sun rock rings to disenchant. I have a permanent watch set up for the gems & I only buy them when they are below 3 gold each & preferably below 2 gold!

Since May this year, I've also been picking up very cheap Wrath armour to disenchant - I check the dust price & base my armour buy price on that. I also only buy the top end greens - level 78-80 as they give an average of 5 dusts per item.

So I thought I'd lay out some results from a little test I did last week. I've used The Undermine Journal mean price for my cost prices as I had a lot of stuff in my bank already.

Abyss Crystal Shatter

13 Abyss Crystal (TUJ mean price 427.70g) = 18 Infinite Dust + 41 Greater Cosmic Essences (TUJ mean price 491.34g)

Overall profit = 63.64g

This is a perfect example of my previous experience with the abyss shatter - I always get more GCE's so as a source of infinite dust, it is very frustrating even though GCE's still sell pretty well.

Wrath lvl 78-80 Green Armor

14 various items all at 10g or less, approx cost 140g = 78 infinite dust + 5 greater cosmic essences (TUJ mean price 533.70g)

Overall profit = 393.70g

Jewelcraft Rings/Necks to Disenchant

60 x rings/necks approx cost 210gold = 102 Infinite Dust + 22 lesser Cosmic Essences + 5 small dream shards (TUJ mean price = 758.74g)

Overall profit = 548.74g

I made a variety of bloodstone bands, crystal citrine necklaces & sun rock rings. The bloodstone, sun crystals & huge citrines were bought over time as an average of 2g each & the crystallized earth required cost approx 75 silvers each.

TUJ Mean Prices used

Infinite Dust 6.25
Greater Cosmic Essence 9.24g
Abyss Crystal 32.90
Lesser Cosmic Essence 4.47g
Small Dream Shard 4.58

Summary

I realise the abyss crystal sample size is way too small to be really representative of the possible outcome but to be honest, at an average of 32g each, I just didn't want to spend out more cash, knowing my previous luck! Also, bear in mind, I'm trying to source Infinite Dust specifically in this post - if I just wanted Wrath enchanting mats then it wouldn't really matter too much :)

The easiest way right now is the Wrath greens - there is an abundance on my server as people are rushing their alts through Northrend before Mists of Pandaria arrives. Some items are below 5g so even if they only give me 2 infinite dusts, I'm still snatching them up!

Conversely, the gems for the rings/necks seem to be increasing in price - it took me a fair while to get enough gems to craft this many rings. If I hadn't been clearing out all my bank bags, I probably would have had a much smaller sample size!

If you need Infinite Dust - where do you get yours? Do you bite the bullet & pay AH prices or have you tried a different way? Let me know - would love your comments.

Weekly Sales Update - 12th August 2012

Well what can I say? What a crap week I've had on the Auction House! To be fair, I've hardly played at all, not even to keep my auctions up so I shouldn't have expected any different really. With sales of just 9656 gold for the whole week, I almost feel ashamed to call myself a gold maker!

So what did sell? Well, not many glyphs for sure! I had a quick look today & it seems that someone has decided to drop most of the glyph prices below 100 gold. I know on some servers, gold makers would be quite pleased to be getting 100 gold a glyph but with inks at 10g-12g here, glyph prices have traditionally been much higher. This close to Mists of Pandaria, I'm wondering if someone just wants to dump stock - I shall wait & see what happens over the next few days & then decide what to do.

One option is to buy up all the very cheap ones rather than crafting my own. Now that would be fine except many of those are glyphs I wouldn't usually bother crafting anyway. The other option is to spend some cash, make a load of glyphs and push prices lower til he/she gives up. Not sure I can really make myself do that right now though. This week looks like being another busy real life week & tactics like that need a fair bit of close attention.

A new market showing up on my top sellers list is the level 77-80 greens items. With the glyphs selling for lower prices, they've dropped off the leaderboard. I've been picking up 77-80 greens for 50 gold or under & relisting them immediately for 199 gold. I could possibly push that price up but I'm not out farming these greens & only manage to pick up a few here & there so I don't really have much say in what the market price should be. There is one main player in this market & I guess with my insomnia, I'm managing to snag the few bargains that get listed while he sleeps!

A few engineering pets, a few netherweave bags & some inferno inks make up the best of the rest with that old favourite Enchant Weapon - Agility taking top place this week. I kicked my self hard earlier - I didn't even notice the enchants had sold or I would have listed a couple more.

So just a short update this week - hopefully I can do a bit better in the next few days but I may even be without internet for a day or two so that won't help. It's all good in the long run though. Onward & upward as my gran used to say :) Have a good week y'all xxx

Different Markets, Different Tactics

Ferris Wheel by Andy Cardiff, under creative commons from Flickr

It's that time again, thinking of a post for Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival proves a challenge most months for me. This month is no different. I'm not the most organised gold maker or a particularly deep thinker about tactics or strategy so this was really tough! Thanks Cold! lol

Compare & Contrast 2 Different AH Markets and How Your Gold Making Strategy Varies In Each Market

Market 1 - Glyphs & Gems

I've written several times now about my glyph selling method & about the only organised part of it is the regularity of doing the same thing every time. I also do virtually the same routine for my gems. Both these markets have a lot of competition, regular undercutting occurs & can be rather time intensive to make the most of them. I'm not particularly greedy about owning a market or even dominating it - I just take what I can squeeze out of it so I don't really worry too much about what my competition is doing.

• empty mailbox of cash & expired glyphs
• cancel any remaining glyph auctions using TSM
• relist glyphs per TSM settings
• run TSM Inscription only scan
• rinse & repeat 2-3 times per day

Depending on sales from day to day, I then add the following crafting routine maybe once or twice a week

• cherry pick top priced glyphs to craft using TSM crafting
• run Buy materials module in TSM
• mill herbs, make inks
• craft cherry picked glyphs
• list new batch of glyphs

Market 2 - Almost Everything Else I Sell

One thing I've never quite got my head around is sales groups in TSM. I know how to set them up in principal but I can never decide what should go in which group! So as a result, almost everything except glyphs & gems get posted manually.

I have general prices for many things in my head & I find it fairly easy to remember approximately how much I bought something for. Trying to explain my thought processes is one of the most difficult things for me to do. I've had problems at work when trying to teach someone else my system there & the Auction House is very much like that too.

I almost always go in at the bottom of the market as long as the price is still within my happy zone unless some idiot has undercut by a large amount. You know the one - the idiot who thinks that 50 gold is too much so posts his for 20 gold? Yeah that one! Then I usually undercut the next sensible price & if that bottom price is within my buy range, I may buy it & flip it straight away.

The other thing I do is to vary my stack size - again depending what the item is, I may sell my stock as full 20 stack or I may post as 10's, 5' or singles. Items like hypnotic dust, infinite dust or mid range leather are fairly expensive now so I usually list those in mixed stacks. People who don't care about the price & just want a lot will buy the full stacks but people who just need a few will buy the singles or 5's where they may hesitate to buy the full expensive stack.

Summary

So there ya go - very organised, precise cherry picking for glyphs & gems, total gut/instinctive reactions for everything else - couldn't get much further apart in methodology but it works for me. I certainly wouldn't suggest it as good for everyone but I can't be the only disorganised gold maker out there, surely? lol

Weekly Sales Update - 5th August 2012

Amani Dragonhawk - part of my spending spree recently

I've had another crazy busy week so my attempts to ramp up my goldmaking have rather come unstuck! I've managed to maintain a nice flow of gold from glyphs but I do have some stiff competition there now so with my random & infrequent posting times, I'm keeping them on their toes at least!

My best seller this week as far as gold amount goes is the Enchant Weapon - Agility enchant. I sold one or two recently for over 1300 gold each but someone seems determined to bring the price back down under the 1000 gold mark. I'm using Essence of Water with a cost of maybe 15 gold max, transmuted into Essence of Air so to be honest, anything over 200 gold is pure profit but we won't tell everyone that will we? lol

I also managed to snatch up a bunch of Savage Leather & Heavy Savage Leather which I converted into Pristine Hides. Yes, the old 'convert it up' trick still works - if you watch your prices! I still have a fair amount in my mailbox - I didn't want to convert it all at once, just in case prices or demand changed. I like that flexibility of choosing at what stage I want to sell my part processed stuff rather than crafting it all up to Pristine Hides then not being able to sell them.

With all the talk of pet battles up & coming, I made up a few Pet Bomblings & Mechanical Squirrels - both are selling ok, slow but steady. Cheap materials & reasonable prices make for some nice extra income. My warlock is now level 50 so I need to push her on a bit further - I want the Mechanical Yeti from Winterspring!

My overall gold balance only increased about 18000 gold this week - I've bought a lot of herbs as the whiptail & cinderbloom prices are starting to come down a bit. I've been managing to get maybe 20-30 stacks a day under 50 gold a stack & now have a guild bank tab full of inks. I still have a long way to go & I'm hoping prices will continue to drop a bit further too.

What's in store for this upcoming week - more busy real life stuff unfortunately - mostly good stuff but it will slow down my blogging, playing & gold making. I still need to make a stab at a to-do list & try to prioritise things more - limited playtime makes that even more necessary now but I keep getting sidetracked! Oh look! Shinies!

Finding Mr Grubbs

A week or so ago, I was a guest on Episode 38 of PowerWord:Gold podcast where Jim & I spoke a fair bit about the pets that will be classed as Rares when Mists of Pandaria is released in September. On the podcast I said that Mr Grubbs was  an easy one to pick up because I clearly remember my paladin picking up maybe 8 pets in the area whilst finishing the zone or when farming for the Crusader enchant but I wanted to test my statement so here are the results - Arrrgggghhhhhhh!

As you may have guessed, it's been a very frustrating week. Reading the comments about Mr Grubbs on Wowhead, there were several likely farming spots mentioned but there's also a mention that the further into the quests for the zone you are, the higher your chance of getting Mr Grubbs.

Alt #1

I decided to test the farming spots & the more quests theory so first off I took my Loremaster Paladin over to Eastern Plaguelands. She picked up Fiona's Lucky Charm (more about that in a minute) & off she went to The Noxious Glade. Twenty minutes later & 12 Hidden Stash drops, she had picked up not one but two Mr Grubbs! Great I thought - I did remember correctly that this was an easy 'rare' to pick up.

Alt #2

Next I dug out my rogue from the depths of Ironforge where she has been sitting for months & dropped her off at Thondoril Point to pick up Fiona's Caravan. She never quested here so I had to do just 6 quests to get access to Fiona's Lucky Charm.

Pick up 'Tarenar Sunstrike' & 'Gidwin Goldbraids' quests from Fiona then I would go south to Tarenar first who then gives you 'What I Do Best' - just a kill 5 thingies quest. Once you've done that, he will give you a 2nd quest called 'Gift for Fiona' which requires killing the Plaguehounds. The area for the Plaguehounds overlaps with much of the route from Tarenar to the cave in the north where Gidwin is trapped so kill the Plaguehounds along the way.

Once you've found Gidwin, he will give you 'Just Encased' quest & asks you to get some stuff off the big ant-like creatures in the cave. If you've done any concentrated critter killing for the Guild Achievement, you may recognise this cave - it's full of little skittery bugs. Grab the goo & then go back & release Gidwin. He then gives you 'Greasing the Wheel' - this requires collecting some flowers for Fiona - they are all along the river & path back to Fiona so you shouldn't have any problems finding them. Once you hand in the last 2 quests to Fiona, she will let you choose a 'gift' from the caravan - pick the Lucky Charm & you are ready to start randomly killing anywhere within the zone.

It took me maybe 10 minutes to do these quests on my level 85 rogue then I wandered off to Zul' Mashar for my killing spree - 50 minutes & 35 Hidden Stash drops later, I was swearing blue murder at the rotten RNG when at last Mr Grubbs dropped for me.

Alt #3

Now this is where the frustration really set in! I have a level 44 Warlock that I want to level before Mists of Pandaria is released & Eastern Plaguelands is a level 40-45 zone so yay! I thought - farm, quest & test my theory all at the same time.

Yeah right! 6 levels & 65 quests & 56 Hidden Stashes later, I still haven't picked up Mr Grubbs & I've given up for now.

Adding insult to injury, I was chatting to Cold one evening & mentioned this post so he decided to give it a go too - I'm surprised no-one heard my rage when he managed to pick up Mr Grubbs within 20 minutes.

Summary

So I guess my summary would still be it's a fairly easy pet to pick up - on a level 85 at least. It looks like pure RNG as to how long or how many Hidden Stashes you have to find rather than being anything to do with the number of quests or passengers picked up on Fiona's Caravan.

We know that when Mists of Pandaria goes live, pets will become account wide so if you have the same pet on multiple characters, you will get the 'extras' back in the mail. What we don't know yet is whether these extras will be sellable. Mr Grubbs is also bind on pickup at the moment so the 2 I picked up on my Paladin are seemingly useless but I'm keeping them just in case they become unbound like some of the holiday pets did earlier this year. If they do then these could be a fairly painless moneymaker at some future time.