New Crafting Materials for Patch 5.4

With the imminent arrival of Patch 5.4 and all the changes to crafting professions, I thought I'd have a little dig into which materials I'm going to need & how many I should be buying now. I'm not usually a fan of major stockpiling, I prefer to buy cheap materials every time I see them rather than when I want to craft & yes, that does mean I have a stock of materials but nowhere near the quantities that many gold makers pile up before a major patch.

This time though, the raw materials on my server seem to be dropping in price right now which is kind of strange but I'm not complaining! I've never really prepped for a major patch before for various reasons but I thought I'd give it a go this time round!

So what are the new materials that my Tailor, Leatherworker & Blacksmith are going to be making?

• Celestial Cloth = 10 Bolts of Windwool Cloth (4 bolts per stack of Windwool Cloth so 2.5 x basic stack cost)
• Hardened Magnificent Hide = 2 Magnificent Hides (1 stack of Exotic Leather per hide if I only use the daily cooldown to make it, 2.5stacks if I want to make as many as I like)
• Balanced Trillium Ingot = 1 Trillium Bar (made from 2 black & 2 white Trillium Ore or via Alchemy transmute of 10 Ghost Iron Bars (which is 1 stack of Ghost Iron Ore)).

Each of these materials is on a daily cooldown and is bind on pickup so you won't be seeing any of these on the Auction House. Each time you make one though, you will 'discover' a new PvP armor recipe or one of the new Epic item level 553 legs or belts. It's the crafted PvP gear for all three professions that interest me as a gold making non-raider. The Epic items take 21 or 28 daily cooldowns to make and I'm not sure the sale price of the final piece will make up for lost sales of the less expensive PvP gear.

The real kicker is the sheer number of PvP patterns to learn - for Tailoring it's 45, for Leatherworking it's 89 & for Blacksmithing it's 35 (that's if I counted them correctly in Wowhead professions tabs!). It's at times like this I almost regret Leatherworking being my main profession but it does have some advantages! OK, yes, it's going to take me twice as long to learn all the Leather & Mail armor recipes but it does mean that I stand a good chance of lower competition for the first few weeks. 

Think about it - in 35 days, any Blacksmith that's done their discovery every day will have all the recipes but so will all the other Blacksmiths so there will be competition on every piece of plate PvP gear! Leatherworkers won't even have half their recipes by then & given that Leatherworking isn't as popular a profession as Blacksmithing, there are fewer Leatherworkers to compete with me on those recipes that we have in common. The same thing applies to Tailoring of course but 45 days in and all the patterns will be learnt & available. 

On this basis a Blacksmith will need 1 stack of Ghost iron Ore per discovery so 35 stacks. A Tailor will need 2.5 stacks x 45 which is 113 stacks (rounded up!) and a poor Leatherworker will need 178 Magnificent Hides. The inequality in costs of these basic materials is really obvious at this stage - a stack of Windwool Cloth is 30-50 gold, a stack of Ghost Iron Ore is 30-60 gold but a Magnificent Hide which is on cooldown too is anywhere from 100-200 gold each and you need 2 of them every day!

Right now I have already got more than enough Ghost Iron Ore & Windwool Cloth to make all these cooldown items for both my Blacksmith & Tailor. My Leatherworker has been storing up Magnificent Hides for a couple of weeks now & I've been buying some off the Auction House when they fall to the 100g or less point but I'm still not going to have enough ready made. Luckily for me, the price of Exotic Leather has dropped sharply on my server this week so I may have to go the more expensive route & use the non-cooldown, 50 Exotic Leathers recipe to make extra Magnificent Hides.

Ok, so that's the armor crafting professions, what about the others? Well Engineering is getting a fabulous new mount - the Sky Golem - which requires Living Steel & also uses a daily cooldown item called Jards Peculiar Energy Source. This Peculiar Energy Source uses Ghost Iron Bars so that's more Ghost Iron Ore required. Then of course, there's the Jewelcrafting - a new raid & new Epic armor patterns means a bump in demand for gems (and enchants too) with Ghost Iron Ore being prospected to get them. I already have maybe 200-300 stacks of Ore sitting around so I'll be all set when the patch goes live. I'm not going to stop buying though - all those PvP Plate armors use Ghost Iron Bars as well so I'll be smelting until I'm blue in the face I think!

So if you like farming & you want a suggestion of what to farm over the next few weeks, I think this analysis kind of points you to Leather farming. You could go mining of course or on a mob killing spree to get cloth but my advice would be look for leather - less competition from bots and others players picking up cloth as they quest anyway.

How is your patch 5.4 preparation coming along? Have you got enough stuff or are you still buying up your Auction House? let us know in the comments below :)

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Sky Golem - New Engineering Mount in patch 5.4?

All the Engineers I know were getting excited for patch 5.2 with the datamined Sky Claw mount becoming available - sadly it never made it to the live release & Engineers have been moaning about it ever since! With the release of patch 5.4 on the PTR, a similar mount was datamined called 'Not Sky Claw' which it was assumed was a placeholder name but now at last, Engineers are rejoicing again! Yup there's a new mount called the Sky Golem that apparently replaces the Not Sky Claw!

Sadly, it looks as though this isn't going to be a 2 person mount but one which will let you pick herbs without dismounting. I can live with that disappointment though - this mount looks absolutely amazing & for now, at least, isn't marked as Engineers only so hopefully it will be sellable like the Mechano-hog/Chopper mount from WOTLK days.

It's basically a Shredder suit and from early reports on Wowinsider & MMOchampion, it has 4 different colours. The materials are currently shown as 30 x Jard's Peculiar Energy Source & 30 x Living Steel, with the Jard's being on a daily cooldown, requiring 10 Ghost Iron Bars to make and are bind on pick-up!

This means that it will be at least 30 days after patch day before an Engineer can craft this mount as long as they don't miss a cooldown too! I think the first Engineers to get this crafted will make an absolute killing on the Auction House - I would happily pay 50,000 gold for it and with the crafting cost being less than 20,000 even on an expensive server, that will be a nice chunk of profit for someone!

Where did I get my crafting cost figures? Well Living Steel on my server, hovers between 450-550 gold each so average that to 500 gold x 30 = 15,000 gold. Add in just 30 stacks of Ghost Iron Ore (or 10 Ghost Iron Bars) at even 100 gold a stack would equal 3,000 gold - total cost around 18,000 gold.

I don't usually buy Living Steel as I have 2 Alchemists & use their cooldowns most days but I think I will keep an eye on the prices & snatch up a few when the price does drop below 450g. That will allow me to continue making a profit on my Living Steel Belt Buckles whilst keeping some Living Steel in reserve for the mount! The other option for Living Steel is the transmute spell that uses 3 Spirits of Harmony - I don't know about you but I just don't have that many Spirits & I sure as heck don't want to go & farm them!

I think it may be time to get my Engineer leveled at last - that means I have to resurrect my unloved Warlock & get her from 50 something to 85 at least - Yay! yet another project to add to my list!

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Time To Get Back To Some Serious Gold Making

I've had a quiet couple of weeks in game - real life got a bit too busy for me to do much other than just maintain my auction house activities. But it's quietened down a bit now so it's time to get down to some more serious gold making efforts! I'm planning on being a very busy bee over the next few weeks so hold on to your hats people! lol

Whilst I may not always agree with how Zerohour phrases his posts, I do agree with much of what he says. I guess I'm a gentler soul & I've always worked on the basis that sugar is better than vinegar! After his first post or two, I wanted to hate him but how can you hate a guy who talks so much sense! Some of his stuff hit a nerve with me & I've been doing a little analysis of my gold making style. I realised that I am very risk averse so taking a gamble on flipping high cost items has never been my thing but in my safe little world, I've also not been buying much more than what I really need to craft stuff for the next day or two.

His post about stockpiling (or Just in Time crafting) made me realise that I have all this gold just sitting there & not really working for me - in keeping my 'costs' down, I actually wasn't investing in future profits either. It can be easy to get tunnel vision and just keep doing what works for you & that's what I think I've been doing.

So over the last week or two, I have been buying up raw materials like crazy. The cheap stuff has been there all along, I just didn't want to buy too much. Not anymore though! I am now the proud owner of almost 200 stacks of Exotic Leather, 150 stacks of Ghost Iron Ore & 60 stacks of Bolts of Windwool Cloth not to mention about 40 Ironpaw Tokens & 20 stacks each of Mushan Ribs, Raw Tiger Steak & Raw Crab Meat!

Now as stockpiling goes, I know that still isn't that much stuff but I'm working on it! With the leather at 17-25g, I can make Magnificent Hides for a cost of 63g by using the non-cooldown way (50 leather = 1 hide) & with Magnificent Hides selling during the week for 100g or more, I can still make a nice chunk of change without even crafting anything else! I am doing the daily Magnificent Hide cooldown too though - got to get those PvP patterns discovered after all!

The Ghost Iron Ore is fuelling my 2 transmute spec Alchemists for their daily Living Steel cooldown & I'm also prospecting stacks on my Jewelcrafter - making rings/necks to disenchant & keeping my daily discovery of new cuts going too.

The Windwool Cloth is fuelling my daily Imperial Silk craft & as I discover more PvP patterns, I'm making sure I craft those too. Unfortunately, whilst the leather/mail PvP gear is maintaining its price, the cloth PvP gear is dropping rapidly - some pieces are as low as 90g!

I'd forgotten how much of a buzz it can be to open my mailbox to 10k+ gold overnight. I've been poodling along since early last year really and it shows in my gold balance. I'm almost back to my 1 million gold balance & if the Amani Dragonhawk I bought to flip sells soon (negotiations are in progress!) then I'll be a happy camper once more.

I'm going to start doing my weekly 'What's Been Selling' posts again. I had a lot of positive comments on those & I think they can be helpful to kickstart your own ideas. I've got a lot to relearn over the next few weeks & a fair bit of exploring & testing some new markets so hopefully my posting frequency should return to normal service shortly!


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New Blacksmithing Training Projects - Patch 5.2

Big news hit the patch 5.2 notes late last week & I thought it might be useful to pop some links here for you to have a look at. Along with the usual class changes, new raid/dungeon info, glyph changes & pet battle changes, there is also a large section for professions, especially Blacksmithing. You can read all of the patch 5.2 build 16503 on MMO-Champion if you wish but some of it is just datamined & a little lacking in explanations. Wowhead has a much better explanation, focusing on the Blacksmithing changes including some analysis and late yesterday, Euripedes on WoW Insider also laid out his thoughts on how this could affect things in game. The comments on both articles make for some interesting reading if you ignore all the panicky 'I hate change' type ones!

Quick Summary & Thoughts About Changes

Just in case you don't want to wander off to read all that stuff, I will summarise it here though. Basically, a whole bunch of new 'Training Project' recipes will be added to an NPC in your faction Shrine in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. All of these new recipes take only Ghost Iron Bars in varying quantities and will allow a level 85 character to skill up to 500 using only Ghost Iron Bars. Looking at the list of 'projects' and the huge amount of Ghost Iron they require, my inner goblin is rubbing her hands with glee at the thought. However it does have huge implications for other parts of the Auction House game as well as the game in general.

• reduced demand for 'old world' materials - including some very profitable niches for gold makers & levelers alike
• can I say 'bots'? Oh yes, I can just hear botters cranking up their systems as I type this, especially as most sensible goblins will more than likely be stockpiling already!
• Blizzard introduced CRZ (Cross realm zones) in an attempt to make the old world areas feel less abandoned, removing the need to farm old world materials like this will surely mean that levelers just zoom through those old zones even faster.
• Ghost Iron Ore will become a very active, competitive market with a huge spike in demand, especially as the new weapons & armor already discovered in earlier patch notes need so much Living Steel too.
• Other markets reliant on Ghost Iron, such as Jewelcrafting & Enchanting (from the 'shuffle) will see price increases too.
• It's probably only a matter of time until the other crafting professions get a similar makeover - Leatherworking, Tailoring, Engineering, Jewelcrafting, Inscription & Alchemy could all be changed in a similar way to make use solely of current materials. 
• It would be an easy way for Blizzard to keep professions up-to-date with each new expansion - just change the material required to the newest expansion resources et voila! updated professions!
• Random thought based on that last bullet point - if new expansion professions just need new expansion materials, will they still keep Realm First achievements?

My thoughts on this

Well, I have to say, I like the general idea of simplifying the earlier stages of all the professions. I'd imagine it would be fairly straightforward to remove some of the harder to gather materials & just make the low level recipes require basic materials - for example, take out the various 'scales' 'hides' etc from the Leatherworking recipes & just require leathers or take out the various elemental bits of engineering/blacksmithing recipes & leave them using only ores/bars. The new training projects way seems a very drastic change that will undoubtedly cause much outcry of dislike & relief too.

Remembering that this is just patch notes for the PTR (Public Test Realms), it could change before it goes live. The amount of Ghost Iron required for the training projects seems pretty damned high to me but then again, that could be Blizzards' way of trying to keep the uptake slow at first. The effect on the economy will be interesting to observe - more bots, more levelers choosing to level with only gathering professions, higher prices in several related markets & of course, all the goblins (like me!) trying to make as much gold as possible as quickly as possible. 

My Plan of Action

So I have to say, yes, this time I am going to stockpile. I don't usually stockpile in any great quantities, mainly because I'm a bit slow off the mark & prices have usually risen by the time I wake up to the opportunity! But this time, I got lucky! The morning before this announcement was released, I had already decided to up my gold making activities again & had picked up about 200 stacks of Ghost Iron Ore with the intentions of crafting & shuffling like a crazy fool. Since then, I've picked up another 100 or so stacks, all below 50g per, and my mailboxes are overflowing. 

I'm keeping an eye on Trillium Bars & Living Steel too as well as the basic Spirit Dust for my enchanter. My thinking is that the easiest source of Trillium Bars is the Alchemy transmute from Ghost Iron Bar to Trillium & as it has no cooldown, some players will be producing Trillium as a way of increasing their profits from the ores. As it is so easy to produce, it's a good way of making profits whilst waiting for the daily Living Steel cooldown, as long as you can get your Ghost Iron Ore/Bar at reasonable prices. 

Enchanting materials can come from disenchanting armor obviously but I'm willing to bet that the greatest source of Spirit Dust is players doing the whole Ghost Iron Ore shuffle. With Ghost Iron Ore prices set to rise, Spirit Dust prices should follow of course & therein lies a good goblins profits!

Summary

This new leveling way will be available to level 85 alts and above, making it a great way to switch professions, albeit an expensive way. Prices for Ghost Iron Ore (and related markets) will undoubtedly rise through the roof for a while until some kind of equilibrium is achieved in the market. The bravest, risk-taking goblins will make a killing whilst the rest of us just make some nice profits. 

Have you started stockpiling? What do you think of these changes? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this so leave a comment or you can tweet me @nevahaddict if you'd like to.

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