Pirates VS Ninjas: Warcraft Hunters Union (WHU) Event 4

Veteran hunter, Frostheim, and a horde of level 35 and under baby hunters recently wrapped up WHU (Warcraft Hunters Union) event number four! The plan was for participating members, which numbered in the hundreds, to meet up in Gurabashi Arena, Strangelthorn Vale, for an epic pirates versus ninjas battle. Afterwords, the rambunctious rabble of rowdy dwarves traveled south to Booty Bay to get their Pirate Day costume and achievement, and parrot pets for those who had enough rep with Booty Bay. Finally, the pirate costume wearing group of booze-reeking, bullet-slinging bearded freaks took the party east to one of the pirate ships just off the shore, for a celebration of copious alcohol consumption and one hell of a fireworks show! Here are pics from the event, which happened this past Sunday.



^ Prior to the event, those who signed up were mailed 3 Savory Deviate Delight,(when eaten, turns you into either a pirate or a ninja) which were then consumed by all involved. The pirates grouped at one end of the stands while the ninjas grouped at the other. At the signal, both parties jumped into the Arena for a fight to the finish. This happened three times. Pirates won 2-1, finally proving that pirates are more badass than ninjas in their black pajamas.


^ Pirates versus ninjas like never before!


^ This was taken during round 2, which was the round the ninjas won.


^ WHU members, mounted on their trusty racial mounts, racing south to Booty Bay for a quick Pirate Day celebration, achievement and purchase of the pirate costume complimenting parrot pet.


^ Pirate ship officially comandeered. Let the celebration begin!


^ Pretty blue fireworks! Also, a dozen campfires burning brightly on a ship made of wood, which is a concept that could only be hatched from the booze-soaked brains of inebriated dwarves.


^ The grand finale!


^ My WHU hunter Beergasm and his faithful companion, Trixie. Beergasm is one of many veteran members of WHU and has been proudly participating since day one.

BONUS PICTURES


^ Hunter domination in Warsong Gulch. Okay so this ended up being a complete turtle after we scored one flag cap, but other mostly hunter matches that night were completely one sided, even without healers. Fun times!


^ Members of WHU line up in formation in Kharanos. This was from event 3.

^ Colorful gang of dwarven hunters!

WHU is a all dwarven hunter guild on Icecrown, US. The first event was at level cap 10, the second 20, the third 30, and 35 for this event. It was founded by Frostheim of www.WarcraftHuntersUnion.com and the 'Scattered Shots' hunter column of WOW.com. Anyone can join WHU, just start a dwarven hunter on Icecrown US, join the whu chat channel, and ask for an invite.

Project Tauren Shaman Part 4: Levels 21-30

Long time no update! I really have no excuses other than I haven't been playing much WoW lately, and for the last week and a half I've been recovering from a nasty stomach bug that sucked the life out of me and forced me to live a nauseous existence of lounging on the couch and watching a lot of television and movies, on a diet of ginger ale and soda crackers. This was a crippling process that made me feel so exhausted that I didn't even want to play video games, which is bad! But I'm back and feeling mostly better, and my shaman is now level 30 (as of 11 days ago). Yes, I've been putting off updating my blog. :(

Levels 20 to 30 went pretty smoothly and consisted mostly of doing quests in Ashenvale with a healthy dose of dungeons. Got Razorfen Kraul and Gnomeregan (ugh, hate that place!) out of the way, as well as a couple others. I even managed to top the DPS meters in one of them!


My newly equipped heirloom gear has really sped the leveling process up, and I'm glad I transferred my hunter from another realm to lend them to my shaman.

I decided to drop Mining in favor of Inscription to complement my other primary profession, Herbalism. While I was making some pretty good money selling ore in the auction house, I figured I may as well be leveling a crafting profession while I level, and inscription is far more profitable than alchemy in my opinion. I actually made a couple hundred gold casually selling glyphs and weapon/armor vellums as I worked on skilling up. I did not go out of my way to craft extra stuff just for the sake of getting richer. It's so satisfying to put up a couple dozen auctions at night and wake up the next morning (or a week later if you got really sick and didn't play for a few days) to a mailbox full of gold.


My arsenal of spells and abilities is really starting to get interesting. At level 30 I hit the jackpot! I got the ability to place or remove all of my totems simultaneously (can't remember the ability name), rather than having to place them manually, which is both cool and a time saver. I also learned some great new offensive and utility spells like Windfury Weapon and Astral Recall. Astral Recall is one of the most convenient leveling spells in the game. It basically lets me teleport to a major town to utilize the auction house, bank and trainers, then hearth back to a quest hub and quickly get back to doing quests. Astral Recall will save me tons of time and money that I would've lost using flight paths. Not to leave out the self-ressurrection spell, Reincarnation! Freaking sweet!

Last but not least, I got all my totems now except wind totem. Three down, one to go! Thank goodness. Some of those totem quests are time consuming and have me running around all over the damn place!

Time to grind my way to level 40.

Part Four Summary:

Starting level: 21
Finishing level: 30
Talent spread: 0/21/0 (Enhancement)

Starting money: 340g 80s
Ending money: 666g 27s

Inscription skill: 127
herbalism skill: 174

Spirithorn Armory Link

Maxed 2 More Professions, New 80 ding, Other Updates

It's been a couple weeks since I wrote and for that I apologize. With that out of the way, time for some updates on my progress to get every profession maxed out and get gold capped!

When I last wrote I mentioned that I was slowing down on WoW for a couple weeks to catch up on some other gaming. While that happened, I did sneak in enough World of Warcraft time to finally cap enchanting on my 80 hunter, alchemy on my priest (for those counting, that leaves only tailoring and leatherworking) and level said priest to 80, making him my fifth level 80 toon! And since epics are easy I did a few dungeon runs and got some loots and a couple pieces of tier 9.



I broke 40,000 gold as well. I know for some hardcore gold makers in WoW this number represents a week's worth of buying out mats in the Auction House, but I'm not officially gaming the AH just yet. This is just selling stuff I craft leveling up my various professions and gold earned while leveling up toons, etc. Also, four of my five level 80 toons have epic flying so that's a huge chunk of money invested right there. To be honest I don't see myself really gaming the economy until after Cataclysm arrives. Until then....preparation. Oh, and my bank toon's guild bank is filling up quite nicely with a surplus of stuff to sell when the time is right.

Concerning Project Tauren Shaman, which I know I haven't updated in way too long, I transferred my Orc Hunter Wyrmfoe to the Doomhammer realm so he could lend his heirlooms to my Shaman. Coincidentally both Spirithorn (my shaman) and Wyrmfoe are level 20. Don't worry, Wyrmfoe is ONLY providing heirlooms. The goal of Project Tauren Shaman is still to level without any gold or other assistance from other toons. By the way, Wyrmfoe's pet raptor is named AndyBotwin. Points to you if you get the reference to one of the best shows in television currently.



I've been thinking about the Refer-a-Friend feature lately and I might give it a try before too long. Of course the friend I'll be referring is myself, in the interest of power leveling a couple toons just for shits and giggles and of course for the awesome two-seater mount. I setup one of my older gaming PC's along side my current rig, setup a second account and downloaded the trial version of the game, patching it up to date and everything. Stupid old me figured that once you own WoW and all of its expansions you could install it on multiple accounts, only having to pay for two accounts. Nope. Each account requires its own copy of the game and all of its expansions. I'll have to pick up the WoW Battle Chest and pay for a second account long enough to get the mount on my main account. Below is a shot of my second account getting patched up to date. And might I add that running two PC's side by side really satisfies the inner geek in me, especially when said PC's were built by yours truly.



Buying second copies of WoW and paying for a second account for a few months seems like a huge waste of money, and it is, but I've always wanted to give dualboxing a shot. We'll see if it happens. I'll keep you updated.

Okay time to wrap this post up. Just a couple things before I leave. I have my two character slots for my Worgen and Goblin toons (Male Druid and Female Rogue respectively) named and reserved. I can't wait! Which brings me to a question for my readers. What are you going to do first once Cataclysm is out: Level your current toons to 85 or focus on leveling a Worgen/Goblin?



See you next time! :)

Some WoW Downtime + Updates

Just a quick update. I haven't been playing much WoW in the last week. I blame BioWare for this. I started playing Mass Effect 2 and put over 20 hours in last week. I played the game and put about 10-12 hours in when it first came out last year but stopped playing. When I tried to resume that game I didn't remember the story so I started over. Man that game is good. BioWare + SciFi is a damn good match. If you played the first Mass Effect but got frustrated by the constant inventory management and the Mako driving sequences, give ME2 a try. They streamlined the hell out of the game and got rid of all the annoying things from the first one. It also runs smooth and is stable on PC, unlike the first one in which I experienced a lot of audio glitches and crashing. I also started playing Dragon Age: Origins over the weekend. I still need to finish Red Dead Redemption as well. Too many great games, not enough time!

So yeah...catching up on other games requires WoW downtime. I did play a little bit but really have nothing major to report other than I have nearly capped Alchemy and Enchanting on my priest and hunter respectively (both professions at 440 currently). Played a little bit yesterday and dinged 76 on my priest. This is my fifth grind from 70-80 and each time if feels like it gets slower and slower. Even with the 20% bonus experience granted by my heirloom gear it's still a pain in the ass.

Which got me thinking.

For Project Tauren Shaman I'm thinking about transferring my orc hunter from his current realm to Doomhammer, where my shaman resides. The reason is because my horde has an heirloom set and the thought of leveling that shaman without the experience bonus makes me shudder. The hunter heirlooms aren't perfectly itemized for a shaman but they will work out okay I think. It's about the experience bonus anyway. Yes, I'm spoiled by those damn heirlooms! If I end up doing this I'll be sure to include the details the next time I updated Project Tauren Shaman.

Back to alchemy and enchanting briefly. Been making some decent gold selling flasks and meta gems during raid nights. The flasks are profitable only because I had some herbs stockpiled so I didn't have to purchase any up front. I don't think I'll be selling flasks regularly as it's a pretty competitve market with lots of reposting and undercutting. That and I'm transmute mastery. The mats to make meta gems are cheap and when the transmute mastery procs and I get a two for one, that's just extra free gold in my pocket. I post my gems at really odd times, like super late at night or first thing in the morning when I wake up. Seems to work. Having success selling mostly Austere Earthsiege Diamonds, Chaotic Skyflare Diamonds, Relentless Earthsiege Diamonds and Ember Skyflare Diamonds. I sell gems at 12 hours to keep posting fees minimal in case I need to cancel and repost.

Enchanting wise, I sold a few scrolls of Enchant Cloak - Titanweave and made a few hundred gold and have been spending dream shards trying to pick up profitable enchanting recipes, such as Enchant 2H Weapon - Massacre. I haven't looked into buying up mats and selling them on the market just yet, but will do so soon and see how profitable and competitive it is.

Okay so that wasn't a "quick" update after all.

A Scribe's Tale: Farming vs. Purchasing

It's no secret that a great place to farm Northrend herbs is in Sholazar Basin. I used to do this on my Death Knight scribe quite regularly. I'd farm for an hour or so, mill the herbs and craft various inscription stuff to sell on the AH. Then I learned on a fellow gold blogger's blog (sorry, I don't remember who) that Weapon and Armor Vellum III are great sellers on the AH, so I focused all my farmed materials on the crafting of those. My short time farming would usually allow me to sell a stack or two of each, and they sell fast on my realm. Usually within a matter of a couple hours.

I realized three things pretty quickly:

1) There's a lot of demand for the vellums if they are selling that fast, which means there must be a lot of enchanters selling their wares on the AH.

2) The number of sellers selling vellums on the AH is super low compared to all the people selling enchants. There's room for me.

3) Farming is too time intensive to keep up with the demand of the vellums.

So I went about and started adding herbs to my snatch list in Auctioneer, hoping to get as many stacks of herbs on the cheap to mill and turn into inks of the sea, which is the ink needed to craft the vellums. And it has paid off. Sure, it's more of an upfront investment to purchase all the herbs instead of farming them, but think of all the hours I would lose if I farmed herbs for one hour a day! The sheer volume of vellums I can stockpile and sell results in so much profit that the cost of purchasing the herbs is like dropping a penny into a wishing well.

Here's some things I've learned about selling vellums on my realm. Your realm may vary, it's your job to pick up on the trends:

1) I find that selling them in stacks of 5 works best for me. The few other people selling vellums regularly seem to do it in full stacks fo 20 or one at a time. Offer something different than your competitors.

2) Weapon vellums are much more profitable on my realm, probably due to there being more people selling weapon enchants than armor enchants. Still, both are profitable and its a good idea to sell both.

3) They sell pretty well 24/7, but they sell extremely fast on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

To summarize, farming can be profitiable in short bursts and it's a great way for a beginner gold maker (which I still consider myself to be) to familiarize him or herself with the economy and what's worth what. I believe everybody should farm a little here and there when it's convenient. But purchasing and stockpiling your mats on the AH gives you much more time to craft and sell, and that means more money in your pocket. The benefit of stockpiling is that when all your stuff has sold on the AH, you just grab more out of the bank and restock, whereas with farming you have to drop everything, fly to wherever, spend time farming, etc.

Two Tips For Multitaskers

A couple things. If you're somewhat into getting achievements like I am, at least on my main (which is my level 80 hunter), but you're also into multitasking, these two tips are for you.

On my hunter I'm trying to complete all the Northrend quests in the game, so when I'm waiting for my dungeon finder queue to spit me into a heroic, or if I just feel like killing off a few low level quests, I'll go and do exactly that. Not only am I working towards getting the achievements associated with doing all the Northrend quests, I'm also disenchanting random drops and quest rewards into enchanting mats, which I am saving for my final push to 450 enchanting. If you've already maxed out enchanting then this is pure profit. On top of the enchanting mats and gold rewards, you also get tons of vendor trash which surprisingly adds up into decent profits once vendored.

My second tip is related to the Midsummer Fire Festival event. This is a great time to get easy gold and experience for your leveling alts. Take my 73 priest for example. Fully rested and in heirloom (BoA) gear, the exp. gains from simply riding around and honoring (or desecrating the opposite faction's) bonfires is easy money and exp. Sure it's a little boring but just put on an episode of your favorite podcast or two and get to work (talk about multitasking!). Since you go all over Azeroth, Outland and Northrend in persuit of these bonfires, it's also a great time to work on that Explorer achievement and title. If you're not into doing that and just want to stick to doing dungeons and quests, don't forget to visit the nearest Ribbon Pole once an hour and use it long enough to get the full 60 minute duration experience buff, which adds a 10% experience bonus to enemies killed.

Hello JMTC Readers :)

First of all thanks to Markco over at Just My Two Copper for the link to my blog. Second, welcome new readers. Well I guess that would be readers period, as you're probably the first. This blog is fairly new - only a couple months old in fact.

Here's a quick overview of what this blog is about. My goal in WoW is to have every profession maxed out and get gold capped eventually. I'm also doing a project where I level my first Horde toon to 80 before cataclysm comes out, so that I can see Azeroth from Horde eyes before things change forever. The secondary objective of this is to see how much money I can make leveling to 80.

I call it Project Tauren Shaman and you can read about it here. For a quick summary so far my Tauren Shaman is level 20 and has 340 gold.

A little update on my first goal of getting every profession capped. I recently got Blacksmithing and Herbalism to 80. My level 80 hunter has been slowly grinding out Enchanting and she is now at 430. I'll probably get lazy and just buy the mats needed to level to 450 on the auction house. Speaking of, the last 10 points in blacksmithing required nearly 1000 gold in AH purchased mats. The good news is those 10 points let me make 10 Titansteel Shield Walls, which netted me nearly 5000 gold once they all sold. (Most of them sold Tuesday - Thursday on my realm, which is basically raiding time) This speaks volumes about how investing in materials in the AH (versus wasting hours and hours farming the same mats) and turning them into products people want can net you huge profits. Farming does have its place, but turning 1000g into 5000g in just a few minutes of crafting time is a no brainer.

Back to my professions. I now have the following crafting professions maxed (all gathering professions are maxed, as is cooking and fishing on one character): Enchanting, Jewelcrafting, Inscription. As mentioned earlier I'm nearly there with enchanting and my 73 priest has Alchemy up to 395 I believe. My lowly level 40 mage has tailoring up to 300 so that will be my focus soon. After that I'll work on leveling up a leatherworker.

Here's a quick gold tip: If you have more than one herbalist toon you probably have a surplus of random herbs stashed in somebody's bank. At least I did. I needed to free up some bank slots so I sent dozens of stacks of random herbs off to my scribe to have them milled. Once everything was milled I turned all the various inks I ended up with into random glyphs, crafting two or three apiece. I also ended up crafting a couple rare quality off-hands which sold pretty quick on the AH, turning some dusty old herbs that had just been sitting around doing nothing into a couple hundred gold. The glyphs I stashed away in my bank toons guild vault for Cataclysm. Why? Once the expansion hits people are going to be buying out every possible glyph for their toons because of the recently announced changes to the glyphing system. Sure, the glyph market will be saturated, but the demand for every glyph in existence will also be through the roof and that will drive prices up.

Could I have made some decent money NOW by just selling the herbs? Sure. But I will make a lot more later by converting them all into glyphs and just having a little patience. Thanks for reading.