6.2 Electric Boogaloo

Welcome to Electric Boogaloo where I not only pull some rad moves on a flat piece of cardboard, but more specifically I break it down with the next World of Warcraft patch...

What is Patch 6.2?
If you're reading this, I'm going to assume you have already read the patch notes available on the official Blizzard blog, if you have not I recommend reading them now before continuing further.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/18539917/62-ptr-patch-notes-4-13-2015

Despite only being available on the PTR for a couple of days at this point there's already a HUGE amount of information available. For those that have spent the past couple of months complaining about a lack of content, this appears to be your patch. A new raid: Hellfire Citadel, the completion of the Legendary Ring quest, and some new dungeon content in the form of Timewalking. There's even things for us filthy casual Garrison dwellers.

FOR THE RAIDERS
6.2 promises a fight with Archimonde, remember him? Remember how we're fighting in an alternate timeline so he's not really dead? Good, there will be other bosses too. I presume they'll also drop pretty items, possibly a title and mount to lust after. Certainly a whole list of achievements to knock out. So far though, the Citadel promises to showcase more of the Demons we know and love from the TBC era of the game, so ready yourself for more of the Purple and Green. It also follows that the new raid instance will be involved in the completion of the Legendary ring.

FOR EVERYBODY ELSE
The new Shipyard offers a new type of mission and presumably some new goalposts for the Garrison, there's not a ton of information available about the new plot just yet but it's a welcome addition for anyone who's been staring at the same Garrison Buildings for months. There has been talk of the potential tie into future content with the new Navy at our disposal, which is tantalizing.

Timewalking is however one of the most interesting features present in the patch, allowing players to que up for tweaked legacy content. It's limited, but that also makes sense starting out, it offers Blizzard a lot of scaleability in terms of future releases. While also allowing players a chance to relive some old content and get relevant rewards in the process.

DOUBLE RAINBOW TIME
It's too early to tell, but this expansion is heading toward a timely (excuse the pun) end. Some have put forward the notion that 6.2 will be the final patch, personally I think we'll see 6.3 with a bunch of raiders equipped with legendary rings calling down Captain Planet on the Kraken while the combined forces of the Horde and Alliance navies bombard the thing. A perfect tie into the next expansion, World of Warcraft: Waterworld... Starring Kevin Costner.

We also may never fly again, which really kinda sucks (a lot)...

The reality though is that we may not fly for the remainder of Draenor, however that may change dramatically with the next expansion, who knows. More importantly though, Blizzard seems to be on track to deliver an expansion per year at their current rate (unless they plan to let their playerbase languish in the final chapter of WoD for a full year). They seem currently to be in a new model, where in the future we could see a life cycle like that of Draenor. That is an interesting thought, consider how quickly the content is coming out now. Are we really getting less content overall than previously? I don't think so.  It's being released differently than in the past however. And with Timewalking Blizzard has now gained access to a powerful tool to smooth out the slow points of future expansions.

I'm not sure exactly what's going to happen, but the future of the game looks promising...

Regards,

K

The Savage Shuffle

A number of the more industrious have been saying that patch 6.1 would make a major commodity essentially worthless since the announcement of that patch, more than a month later we find out if they were right...

THE END IS SRSLY NIGH

Whether we call ourselves Goblins, Dragons, Hoaders, Trade Princes, or whatever - those with a focus on making obscene amounts of gold have agreed on one thing if nothing else in recent months: Patch 6.1 would reduce the raw gold value of a major commodity in Draenor. Many went as far as claiming it would drop to such an extent as to make it worthless (to us). I have been on the other side of that argument from the beginning. To be clear, I knew the price was going to drop. In fact on many servers Blood started taking a dive shortly after news of the changes to it's availability went public, as numerous Chicken Littles began liquidating their stock in preparation for the catastrophic price drop.

That in turn, caused the price to drop. At the end of the day, some of us are our own worst enemies...

SO HOW MUCH IS IT WORTH NOW?

The Median price currently for Savage Blood is listed as 352.93g on The Undermine Journal. When the announcement was made for 6.1 Blood was trading at around 800g on Blackhand. So, still a substantial drop, but is there still gold to be made there? Absolutely...

That's 49.66 Blood worth of Primals, and someone in Trade actively buying them in bulk...

Prior to 6.1 the only reliable way to farm Blood was through Barn Work Orders, the patch added another way by giving us daily visitors to our garrisons that let us trade materials for Primal Spirit, which we can in turn purchase Blood with. The trick here is how much are these things worth, how much profit can you make off of them, is it even worth it?

CALCULATING VALUE

When doing trades we know that each Primal costs 5 of a particular material, Blood in turn costs 50 Primals. Ergo, 250 of a given material to purchase a single Savage Blood. With the Median Price listed above for the Blood (352.93g), and the Median Price of Starflower, (1.13g) we end up with an investment of 282.50g for a single Blood with a profit of 70.43g each (not including AH cut). That's not bad, but we can (and will) do better.

If you've spent much time looking at the picture above, you might notice that it appears a Rogue is attempting to buy something at a price that sounds silly to other people in Trade Chat. This screenshot was taken on the first day that Herb Trader was available on US realms. The character I'm on at the time is my Alchemist, I had just gotten the patterns I needed with him and now had a substantial amount of Blood in the gbank as a result of my stockpiling in anticipation of this day. I had started buying Herbs at 1g per, max. However, I was commonly finding them as cheap as 35s each on off days where Herbs weren't being used in the Trading Post.

I wish I could quit you Ancient Trading Mechanism...

My calculations at that point were an average of 50s spent on each herb, meaning that for me the cost of a single Blood was actually more like 125g. So yeah, I could afford to meet the Rogue at 250g each and still turn a nice profit (actually doubling my money on each one). Long story short, he got his trinket that day (from not having it to level 4 upgrade). It cost him more than the 250g he was hoping, and I also supplied him with the Catalysts and other materials he needed too.

All told I sold the guy 700 Alchemical Catalyst, 60 Savage Blood, 40 Sorcerous Fire, 40 Sorcerous Water, and 20 Sorcerous Earth. I sold another 75 Bloods to a Monk moments later. In the immortal words of Ice Cube, It Was a Good Day (for those confused: yes, the guy on Sesame Street and the family friendly film "Are We There Yet" was once a gangster rapper who graduated from N.W.A.).

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
Knowing how much you can expect to pay for the material trade in, means you've established the minimum price at which you're willing to invest. I keep my eye on the Auction House and buy materials below a certain threshold of profitability. If I stock up on Herbs at 1g and then move my Blood at 350+ I know I'm getting a return of 100g each (or more). I generally sell these in lots at higher than the lowest priced singles on the AH. 15 Blood for 350-400g each will sell, because it's more convenient to buy them that way than it is to click multiple times.

Additionally, develop a strategy for the best days to sell those materials. Bloods are worth less on days when the Herb Trader is in town, but worth more on days when the Dust Trader is available because of the rules of supply and demand. So a little self control can mean more profits.

We also, I hope have understood some of the ramifications of forward thinking with regards to patch notes. The importance of selectively stockpiling. The days of multiple guild banks stacked with glyphs and other materials in anticipation of a new patch/expansion may be over. But it doesn't mean you can't make a tidy sum still with some careful planning on patch day. And with that, I leave you.

Remember,

Always Be Closing...

K

The Gold Report v1

Welcome to the monthly segment where I get candid into the ins and outs of my evil empire...

ONE MEELION GOLD!!!

DISCLAIMER

Once upon a time this blog was built using WordPress. Primarily my posts consisted of weekly gold reports, those sort of went off the rails pretty quickly as I found myself wanting to devote more time to other topics. And now that I'm back again and since gold is such an important part of my eLife, I decided to begin the gold report anew, however I want to establish from the beginning that I will be doing this initially on a monthly basis. Later, after I establish a solid nest egg (the 1 million gold cap), I will likely move to a quarterly release schedule for these gold updates as frankly things don't change that much in such short intervals once I'm firmly established in my markets...

WHERE ARE THE ALTS?

Currently my Priest is 95, Rogue is 93, and Shaman is 92 all other characters are 100. I've also started a second Hunter on another Account who's already 92. Eventually my goal is to have a full 5 box team again, this time Tank, 3 Hunters, and Shaman heals. The Shaman in question is 80 and rested, another Hunter is also ready to go though he's a bit lower at 70. Both of the remaining Hunters and the Shaman will be getting boosted to 90 from the WoD activation of their respective accounts, but I'm holding off for the moment until I can get some hardware upgrades complete on my computer and until of course I finish my full set of 100s on my main account.

With extreme drop in value for Temporal Crystal I've opted to revert back to an earlier base redundancy method whereby I have essentially two of each of the main professions, and redundancy in depth for Tailoring, Enchanting, and Jewelcrafting. That's a complicated way of saying I no longer have Enchanting Huts in all of my Garrisons. Having the secondary Hunter set up with his own Hut simplifies matters tremendously, though really it's not exactly that hard to find a DE hut in Group Finder either, but since I have bank access there as well it's generally speaking easier to just go with old reliable.

WHY JEWELCRAFTING?

Fair question, while it's definitely expedient to disenchanting on tap for all of your characters I've found that the Gem Boutique offers something that the Hut just can't compete with. Each level 2 boutique offers the character a very easy daily that turns some ore into 200g. To be clear, the most you'll ever drop on this daily is 60 Blackrock Ore or True Iron Ore, with a minimum payout of 100g you're looking at roughly 40g for essentially pressing a button. However, I've gotten over 300g from the turn in and some of the dailies require as little as 10 Ore to complete giving you some much better margins on average. Add to this a couple of cut gems per day at over 1k each and yeah, it's definitely profitable.

For those characters that have the building but not the profession (my Druid and Hunter for example), I use the Taladite Crystals they get to craft Epic Rings. Those fetch another 1-2k each, though they don't move quickly.  

EMERGENT AND EXPANDING MARKETS?
As I've become increasingly established I've found my reliance and indeed interest in Tailoring waning rapidly. I'm still making bags, though I just created the final Hexweave Bag for my army of alts, now I'll likely be making a combination of bags, pets, and upgrade items with the tailors from here on. I've likewise been making some Weapons, Pets, and Upgrade items with other professions. Reroll items have been decidedly flat lately, lots of competition there. I've also put the finishing touches on my Scribe. He now has a full set of Burnished Inscription Bags and mounds of glyphs. Today's my first day back in the market and it's going about how I expected, I've made some gold but I'm definitely not going to cap off of glyphs this time around. I'm keeping close tabs on my glyph market gold, next month I intend to have a good set of numbers along with some thoughts on Inscriptions in general. And finally...

HOW FULL ARE THE COFFERS?
As of March 31st I was sitting on 201,449g 71s 44c.

I know, screenshot or it didn't happen...

Not too bad, that's 70k earned for the week. This month had some major ups and downs, Really since I got back in the game my gold figures have been more erratic than Gary Busey in a bumper car. Which is business as usual since WoD released. I scored a BlizzCon Code this month for 35k, along with some other goodies. And I made a bad investment on the Trading Mechanism. Still, I'm pleased. If I can keep the momentum I shouldn't have too long to wait before I'm capped again. If I can just keep the spending in check that is...

Remember,

Always Be Closing...

K

The Resource Shuffle

Garrisons are one of the big selling points in Draenor, so naturally I have to talk at least a little about how to exploit them for fun and profit...

RESOURCES, HOW DO THEY WORK?

Resources are the basic building blocks of the Draenor, many sources have covered this at length so I won't go too far into it. But you earn resources every day by default, those resources can then be used to run Missions with our Followers, requisition Work Orders through the War Mill, but my favorite use of resources has to be at the Trading Post.

If the Trading Post was a celebrity, I'd be the president of the fan club. It does what it supposed to do, and does it well. Not only that, but it's versatile. You can trade Resources for materials like Frostweed, and you can also trade materials like Starflower for Resources via Work Orders. Then there's the additional amenities such as the increased reputation gains, the access to the (kinda sad) Laughing Skull reputation vendor, and most importantly the Ancient Trading Mechanism for easy Auction House access...

It makes me happy in the pants is what I'm trying to say...

EVERYDAY I'M SHUFFLIN'

For years "shuffling" has been enshrined as one of the more lucrative gold making methods in World of Warcraft. The old shuffle has been mostly removed by Blizzard, however Draenor offers us a new method, the Resource Shuffle. As mentioned earlier, each day a trader NPC will show up offering to trade Garrison Resources for raw materials, the NPC is chosen randomly, but always offers the same exchange rate (listed below).

RESOURCES PER ITEM

TRADER	ORE	DUST	FUR	HERBS	HIDE	MEAT	FLESH
Yula (A)	4	5	4	8	10	5	8
Talgaiir (A)	10	10	5	5	4	8	4
Portanuus (A)	6	6	6	6	6	6	6
Krixel (N)	6	8	10	10	8	4	5
Pyxni (N)	8	4	8	4	8	10	10
Surehide (H)	4	5	4	8	10	5	8
Ribchewer (H)	10	10	5	5	4	8	4
Tai'tasi (H)	6	6	6	6	6	6	6

Note: Traders are marked by faction, there are a total of five possibilities on any given day, for any given faction (3 Alliance, 2 Neutral, 3 Horde).

For years "shu This means that if you're sitting on say, 5000 resources of disposable income on the day that Pyxni comes to town, you can trade for 1250 Draenic Dust. According to the Undermine Journal that would be approx 7937.50g (Median Price 6.35g each).

IN DUST WE TRUST

Obviously raw numbers will vary based on numerous factors, the general rule though is that you're going to want to buy Dust when you can get it at a good price. For Horde that means buying on Pyxni and Surehide days. Another thing to consider is stocking your own coffers, if like me you have an account full of 100s burning cooldowns daily, you need to keep them supplied with materials. Then you run into a big question: should I burn resources to restock? The answer is: maybe.

I keep a bank tab specifically for materials waiting to be processed, as pictured below...

By far the simplest way to "share" materials among my many alts...

There are three major gaps in my materials collection, in order of severity: Frostweed, Sumptuous Fur, and Draenic Dust. So, obviously I ignore the Herbs and the Cloth in favor of the dust right? Right. But why? For me it's a simple numbers game. I have to figure out which of the mats offers me the most value, and invest my resources there. I can then buy the remaining materials on the AH. Take the earlier example of having 5000 resources to burn, with Pyxni in town I could grab 3 full stacks of Dust, and still have room for 3 full stacks of Frostweed. However there's the average gold cost of these items to consider on the AH as well.

Current Median Prices for the three materials are as follows: Frostweed 1.97g, Sumptuous Fur 2.29g, Draenic Dust 6.35g . Add to this consumption level for each material amongst  my alts, I have 5 characters that require Dust daily. 4 that require Fur, and only 1 that requires Frostweed. Additionally, even after my basic needs for dust are met I'll still use the excess to create scrolls. It's the one crafting material that I simply cannot do without. So the clear winner is Draenic Dust 99.99% of the time. When do you not buy Dust? 

The only time I can see blowing my load on the other materials is if I have literally none of them and the prices on the AH are just too much. As you can see, I stock up when prices are good and generally I'm capable of getting through the lean times when the same trader is at the Trading Post for days on end (that's been a problem) or when the trader I need just won't show up. In general, I'd rather buy extra Dust, sell it, and turn that gold into two or three times as many of the other materials I need.

And that friends is where I leave you this week...

Remember,

Always Be Closing...

K

Introducing: The Gold Report!

The Gold Report is a weekly post about my recent exploits making and spending Gold in World of Warcraft. Inside you'll find tips, observations, and speculation. Hopefully you'll learn something, failing that perhaps you'll be entertained...

MIMIRON'S HEAD

The big news for me this week is that I finally got Mimiron's Head, I've been after this mount since Ulduar was released. So, I'm very happy to add it to the collection (back then I offered to gold cap a guild's bank for the pleasure of getting the mount, but no dice). For now, bask in the glory that is an Orc in a flying Robot Gnome Head...

Dr Robotnik takes to the skies...

Enough basking? No? Okay, I'll wait...

WHAT AM I BUYING?

This has been an interesting week, I began with a couple of big buys. Basically, I bought two full sets of Modules for the Ancient Trading Mechanism. If you've not been paying attention it breaks down like this: The Mechanism is an Auctioneer for your Garrison, you need to collect materials to create the 5 Modules necessary for repairing the Mech. The big stumbling block is the Universal Language Module, the parts for which come specifically from Ashran...

I picked up the first module this week at a pretty decent price, 65k. I had all of the other modules in my gbank ready to go. But decided to try flipping the kit in Trade. After a couple of days I noticed the price plumetting. I ended up getting out from under the thing breaking even at 75k for the entire kit. To me, breaking even is a loss. Because ultimately we're talking about time spent hawking the thing and assembling the materials. If I'm not making a profit, and a significant one at that, it's not worth my time to do it.

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson there and steered clear of the Mech, but that's not exactly the case. After seeing the price drop and appear to stabilize, I found a second Module for dirt cheap. I've since moved this to a character on my second account. Why? Well, I'm currently grooming that account for use almost exclusively in the Auction House. I've established a a guild bank there for long term storage of overflow. I've also established a gbank and character specifically for Glyphs, I don't have high expectations here frankly. As Zerohour pointed out earlier today on his own post 10 Reasons To Hate Inscription, the golden age of making a million gold per month off of glyphs is long gone. It's definitely not a market I'm interested in devoting my time to, however when I DO actually end up with a mass of cheap herbs Glyphs tend to be where they go, and those glyphs have to go somewhere.

WHAT AM I SELLING?

The gold game is in an odd state right now, and I know it's left me at a loss at times for what to think about things. However, one of my earliest predictions about Draenor appears to be more true than ever. The things that are most profitable for me aren't the crafted goods, it's more about the raw materials. If I list two stacks of Draenic Dust and 2 Greater Mastery Taladite, guess which one will sell first? In all probability I'll sell all of the dust before I sell a single gem. That being said the passive shuffling methods via Trading Post, etc become much more attractive. My own gold making methods haven't changed drastically as a result. However, as my alts continue to hit 100 (7/11 currently) I find myself rethinking some of my earliest assumptions about the profitability of certain decisions. I wouldn't say that I'm modifying my methods daily, but that's not too far off. I'm constantly making small changes to test theories and accommodate shifts in the economy, basically fine tuning. The real trouble comes in later if Blizzard decides (as I fear they already have) to add no meaningful new items to the list of commodities in Draenor. I mean really, how long do we want to juggle Savage Blood? Still there's gold to be made out there, for those willing to make it...

Remember,

Always Be Closing...

K

Futaba Presents: It's in the Bag

Before we begin, I'd like to introduce Futaba, my Monk and Tailor.

Lo Pan was taken.

You might be asking why I have a Monk as a tailor, specifically my primary tailor (I currently have 4 burning Hexweave Cooldowns everyday). There's two reasons, for starters my first experiences with a Monk class were in games like Dungeons & Dragons and EverQuest. Games where the Monk was a cloth based melee class, this always gibed with the traditional mythos of the Monk. From classic Kung Fu movies and television shows we see the Monk not wearing armor, he's traditionally portrayed in silk. Because the power of the Monk traditionally has derived from meditation, experience, and dedication to technique - not body armor. It's sort of a defining characteristic basically anywhere but Azeroth. So, I'm a bit traditionalist with regards to my views of the Monk.

Also, there's the first recurring character on Saturday Night Live, namely John Belushi's Samurai Futaba. The premise is simple, a presumably Japanese Samurai (Belushi) is put into a position for which he is not traditionally known to be. For example, Samurai Bellboy, Samurai Delicatessen, Samurai Stock Broker, and of course Samurai Tailor (as in the video below).

Belushi speaks in gibberish, imitating Japanese speech and the other cast members pretend to understand him. They've come to him because he's the best at what he does, whether it's making a sandwich, altering a suit, or doing the hustle - he's the man for the job apparently. And when he fails, on even a mild, mundane level he attempts to commit ritual suicide before his customer stops him. It's formulaic, but it's funny. And when you consider Belushi was coked out of his mind, it's downright amazing that he was doing things like tossing fresh fruit in the air and cutting it in half on a live set without incident. Ah so, now we know why I have a Monk tailor, and why his name is Futaba. I'm also a bit of a terrible person apparently.

With that out of the way, let's get to the meat and potatoes of this entry.

Last month I wrote an article about establishing value, I used my old favorite the Netherweave Bag as an example. Tailoring has always been a staple for my gold making enterprises, particularly because everybody needs bags to carry their gear in. Cast spells? You need bags to carry stuff. Swing an axe? You need bags to carry stuff. Sneaky guy who stabs people in the ankles? Here's a bag. Point is: bags don't have class or level restrictions, they just let you carry more stuff.

LIFE AFTER 16 SLOTS
If all you needed to do was make more of the same this would be a very short entry. NW bags are a great start, but they're also just the start as far as I'm concerned. The 16 slots are really nice when you're starting out, and they're perfectly for alts most of the time. Most of my alts have them in their bank slots right now in fact. Still, eventually you want to graduate to something that offers some more room. For me, the first thing I always do is grab a couple of free bags killing some Dragons (Onyxia and Sartharion). That still leaves me with a couple of slots to fill.

When I started taking stock of what my army of alts had and pushing my way into Draenor I knew a little extra pack space could go a long way. The two best options are the Frostweave Bag (20 slots) and Embersilk Bag (24 slots), now if you boost a character they get 4 Embersilks for free (this is pretty nice honestly). Both of these have held up nicely since their expansions, largely due to the amount of dust needed to create each of them.

THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS
For the Frostweave Bag you will need 60 Frostweave Cloth, 12 Infinite Dust, and 2 Eternium Threads. This is the most annoying aspect of these bags, you have to first make normal bolts of Frostweave, then create Imbued Frostweave out of those and the dust. On my server these sell quite well at about 200g each roughly. Generally the cloth for a single bag runs about 90-100g. The dust is about 25g per bag. Still leaving some definite meat on the bone for profit.

Things are about the same for the Embersilk Bag, requiring 75 Embersilk Cloth and 15 Hypnotic Dust to create (no threads needed, so that's a plus). The bags sell for around 375, the cloth is interestingly the same price as the Frostweave. The dust however is notably more costly than that used in the Frostweave Bags, nearly five times as much. So, looking  at the AH I see the following:

For an investment of 125, I make Frostweave Bags that I sell for 200 (75g profit).
For an investment of 250, I make Embersilk Bags that I sell for 375 (125g profit).

So which do I make? The answer is all of them, duh! Pay attention...

Actually, the clear winner is the Frostweave Bag. For one thing you can easily defer a good chunk of the cost by farting the dust into existence via Void Shatter. Currently you can find Void Crystals on my server for 5g each, these generally net about 10 dust per. Or, if you're REALLY trying to save your nickels and dimes, just run some level 80 raids...

I run several each week while farming for mounts. I always leave the instance with a ton of epic items and of course hundreds of cloth. My advice here is if you're going this route disenchant armor and accessories, vendor the weapons. Still, a couple of runs is enough to stock up dust for quite a few bags, subsequent runs can either be used to make dust to sell (wouldn't advise it, just drives the price lower) or you can of course vendor those epics for some gold instead.

A similar approach is also helpful for the Embersilk Bags, unfortunately there is not an equivalent shatter so you'll have to work a little harder to cut costs. One possibility is shuffling, if you can find a lot of Cata era Ore/Gems at a good price you can craft a ton of rings to DE. As I write it though, it sounds like an awful lot of work. It might be better to just go the AH route and be content with your 125g profit per bag. Still, running BWD, FL, etc and cleaning up on cloth while farming for mounts, xmog gear, and titles isn't a bad idea and will definitely help defer the cost of these bags.

CONCLUSION
I generally keep a handful of these in the AH at a time, they don't sell instantly but they sell. It's another couple thousand gold per day of profit for very little work. Meanwhile, I burn my cooldowns and bide my time. Getting a full set of Hexweave Bags on my main characters and listing what's left. I keep the ones Futaba makes, the others all go to the AH. Another 10k made each time I craft a round of bags. It all adds up pretty quickly.

XOXO

Khaas the Indomitable

The Curious Case of Resources in Draenor

Since the launch of Warlords of Draenor I've been focused largely on my Garrison(s). Currently I'm sitting on six garrisons (five at level 2 and one at level 3), I've been grinding professions and crafting some large pieces here and there. A trend has emerged however, crafted goods just aren't what they used to be. It's easy to panic in this early expansion environment, it's also easy to be too passive and assume things will right themselves somewhere down the line. Both of these positions are dangerous to your gold hoard. But before we get too far into that, let's talk about what has changed specifically with regards to our commodities...

A BRIEF HISTORY OF COMMODITIES TRADING
For years, the accepted method of reliably generating obscene amounts of gold has revolved around the idea that you gather base materials, or material goods. Process these into refined goods or crafted goods. Some materials proved more universally viable than others, leather has always been sort of the odd man out. Yes, you might need a few pieces of refined leather to craft an epic Cloak. But generally speaking Herbs and Ore have been far more valuable.

In Vanilla, Herbs were by far the leader (Enchanting dust notwithstanding). The reason was quite simple, demand for potions was astronomical. In an environment where each raider could quaf multiple potions during a single encounter, you had a customer base that was ravenous for Health, Mana, and Fire Resist potions. Then Blizzard decided to cap potion use to one per character during an encounter. This increased the challenge of some encounters, it also decreased the demand for potions and by extension herbs dramatically.

In Burning Crusade a new profession was added: Jewelcrafting. And with it came gems and socket bonuses, the demand for these gems was decent early on. And as Arena became more prevalent and raiders began getting their hands on more items with an odd socket or two, the demand rose for those gems and for Ore from which to refine them. Alchemists also received specializations Potions, Elixirs, and Transmutations. The savvy began making armies of alts to transmute gems multiples times per day, thereby basically conjuring gold from thin air.

The Birth of Shuffling: Though not quite as popular as it would later become, the shuffle emerged at this time. Gather a load of Ore, process and craft jewelry, cut gems. Disenchant the jewelry, sell dust or enchant items for people. This would take off full speed in the next expansion however...

By the time Wrath of the Lich King dropped and Inscriptions entered the game, herbs suddenly became HUGELY popular again. The initial model introduced for switching glyphs to customize your character guaranteed a consistent demand for the glyphs. Sometimes I'd have people buy whole stacks of glyphs at a time so they'd be able to switch as necessary. This was later changed, so that people learned the glyph as they do now. But for a time, it was basically a license to print gold - assuming you could get your hands on enough ink, and therefore herbs to craft those glyphs.

Inscriptions also introduced the Enchanting Scrolls, finally enchanters could sell their enchants without trading the item as we had in the past. We could enchant items for alts or twinks suddenly with utter ease. And such an opportunity open, the gold making tri force was now complete. The Ore Shuffle began in earnest. Coupled with the sale of gems and glyphs, piles of gold could be generated with ease.

Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria refined things a bit, a number of glyphs were removed, etc. Profits weren't as good as the mean old days of Wrath, and frankly they probably never will be (if you're bringing in 70-100k on glyphs in a single day, you've found your high water mark). In general, I don't see much from Cata and MoP that was earthshaking with regards to professions. Buying recipes from the vendors with daily tokens, etc is about it and then we went back to Draenor...

THE NEW NORMAL
I'm not saying the sky is falling, we don't have a babies having babies with monsters scenario here. What we have is a paradigm shift. Resources are suddenly readily available, and since we can't prospect anymore (a major point of contention for me) once you're level 100 you'll start to build a stockpile of Ores of both varieties pretty quickly. My main is a Jeweler and Enchanter, as he has always been. After filling the Work Order que each morning, I'm left with a stack each of the ores, plus some extra. The spares I toss in the gbank along with various other items.

I burn my cooldowns, creating some Crystals (with multiple enchanters). Do my JC dailies (again, multiple Jewelers). Collect Salvage from Missions, disenchant anything over 500 ilvl that won't be used. Vendor the rest, and when I've completed this for all of my characters then I get to play the game...

That's where people are, and it's by design.

As my alts get increasingly higher level I'll unlock the Garden on multiple characters. That will add a little more time, but also even more materials to my gbank stock. I'll have potions to make, but frankly I'm not raiding anymore, I'm seriously considering PVP though this expansion so I'll likely begin developing a stock of pots for that. Just this weekend I caught up on my Inscription Research, giving MoP a miss made that more time consuming than it needed to be. Still, it wasn't bad. And I only used the Herbs I gathered from a single Garden to do it.

So the big question is, now what? Welcome to the head of your average customer. Their needs are different than they were in other expansions. We can all craft some gear or buy it with Apexis Crystals. We can all enchant our stuff, etc. So what we need are not Crafted Goods, but Trade Goods and Refined Goods. Gems are up at a good value right now on Blackhand, a Greater Crit gem is around 1500g. And someone will buy it, in a day or two. Recrystalizers on the other hand, those sell fairly quickly. I can make five of those in the time it takes me to make a single Greater Crit. I get about 400 each for those. So, more basically. And I'm not waiting around until I have enough materials to craft more until I sell the item.

Sockets aren't guaranteed anymore, gems just aren't as popular (and they won't be unless something changes). But there's lots of people needing to reroll stats on that Necklace they made, or those Plate Shoulders. Which brings me to my next point, if you don't have the right stats and if you're not actively barking in trade chat trying to sell the item, the epic crafted gear is almost an utter waste of time for gold making purposes.

The few times I've sold a crafted epic to someone it's been because I found someone in trade chat who was willing to gamble on good stats. But if you pull a caster cloak with Spirit and Multistrike you've got a limited market for selling that item unless you reroll the stats yourself. In which case, you've just wasted more gold trying to make the thing marketable, before you know it you've rerolled 5 times and you're asking yourself, "why don't I just sell these?" because there's a guy in the Auction House who just made 2k off of you when you rerolled your way to marketable stats.

That's the new normal, that's the biggest truth of making gold WoD right now. The old ways work, but only to a point. Patience and observation as ever pays huge dividends, don't be afraid to innovate. And remember, a sucker opens the auction house every second of every day. Don't let that sucker be you.

XOXO

Blood Champion Khaas

The Resources Trade

Strange as it may sound, Resources in WoD are a commodity. They're used in your garrison, which is central to your experience in the expansion. And for the Goblins, there's a more profitable use for them...

TRADING POST
Earlier I mentioned that I would be continuing to use my army of alts to generate gold in WoD, that indeed I had already started working on them. As of this writing I now have 6 Garrisons active, each generating income. Though there is some overlap in the needs of my various alts there is one building that has proven indispensable in generating revenue, the Trading Post.

It's name alone is enough to make me interested, but there's more than the obvious here. First, the Trading Post allows you to generate extra Resources by trading in materials like Ore, Dust, Furs, etc. Additionally, each day a different Trader NPC will show up offering to exchange items (5 at a time) for Resources. Sometimes this means you can basically generate extra resources for free (get the materials for 20 resources, turn the same number in for a work order and receive 30 resources). But don't bet on things lining up quite so neatly very often.

Below is a list of the various traders and what items they have available, I've highlighted the best deals in bold.

TRADER	ORE	DUST	FUR	HERBS	HIDE	MEAT	FLESH
Yula (A)	20	25	20	40	50	25	40
Talgaiir (A)	50	50	25	25	20	40	20
Portanuus (A)	30	30	30	30	30	30	30
Krixel (N)	30	40	50	50	40	20	25
Pyxni (N)	40	20	40	20	40	50	50
Surehide (H)	20	25	20	40	50	25	40
Ribchewer (H)	50	50	25	25	20	40	20
Tai'tasi (H)	30	30	30	30	30	30	30

Note: Traders are marked by faction, there are a total of five possibilities on any given day, for any given faction (3 Alliance, 2 Neutral, 3 Horde).

The big reason I like this so much is that I have a bench full of alts that I honestly don't see myself playing anywhere near as much as my main. I mean, that's what an alt is right? At level 92 (91 with rested XP) they each have access to the Trading Post, and while I'm off farming mounts and mog gear, these guys are generating Garrison Resources. Those resources are basically free materials for my main.

Right now my big focus is on Dust, enchants are making solid bank right now and with multiple enchanters I can burn multiple cooldowns to generate Crystals for high powered enchants. Additionally, they fuel my work orders on my main, generating yet more Crystals. In these first few weeks especially this has been important, and as I invest in more markets (the army is now all on Blackhand) I'll be switching my focus a bit. And that's the best thing about the Trading Post, it allows you to change focus as your needs demand.

HOW MANY?
This thing is a staple for me, I have this in every Garrison I have right now. I intend to continue this trend as the building is very versatile, you want to focus on building up resource for a new plot? It's there (another good possibility for burning resources on alts, shift those resources to your main). The price of hides and furs has spiked? Gotcha covered. This isn't the only building that is an auto include on my army, but it's definitely the most important. But we'll talk more about that later, for now I've gotta see a man about a thing...

XOXO

Khaas

Gold and the Garrison

Warlords of Draenor brought me back to WoW, Garrisons are one of the big draws. But I'd be lying if I didn't say I miss a few things from the old days. Still, I see enormous opportunity for gold making in this expansion. And yes, Garrisons are a big part of it...

WHAT WENT BEFORE
Once upon a time I decided to flesh out my gold making enterprise by exploiting Transmutation Mastery. I'd already been levelling a couple of alts to give myself access to other professions, and at the time it just made sense to ensure that every single alt I had could generate additional revenue via 24 hour cooldown. This was hardly an earth shattering revelation, nor was the extreme that I took it to (I eventually had 38 Alchemy transmutes per day). It didn't get me my first million gold, but it certainly helped. It along with other areas of the business generated revenue and that bankrolled further expansion into new markets (Glyphs for example).

At a certain point, I reached the point of sustainability, that is I would log on run through my list of alts to creating items/transmutes. I'd list everything with specific AH alts (I had to run several to manage the inventory, it also helped me track profits by market). Then I'd go on with my day, eventually managing the monster became tedious, I'd already made a ton of gold. And there was raiding to do, etc. I stopped focusing on the AH game, withdrawing from it entirely just before I quit the game for a couple of years. But my army of alts was still there, waiting...

HAIL, COMMANDER!
Since I've been gone, a whole new class has been added. So another alt to level. But not a large barrier, in fact that was one of the first things I did upon getting Warlords of Draenor: I used my free boost to 90 on a level 1 Monk, named Futaba. He's currently level 92, sitting in his own Garrison accumulating rested experience while I play catch up on my other 9 alts. With the profound changes Blizz made to professions you might be thinking it's silly to have that many alts, it's not like I can do transmutes anymore. The 24 hour cooldowns that exist currently are for materials that aren't tradeable generally. Fair point, Alchemy is less attractive for the army method I've used in the past so what does that leave me?

Looking at the state of the professions, one thing immediately stood out. Having the ability to upgrade crafted items is a good thing. So, I decided to approach this with a fairly even spread initially, with enough redundancy to ensure that when I craft a new Weapon or Necklace, I've also got another guy on hand to upgrade or reroll the stats on it. The exceptions of course are Alchemy, Enchanting, and most notably Tailoring. A little extra redundancy here is nice, especially for tailoring. Since I can make a cloak and 3 bags at a time, or go all in on the bags.

Extra Alchemists mean I'm covered if Transmutation, Elixirs, Potions comes back in. And enchanting just means I have more daily cooldowns for creating Temporal Crystals. In fact, the temptation was high to simply switch Alchemy with Enchanting here. Dust however is still fairly pricey, so we'll see. Either way, I've got a whole second account I can always supplement with later if need be.

That made the whole of my army's capabilities look like this:

 PRIMARY
Alchemy - 3
Enchanting - 3
Jewelcrafting - 2
Engineering - 2
Tailoring - 4
Leatherworking - 2
Blacksmithing - 2
Inscriptions - 1

SECONDARY
Herbalism - 1
Mining - 1
Skinning - 1

The redundancy allows me to focus on crafting items with one character and "upgrades" with another. Having said that, I might switch over a couple of Enchanters to Leatherworking and Blacksmithing respectively to maximize this. So, consider this a preview of what's to come.

In the upcoming weeks I'll be talking more about the individual eleven as well as how I'm utilizing the garrison and professions.

XOXO

Khaas the Kingslayer

Calculating Value in the Auction House

It's been a long while, but now I'm back in World of Warcraft! Now I'm on Blackhand, and though I started with nothing I'll be capped again (and again). Because if there's one thing I know, it's gold...

Some serious questions arise when you're dealing with the Auction House, sometimes even with items that you sell regularly you may question the value of crafting and listing the item in question. Today, we're going to talk specifically about an old favorite of mine, the tried and true Netherweave Bag. I use this as an example for two reasons, one because when I decided to come back to World of Warcraft a couple of weeks ago I had zero gold, and the Bags offered a nice route to restarting my career in the Auction House. Secondly, despite it's age the NW bag continues to be a solid earner.

Additionally, being an old mainstay from the BC era of Tailoring, it has a low barrier of entry and moreover is relatively stable. Whereas something like say crafted WoD items can be at best volatile markets prone to dramatic sales one day, then being absolutely worthless the next. In short, the bags don't make a ton of gold, but the investment is safe and has a relatively stable return.

MATERIAL COSTS
Each Netherweave Bag requires 20 Netherweave Cloth (converted to bolts) to craft, as well as 1 Rune Thread per bag. This makes calculating the cost and therefore value of the item very easy (this is the real reason I use the bag as an example). The thread is 50s per, and can be purchased from any tailoring vendor.

The cloth on the other hand, it can be easily farmed or purchased on the AH. Currently on Blackhand the cloth is selling for 4g 59s 80c per 20. That means it costs just over 5g per bag to craft.

Finding this number is vitally important for two reasons, it allows us to determine the bottom most threshold that I'm willing to sell a specific item and still retain profitability. It also allows me to determine a basic estimate of what I would sell the item for if there's no competition, my markup. Between these two factors is the relative value of the item, the market adjusts the value according to competition. But, that's the basics of it.

MINIMUM THRESHOLD
In the example above, I've got an item that requires very little initial investment to create a finished product. If I make a small amount of gold from each bag, but sell a large number of bags per day I've got a decent profitability. At the price, it's easy to have a bank tab full of bags in perpetuity. We'll cover warehousing/storage at a later date in more detail, but it's worth noting here that even with the addition of the Profession Materials Bank space, operating a NW Bag business takes up a lot of space, but I digress...

How much gold is enough for each bag? How much do you want to make, how little is acceptable? Personally, I sell about 3 bags per hour. I generally list 6 at a time, they sell for as much as 25g each. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that part? A lot of people have decided to make alts or level old ones up to get the most out of their garrisons, as a result they need bags. I however have settled on the idea of 5g profit as a minimum. If the bags are selling for at least 10g each I'll list them. If not, they'll be relegated to storage until such time as they're needed again (stacks of cloth in the material bank don't take up nearly the space of crafted bags).

AVERAGE SALES, NEW MINIMUM
Though I've sold these as high as 25, they average about 15g per. And though I've seen the mats as cheap as 3g per 20, they're usually somewhere around 6g. That helps me figure out my average value, I actually assume I'll be paying 7g per 20 every time. That's safe, gives me a little wiggle room. So, that means I try to sell at 12g or more per bag to retain profitability. Not unreasonable.

I see that cost going down steadily however, a lot more people are farming for their mounts in TK now. Or farming Warglaives, Transmogs, etc. That leads to large amount of NW Cloth hitting the AH, driving it's price down. Add to that, I'm actually farming the same mounts and transmog gear myself. And with each new level 100 I get there's just more farming being added to the que. And every week, more "incidental" cloth added to the pile.

This all helps, because again it keeps my investment safe. I'm not putting in nearly as much gold as I've even calculated at this point because of the literally thousand or so cloth I've added from farming mogs and mounts. Likewise, I've found some ridiculously cheap stacks on the AH, undoubtedly for the same reason (though the 200 for 2g stacks were probably an honest mistake).

WHY DOES THIS STILL WORK?
Truth is, you always need bags. Every expansion needs bags. But for an alt that's doing little, people don't care about huge amounts of space, economy is the name of the game, and the NW Bag has always been king here. Frostweave Bags and other more recent ones offer more space, but they come at a premium because they require more materials. And further, materials that nobody is getting. As mentioned earlier, those very same alts are going to be used for an increased chance at Ashes or for more Mog gear for an alt they've decided they like enough to make look good. It all adds to the pile. And that's how you build an empire, one brick at a time...


THE GOLD REPORT
I've been back in WoW for a couple of weeks now, and though the army of alts isn't quite up to snuff just yet I've done well for myself. So far, I've earned roughly 100k through the same old tricks. But I'm developing some new ones already, and once the army is up and running I imagine I'll be capped again very shortly.

XOXO

Khaas the Insane

The Returnenning, Part 2 - Electric Boogaloo

When last we spoke, I told of those things that went before. Of my time in World of Warcraft up until the great Cataclysm. Now we return to Draenor and the Warlords most foul...

THE TEMPTATION
I mentioned earlier that I took the plunge into Hearthstone, I was a pretty serious Magic the Gathering player in High School, by the time I graduated though my friends Buck and Tim had introduced me to tabletop wargames via Necromunda. Meanwhile, EverQuest happened. So, MTG sort of fell off the map for me. Recently however, my interest in Magic was rekindled by an old friend who took a teaching position nearby. He and his wife moved up here, and suddenly I had my old Magic buddy to play with. Not tournaments for me; no, I'm way past that at this point. But some fun sit around, play a few decks with a glass of Scotch and some pizza type games.

I wasn't living in a bubble at this point, I'd heard of Hearthstone. I'd had Beta invites I ignored because "those fuckers got the last of my time with Diablo III, fuck them". I had pretty strong feelings toward the company and their games I guess is what I'm trying to say. Several friends tried to coax me, but I would not have it. Then when school started it was obvious me and my Magic buddy weren't going to get a lot of bro time (it's his first year teaching, and he's at a Charter school), so I decided what the fuck, let's give Hearthstone a chance - it's free after all.

That was fun, now what?

I enjoyed the game, it was deceptively simple, but full of deep strategy. I was thoroughly shocked by how good it was on all fronts, even when there were changes made (and since I've started playing several cards have indeed been changed) it was a pretty painless affair. Players were given a refund option for the full price of the card if it was nerfed, and it's stats were automatically changed in the game. I got my old Warcraft account active again as a result of this, and decided to give D3 a second chance.

I'd heard tales that the expansion and changes they'd made left a game that finally felt like it should from the very beginning. So, I fired it up and lo and behold - it suddenly felt right. I'd never bought the original game, but had been given a free copy during a customer loyalty promotion some time ago. I was happy enough that I picked up the expansion and was pleased still, I didn't feel the least bit ripped off. Whereas before I felt cheated when I hadn't paid a dime for it. That was two out of three, so far Blizzard seemed to be doing pretty good. And though I have Starcraft II on my bnet account I've never really been that interested in it (I was always more into Warcraft than Starcraft).

I toyed with the idea of restarting World of Warcraft again, there was a new expansion on the way. But that led to a lot of questions, I'd invested heavily in the game in the past and I needed to answer my own questions before I took the plunge.

ANSWERS, I HAS THEM
The first question is what would I want out of the game if were going to play again, did I want to raid, pvp, what exactly? I quickly realized that I just wanted to play the game, I had some unfinished business with content that I'd not gotten the full measure of once upon a time. There were new toys and mechanics in the game, but ultimately I just wanted to play, to have fun. Isn't that what it's supposed to be about in the first place? But to be more specific: no, I don't give a lukewarm shit about raiding. And I was over PVP/Arena back in Burning Crusade.

So mostly, it's about a personal experience with the game. Akin to playing a single player RPG, think Baldur's Gate. But one that's updated periodically. So, I decided that yes I would play again, but it would be on my own terms. So, I logged on and I left Bloodscalp for a new home...

The most metal of Orc tribes.

I was quickly overawed by the pacing of the quest experience in Warlords of Draenor, I found so many quality of life changes as well, much like with Diablo III many changes have made functioning in the game itself easier. Having been gone since Cataclysm, it's difficult to gauge when these changes came into play, but it's also impossible to undersell how overwhelming they can be to a returning player. Looting items from fallen enemies as an example is a completely different animal than it once was. Kill 20 mobs, then loot one and get the drops from all 20 of those mobs - this is a revelation! It certainly takes the edge off of the grind significantly, I can remember when I was levelling tailoring on an alt some years ago and running through Scarlet Monastery, laying waste to the entire instance and having to loot the corpses individually. It took longer to grab all of the errant drops than it did to kill them.

This one change has completely expedited that situation, or even while levelling. There have been plenty of times where I've simply ignored loot on fallen enemies because as a tank I generally pull all of the mobs and just kill them all at once, it's faster that way. But again, looting that many enemies was daunting when time was limited and I was just trying to squeeze out another level before I had to go, but no longer. I'll actually say it: thank you Blizzard.

Additionally, they've made Pets, Mounts, and Achievements/Titles account bound. So, the Recruit a Friend Zevra that I never got on Khaas, he can ride it now. The Bat pet that I had on my Paladin, but not on Khaas because Death Knights wouldn't be in the game for another couple of weeks? Yeah he's got that too. For people playing specialized or newer classes like Tanks, Death Knights, Monks, etc this is huge. If you raided Ulduar back in the day for example there was no way as a tank you were going to get a chance to complete all of the achievements, because the tank needs to tank. So, the alt you went in with later that week got the achievements you were missing and you died a little inside.

Well, guess what... you've got em now. Again, thank you Blizzard. Transmogrification was new when I left, so it's still pretty new to me. The changes to pets and other collectibles and the regeant bank tab, that was huge as well. The pet battle system has definitely been an interesting diversion, one which I'm sure I'll be delving into with more detail soon.

But first of course, there's the Garrisons. I think this is a great way to personalize the experience of the new area, and I hope a similar method is employed in future expansions, rather than this being an oddity from WoD. The followers are interesting and characterful.

They call me, Joe!

I started playing again over Thanksgiving break, I'm already level 100. Several old friends have picked the game up in that time as well, and it's a little sad to be on a different server but we can still run an instance together or something thanks to the systems Blizzard has implemented. The economy on Blackhand is also significantly better, which is definitely a plus for me since I gave all of my gold to the guild when I quit years ago.

Ding! Shit now what?

Don't get me wrong though, it's not double rainbows and cinnamon smelling farts. They really did a number on professions, Ultimately, the changes they made aren't of the caliber that I'd make fun of them in a different game, it's just that they're so different, and I don't think they were needed. Already there's been hotfixes changing some of the more egregious profession problems (needing 500 Ore to craft a single piece of armor is a little over the top even for me). 

I believe they made the change because they felt it was necessary for Garrisons, not necessary for Professions. If that's the case, I'm going to have to disagree with their reasoning. As I feel it's pushing one new feature at the detriment of a long standing, core mechanic of the game. At best, a risky gamble - so far it hasn't paid off. I think they'll be good to break even on that endeavor.

There's also been server instability issues, with the release of Highmaul on Tuesday for example the servers simply weren't there until late in the evening (if at all). I'm sure there are whole servers full of raiders gnashing their teeth and tearing at their hair, since they had to miss out. I won't lie, I smiled thinking about it. Knowing some of the individuals who were almost certainly among the pissed. But my smiles weren't really for them, it was for me because I knew I'd never do that again.

Still, I'm left with more questions. What will I do next? Continue upgrading my garrison, farm some old raid content solo (I still want some of those sweet old mounts and my Warglaives). I'll continue making gold on Blackhand for the sheer fun of it. I'll level my alts, and when it ceases to be fun I'll stop, until it's fun again...

XOXO

Khaas the Insane

You can add me on Battle.net as Khaas#1502

The Returnenning, Part 1 - What Came Before

A few years ago I was playing World of Warcraft: I spent my free time raiding & making obscene amounts of gold. But the great Cataclysm was the end for me, or so I thought. It definitely marked the end of my raiding career, it took a while to slip those surly bonds entirely. So, what happened then and what's happening now?

LONG LONG AGO
I'd be lying if I said I was completely jazzed about the idea of playing World of Warcraft in the first place. I was pumped about EverQuest 2, then subsequently let down by it. That's when I got my hands on the WoW Beta, it wasn't much to look at in those days. In a lot of ways it seemed crude, and far too cartoonish for the next gen MMO scene. Add to this, there were no plans for the class I really wanted to play: the Death Knight.

I was coming out of a long stretch as an EverQuest player, so I wasn't completely into the idea of "another MMO" in the first place. It wasn't until I was at a friends house, I'd just gotten back into town (before likely going off to continue my cross country adventures). Danny and his younger brother Carl were playing WoW, it had only recently been released and I felt that exclusion that comes from hanging out with nerd friends while they're playing a video game. You want to hang, but they're balls deep in the game. And since you don't play, you're not part of the tribe, you have become the other.

Danny spent a little time trying to convince me I should play too, "Come on Hor, you know you want to come kick ass with us!"

My eventual response after hemming and hawing about how I wasn't that interested in the game was that the only way I'd play is if I didn't have to pay for the damned thing, I didn't think it was worth it. An hour later, I was installing the game on my computer and preparing to make my character. I had played a Shaman in EverQuest, and decided to continue in that vein, only to find Carl had already made one himself. I then decided to make a Warlock, but was overridden. "Dude, make a Mage. Yeah, that'd be badass!"

Considering I'd been railroaded into making a Wizard in EverQuest only a few months earlier by a different group of friends, I was less than enthused. But, they did just go buy me the game and pay for my first month of play time...

MALIGNOR of Blackrock
I created an Undead Mage, Malignor. I had a lot of fun, but ultimately I went off to do my own thing with a guild called Burning Sky. We raided, and were doing well. I was made the Mage Officer, before I left to greener pastures...

I went to another guild, Mediocrity. I learned a lot from my time in Medio, in particular I learned to hate being a Mage. But I got to pick the brain of the best (Faxmonkey) while I was there too, and that softened the sting of spending 1/4 of my raid time summoning bread and water. I cannot stress enough how I do not miss the days of being a glorified food vendor...

XOMBI of Malorne
After Mediocrity it was on to a different server, faction, and even class entirely. I sold Malignor (there was no character transfer services in those days), and rerolled as a Human Warlock on the Malorne server, his name was Xombi. Danny and Carl convinced me to join a guild called Absolution, where Danny was tanking it up on a Gnome Warrior gnamed Gnym (there might be too many Gs in this sentence).

I levelled from 1-60 in a couple of weeks (this was in Vanilla mind you), because the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj beckonned. This was a pretty hefty raid schedule time for me, basically all week doing different raids each night. We'd clear BWL on Tues and Thurs (Weds was a free day), then AQ all weekend. Monday we'd knock out Molten Core. It feels ridiculous typing it now, but yeah basically all week I was raiding. And it showed, I was completely dripping in awesome sauce gear by the time it was finished.

But it did finally finish, Gnym was lost to hacking or an ex, or something. I never quite understood what happened there. I spent some time thumping the battlegrounds with Xombi, then I reached out to my friends in Utah. They'd gotten me to play a Wizard in EverQuest, and they'd shown me the Beta for WoW. With Burning Crusade on the horizon though, I needed a change...

BLOODSCALP
I rerolled on Bloodscalp as Burning Crusade was set to release, I was pretty burned out but I didn't blame the game. I felt there was still fun to have and things to see, I made an Orc Warlock, Nyarlothotep and I joined Face on Fire. This would be my home for years, it was the guild I really never thought I'd leave.

I didn't feel any pressure, and I was having fun. I can recall as an example running Shadow Labs with a Warrior trying to chase down mobs as the rest of us (2 Warlocks and 2 Shadow Priests) kept fearing and dotting the hell out of the rest of the instance.

By the end of BC we were getting the itch, the guild was large enough that people started hitting up a few raids here and there. Then Blizzard completely flipped the script with the announcement of Wrath of the Lich King. As you might have guessed if you've read this entire thing, I was intrigued about the new class. But not only was I totally into being a Death Knight myself, I was absolutely ready to fight the Lich King: I'd played Warcraft III and we had beef.

WoTLK did a lot for the game in general, it reinvigorated the game for me entirely. And before long we were all into the idea of raiding...

BUSINESS CASUAL RAIDING
We started with the idea that we would raid only twice per week (Tues and Thurs), we knew we had limited time to work with so we had to ration it economically. And for a long time it worked, but with the different modes (10, 25 normal and heroics) burn out set in again. We cleared everything save for Heroic Lich King when Cataclysm dropped. And with Cata I made Realm First Enchanter. But that was the high water mark for me, we were poised to kick so much ass, but it all fell so terribly apart.

A guild we were friendly with (but much smaller than ours) was falling apart, we picked up their main tank, a Warrior and solid raid leader who we thought would be a perfect addition to the team. I was the guild's MT all through Wrath, but I could be led. And in fact, our raid leader was often a different officer entirely. I was always pretty silent in Vent when I was tanking unless it was to tell somebody to taunt or something.

I didn't care for explaining the fights beforehand, because I came from the school of thought that if you didn't already know what you were doing, you shouldn't be there (something I very much agreed with from my earlier time in Mediocrity). And with all of the various sites like TankSpot and NUMEROUS YouTube channels, basically everyone should have a working understanding of the fight at hand if they were interested in killing it.

But I digress, taking that tank was what killed us. We didn't know it at the time, but his attitude and general bullshit was what had broken up his previous guild (all really solid players). Shortly after he'd joined, we were approached by members of the old guild who were actually interested in all joining us - THAT would have been huge. They were a successful ten man guild that we'd already worked with in the past to complete some difficult achievements (World First Earth, Wind, and Fire 25 man for example).

It was the transition between Wrath raiding and Cata raiding, so there was a slew of new players who had no real loyalty to us anyway. And a guy ready to make a power play, because if he wasn't in charge things just weren't being done right. Several bad situations popped up, but nothing too drastic. Then a few people started leaving the guild. Then one day it happened, Frostvein whispered me and told me he was leaving.

Frost was my bro, always will be as far as I'm concerned.

And he was leaving, because of this bullshit drama. That was when I decided I'd had enough, I left to join the Alliance for a little while in the hopes of keeping me going. But that lasted all of a month, maybe. The magic was gone. And the guild fell apart behind me, it fractured and the Warrior along with at least one officer left to form their own guild. They talked a lot of mess on the forums and in game, they managed to raid for a short time, then they disappeared to another server. I had resigned myself to quit World of Warcraft, and was pretty happy with the decision honestly. Despite being in the #1 guild on the server now, I just wasn't enjoying raiding anymore. Then disaster struck my old guild again, my close friends from Utah had quit the game too and given leadership to Zelthas, Paladin and commander of Team Awesome. He got hacked and the guild was in chaos.

I got a call from a former guildie letting me know what had happened, so I logged on, transfered Khaas back to the Horde side and took the reigns. I held a meeting to let everyone know what was going on, things were going to be run very differently. And so over the next several months I restructured the guild and vetted my successor, a Druid who proved to be the perfect choice. The guild prospered, and I went silent for a while. I sat back and watched as they downed more bosses and generally kicked ass. There were a handful of people I knew from the old days, but not many. I changed the name of the guild, it was time for these guys to form their own identity, I dumped my gold into the guild bank (a LOT of gold) and logged off for the last time.

I logged on briefly some time ago when I got a free time pass and an upgrade to Mists of Pandaria, I wanted to see what the Monk class looked like. And satisfied that the game was still there, and that I had no interest in it still I let it go and went about my day for the next couple of years. Since then, my wife and I have moved (twice) and we have a son. And now, there's Warlords of Draenor and I'm left wondering what's new and different about me and the game I once loved? We shall see...

Part II coming soon...

XOXO

Khaas the Insane