7 guild levels in one day

Yes I really did it.  A ramble + recruitment ad first, then how.

A little while ago, I spend some times with a couple of guilds.  It didn't work out, and I restarted Arozcaldo, which at that stage was very nearly a level 2 guild.  Regardless of what players say, a level 1 or even level 2 guild is not that interesting to new recruits.  I also have the same issue, I like some of the guild perks that a roughly level 10 guild can provide.  I also want to have sufficient in-guild toons on a run for guild rep etc.


However, I also am insistant on certain behaviour.  Language should be PG, not R.  I expect a degree of politeness towards other players, even if they are struggling.  (Helping is fine; grinding them into the dirt is not - we have bosses to do that for us).

The only attendance criteria I have is that if you commit to something and can't make it: give your apologies ahead of time, or have a damn good excuse.  If you don't want to run on an evening, don't run.  If you want to bail 1/2 way through a run; bail.  Just don't bail mid pull.

Two days ago, I had two things that other players wanted. 

• Raid leadership.  I am not the most successful player out there, but in Wrath, did complete all raids up to ICC, and even most of ICC with less than a year of once a week raiding.
• Gold.  I could offer guild repairs, pay for guild competition prizes, and assist with bits and pieces.

I wanted to offer more, for both myself and other interested players.  How about a level 9 Guild, with

• 15 minute hearthstone,
• 10% XP bonus
• 5% rep bonus, 
• 20% less durability loss on death

All it took was gold (15k + cost of guild bank tabs) and resetting my personal guild rep.  Dark Prophecy started strongly, but had many toons move on.  I made an offer (in conjuncion with an ex guild member of Dark Prophecy - Voladan) for the guild, and purchased it. 

For the existing members of Dark Prophecy, I want you to stay.  You are what made your guild valuable.  I want you to continue in the guild.  You now have guild repairs as an additional perk. 

I am raiding Sat 8:45pm server time, and I am looking for guild raiders - whether or not you are in Dark Prophecy.  The same applies for casual raiders who would like a once a week schedule. Toons that want to do their own thing, be in a guild, but want to avoid /trade being repeated in /guild are also welcome.

Using draft posts to reduce your readership

Blogger is generlly great for me.  It's free, I don't need to have advertising.  I use blogger's built in stats, google analytics, and google webmaster tools to track readership. 

I am vain enough to care about readership numbers, and the above stats help to identify what posts readers care about. 

My traffic sources, by percentage are:
    68% from refering sites,
    15% from direct traffic
    10% from search engines with people looking for foo (foo wow; foo's wow musings; foo's musings etc)
    7% from search engines searching for other WoW related items

Referring sites make up the majority of my traffic.

Just My Two Copper  refers traffic to me via their RSS feed on the right hand side but only shows the most recent few posts accross many blogs. I believe The Undermine Journal also uses a similar method.  Breevok's site sends traffic from content as well as links, as we refer to each others blogs on a regular basis.  So, conservatively 33% of my traffic comes from recent posts with a catchy title and intro.  It is likely to be closer to 50% by the time other blogs are included.  By recent posts, I mean being in the previous 8 posts made by regular gold bloggers regardless of website.  Once 8 others have posted a blog article, this traffic disapears.  RSS feeds use a date stamp to indicate recency. 

I am writing up relatively detailed posts for darkmoon cards.  My post yesterday was created late at night, but due having just published a raiding post, I manually delayed it for 12 hours before posting. 

I was also looking at traffic and traffic sources, and had a look at both JMTC and TUJ, and my most recent post was already at the bottom of their lists.  WTF?  As far as the RSS feeds were concerned, the post that I had just published was already 12 hours old, and at the bottom of both JMTC and TUJ's lists.  Based on the time that I originally created my post, not the time that I published it.

Nearly half of my readership will miss my 'Darkmoon on the rise' post.  Well they would have, but now that you have read this post, you can go back and read it.

I will use a mix of the following solutions.

• Publish blogs as soon as you create them.
• When you have a draft post in blogger, copy it to a new post to refresh your date created, and post the copy.
• Create a new dummy blog, and experiment with scheduled drafts, and how long you need to leave a post before it's time resets.
• Log a bug with google

Theres a darkmoon on the rise

I have been buying cheap whiptail, and 1.5 guild bank tabs of the stuff.  Glyphs were doing ok, but it is time to burn these herbs.  I sent some to my alchemist, but 2,500 to my scribe.  After haviing done some basic research, I will make darkmoon cards.  The prices contained in this doucment assume you can find buyers at the listed prices.

I loathe milling, but my favourite milling toon is currently on an extended AFK, so was unavailable.  So milling I will go.

I have started out with 2,500 whiptail, currently valued at 5g each.  (12.5k)

1 hour later (milling is boring), I have

• 115 inferno ink, ah price of 104g : (11.96k)
• 593 blackfallow ink (9g80) (5.81k)
• Total value : 17.7k

Giving milling a rough value of 5.2k per hour, assuming it sells immediately.  However, this volume would merely depress prices if dumped immediately, so would need to be slowly fed into the AH.  However, as I know I want to make darkmoon cards, I want Inferno ink more than blackfallow.  At the moment, the AH agrees.

I turn 590 blackfallow ink into another 59 inferno ink via the ink traders (converting 5.8k into 6.1k); leaving me with 174 inferno ink, and 3 blackfallow.

To make a darkmoon card takes 10 inferno ink, 30 volatile life, so i need 510 volatile life (cost 5k) and parchment (negligible). I would recommend spacing your purchasing of volatile life over a few days and not hitting it all in one shopping spree.  At least temporarily, I raided the price of volatile life from 9.8g to 12g, and there were not all that many available at 12g

This left me with 17 cards (no decks yet) and a few left over inks

What	val per card	num cards	total value
eight of embers	2600	2	5200
eight of the winds	1850	1	1850
eight of waves	1750	1	1750
five of embers	1530	2	3060
Five of stones	1990	1	1990
four of embers	1130	1	1130
four of waves	2500	1	2500
seven of stones	3000	2	6000
six of embers	3000	1	3000
three of the winds	1800	1	1800
three of waves	3000	1	3000
two of stones	540	1	540
two of the winds	1650	1	1650
two of waves	1650	1	1650
subtotal		17	35120
blackfallow	9.8	3	29.4
inferno ink	100	4	400
total			35549.4

This leaves me with cards and mats worth around 35.5k, and to be honest, not much extra work, (especially after milling), call it 15 minutes.  Simply buying AH mats (17k+5k=22k) and converting them into cards has a return of about 13k per 15 minutes, or around 52k/hour. 

Note:  All these profits are 'paper' profits, I have not yet sold anything.  The reality is that to sell for top dollar takes both time and timing; selling quickly means a hefty discount.

So - coming soon : selling cards as is; or converting them into decks.

Blowing in the wind

How many wipes will it take till he knows that too many people have died.  The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind (Apologies to Bob)

To state the obvious, I am not on the bleeding edge of raids (or oh no - yet another gold making blog with 'guild' posts)

Last weekend Arozcaldo (all 4 of us that were on) took some associates (from Death's head aux and More than raids) into Throne of the four winds.  My aim for the raid was to have a look, and see how far we could get.  I can read strategies and watch videos, but for me nothing replaces doing as a way to learn.  Only one of us had even stepped into the raid before.  All the rest of us were 'virgins'.  Some of us are undergeared, and we are underperforming for the gear we have. 

We are following the strats from wowpedia. The diagram from the almost identical wowwiki page was also useful (even if the diagram and description disagree on what toons to bounce between the east & north platforms). 

On Saturday, we made it into the first transition, with many avoidable wipes.  Wipes due to lack of knowledge are OK.  We are learning.  Wipes due to lack of concentration are regretable, but also are expected; especially as the evening wears on.  I am as guilty as others. We also rotated many players between initial starting platforms so that players could see what was required.


The ultimate aim is to down the 3 bosses, with at most 1 minute between boss 1 and boss 3.  However, we are wiping soon after the first transition.  So our next 'task' is to survive multiple transitions.  We are struggling on healing, with only Daakoren feeling 'sufficient to the task'.  Also, next time I try to heal 6 toons, I will do so as holy (not disc).  To address this, damage taken/healed will be everyones responsibility:

• Check your enchants and gems.  I will randomly check to see if you are a bimbo.  Basic enchants (even northrend if you dont yet have the shoulder/head reputations) and basic cata gems are acceptable.
• 6 wipes of consumables: + 90 food, cata guardian elixir (preferably prismatic for DPS & healers, but a flask is OK).  These are optional for the first pull of the evening, and for the a pull after changing toons, but otherwise are mandatory.  I will NOT be providing barbeques, as it is only +60 food.
• DPS on the west platform : Allow tanks to establish agro, both on the boss and on the adds.  This is dungeon 101 stuff.
• At the first transition, you need to take more responsibilty for your own health.  This includes DPS as well as tanks.  You will be expected to have healing potions and use them.  Use damage reducing abilities (eg tanking stance, hyperspeed, stoneskin, iceblock) or off healing abilities (bandages, gift of naru, boomkin healing).  Is there room in your talent choices for additional damage mitigation?
• I may experiment with 2 tanks, 4 healers, 4 DPS. 
• Arozcaldo will provide guild repairs to guild members.

I have a 525 cook and alchemist (well, most professions).   I am happy to help with consumables before the run.  I will also stock the Arozcaldo guild bank with a supply upon request.

Calendar invites have already gone to all Arozcaldo members, and all members of last weekend's raid.  Calendar invites will also be issued to interested toons.  Foofixit or Voladan will calendar invite anyone who shows an interest (whisper, in game mail, or Arozcaldo vent).  The raid will start 8:45 pm Saturday Caelestrasz server time (AEDT), with raid invites being issued from 8:30.

Initial raid invites will be issued to those that accept the calendar invites.  You will not be in the initial invite list if you are still tentative at 8:30 server, though you may still be invited according to available spaces.  If there is an excess of certain roles (possibly healer?) then guild membership and known role effectiveness (includes bringing consumables) will be considered.  For the record I consider Foofixit - my toon - to be the weakest of the guild healers, but he has a shadow spec too.

The intended initial raid makeup will be 2 tanks, 3.5 healers and 4.5 DPS.  I expect to move this back to 2 + 2.5 + 5.5 later.

If you accept the calendar invite but are not on at 8:45, you are risking not recieving future calendar invites.  I will provide my mobile number upon request if you are worried about last minute real life issues.

If you would like a raid invite (and do not already have one) and have an 85 toon on Caelestrasz Alliance with heroic dungeon experience, please whisper/in game mail Foofixit or Voladan.  This applies to old friends and to those that wish to become new friends, or even those that just want to raid.  Casual raiders are welcome.  Guild invites are available but are not required.

Wholesale glyphs only - weekend update

I use the number of pages of AH glyphs to give an indication as to how much re-posting is happening.  We are down to 56 pages of glyphs (was up to 110 or so)


Moonvengence has swapped from 1c undercutter with roughtly 250g fallback to 1c undercutter with 30g undercut.  For those glyphs he sells, he is owning the market.

Moonvengence: 29 pages
Nevica : 3 pages
Ryzar : 3 pages

Ignoring any toons with less than 2 pages, the market has shunk a lot.  The toons that are retailing my glyphs don't even make that list. 

With such a dominant player, other scribes have dropped out of the market.  Bankzoors came and went.  I have not seen Neo posting for a few days, and the huge influx of players have left.

Inscription takes a lot of ink to build up a glyph catalogue.  In combination with players leaving the market, plus the cost of whiptail still falling (possibly influenced by less glyph and card making), (This blog also serves as a 'reminder' for historical information  blackfallow inks have fallen to 10g80 each, and inferno are 90g each, and whiptail is 5g)

All told, since outsourcing my glyph retailing earlier this week, I sold about 100 glyphs earlier this week, and my cut was 5k gold.  This cut was in addtion to the cost of making glyphs.

There is an opportunity to play with the cost of some glyphs, in particular northrend based inks, as snowfall in still sells moderatly well, and the herbs are still very cheap.  Milling is still profitable (even after paying someone to mill for me).  I am able to post blackfallow ink, downgrades inks and match current prices with Moonvengence.

Consumables, or healers can't heal stupid.

Why are you contributing to wipes?

I am not a top 5 guild progression player.  I never will be.  However, I try to read up on where I am going, and to be gemmed, enchanted, and take consumables.

I also personally feel that the hardest role in the game today is healer.

• Tanking is really not much different from Northrend. Good tanks already know about fire, and how to get out of it. 
• DPS are asked to CC, interupt single target or may be dot up a couple of mobs instead of AOE, and get out of the fire. With the exception of having to learn that fire hurts, it still isn't that hard.  
• Healers have been hit - hard.  They are not meant to keep everyone at 100%.  Their spells have been played with and re-organised.  They are meant to run OOM, and to let DPS die.  Some healers are enjoying the challange, but many others are daunted by the task (I am both daunted and enjoying it).

Unless I am running farm content (and I rarely farm), I will personally provide group consumables, applied at the start of the run, and after every wipe:

• Drums of the wild where there is no druid : Cost - negligible.
• Runescroll of Fortitude#2 where there is no priest  : 100g per use
• Goblin Barbeque (or equivilant) : 50g per application.  Alternatively you can pick up good food for 5g per use.

I also use two elixirs; one guardian, one battle. at 15g each per application.  I also strongly prefer that other players take these too. A cataclysm battle elixir is there to help you in your primary role.  A cataclysm guardian elixir is to help your healer

A wipe costs very roughly another 15g for personal repairs. So, a run on my healing priest with a druid tank will cost me 80g to start, and 95g per wipe. If you are in Arozcaldo (recruiting for DPS), I will pay for a wipe with guild repairs, and I will provide group buffs.  It is not that expensive to take a few elixirs.

Does it matter much if you are missing a single buff or enchant?  Probably not, unless you miss a kill by 1%
Does it hurt if you are missing 5 buffs or enchants?  (Wild, Fortitude, Food Stamina + Stat, Guardian elixir, Battle Elixir)  Not always, unless you miss a kill by 5%

There is already some farm content.  I don't usually run normal dungeons on my tank or healer, but when I do, I don't bother with personal consumables.  If your content is truly farm, I don't expect you to use consumables either.

Consumables also make for a faster run.  More DPS, less healing required both mean less time watching a healer drink.

Healers do not currently have the tools to heal stupid.  A death in a heroic instance is due to too much damage taken for the healer to heal.   Wipes start with toon deaths.  When you have died in a run, can you honestly say that you did everything you could to help your healer? 

Yes?  But no food buff or guardian elixir? You died because the healer was busy or OOM.  Without buffing with consumables, you directly contribute to the healers problems.

You can pay for food buff (5g) plus Guardian elixir (15g) plus Battle Elixir (15g) easily and quickly:  Two daily quests, or 1 stack of gathered mats will cover this.

If you have time to run dungeons or raid, you have time to pay for consumables.  Slackers don't bother with consumables.

(Politics) Clinton wants to protect the internet

Every now and then I will subject readers to my political viewpoints.  Today is one of those days.  But I will let others say my thoughts for me

Clinton Calls For Ground Rules Protecting Internet(slashdot),

• 'For the United States, the choice is clear; on the spectrum of Internet freedom, we place ourselves on the side of openness.' Hillary Clinton
• Hillary, Talk to your boss and let him know that a "kill switch" is a bad idea. The Internet
• Oh that's good - I'll let Julian Assange know. Openness 
• US Govt Mistakenly Shuts Down 84000 Sites

Hillary, *cough* *cough* bulls$#!t *cough* *cough*.

Mind you, in Australia, our own Steven Conroy is no better.  So Conroys internet filter wont block political speech? (crikey.com)

Updated with a new link:
The extraordinary hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton (crikey.com)

Wholesale and retail

Yesterday, I 'did it again', without saying what it was. Apparently I went dancing down the hallways in pigtails, on an alt, going bald, with a beer gut. While I might like to run around in a pink mini skirt, it just doesnt look good on me.

Recently a lot of new players have entered the glyph market.  One sure fire way to get sales is to be the last to post.  Another way is to undercut the profit for them away.  Together, it makes for a mean combination.


Some other difficulties include that I work during the day, making the regular reposting difficult while remaining within the terms of use; and my son ceased playing WoW and is trying DC universe, so my only remaining justification for paying for the second account was posting glyphs.


I have no problems in oursourcing effort.  I have paid for my herbs to be milled for a long time now.  Previously I had another player selling glyphs for me.

So, Neo was mostly right, I am posting all my glyphs on new alts.  But they are not alts on my account.  Breevok is willing to sell his stock and materials, while I have outsourced my retailing operation.

I have provided this new player all of my made glyphs 'on loan', and will charge him a flat fee for recrafting sold glyphs, plus a cut of any sold glyphs above that flat fee.  I am providing advice on pricing and posting strategies.  Another win (for me) is closing the second account.

The addons used are:

• altoholic to keep track of his inventories (bags + mail + AH) - both accounts have this installed,
• KTQ to queue glyphs (based on altoholic inventories),  
• Gnomeworks to process the queue (KTQ prerequisite).  
• The new player will use TSM to post and mail glyphs (TSM has a base application plus applets for tasks); and 
• postal + mail opener to retrieve mail (While I have both installed, I will need to confirm that postal is required in addition to mail opener)

For some addons, I use alpha & beta quality addons - taking more recent functionality (and compatibility with the current WoW client) over something that used to work nicely with an older version of WoW but now might be broken.  Using the Curse Client, you can set this up per addon.  Alternatively, from the Curse addon site (or even WoWInterface) you can find the parent site and install addons of the version you wish to use.

I am not going to spoil it by giving the name of the new toons that are posting glyphs, but I will confirm correct guesses.  His presence is definitely growing.

Oops, I did it again.

I did it before.  It worked well.  I am doing it again.

The cryptic question is what did I do?

Breevok, Moonvengence, Neoriv all should be able to spot it soon enough.

Blackfallow ink for free?

From another blog that I read.

With prices at 7g per Whiptail I am basically able to my glyphs FOR FREE if I am able to get 150g per inferno ink. Before I assumed my costs were about 35g per glyph so do I lower my threshold now? do I assume my costs will be lower, say 10g per glyph?

Cough, Cough Bulls#!t, Cough, Cough.

When you mill cata herbs and turn the pigment into ink, you create Blackfallow Ink and Inferno Ink.  Both of these items can be sold, on my server a normal spot price might be 17g for Blackfallow, 120g for Inferno.

By milling you are working, creating value.  You might sell the inks as is, or you might further craft them into various items (glyphs, darkmoon cards, runescrolls etc).  The spot price for Blackfallow ink based glyphs makes a glyph crafting price about 51.5g (17g*3 for inks + 50s for parchment.  I currently source a lot of Ethereal ink from Blackfallow.

If you do not consider milling to be effort, I have 4 guild bank tabs of whiptail I would like you to mill for me.  Alternatively, if you consider Blackfallow ink worthless, I am willing to buy all of your Blackfallow ink for 5g each, much more profit than your 10g per glyph, and also a guaranteed sale.

The cost to make an item is the AH price of mats + fee for effort.

Anything less and you are throwing away gold.  There are plenty of beggers in /trade that would appreciate it.

Eratic glyph posting - by design

At the moment there is a steady but slow demand for glyphs, with prices all over the place.  Some players (especially those on Alliance Caelestrasz) will find this post 'assertive', but it has been the reality for the last week.

Again using the undermine journal, I have a few images to show

I prefer to sell Dark Succor on my server than on Hydraxis Alliance.  In fact, I would not be selling it on Hyrdraxis Alliance. 

Yet even Hydraxis Alliance has what I consider profitable glyphs (eg Explosive shot below)

For me, glyphs generally sell shortly after posting or not at all.  At the moment, all that leaving glyphs up for 48 hours seems to do is suppress the long term price of it.  The more frequently I post, the more glyphs I sell, and will intend to post several times per day over the weekend, but only once or twice per day during the week.  Posting 1 or posting 10 makes very little difference to my sales, but a large difference to my effort in mail collection. 

I am attempting to take sales from my competitors.  In turn they will attempt to take sales from me.  Some will do so by posting when I dont (i.e. early AM).  Others will post walls of glyphs (5 or so at a time).  Yet others will track my toons and logins, and immediately undercut.  Finally there are those who post as/when they can.

I want to discourage immediate undercutters.  Some will undercut at 1 copper, which has no real effect on prices, but I personally find a little annoying.  I will undercut by 5 g on the majority of glyphs, with a larger undercut on glyphs that dont do as well.  There will be times that I will post, log out, wait 5 minutes, log back in and re-post.  If this re-posts a lot of glyphs, I will rinse and repeat.  This will annoy other glyph sellers, as repeated repost cycles will crash some prices in fairly quick order.

My current frame of mind is to have profitable sales, and continue to dump my few remaining significantly underperforming glyphs.  For the majority, I will post 1 of each glyph regularly with a 24 hour window.  I work during the day, and am not organised enough to post before work.  Some days I will (either accidentally or deliberately) allow all glyphs to expire. 

For glyph costs, I base it on the price of the most expensive ink (blackfallow), but will continue to buy and get milled cheaper herbs and use them for additional profit.  At some stage I expect to need per ink pricing, but today is not that day.

Compared to a month ago, not many glyphs are currently selling (with some attributing it to Australian kids returning to school), but we are selling ok.  It is also my belief that players will happily spend 40-60g on a glyph just in case but will only buy glyphs they need at 200g.  If pricess fall, then we will sell more glyphs.



If I find my profits falling, I will be more aggresive.  I will probably adjust my pricing in a fortnight regardless.

Given our known experience with Dark succor, and other anecdotal evidence, the majority players do not yet have a full set of glyphs.  New players, new alts and players backfilling glyphs will all contribute to ongoing demand.  It appears that 4 scribes can fulfill the current demand for glyphs.  There will be spikes where patches add glyphs, change glyphs, or popular forums change their glyph suggestions, where temporary demand may exceed regular supply.  Over the course of Cata, I expect that demand will fall off from current levels, but not much lower.

Glyhs will continue to form a significant part of my income expectations.  However, with a falling time commitment to glyph crafting, I will be exploring other professions again for profit opportunities.

Glyph of Dark Succor

A couple of days ago, I posted about expectations for a new glyph. Now, apart from getting the glyph name and source wrong, the rest of the post is very much applicable.

This glyph appears to be aimed at PVP DK's; or possibly PVE for DPS DK's that really need extra healing but are not in tank (blood) presence. Personally I expected more sales of a new glyph but it is early days yet.  The undermine journal is not showing lots of glyphs being listed or sold, nor is there a lot of competition.

I would love to have been 100% correct in my assumptions, but oh well.

According to WoW Census there are about 1000 DK's level 81-85 on alliance Caelestrasz.
7 scribes have listed the glyphs, and are currently selling them.


The undermine journal thinks that our server has sold about 24 glyphs, but as it has missed mine (not that I have sold many), I know it missed some, but may have over reported others.  Others will be crafted by guild scribes.

Gold makers think differently to many other players.  We often prepare and pre-purchase items.  Compare and contrast with the majority of players using this glyph will think of purchasing it when their GM/raid leader/forum/arena partner tells them too.  They have not been told to buy it yet, so have not.

I am expecting that more glyphs will be sold in the next few days, but the majority of sales for it will trickle in over the expansion.  Even if guild scribe crafts 1/2 of the total made, that still only 60 (out of 1000) or so DK's with the glyph.  Not so much glyphmas, but it does bode well for the longevity of glyph making.

Pop Quiz : Screenshots

What are these screenshots of, and where did I source them?

Hint:  Look at recent posts, both on my website, and on my blogroll.

Update : Neo got what it was right, but as I left the name on the image in the glyph - it may have been cheating.  (I have deleted his comment - but he still gets bragging rights)

So updated question : What is important about this item?

Good DPS is desirable

Unless there is an enrage timer, good Damage Per Second is not mandatory. There have been a few comments, both on this blog and in game about my attitude towards this (apparent) holy grail.


The discussions tend to be around healers going OOM early in a heroic dungeon, so apparently you need 3 strong DPS (with the unspoken assumption of a zergish approach).  While this is a perfectly acceptable approach, and may even be conventional wisdom, it is by no means necessary. 


One in response to this comment : The only place I've heard people even consider taking more than 1 tank or healer to 5man dungeons is from gold making websites!  The PUG and I collect tanks and healers; 70% of my regular players have a tank.  I have been slightly short on healers, and very short on DPS. 


Stupid (adj) : lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind;  Those reading after the break may be mildly offended.

Heroics : Dungeon finder or Guild run

According to the bloggosphere there is a shortage of tanks.  Others have been talking about how tanks are choosing not to queue because it is harder, but a point has been missed. 

We are getting a large buff if we run with 3 strangers.  3 strangers means no guild XP or rep. 

Take your choice - Guild XP on a guild run, or bonus damage with a random group.  Even if your guild group does not know how to run the dungeon, you can learn, and feel like you are progressing.  With pugs, there is no such feeling.  I am a tank, and know my preference.  If you were a tank, what would you prefer?

New glyph - updated *2

Update : Dark Succor was the new glyph

For details go read Kaliope's site Glyph of colossus smash. It was Dark Succor rather than Collussus smash.

Regardless of the obvious desire for aware scribes to learn this glyph and post it for insane prices on the AH, there is also the direct impact on blackfallow inks.

Lets make several assumptions.  Some numbers are chosen for ease of calcuations:

• a server with 8,000 toons: 
• 50% horde, 50% alliance (down to 4,000 players)
• even distribution of classes, 10 classes (down to 400 players)
• 75% of population being Level 81+ (down to 300 players) **
• Glyph is desirable for 1 spec, even distribution of specs (100 players per spec)
• 30% of players who this glyph is desireable for get this glyph now (30 players)
• 5% of players who this glyph is undesirable for (2 specs) get this glyph now (5 + 5 players).
• 4 scribes that read patch notes and play the AH, rougly equal in capability.
• Each glyph maker estimates that they can sell twice the number of glyphs they actually will sell.  All glyphs are initally sold via the AH.

(** http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php?class=Warrior can get you a different estimate of the number of warriors on your server/faction)

This means a total initial demand on your faction might be 40 glyphs, and as one of the 4 scribes you are likely to sell 10 glyphs initially.  However, each of the 4 makes 20 glyphs because that is what they think they can shift.

4 scribes * 20 glyphs * 3 blackfallow inks each means a spike in demand for 240 blackfallow inks, during a darkmoon faire.  Prices on blackfallow ink/herbs rise, but not by a huge amount.

There will be a longer tail as people with dual spec, completionists, class forums all decide to get this glyph later, as well as a slow stream of warriors dinging.

It does not matter that all of the above assumptions are wrong in so many ways.  One of the 'arts' in making gold is researching what you can, and guessing what you can't.  Feel free to post your own comments about the assumptions.  Bragging rights if you guess correctly and post about it before the glyph is released tonight.

After the rush is over, have a look at your research and guesses.  You can know how many glyphs you end up selling, and make another guess as to what assumptions were correct and what were not.

eg.  If you end up selling only a few, but you see another scribe immediately undercutting you, then your problem was that each scribe was not equal in capability.  If you see 1 (or 20) different toons immediatly listing the glyph then you know the number of toons that research things like patch notes.

You can then use your refined assumptions for the 'next big thing', and even your ongoing regular AH posting strategies.

Recruiting

Arozcaldo is re-opening as an active guild, on Oceanea/Caelestraz/Alliance.

For end game players:

• I will be organising 5 man dungeon runs (mostly heroics) 2-3 times a week, soon moving to raiding Saturday nights.  Runs that I organise will gerenally start around 8:30.
• Runs that I organise will largely be progression style - I do not repeat a lot of old content.  
• Mild preference is given to in-guild members (especially so we get guild points from), but is by no means obligatory.  If you love your guild but have compatible free time, you are still welcome to run with us.
• New healers are most welcome.  Training, and assistance will be given.  Older content will also be re-run if needed.
• I have an established raid etiquette.  (TL:DR - It's ok to encourage, but if you need to be a jerk about it - whisper me instead).

You need to be able to work together within a team.  When you are running heroics or raids, you will be expected to have all slots filled with at least basic enchants, and gems, and be glyphed.  Likewise, you will some potions, flasks and elixirs.  Swearing is frowned upon. Swearing at (or in the general direction of) others is not tolerated.

Members working towards Thats a lot of bait, Mix Master, and Set the Oven to 'Cataclysmic'. will be subsidised.

Questing & levelling toons will have a generous repair allowance.

I started raiding early 2009, raiding mostly once per week.  My progress for Wrath is covered here.

Darkmoon faire

It's that time of the month.

Herb prices have already gone up, as well as Inferno Ink prices.  Last time around several card makers made a fortune.  I saw reports of 40k Darkmoon trinkets, at huge profit margins.  I was too conservative and merely sold inks, also at very large profits.

Personally, I will remain conservative, and continue to sell inks, all the while encouraging card makers. 40K trinkets were sold last faire. Make while they are hot Inferno ink for sale

My observations are:

• Herb and Ink prices rise in the days leading up to the faire.  It appears lots of card making occurs here.
• A glut of unactivated decks hit the market.
• Trinkets, unactivated decks, herb and Ink prices fall mid faire.
• The cheapest of the trinkets and decks get bought for stockpile, and prices start rising again.
• Just as the faire is about to finish, there is a mad scramble to finish decks, with herb prices rising a little, and inferno ink prices rising a lot. Decks are turned in, also for stockpile.
• After the faire has finished, inferno ink prices crash, and herb and blackfallow ink prices fall again.  Decks that were not turned in stop selling.
• Those that didn't buy suffer from 'I coulda, woulda, shoulda' - and buy overpriced completed trinkets for a week.
• Two weeks after the faire, everyone forgets about it, buyers and sellers alike.

If you also see a similar pattern, you may wish to pick a niche and make your gold.

Me? I will try to sell overpriced Inferno Ink. (and glyphs - but I always sell glyphs)

Who moved the cheese? - revision 3

(If you feel like you are missing 1/2 the conversation, you need to also read Coffee, Smokes & AH fees)

Back in the dying days of Wrath, there were a dozen glyph sellers all selling all the glyphs, and maybe a dozen glyph buyers.  There was even the occasional buyer who didn't also sell glyphs.  Herbs and ink were cheap, and glyphs only needed one ink to craft.  Prices were cheap.

I was busy playing deep undercutter.  Some tried playing monopolist and purchased my glyphs for relisting, so I simply sold more.  I built up a 40 of each glyph stockpile with an eye for 3 glyph inks needing the (not yet available) cata inks.  I also stockpiled inks and herbs.  Several of us suspected that some glyph sellers were gold sellers.  I started selling glyphs at miniscule profits, with a stated goal of keeping the number of glyph players to a minimum.

In an already crowded market, along came a new player, with a deep wall of glyphs with a 1c undercut.  Cata hit, and prices rose.  Between prices largely set by me, combined with the wall created by the new player, and Breevok plugging the holes, we had a nice market.  The 3 of us were dominant, with over 85% of the listed glyphs belonging to the three of us. Any co-operation was merely accidental.  We were all in competition, carving out our individual niches.  My concerns were about additional players entering the market, rather than the other two known accounts.

Things had been quiet for about a fortnight with no unusual changes.  I was making gold easily, though perhaps down a little on the peak a fortnight before.  I had two toons selling well, and a third toon full of glyphs that were not selling.

Breevok stirred the pot(*).  He does that now and then.  (I can be goaded into action, and ... well this time he has explicitly issued a call to arms).

I re-worked my auctions.  My best selling glyphs I priced up in la-la land(*).  My medium glyphs I left largely alone.  I started dumping my worst glyphs, agressive pricing, but one at a time on the AH.  Many of these glyphs hit 5g each, and started selling.  My best selling glyphs were starting to sell at obscene prices, and my cheapest glyphs were moving too.  Who should be buying the cheap glyphs?  Mostly it was Moonvengence.

I offered Moonvengence my surplus stock COD, he accepted (well many of them anyway).  He and I had an in game mail exchange, and a whisper conversation declaring a cease fire(*).  Intentional or not, he then immediatly undercut all my auctions that I had just posted.

Now we have all these interlopers entering my market.  It's mine I tell you - all mine (did you hear that I am prone to delusions?).  Breevok is right, between Moonvengence and myself we are capable of driving out all but the most tenacious of competitors.  He was also right in saying that it was hard work.  (I would like that hot cocoa now please).  Regular readers - don't worry;  Competitors, do what you will; I am not going anywhere. 


(Missteps that opened the door for other glyph sellers are marked with * above.  The revision 3 part of the title comes because I have been on a roller coaster ride this week with sales (subject for another post)).


I am currently have a 'neutral' price outlook.  I will watch, and wait.  Have a look at what they are selling, and how quickly I am undercut.  If I make too few sales, I increase the number of postings and undercut, decrease fallback and theshold; too many sales, and I do the opposite.  With luck I may be able to maintain my different pricing strategies according to sales, but may have to look at a pricing per cost basis.  I suspect that Moonvengence may decide to re-enter a price war (hopefully generally rather than specifically targeted).  Breevok will most likely continue his morning postings, covering markets that were sold out overnight.  I suspect I will be more aggressive soon..



With additional sellers there will be additional demand on herbs, as these players build their stockpiles.  Darkmoon fair is not very far away, and some (other) sellers made a bundle on cards last time around.  Based on that bundle, more players will be making cards, placing additional demand on herbs and volatile life.  Best of luck (and profit) to the herbalists.

Heroic Progress

Last week I suggested that I should run more heroics (safe for work - not your ego).  If you are not yet comfortable and used to be a raider - you should run more as well. 

I set a myself a challenge to start at least 3 heroics, which I have done:

• 2 tanked & finished Vortex Pinacle, with the second run being much easier. Tip for 2nd boss : Dodging (or not) whirlwinds means success (or failure).  Getting upwind means you succeed (or fail) more quickly.
• 1 tanked Deadmines run - called due to instance server restart after wiping on the first boat boss.  There were other wipes while learning both trash and boss mechanics.
• 1 healed Stonecore run (first time healing a heroic).  Called on Slabhide (second boss) due to time of night & struggling on boss.

You prevent wipes by learning to play.  This does not mean topping DPS charts, but learning when and how to move.  I failed on Slabhide as much as anyone in the group, because I didn't know the enough about either the fight, or my own healing abilities.


We called Slabhide because of dying to avoidable damage, plus inefficient heals.  As a disc priest I spent an aweful lot of time binding heal because I took to much damage.  (Some players think they can play both tank & healer.  Very different mindsets, and some players change gears very slowly.  E.g. me)
For my next Slabhide healing run:

• Dogde boulders. I should have learned this on normal.
• Puddles have a dust cloud immediately before they appear.  Move.
• A single pillar is not always enough to hide behind.  There were times I was sure I was being hit from both sides of a pillar.  I think the boss when this happened, but I am not sure.
• More AOE heals.  I didn't use prayer of healing at all.  I only used divine hymn once in multiple wipes.  More renew.

For heroics in general I have more thoughts.

Disc priest smites are a nice cheap heal replacement, and set you up for bigger heals when you need them.

Don't expect 'progression' instances to be gogogo, 15 minute runs.  These are new and hard for people to do.  The expectation that Farm Heroic = quick run is something to be left behind when we left Northrend.  You will be able to quickly farm them again when your party has both Cata Dungeon Hero and raid gear.  On that point, I am no longer joining heroic groups when thinking about heading to bed soon.  Sunday - Wednesday nights I will not start a heroic after 9pm.  Thursday nights I won't run heroics at all.

You don't need 3 Damage dealers.  More than 1 tank is useful.  More than 1 healer is useful.  People are dying due to lack of knowledge, lack of CC and incorrect movement.  Offtanking is a form of CC, whether it is done by a pet or player.  Classes that dont have CC may still have interupts & stuns.  High DPS is nice, and will make life easier, but does not make the difference between a Heroic completion and failure.  Dodging fire does.

(PS. Glyphs became very interesting.  Read Breevok's post.  I have drafted 3 different posts, all trashed  hours later.  I have not gone away, just temporarily quiet)