Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Season 7 Ends / 120Hz LCD Goodness

Well, Season 7 has come to end and was a bit disappointing for us. Our healer's schedule didn't allow us to play much this week so we couldn't really push up to Gladiator. Out of the whole week we ended up playing about 2 hours total. Luckily our team's schedule should allow us to play more games during Season 8, as he will no longer be working 2 jobs as of this week.

We started off playing DK/Hunter/Pally up to 2500+ but I was quite discouraged by the 3.3 changes to Scourge Strike, especially after they nerfed double crits right away. I can see why they did it, as there are certain situations where the stars align and you double crit a clothie for 10-12k. What they didn't do is buff us to compensate for the nerf in the form of a damage increase or disease protection to protect our new even more disease reliant Scourge Strike. I ended up switching to my Warrior alt who I geared up for Protection. The thing is that Protection spec is like playing a whole new class from Arms. It took a few weeks to get the hang of it, unfortunately it wasn't enough time to get it down to push up past 2650+, which is the cutoff for BG9 Glad in 3s.

With the plethora of new gear that comes with the new season, as well as Shadowmourne in a few months, it looks like Arms is going to be the spec I'll go with. The resilience change was expected but probably won't drop damage any once people get equipped in full ilvl 264-270 PVP gear from the S7 245-251 gear.

Yesterday I bought the Viewsonic VX2265wm 22" 120Hz LCD monitor and it's awesome. I bought it mostly for Quake Live as I have missed the days of playing at 120Hz refresh rate on the old CRT. It's INCREDIBLY smooth compared to regular LCDs, it also makes for a better computing experience in general. If you are a gaming enthusiast then I highly recommend it, I can't believe I've gone this long without one. WoW is as smooth as silk at 120Hz. If you have a fast enough computer to run WoW at 120+ FPS then you won't be sorry. My only gripe is that the 120Hz models don't come any bigger then 22".

I've been a bit lazy when it comes to the gold making. I'm averaging 2-3k per day, which is at least 1/2 of what I use to make per day, if not more. I do enjoy only posting a few times a day though. I'm back up to 140k after spending 145k or so in the past few weeks. I still have quite a bit of inventory to go through so it should jump quite a bit in the coming week.

Primordial Saronite is in extremely high demand now and is a great item to flip. Keep an eye out in trade chat and the AH for people trying to get rid of it cheap for a quick buck.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Arena

Ack, I meant 11pm CST for the streaming! Sorry! :(

http://www.xfire.com/live_video/dresek

Going Casual / Arena Tonight

Interesting topic, what does going casual exactly mean? Well, lately I haven't had as much free time as I'd like. I've been involved with other projects that have taken away from my WoW time. As a result, I won't be playing as much as I use too. Right now I have 4 WoW accounts, I use 3 of them to post auctions on the AH simultaneously. Yesterday I consolidated all of my inventory from those 3 accounts to 3 alts on my main account. My posting method is switching from frequently on all 3 accounts simultaneously to posting/cancelling 2-3 times a day on my main account. As a result I've cancelled my 3 other accounts.

I just don't have the time to keep up with it. It's going to be nice to save the $45/month in subscription fees as well. It will be interesting to see how many glyphs I'll sell now. On an active day I would usually sell between 250-300 glyphs in a 24 hour time span. The other players in the glyph market are quite active so I'll see how many I manage to sell now that I am on a much more relaxed posting schedule.

One of my arena partners just got a new job so we are unable to play more then a few times a week, with PvE not really interesting me outside of the GDKP runs, there isn't much left to do. Another reason I felt that going from 4 WoW accounts to 1 was a good idea is that I feel like I have a since of obligation to keep them up a lot when I'm online playing (or doing anything on my computer). Why else would someone like myself pay for and maintain 4 WoW accounts? A relentless onslaught of AH canceling/reposting is why! It's going to be interesting to see how much I make total now posting only a few times a day. I suppose that is what normal people do right? I just went into hardcore mode for a few months to see how much gold I could generate. If I had been stingy with my gold and not spent any in the past few months, I would easily have over 400k. Why make so much gold though if you don't plan on spending it? I kind of get why wealthy people can be so frugal with their money, the more you make, the more you want to protect it and hold onto it.

We are scheduled to play 5s tonight at 9pm CST. I'll be streaming it on Xfire if anyone wants to check it out. I streamed our 3s on Tuesday and got nearly 200 viewers at 2am! I was playing Protection on my Warrior so I got a lot of grief from some viewers as it is the spec of the month to hate on! I replaced the priest on the 5s team so we are running with a weird 4 DPS spec, but we managed to jump about 100 rating since I joined a few weeks ago. We are currently in the 2100s and will probably push higher tonight. I've only played about 30 games with the team so we are still getting use to the comp. I was Arms during our last sessions but I'll probably play Prot for this session so I don't get blown up in .5 seconds.

5s @ 9PM CST Tonight!
Stream URL: http://www.xfire.com/live_video/dresek

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Weekly Gold Summary / Shadowmourne / Arena

It looks like I won't be hitting the 300k mark for quite a while. The raid leader of the GDKP approached me about paying for priority on Shadowfrost Shards for Shadowmourne. I expressed my interest in this a while back. Since then he compiled a small list of eligible players (based on PVE performance, arena/PVP experience etc). He ended up selecting me. I of course was happy he did, I won't divulge how much I paid for Shadowfrost Shard priority but let's just say, I think I got a really good deal on it. This of course set me back from my goal.

The GDKP went well and I ended up spending about 16k in BoE epics which I should at the very least double when they do sell. I can't really stress how good GDKP runs are for gold making. Not only do you get a split at the end (2-3k) but you also get the opportunity to pickup the highest quality BoE epics for a lot cheaper then they are worth on the market. So, between buying 25 Primordial Saronite again for Shadow's Edge, paying for Shadowfrost Shard priotiy and the BoE epics, it's going to be a while (few weeks) before I hit 300k! Oh, last night I spotted a chopper on the AH for 15k so that resulted in an impulse buy! I've always thought they looked cool and I got tired of looking at my other mounts when riding somewhere.

Despite spending so much gold this week, I did make about 50k. Unfortunately I'm still in the negatives until the BoE's sell, so I will provide some real numbers next week when they aren't so depressing!

Deal of the Week:

Breastplate of the White Knight bought for 3250g (trade chat), sold for 5999g

While I have made much more on flipping other BoE's like Battered Hilts or ICC 25 BoE's. This one takes the cake for the week because I literally sold it 3 minutes later! I bought it from a guy in trade, through it on the AH on one of my alts and it sold almost immediately! Wow!

I can't wait to get Shadowmourne, although it will take at least a few months get acquire all the Shadowfrost Shards. I'm looking forward to running my 100% ArP arena build with it and Bladestorming my way to the top of BG9!

This is the last week of season 7 and I have completed my Prot PVP build. We are going to heavily push this week into the 2600 range in 3s for Gladiator. Unfortunately throughout most of the season we've been taking it somewhat casually due to conflicting schedules but this week we are going to kick it up a notch to finish it off. I'm going to stream it tonight on Xfire and will update here when we are live.

URL:
http://www.xfire.com/live_video/dresek/

Friday, January 8, 2010

Blizzard Authenticator / Flipping Epics

I just ordered a Blizzard Authenticator. I figured it was time. I've played WoW since release and have never had my account hacked, but I've never had so much gold on an account and I'm starting to feel a little paranoid about it. The added security is good piece of mind for $6.50. It is something I do recommend if your account holds any value. Gear is easy to restore but I do not know what Blizzard does about gold loss.

In other news, I'm back over 210k. Not bad considering I started the week at 68k! The big boost is partly due to the sell off of Primordial Saronite I bought, I've sold off 23 of the 28 I bought so far, so that accounts for about 55k of income this week. I have managed to turn a profit on it in the process. The most I paid per Primordial Saronite was 2.1k, but I did manage to snag some up at 1.8-2k as well. The range I've sold it off at is 2.4k to 2.6k, so it's a pretty decent profit considering it wasn't my original intention.

A big part of my weekly profit are some amazing deals I scored on uncut epic gems. A guildie sold me 20 Cardinal Rubies and 41 Ametrine for 6700g. I also have bought a ton of epic gems for a similar price from late night posters in trade. I bought 100 epic gems or so of various color for 110g each off one guy. I think the guy was selling off inventory from an account (or accounts) he hacked or something, I'm not really sure. Good epic cuts go for 200-250g on my server so I am basically doubling the amount I purchased them all for, if not more.

Battered Hilts are still pretty good flips, I managed to snag one in trade chat for 8.5k and I resold it for 16k a few days later. I've never been big on flipping epics until the GDKP runs and 3.3 release. It's been a pretty nice source of income to add to the usual profession based methods. I like to compare profession based methods to full time jobs, where you are basically grinding out gold and epic flipping to the stock market. There is some risk of a loss if you aren't careful but if you are smart about it there can be a lot of earning potential.

I actually experimented with this recently. I have a pretty solid AH scan sample through Auctioneer over the past month. The experiment consisted of searching for all level 80 epics on the AH, and see which ones are up for a relatively low percentage of their market value (30-80%). I ended up spending about 35k gold on various epics in the 50-80% range and it's paid off quite nicely. There is one thing I learned quickly though, it's all about patience. It's unlikely you will spend 30k on BOE epics and flip them all by the next day for 60k. I still have about 15k in epics I'm still trying to move, but they are basically pure profit as I have already moved the rest of them at a much larger price. I've made back my original 35k and then some.

Gold making can really become an obsession when you start becoming successful at it. You look at trade chat in a whole new light and jump on just about any deal you can spot. It can really add a whole new aspect to the game, just like PVE and PVP.

If I don't pickup anything in the GDKP tomorrow, there's a chance I might even hit 300k by this coming Monday. That would be a pretty good week if you ask me, going from 68k to 300k. :)

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Expenditures / Arena

I hope everyone had a good holiday, they always seem to go by too quick. I did manage to play some WoW, but certainly a lot less than usual. Unfortunately my gold hasn't gone up in the past week or so because I've been stocking up and buying a few things. As of right now I have 150k gold, but I am in the middle of selling off my Primordial Saronite (20 left or so) for 2.3k piece and I have roughly 40k in BOE epics I'm still moving. After I get everything sold I should be at around 250k+. I decided not to pick up Shadow's Edge.

I decided that if I'm going to play arms on my Warrior I really need the T2 (mace for ArP) weapon for the extra resilience. I'm looking to put a 100% ArP PVP template together with at least 750 resilience. The Deathbringer's Will trinket was recently changed and now procs haste instead of ArP. This is a bummer for me as I was going to soft cap ArP with it and stack more PVP gear for survivability. Unfortunately with that going away I'm going to use it with Death's Verdict and just hard cap ArP.

Every market hasn't really changed much. Gems, glyphs, scrolls, belt buckles and flasks are selling really well still. Enchanting mats have really bottomed out since 3.3 was released. Yesterday I bought a ton of Dream Shards at 4g piece, Greater Cosmics at 9-10g, Abyss Crystals at 25g and Infinite Dust at 1.1g each. The good thing is that scrolls haven't really been too effected by it. I'm still consisting selling Berserking for 500g+, along with a lot of others. I'm actually making more money on scrolls now due to lower material cost.

The GDKP run is coming up in a few days and there are still a number of items I'm looking to pickup. I'm switching to protection spec for 3s and most likely arms for 2s and 5s. As long as Blizzard doesn't nerf protection too hard, I'm looking forward to it. I've already played some as Prot Warrior, Hunter, Paladin. It's a fun comp and the #1 team in the world at 3022 on my BG currently uses it. I'm looking to pickup 2 pieces of T10 prot for the set bonus, Deathbringer's Will and Might of Blight. I'd also like to pickup the TOGC 25 shield from Icehowl if we do a TOGC 25 this week, heroic Death's Verdict would be nice too!

I'm going to start streaming our 3s (as prot) as well at http://www.xfire.com/live_video/dresek/. I did this during Season 5 when I played 2s as Warrior/Paladin at 2300+ on BG9 and it was quite popular. My stream would usually max out at 50 pretty quick. Since then Xfire has greatly increased the maximum viewers though so getting into streams isn't usually a problem.

For now I'm going to skip this week's weekly summary, I'll make sure and get one up next Monday though!