Comfortably Numb

Hello,
Is there anybody in there
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone at home

Greetings from the aftermath. After a weeks leave, a birthday, a 26 hour straight session and more smokes and coffees than I care to admit, I'm back to work and wishing I wasn't.

Come on now
I hear you're feeling down
I can ease your pain
And get you on your feet again

OK so what's been happening. Well firstly my biggest congratulations to Catreann, my RL partner and GM for the following:

This will explain the 26 hours. It was a pre planned idea to get Cat to 525 asap to capitalise on selling high end gear. But as time passed and realm firsts were achieved (cooking within about 5 minutes), leatherworking never popped.

Preparations had been made - we had 125 primordial saronite collected over the previous weeks, and all the other makes to make 25 sets of Rock Steady Treads. We knew from the Beta this would give Cat a huge headstart into LWing, and it may well have been the difference between realm first and no.

As Cat quested to get to 84 (as we knew she had to get to the Twilight Highlands to get the 510 recipes), I farmed leather. This did mean I spent the first 15 hours on my rogue skinning, but ultimately it was worth it.

As Cat hit 84 and the chain quest to open Twilight Highlands kicked in, guildies gathers in SW with volatiles and mats and anything that we could think of. We formed a group and got a warlock stone ready if required.

I watched over her shoulder as she made the last few sets of PvP bracers. The item went yellow at 520.

521

522

523

524

524

524

524

525

CHA-CHING!!!!!

Cat cried. There was much cheering. I then went to bed and slept for the first time in two days.

Relax

I'll need some information first

Just the basic facts

Can you show me where it hurts

I still don't have an level 85 toon. Sardonica (priest) is a few bars from 84. Puraa (hunter) is only 81. The rogue is about two thirds of the way to 81. Surprisingly, PeerPressure (DK) is close to 83. She only hit 80 about a week before Cata hit.

The reason for PeerPressure being so high is not that I've fallen in love with DKs. The reason is because I made her the herbalist/mining toon. And let me assure you she has been doing a lot of gathering over the past few days.

I got her to 475 in Hyjal then headed straight to Uldum. Farming in Uldum is madness itself. Elementioum ore, pyrite ore, cinderbloom and whiptail. Its since been discovered by others, but when I headed there on the second day of release I was the onyl person providing whiptail to the whole alliance server. I was selling it for 60-100g per herb. And I had around 20 stacks of the stuff. Farming is king at the start of any expansion and PeerPressure has proved that.

Farming is also a decent way to level. 2k+ xp per plant/node and you soon start eating through the bars.

Also herb gives volatile life - and volatiles are always good. Especially with an alchemist around (or two)

There is no pain, you are receding

A distant ship smoke on the horizon

You are coming through in waves

Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying

When I was a child I had a fever

My hands felt just like two balloons

Now I've got that feeling once again

I can't explain, you would not understand

This is not how I am

I have become comfortably numb

With Auctioneer/Enchantrix still being updated with new data, enchanting has given me a huge opportunity to make gold.

It was weird, and I noticed it right away - but then cata hit something was different.

Traditionally, through all previous versions of WoW - greens have had the following DE chance:

Armours - 75% Dust:20% Essence:5% Shard

Weapons - 75% Essence:20% Dust:5% Shard

When cata hit, it had changed to:

Armours - 75% Essence:20% Dust:5% Shard

Weapons - 75% Dust:20% Essence:5% Shard

This was important. As armor items outnumber weapons in the game, there was more essence being produced than dust. Therefore dust was actually more expensive than lesser essences - a first in WoW.

Then the Saturday restart happened. I was lucky because I'd just been buying some items to DE before the restart so the first I did when the server came back up was to DE those items. It was clear as day that things had changed. I disenchanted 14 items and got hypnotic dust from 12 of them. Normality had resumed.

In these situations you have to think quickly. Because dust was about to become the common DE mat, prices would fall. Essences would go the other way.

At the time on Cael Allaince lowest prices were:

Hypnotic Dust: 38g

Lesser Celestial Essence: 14g

Great Celestial Essence: 45g

Todays Prices:

Hypnotic Dust: 15g

Lesser Celestial Essence: 20g

Great Celestial Essence: 65g

Since the restart dust has slowly fallen, whilst essences have peaked to (35g/100g) and dropped back to the above.

I personally dumped all my dust at 35g, and bought all essence under 120g/60g in the hour after the restart. I've then flipped them as the market adjusted covering all my costs, whilst allowing me to get to 524/525 in my enchanting.

Okay

Just a little pin prick

There'll be no more aaaaaaaah!

But you may feel a little sick

Much as I hate to admit it, I was wrong about one thing about Netherweave Bags on my server. Not that they would increase in price, but that Cat and I would have no competition. Over the past 3 days our tailors have been the only one supplying Cael's Netheweave bag needs. It seemed that everyone got trigger happy and pumped out their bags for 8-10g. When they ran out of cloth we still had 200+ stacks of netherweave to make bags with. We are selling for 15g+ on both sides of the server with demand only slowly starting to dwindle.

Can you stand up?

I do believe it's working, good

That'll keep you going through the show

Come on it's time to go.

The new markets have brought new mats. Five types of volatiles, three new ores, 6 new herbs. New cloth, new leather. New gems. All these new raw mats are in demand and still pulling ridiculous prices. You can farm for 500g an hour would blinking. Even if you only have one gathering profession.

People don't tend to take the advice that unless you are going for realm firsts, you dont need to powerlevel professions at an expansion. There isn't much money to be made with top end gear yet, especially as Chaos Orbs at BoPand few and far between.

But people do power level, and then dump stuff left right and centre. There are currently scrolls for sale on Cael that cost 100g+ to make just in mats. They are listed for under 5g. Now even with prices doing to fall, I dont ever imagine that 2 hypnotic dust and 2 lesser celestial essences are going to cost less that 5g.

Now is the time to buy these up friends. Buy scrolls, potions, flasks, anything that is being dumped to clear bag space. Buy it now and release it back when things quieten down.

There is no pain you are receding

A distant ship smoke on the horizon

You are only coming through in waves

Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying

When I was a child

I caught a fleeting glimpse

Out of the corner of my eye

I turned to look but it was gone

I cannot put my finger on it now

The child is grown

The dream is gone

And I have become comfortably numb

Its been a wild week for us all. I have maxed alchemy, skinning, mining, herbing. I'm 524/525 in enchanting. JCing is close to 500. Inscription and Engineering are still lower (487 and 469 respectively), but they will come. I refuse to spend 10k to max a profession. Enchanting shows you can level it for no cost at all. Alchemy I made money with because people are stupid and pay 100g for mana pots.

I'm up about 25k from when the expansion hit. Inscription was a solid backstop, ticking over bring in a around a thousand gold a day whilst the other glyph sellers had their focus diverted elsewhere. Opportunity lay around every corner when Cata hit, but I tried not to focus solely on gold, otherwise I'd have just farmed for the past week.

My final thought for the day - think ahead. There are currently many many items on the AH for prices which have slowly fallen since the expansion released. Somewhere in these are items which aren't being used in great numbers yet, but shortly will become very very desirable. Invest wisely.

So now back to work.