It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single raider in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a fish. Well, not just one fish. Usually 5-20 fish, to be precise. And that’s where us auction house trolls come into play!

My new virtual market has taken off, helped by the release of the new arena season and the frost wing of ICC. As I mentioned before, the bread and butter of my business is basic consumables — ore, cloth, food, herbs, enchanting mats. I’ve gotten better about buying in bulk when the prices take a downturn, and having faith that they’ll pick up again in another week or two.

Having this extra gold liquidity, though, means I can also dabble in more expensive items. Right now my auctions include epic recipes, pricey gem cuts, and lots of level 80 blues, which sell better than anticipated. Having patience and a good sense of the market helps a lot when laying out this kind of gold, as well as lots of experience with the game. It also means that I can jump on extra good deals I see in trade channel, such as the person selling 40 stacks of Lichbloom at a deeply discounted price. What am I going to do with 40 stacks of Lichbloom? I.. um.. did I mention it was really cheap? No more questions!

I’ve also learned what items I will not flip, whether it’s out of financial or moral concerns. I know people make a pretty good WoW living selling vendor items at exorbitant prices, but I turn up my nose at a lot of that business. And I refuse to do that gross thing suggested by another blog where you post 100 arrows at the same price at 1000 and then snicker when someone buys them (or similar methods). I will relist vendor items I come across with a little “convenience fee” — a good example is the cooking recipes sold by that dude waaaaaaaay down in the corner of Westfall — but I roll my eyes when I see Refreshing Spring Water for 20 gold a piece.

Now I have the not-unpleasant task of deciding what, if anything, I want to buy with some of this gold! I’ve already picked up a Leaping Hatchling and Orb of Deception at bargain basement prices (one benefit of stalking the Auction House), and funded getting my alts close to max level crafting and riding skills. I’ve decided against a motorcycle, I think. They’re awfully cool, but just don’t fit into whatever limited RP vision I have for Liore. Perhaps a passenger mammoth? Eh…

What I really want is a giant chicken mount, so I can call it Chicken Boo. (”It’s a chicken, I tell ya! A giant chicken!”)

_____________________________________

An exciting Cats management secret: If you want to join my guild, don’t have a character name that starts with X. When I set up our loot tracking module for the website, years ago, I cheerfully hard coded in a special setting for ex-members which I cleverly denoted by putting ‘X’ in front of their name.

Looking at it this weekend, while working on another part of the site, I realized that I am not to be trusted with 2am application design. I’m not sorry enough to fix it though, so just change your character name, okay? Thanks.

PS: Looking for a bear or DK tank!

Save and Share:

Random quests/dailies, silly

Well, while the servers are down I finally have the spare time to write something resembling a post! It’s not really a post, though. Instead, it’s a … todo list!

Finish levelling professions on Lunedi
Thanks to this guide and some mat donations from a guildie, I got Lunedi’s mining and jewelcrafting up over 400 this weekend. She’s just starting to mine saronite from Sholazar Basin, and will soon be fighting it out with everyone else for titanium, which I can prospect for blue gems to level JC!

Organize daily profession stuff
Continuing my gold-making plans from last week, I’m trying to make better use of my professions. Liore has an epic gem transmute each day that I should take advantage of, plus unlimited meta gems. Lunedi should do the JC daily every day, and make icy prisms when I get to that point. I have a level 70 tailor/enchanter who should really get her shatters and specialty cloth cooldown timers sorted. And on that idea..

Switch Liore to Transmute Spec
Liore has been Potion Spec since the beginning of time. Back in the day, being able to make my own mana potions was extremely cost efficient. It’s still pretty handy for the first few months of any new expansion, but overall I’d be better suited by being able to proc extra transmutes.

One Light In The Darkness (10s)
Both me and another healer just need this achievement to get our Ulduar drakes. I have a timer up to the Keepers saved — ask for help with this from the guild!

Get Exalted with Keepers of Time
Find some poor suck– um, helper to run Heroic Black Morass a few times. How am I just short of exalted with KoT, anyway? It feels like I ran BM a million, billion times to help people get keyed for Karazhan.

Get the Perky Pug on Liore!
Oof. While the LFG system was top of my daily priorities when it debuted, I admit I have been slacking a bit as of late. It’s also really tempting to just run with guildies instead of puggies, but that does not get me any closer to an adorable doggy of my own! Just 19 more random people to go…

Send mats from Guild Vault for flasks
Find a nice elixir master.

Repost all auctions on Friday morning
I’m going away for the weekend, so I’m listing everything my banker owns on Friday morning on a 48-hour timer. Let’s see how much gold I’ve REALLY made with this AH mogul thing.

Evaluate new recruit
Check the logs tomorrow morning.

Read up on new ICC bosses, kill Putricide
Argh, Putricide! 16% last week.. assuming people are on the ball, I think we’d have it… except our Abom driver is away for work this week. Figure out if we should wait until Monday (traditionally a weak roster night), or power through with a better roster but novice abom driver on Thursday.

Save and Share:

Random ICC, LFG, quests/dailies, silly

So remember when I posted a couple of weeks ago declaring that I had forsaken all alts and alt leveling? Ironically enough, writing that post got me thinking about alts, and how I’ve always wanted a paladin. Truthfully, I think female characters look really awesome in most plate gear. More importantly, though, paladins are a great class for PVP, both battlegrounds and arenas. While I adore Liore and the priesthood, I’m saddened sometimes that I am destined to get chewed up and spit out in arenas, or that battleground achievements like Ironman are a million times more difficult with my chosen class.

Of course, I level like a turtle, and paladins are not renowned for their quick leveling anyway. I pondered my options, did a little reading, and then decided to join a whole new level of WoW-geekery: I was going to two-box a couple of characters and boost them using the Recruit-a-Friend bonus. It’s a little extra money for a couple of months, but it held the potential for fun and I love deciphering new toys.

Getting the account started was very easy. I mailed myself a Recruit-a-Friend code from my Blizzard Account, signed up with my own name and credit card, and voila! Starting up technically was a little trickier. I use one computer with two monitors and two accounts, rather than multiple computers. To start with this setup, follow the first six steps on this page. You’ll also want to install the mod Jamba on both accounts.

Getting the hang of dual-boxing is.. tricky. Set a master and a slave in Jamba on each character. Get them in a group, make each other their focus, and set the slave to follow the master. With Jamba you have to manually open dialogs such as quests and flights, but once you have it opened on each character the slave will follow the master. So, for example, if both have the flight dialog open, when the master hops on a bird for Dalaran the slave will automatically pick the same thing.

HotKeyNet (which you set up in the earlier guide) allows you to send a key press to both characters at once, which you can toggle on and off with the Scroll Lock key. (Type  in chat on the master char without deselecting the Scroll Lock, and your slave will start freaking out and opening windows and whatnot.) From here you want to write macros and keybind things. For example, the “2″ key on my paladin is set to “/startattack” and “/cast [target=focustarget] Wrath” on the druid.

This is where the really neat aspect of multi-boxing comes into play. You get to look at the combat styles of two classes and figure out how they can mesh. My favorite is the button that casts Moonfire and Judgement of Light (with Seal of Righteousness, at the moment). A big burst of damage with a dot for the mob and health back to the pally — love it! Figuring out macros and spell rotations is like a puzzle, and great fun.

The XP bonus for RaF is ridiculous. It’s a flat 150% on everything. Killing a mob that usually generates 70xp will give you 175xp, and that adds up quick. In about 8 hours of play (excluding AFKs and just fiddling with the interface) both characters hit level 20. Watch out though — make sure you hit the auction house at least every 10 levels for gear upgrades, since you’ll be getting fewer quest rewards than usual.

Not only is RaF fast, but I ENJOYED those 20 levels like never before. Leveling is easy in WoW now, even without a huge XP bonus. You’ve got leveling mods to tell you where to go and when, quest items sparkle, and lowbie elites have been nerfed. But trying to move a duo through the content was a really fun challenge. I’m learning two classes at once, plus advanced macro writing, plus the puzzle-solving of how to mesh the two in combat. (As I joked in guild chat, I can blow away mobs 4-5 levels higher, but sharp corners have become my greatest enemy!)

Of course, I’m already planning on ditching little pally Miercoles and druid Suiyobi for the time being and focusing on leveling up a couple of Hordies. Feral Druid and Shadow priest, maybe? Suddenly, I’m looking forward to going home and leveling alts. How things change.

Save and Share:

Random, Technical Issues mods, quests/dailies

Enough about raiding, recruiting, killing, and stupid 3.2 priest nerfs and weird instance timers that make me want to GRAB A PUPPY AND THROTTLE IT AND O– wait! Right. Sorry. Scratch that last bit.

This Sunday is the Midsummer Fire Festival, which means it’s time for another crazed session of achievement grinding! I like world events quite a bit, and I will be sad when Brewfest is over in September and I have my violet protodrake and all the completed meta achievements to go with it.

Anyway, let’s go over the six achievements needed to earn the the “Flame Warden” title:

Ice the Frost Lord
Slay Ahune in Heroic Slave Pens. The official Midsummer Fire Festival page still says that Ahune is level 70, but I suspect he’ll be level 80 this year. Head into Slave Pens, clear just past the first room, and talk to the new NPC Luma Cloudsister to summon the big fella. He had a lot of adds last year that kind of added up, so assuming he’s level 80 you’ll likely need a full group of 5. Ahune also can drop a Scorchling pet and the completely badass-looking Frostscythe of Lord Ahune, so you’ll likely want to kill him a lot.

King of the Fire Festival
Complete the Thief’s Reward quest by stealing the flames from all of the major cities of the opposite faction. This is a great quest to do late at night, or early in the morning. If it’s like last year, the Undercity flames are easy, and the Orgrimmar one (right outside Thrall’s chamber!) is the most difficult. This quest gives you a Crown of the Fire Festival as a reward, which you need for later achievements.

Desecration of the Horde/Alliance and The Fires of Azeroth
A holiday staple, these are the “ha ha, you have to go back to Azeroth” achievments. Fly around Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, and Outland and honor or extinguish fires in both Alliance and Horde towns. Fortunately, doing this will give you lots of Burning Blossoms, which is the currency for Fire Festival vendor items. Assuming you have nothing from last year, you’ll need 400 Blossoms to buy the entire Fire Festival outfit, which is required for other achievements…

Burning Hot Pole Dance
… such as this one! Getting the set will take a bit of time, but otherwise this achivement is simple. Don your full Midsummer set and dance at (aka use) any of the ribbon poles for 60 seconds.

Torch Juggler
And here is the achievement I’ve been dreading. Juggle 40 torches in 15 seconds. I’m not sure of the actual mechanics of this quest, but the juggling torches daily last year caused me no end of grief. I suppose I am just not destined to be a circus clown.

And that’s it! Those achievements are a little time consuming, but pretty simple and lacking any of that RNG madness that people hate. Happy Midsummer!

Save and Share:

Achievements Achievements, quests/dailies

So I’m broke. Well, to be more precise, Liore is broke. I have a bank alt with enough gold to cover dual spec when 3.1 hits, and my shaman alt can fund her own needs, but Liore is perpetually broke. I’m also behind on my reputations, barely completing any in WotLK so far. My guildies are often mystified about what I do when I’m online and not raiding, because it certainly doesn’t seem to be daily quests or heroics. The sad truth is that I tend to chat in guild chat or on Vent and run circles repeatedly in Ironforge, or if I’m feeling particularly ambitious I will hop around IF trying to not step on any cracks. Yes. This is indeed a valuable use of my time.

Last night was our second night of Sarth 3D attempts, and repairs have officially done me in. So I give to you, for my own edification if no one else’s, a list of healer friendly non-boring daily quests. Start in Sholazar because it takes the longest to get to (stupid Wintergrasp flight path) and work your way around Northrend counter-clockwise. This is Oracles-oriented, but insert a couple of Frenzyheart quests if you need to.

Appeasing the Great Rain Stone – Sholazar Basin
12g 84s – 500 rep with The Oracles
Grab a gorloc friend and dig up shinies. I always go with Moodle because he is so surly and fussy and cute.

The “Song” Quest of the Day – Sholazar Basin
13g 23s – 500 rep with The Oracles
A Cleansing Song
Song of Fecundity
Song of Reflection
Song of Wind and Water
Easy quests that require you to simply use an item or fight with a vehicle.

Preparing for the Worst – Borean Tundra
4g 86s – 500 rep with The Kalu’ak
Taking quest items from level 71 mobs is like candy from a baby.. even for healers.

Planning for the Future – Dragonblight
4g 86s – 500 rep with The Kalu’ak
Kill a level 73-ish mob and save adorable baby wolvar.

The Way to His Heart… – Howling Fjord
7g 40s – 500 rep with The Kalu’ak
If I can help just one sea lion couple find love, I feel like I’ve done my part.

Life or Death – Grizzly Hills
9g 96s – 125 rep with Alilance Vanguard, 250 with Valiance Expedition
You’ll become PVP flagged as long as you have this quest in your log, so plan accordingly. If GH is pretty dead on your server, though, this is an easy quest.

Overstock – Storm Peaks
12g 96s
Use landmines, blow up big stompy invaders. What’s not to like about this quest?

The Random Brunnhildar Daily – Storm Peaks
13g 23s and a chance at a Reins of the White Polar Bear
Back to the Pit
Defending Your Title
Maintaining Discipline
Defending Your Title requires a bit of combat, but the Victorious Challengers are not that tough. Otherwise, it’s using items and vehicles.

Thrusting Hodir’s Spear – Storm Peaks
16g 53s – 500 rep with Sons of Hodir
This is my favorite daily. It takes a bit of time to figure out the mechanics — checkout the comments on Wowhead for good strategies — but once you do it’s still fun and challenging every day.

King of the Mountain – Icecrown
13g 23s – 250 rep with Valiance Expedition
This quest is more like a puzzle than anything. Can Jumpbot make it up the mountain?

The grand total is just over 109 gold, and almost nothing had to be slowly smited to death! I guess I have no excuse now…

————————–

Guild DPSer talking about Sarth 3D: “There should be some kind of big raid warning for void zones.”
Me: “There is.. it’s the giant bright blue swirly on your screen.”

Consistently killing the second drake now, so we just have to master the 20 seconds after that. I’m trying to not get the troops’ hopes too high, but I feel reeeeeeally good about next week.

Save and Share:

WotLK quests/dailies