Gold 'n' Gems

This weekend I was mainly just mining in Icecrown on MacNeilly and sending the proceeds off to StoneKold for prospecting. I have a strange little ritual that I carry out when prospecting, I don’t know if it helps but I always do it lie this: I prospect Saronite Ore until I get 3 single uncommon gems in a row, then and only then do I prospect some Titanium. If I get 2 uncommon gems or an uncommon and a rare gem from the Saronite then I just keep going until I get 3 singles in a row. As I say, I don’t know if this does any good but I do seem to get 2 to 3 epic gems per stack of Titanium quite consistently.

I currently make most of my epic gem cash from Cardinal Rubies cuts (Bold, Runed and Delicate mostly). I have a decent stock of most of the other epics; however I am not really that sure of the best cuts. I read on an older JMTC post that says:

Yellow - Rigid, Smooth and Quick

Blue - Solid
Purple - Sovereign, Glowing, Purified
Green - Enduring, Jagged
Orange - Accurate

I honestly don’t have a clue and was planning to go trawling through some class specific guides and websites to get a better idea. I would also appreciate any feedback. I’d rather not waste my precious Jewelcrafting Tokens if I could help it. I am also making a steady income through transmuting Skyflare Diamonds and cutting them into Chaotic Skyflare Diamonds. Also transmuting my spare Saronite bars into Titanium Bars and AH’ing them still brings in a decent return. Not doing too bad though, just under 19.5K as of 05:15 this morning.

-McRaffles

Happy New Year

Well that’s the festivities over for another year. I hope that you received everything you wanted and you feel better after the over-indulgences. Me, I was glad to get my Merrymaker title and get the Feast of Winter Veil achievement under my belt. That just leaves the ‘Lunar Festival’, ‘Love is in the Air’ and ‘Children’s Week’ to go until I get the ‘What a long strange trip it’s been’ meta-achievement and the coveted Violet Proto-Drake.

I also, as previously intimated, decided to replace Skinning and Leatherworking with Herbalism and Alchemy on McRaffles. I am happy to report that they are now both maxed out and I have been enjoying transmuting titanium and gems and making flasks and elixirs. I decided to go Transmute spec and have had some great bonuses so far. This coupled with my extensive mining and jewelcrafting has had the remarkable effect of bumping my finances up from about 3.5K a week before Christmas to 15K this morning. ChaChing!

I know that some people say they can make that in a good week from playing the Auction House but it is the most money I have ever had in one go and I am thoroughly enjoying its gradual increase. There have been some great bonuses from the recent patch, one of which is that Frozen Orbs have plummeted in price and you can now pick them up for a song. This certainly takes the sting out of my daily Icy Prism. I have also been doing some serious mining too and sometimes it seemed I was the only miner in Icecrown. I currently have a hundred Titanium Ore ready for prospecting and over a thousand Saronite too. So with all this and my daily Titansteel and Epic Gem I am looking forward to a very prosperous New Year.

Gems and Ores

I’m still continuing to crack on with the Jewelcrafting dailies, very slow going, however I am also continually on the lookout for cheap ‘Damaged Necklace’ at the Auction House. They normally go for around 200-300g each on my server, but I have picked up one at 50g and my best yet, 28g. The other way to get Jewelcrafting Tokens is to swap 10 Titanium Powders for 1. I haven’t actually done this yet, as I currently only have 8, but as I prospect more and more Titanium Ore, I’m sure it won’t be long now. I don’t have that many cuts at the moment, mainly just the ones for the best selling rare gems, though I’m going to keep at it. I have a few uncut epic gems in the bank which I’m looking forward to cutting and selling.

A Guildie friend very kindly transmuted about 80 Titanium Bars for me, thanks Verse. That cleared out a fair few stacks of Saronite Bars from my bank. I’m not looking to sell these on; they will go towards my daily Titansteel Bar and free up my Titanium Ore for prospecting for the foreseeable future. I don’t have an Alchemist at the moment and was seriously considering rolling a new character and levelling one up in conjunction with Herbalism of course. I have since decided that I can’t actually be arsed with that and am now going to drop Skinning and Leatherworking on McRaffles as I rarely use them anymore. It will also be substantially quicker to max Alchemy and Herbalism on a level 80 Rogue than by creating a new one…..I hope.

~McRaffles

Patch 3.3 At Last

So Patch 3.3 is here at last, whether you are looking for new avenues to accumulate gold and exploit the unsuspecting, can’t wait to try out the three new 5-man dungeons or raiding Icecrown Citadel to finally put an end to the tyranny of the Lich King. A new patch always brings new challenges and new opportunities but one on this scale (almost a mini expansion pack) has something for everyone. I personally will not be rushing to take advantage of the new Race Change System though I am looking forward to trying out the cross-server and instant teleport dungeon system that sounds like a welcome upgrade to the current Looking For Group system. Obviously there will be a huge influx of players trying to get on, serious lag, problems logging in and of course the ubiquitous add-on problems..... /sigh

I have personally been stocking up on Saronite bars to take advantage of the removal of the cool-down on the Titanium transmute and I also hope to make a few bob from leg enchants, enchanting mats and rare and epic jewel cuts as there should be a rush to gem and enchant all those lovely new weapons and armour. On the down side, it looks like I won’t be selling many more ‘Relics of Ulduar’ thanks to the new BoA shoulder enchants; though at least I don’t have to grind out the ‘Sons of Hodir’ rep on my alts now.

I had another productive weekend, I finally got StoneKold to level 450 Jewelcrafting, (thanks to Verse for transmuting all those Skyflare Diamonds for me). I also raised MacNeilly’s Blacksmithing up to 449, I was going to take it to 450 but I needed to craft a couple of epics for StoneKold anyway, and that will take me to 450. It’ll just take a couple of days to smelt the required Titansteel (20 hour cool-down). I sent the crafted blues (Daunting Legplates) to StoneKold for DE’ing and made a bit of cash selling the resulting Dream Shards. I then took to the skies in search of more Titanium and Saronite.

~McRaffles

Levelling Professions

After a serious amount of prospecting and cutting I eventually made it to level 420 in Jewelcrafting on StoneKold. This is where it gets a little trickier as the best way to level from here is to cut Earthsiege and Skyflare Diamond metagems. I picked up 17 Skyflare and a couple of Earthsiege Diamonds and thought I’d get started though I wasn’t sure which cut to go for. I could have learned the ‘Swift Skyflare Diamond’ recipe from the trainer however a quick AH search showed an influx of them and they only sold for about 9 gold each. I decided that the ‘Chaotic Skyflare Diamond’ was the one to go for; it sells quite well at around 60 gold each, the only problem was that the recipe could only be purchased using 5 Dalaran Jewelcrafting Token and I didn’t have any…..yet. So on with the dailies. I don’t mind waiting a few days if it means making a 100%+ profit over a 70% loss, but what to do in the meantime?

MacNeilly’s BlackSmithing was only at level 363, so I thought that this would be a good time to level that a bit too. I started of by smelting about 300 cobalt bars and about the same in Saronite bars (though they are 2:1). I even turned my 50 Titanium Ore into 25 bars, 2:1 too. I then logged onto my favourite levelling guide website (much kudos to www.wow-professions.com) and started cranking out armour and weapons until my stock was depleted. I then swapped out upgrades for my own rubbish BC armour and sent the rest either to StoneKold for DE’ing or to the AH (Weapon Chains and Eternal Belt Buckles). All this effort got me up to level 430, which I was more than happy with. I then decided to take to the skies and replenish my stocks…onwards and upwards.

~McRaffles