Blizzard Authenticator

Recently, I heard that one of the guys in my guild got his account hacked. He logged on one day to find his well geared tank sitting naked in Dalaran, all his hard earned equipment sold of and the cash gone. I think at least one of his lvl 80 alts was also in the same situation. What a bummer!! Now I don’t know how strong his password was, or if he’d been frequenting dodgy sites that could have installed a keylogger on his machine. I do know that this is something that scares the hell out of me, especially since I have started accumulating a serious (for me) amount of gold. And not only that, but actively blogging about my exploits too. If that doesn’t make me a prime target for these scumbag thieves then I don’t know what does. The answer – get an Authenticator!

I had actually been meaning to get one for quite a while now (even before the gold making phase), I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I work in IT and I know that there is no such thing as 100% impenetrable security. However I use a very strong, unique password with a mix of numbers, letters and characters which I change regularly; my anti-virus, spyware and adware blocking software is constantly kept up to date and I never share my password or succumb to phishing attempts. Still, having a guildie getting hacked like that was the catalyst to me ordering an Authenticator, at only £6.29 it seemed rude not to.

So that was last Thursday, last Friday I get home from work and my wife hands me an Authenticator. Now that was exceptionally fast, I thought. But I was wrong; this wasn’t from Blizzard, this was from a work friend of my wife. Her friends son (thanks Anthony) had ordered an Authenticator too, but had also received another one as a gift, so knowing that I was also into Warcraft, gave it to his mum, to give to my wife, to give to me. The timing was almost impeccable, but not quite. I of course gladly accepted and am glad I did; I got my newly gifted Authenticator setup on my account on Friday night and now feel a lot more secure. Oh and you even get little 2 headed Corehound Pup non-combat pet for  activating it. It’s now Monday and I still haven’t received the one I ordered. When I get it however, I’ll pass it on to someone else who hasn’t got around to getting one yet. Share the love and all that.

~McRaffles

Gone Fishing

Thank goodness, I’ve finally discovered a decent purple epic gem cut that actually sells. I was previously cutting the Balanced Dreadstone as my purple epic of choice (not an analogy). The problem was that it wasn’t selling very well (and the AH charges for posting and reposting epic gems can seriously eat into your profit margin). Then yesterday, I was trawling through the forums over at Warcraft Econ and came across a great post by ‘Kumiko’ listing his best selling gem cuts. He is a Warcraft Millionaire and should know what he’s talking about. Anyway he listed Purified Dreadstone as his best selling purple epic gem cut by far, so I thought I’d give it a go. I cut three, post them and within a couple of hours they all sell out – Ka-ching! I honestly thought I’d have to start selling my Dreadstones raw, like I already do with Eye of Zuls, but it looks like I now have a nice little outlet for them.


I decided to get away form it all last night, after carrying out my routine crafts and posts, I took McRaffles down to our favourite little fishing spot in Dragonblight. It was great for a change, just kick back and reel in stacks and stacks of Dragonfin Angelfish. Very little competition and in no time at all I had about 200 of the little beauties. This was a welcome diversion and by no means a waste of time; when I’d had enough I cooked up 200 Dragonfin Filets, which at an average of 25g per stack of 5, comes in at a sweet little 1000g. Not a bad little fishing trip at all.

As of this morning I am sitting at just over 55,000 gold.

~McRaffles

Caveat Fabricae (Crafter Beware)

StoneKold was in Dalaran the other day; he had completed his Jewelcrafting daily and had picked up a couple of Cardinal Rubies and about 20 Skyflare Diamonds in the mail transmuted courtesy of McRaffles. He was casually crafting his best sellers; 5 each of the usual rare gems, a couple of epic cuts and 10 Chaotic Skyflare Diamonds. Now this is pretty mundane stuff, done it a hundred times, so I was engaging in some random banter in Guild Chat to pass the time. Once complete, I sent all this off to my AH chap for posting.

Log and switch to AH mule, pick up mail and start posting. Now what is the first thing you do prior to posting your goods on the AH? Correct; check the current price of said item. I probably do this the same way you do; by opening the Auction House search window and just shift/clicking on the item in my bag then clicking search and find out whether it’s worthwhile posting depending on the price. So, doing just this, I post my rare and epic gems and I come to the Skyflare Diamonds and get the fright of my life. Chaotic Skyflare Diamonds normally sell on my server from 42g – 57g. Today they were sitting between 8g and 10g. WHAT!!!!, that can’t be right, on further inspection it was correct, the problem wasn’t the price of the gems it was the type of gems. While distracted I hadn’t crafted 10 Chaotic Skyflare Diamonds, I crafted 10 Swift Skyflare Diamonds….what a dick!!! Swift Skyflares look exactly the same as their Chaotic brothers, however they sell for a damn sight less, if they actually sell at all.

Transmuting a Skyflare Diamond takes 1 Chalcedony, 1 Bloodstone and 1 Eternal Air. Though not actually free, I get more than enough of the gems from prospecting. The Eternal Airs however are occasionally picked up from mining Titanium, but obviously in nowhere near the quantities required for my budding gem selling business. This means that until I can locate a dedicated farmer and put them on my payroll, I have to scour the AH to satisfy my needs. I usually pick up Eternal Airs between 20g – 25g and vendoring the useless Swift Skyflare Diamonds at 6g each I therefore made a loss that though not actually bank-breaking, did leave a nasty taste in my mouth.

Well on the bright side, at least I didn’t craft all 20 and I suppose one good thing came of it, I will never make that mistake again!

~McRaffles

The Big 50

I’m very happy; I’ve just reached and passed my first real gold making milestone, 50,000g. I know that in the great scheme of things it’s not that much, and a lot of people have a whole lot more; but for me it’s about 10 times more than the most money I’d ever had before in one go.

~McRaffles

On no, not The Oculus!

So Friday night comes around and for a change instead of spending all night at the Auction House, I decide to run a Random Dungeon just for fun, and of course badges. So I jump in and lo and behold, straight into ‘The Oculus’. Now having never actually entered this dungeon before, the only thing I knew was that there was some dragon flying involved. I declared my virginity to the group and expected to be kicked, but no, the tank said no problems, I’ll keep you right. So on we go, through the initial trash like the proverbial knife through butter and through the portal and on to ‘Drakos the Interrogator’. True to his word, the tank told me about the spawning bombs and to steer clear. Bang, boss 1 down, no worries. I get told to pick up my Azure Drake and follow, after a bit of confusion (on my part) we then group up and start easily taking down the required 9 centrifuge constructs and remove the shield from the second boss ‘Varos Cloudstrider’. The friendly tank begins to tell me about the aoe effect that we need to avoid and the healer tells us not to worry, he’ll just heal through it. Boss 2 down, easy peasy!

Boss 3 was a bit of a different matter, we clear the summoned trash and I was told to hide behind the column when the boss casts his arcane explosion. I’m not sure what actually happened but I either ran to the wrong column or wasn’t fast enough, as I died. Luckily the tank and healer carried on and I (as well as the 2 other dps) was rezzed after Boss 3 went down. Onwards and upwards to Ley-Guardian Eregos, the final boss. I was told to spam ‘3’ until 10 stacks the hit ‘1’, rinse and repeat and hit ‘Time Stop’ when the summons and run (fly away) when told to run. I watched out for the summon, but must’ve missed it, I think I actually misread one of his abilities on DBM and used it too early; anyway the upshot was a wipe. I held my hands up and apologised and rather than take a heap of expected abuse, the top tank whispered me and said not to worry, the other 2 dps didn’t do that great either. We eventually all get back in and up to Eregos and the tank volunteers to shout when to Time Stop as well as run. The second time was a dream, every Time Stop was on the money and boom Final boss down. I was happy to see the achievements ping up for both the normal and heroic Oculus and after thanking everyone for their help and patience I left with my 2 Frost and 2 Triumph Emblems.

Now I know that there are some real horror stories about the Random Dungeon Tool and that bad groups of bolshy tanks and all round rubbish players abound, but even though this was one of my few encounters running random dungeons, I was very happy with the group and really enjoyed what I totally believed would turn out as a nightmare run, thanks again guys.

~McRaffles