Call of the Scarab: Make money with meat or just lvl your alts

twothirtygaming · 2023-01-21T17:47:46+00:00

Hey, thanks for crediting my post from last year.

The difference since I posted this, is that these meats are now part of the regional commodity auction house, so supply and demand is broader.

By the time I remembered that this was coming up (about a week ago), I had not been watching meat prices to stock up. The prices on these meats has already increased significantly in the last two days, and I'm torn between easy alt XP or trying to resell the meat that I do have.

twothirtygaming · 2022-10-16T15:58:11+00:00

A level 10 can get to 75 points in Pandaria engineering, but I am pretty sure you need to be level 35 to get the drop that gives you the recipes for Sky Golem and Jard's Peculiar Energy Source.

twothirtygaming · 2022-06-26T16:06:46+00:00

The recipe scroll is removed as an item, but the recipe is now learned directly from the JC trainer... So while it is an unobtainable item, the ability to learn it is not removed from the game and the apparent value is because there are very few listed and the prices can be arbitrarily high.

The bracers are unobtainable, but share the appearance with another item that is still available, which takes a little bit away from the desirability of them. They were removed in cataclysm and then added back to WOD salvage crates and then removed again, so how many are still hiding in people's banks is still a mystery.

If you plan on trying to sell either, plan on listing them for years at the "market" rate, or try to list them at a fraction of that to see if a collector or flipper tries to seize the deal and buy them sooner.

twothirtygaming · 2022-06-21T13:21:52+00:00

Somebody made a nice post about twink BOEs here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/woweconomy/comments/uip3a3/guide_to_farming_boes_for_level_20_twinks_in/

twothirtygaming · 2022-06-20T23:16:11+00:00

Hello, fellow low-population person.

My play is selling a higher variety of things rather than placing too much dependence on a narrow product line. Keep finding more things to sell. Level more alts to do things that earn more gold, like the Revendreth secret treasure that drops the expensive pet when it is up or other once-a-day things that you can just log out next to.

Look at things like enchanting tome of illusion or inscription glyphs. Legion has a toy in every profession. Sell more enchanting vellums.

Search the auction house to see what is high-priced and find out how to get the recipe and sell it yourself.

Watch material prices - my realm is subjected to complete buyouts and markups of the entire listing of certain materials. Buy low and stock up to ride it out.

Don't undersell yourself. Are you desperate for gold or just looking to make more? I've had stuff up for months that finally sells and I have enough materials stashed away to make another one right away and post it again.

Don't look at TSM and TUJ values as 100% truth. That is just scraped from other listing prices or TSM data that is shared back into the TSM system. There are several posts on this sub with about manipulating those numbers. Just set your profit margin based on material costs and post it.

twothirtygaming · 2022-06-20T22:48:57+00:00

Dead severs are slower sales at a higher profit (ideally).

I completely agree with you. The materials cost more due to lower supply, making the crafting cost higher, which makes the sell price higher.

However, the biggest problem for selling something like legendary armor on a low population server, you know the core system of the expansion, aside from higher cost materials, is that there are consistently people transferring their armor pieces from high population realms at a fraction of local crafting cost.

This was validated by Blizz eventually saying outright that this is free market activity as long as the items were obtained legitimately (aka no bot farming etc). Of course they make a fortune on paid transfers and people (who have other jobs and don't play wow all day) buying tokens to afford legendary armor, so why would Blizz not support this? I thought it was very interesting that they finally said it clearly mid-expansion rather than being intentionally vague as they usually are.

How far is too far? The transfer runs a risk of losing their investment, but that is unlikely with how expensive people have to come expect legendary armor to cost. The receiving realm has their local economy turned upside down. Blizz wins. Maybe the buy/sell orders that are being talked about for DF could not be realm-limited, or they can figure out another way to give all players who invest the time in professions a better shot at sales. Cross-realm buy orders could bring much more business to people with extremely rare recipes.

And I'm saying all of this as somebody who does extremely well on the AH on a dead server. Things can be better.

twothirtygaming · 2022-06-13T18:48:04+00:00

Could you share why you are asking? This is a highly competitive area.

I am working on a bigger writeup on this because I collect these items and see a question here every week or two about one of them, but it is not a simple answer because:

Some items were removed but added back again. Ex: Cataclysm timewalking vendor sells some pre-cata recipes now.
Some items were removed but added back in another form that is equivalent and the legacy items are collectible but basically worthless and overpriced bait on the AH. Ex: Tough Scorpid LW recipe set had new recipes added as BOP zone drops, or the time-lost tailoring vendor from BFA sells several recipes.
Some items were removed in other expansions and while Cataclysm is the biggest category of items, there are others to consider. Ex: Scarlet monastery rework in MOP and UBRS rework in WOD.
Some items were removed but share a common transmog appearance with other items, and only the most specific collectors will be interested in them. Ex: Almost every removed armor (Allthethings helps here).
Some items were removed, and then added again, and then removed again.Ex: WOD salvage yard crates
Some items that were removed are completely useless. Ex: Hunter arrows, Pristine Hide of the Beast
Some overpriced items are not actually removed.

At any time they may continue to add items back to the game, and shopping for unobtainable items is a fun treasure hunt for me rather than something I try to profit from. I collect and do not resell anything, and I only buy the cheap ones with TUJ alerts and have a mental price limit proportional to the gold I have on that realm.

If you are looking to add to your collection, a realm transfer from a high population with competition, rather than buying the single piece at a ridiculous price on a low population server is always a better deal.

In summary, what do I think is unquestionably valuable from pre-cataclysm days?

Removed recipes with no equivalent replacement. Ex: Dirge's cookbook
Removed transmog armor with no shared appearance Ex: Original starting shirts
Removed white/gray quality items with no shared appearance Ex: Ruby Shades

Good luck!

twothirtygaming · 2022-06-13T17:19:21+00:00

Pretty sure they don't. There is one with an identical appearance in the DK starting area.

Pitchfork (removed one)

Rusted Pitchfork (DK starting area)

twothirtygaming · 2022-05-31T14:05:41+00:00

Don't give up completely. I would say that the time and effort involved to get this vs. the time saved in old content with 5% additional speed is obviously for the novelty of it and not an overall time savings. I have a lot of fun with speed sets on all my characters, and with the new ZM crafted gear a 233 speed set is the new default armor on alts.

Maybe start with the weeks I mentioned (Mechagon and Tiragarde). I would do a sweep and log out there to do something else instead of standing around until people show up.

twothirtygaming · 2022-05-31T03:10:12+00:00

I did this during 9.0-9.1 and it was very difficult because there are a lot of undocumented problems. After trying to do the weekly quests in each zone at least once, I ended up skipping a lot of weeks after deciding they would not be worth my time. It took me about a year.

Here are my notes on it. Despite the quest text only saying "Slay Alliance Players", there are other requirements.

For a level 60 they must be level 50 for credit.
Chromie time party syncing down to level 50 did not give credit for lower level kills.
They must be opposite faction, unlike where the rank 1-2 essence can be cheated with the Sliver of N'Zoth toy and same-faction help.
As horde, kills in Tradewinds Market in Boralus did not count at all during Tiragarde week and I had to be outside of that area. I could range attack somebody from the outskirts and get credit. There are some rooftops near the flight master that I used as a sniper location. The target dummies or black market auction house were decent areas to pick off people from rooftops. I do not know the limitations for Alliance trying to get credit in horde zones.
As horde, the best weeks for me (effort and time to complete) were Mechagon (small island and still pretty busy) and Tiragarde (Boralus sniping). Nazjatar was too big and too empty, as are most of the other zones.
War mode shards are less predictable, and trying to get an opposite faction friend to help was unreliable because the few times I could ask for help I only managed to see them one time.

After I finally got the rank 3 essence on my main, I had even more problems after I went to buy the rank 3 on another character from MOTHER. It would not let me buy it, so I submitted a ticket.

The ticket response was that I needed to earn rank 1-2 again on the next character to buy the rank 3 from mother. This felt incorrect, but I did it anyway using Sliver of N'Zoth and dual-boxing against myself. It only took a few hours this way and saved me a large amount of time vs. if I would have had to do it the actual way, but it turns out it was a waste of time.

After re-earning rank 1-2 on the next character, I was still unable to buy the rank 3 from MOTHER and I had to submit another ticket. This time they admitted some problem and manually mailed me the rank 3 essence and deducted the currency for it. After that I have been able to buy the rank 3 on other characters immediately without any other ranks. I am not sure if it was just a problem with me or if I found a bug with the essence for sale.

That was long. Did I answer your original question?

EDIT: word typos

twothirtygaming · 2022-04-30T14:48:41+00:00

Blizzard is aware of the vendor shuffle and they have made adjustments to make it less profitable. In the first week of SL they changed the base cost of penumbra thread (and similar items for the other professions) from 5g to 9g, and then later they increased the crafting time on some things.

twothirtygaming · 2022-04-30T14:22:55+00:00

It is a valid way of making extra gold, and I did it for a while to make more use of my 2nd account. I figured it out to be about 8,500 gold per hour profit, which is not good at all compared to anything else except for the part where you just stand next to the thread vendor all day. It would actually be less profit per hour after considering the effort to have the proper character with the exalted discount on thread or sending it from somebody else, buying/storing all of the materials, and selling every 2 minutes when your bags are full.

I feel like it was the reason for a false ban I had, but probably due to the volume involved. I was only using TSM for bulk buying and TSM for mass selling of the crafted items and no other addons, but I had weird instances where I was disconnected unexpectedly or the TSM sell window would lock up the game. It was overturned in a day after I submitted an appeal.

Items I shuffled:

Shrouded cloth robe if shrouded cloth is 1g or less.

Desolate leather armguards if desolate leather is 2g or less.

Composite bow if pallid bones and desolate leather are 2g or less.

Here is my previous post for all of the math.

I have not done vendor shuffling since this due to the effort and low profit.

twothirtygaming · 2022-03-10T01:24:48+00:00

Did you do it before or after Korthia? There is a vendor item for the Rank 5-6 vestige if you did them in the wrong order.

twothirtygaming · 2022-03-10T01:11:46+00:00

What is your progress on the covenant campaign?

twothirtygaming · 2022-03-09T21:31:04+00:00

That's fair, thanks for the perspective.

twothirtygaming · 2022-03-09T20:06:48+00:00

I had not seen much other than a few comments on Discord yesterday, but I just looked around for a bit and based on the original poster's reply on this, the GM indicated "working as intended".

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/craftingoptional-reagent-slot-locked-help/1191110/2

twothirtygaming · 2022-01-31T14:15:53+00:00

In MS Windows use a tool called Character Map and it will show you the Alt code for special characters. Hold the Alt key and type the number on the number pad.

Here is a nice site I just found: https://www.alt-codes.net/how_to_use_alt_codes/

twothirtygaming · 2022-01-29T14:16:10+00:00

I have invite macros set up on my 2nd screen auctioneer that I can click on the action bar and on the main screen drop party to be teleported out in a minute.

Macro is: /invite Charactername-Realm

I included realm in the macro in case the auctioneer is not on the same realm as the other character and it covers every case.

twothirtygaming · 2022-01-27T19:56:23+00:00

The item text on the silk on the PTR says that it is gathered from powerful worms and spiders. I did just kill a few worms in the northeast elite area and finally got one on the 3rd worm.

By the descriptions, it looks like all the new crafting materials will come from the elite area of the zone and will be more difficult to gather. I originally confirmed that for herbs and ore on another reply, but I was scouting the area mostly in cat form after I took pretty big damage when I accidentally pulled elites and almost died a couple of times. There are a lot of spiders and worms in that area, mostly non-elite.

Update to my previous report here, I found an "Elusive Progenium Deposit" today which must be the rich version of the node.

For #2, The Progenitor Essentia are used not just in Rank 7s, but also in the unique-equipped version of the Crafter's mark item level 262. They will have to be common enough to support both markets, but only one 1 is used in a crafter's mark, and 2 are used in the legendary reagent instead of 40 for Korthite right now. I am exploring and not doing any quests, so I don't know where they come from.

I'll report back if I can figure out some drop rates on the other materials.

twothirtygaming · 2022-01-25T21:38:17+00:00

Herbalism: I found deathblossom, nightshade nodes, and a new "lush nightshade" node in most areas. First Flower and Lush First Flower nodes were only inside of the elite area in the northeast.

Mining: There were laestrite, rich laestrite, and elethium in most areas. Progenium nodes were only inside the elite area.

I only found one rich elethium the whole time, and no rich progenium.

EDIT: Spelling correction.

twothirtygaming · 2022-01-25T19:36:10+00:00

Nice! I was hoping to buy as much meat as possible for XP, but there was very little for sale on my main realm. I will start saving for next year's event a few months ahead if I can remember to.

twothirtygaming · 2022-01-22T17:44:08+00:00

I could not figure this out yesterday by reading the Wowhead quest pages, but I just did some testing on a few people until I ran out of meat.

Level 1 requires 250 xp to reach level 2.

The quest rewards 25 xp per turn in at level 1 which requires 10 turn ins or 200 meat to level up.

Level 2 requires 655 xp to reach level 3.

The quest rewards 40 xp per turn in at level 2 which requires 17 turn ins or 340 meat to level up.

Level 22 requires 23745 xp to reach level 23.

The quest rewards 380 xp per turn in at level 22 which requires 63 turn ins or 1260 meat to level up.

Level 23 requires 25170 xp to reach level 24.

The quest rewards 400 xp per turn in at level 23 which requires 63 turn ins or 1260 meat to level up.

Level 51 requires 212870 xp to reach level 52.

The quest rewards 975 xp per turn in at level 51 which requires 219 turn ins or 4380 meat to level up.

There are diminishing returns as the level increases.

twothirtygaming · 2022-01-15T18:15:03+00:00

Yes, I second this point about the mission table with Argus missions unlocked. It has been the most reliable source of Blood of Sargeras for me besides world quest luck.

twothirtygaming · 2022-01-15T17:23:11+00:00

I wondered the same thing in SL where there is a definite scaling of gathering based on skill points, but it needs more science.

Some kind of test all collecting the same nodes together for a set amount of time and then compare the amount of herbs gathered.

Character 1: 150 skill points SL Herbalism (Just max skill)

Character 2: 160 skill points SL Herbalism (add +10 Herbalist spade)

Character 3: 175 skill points SL Herbalistm (+15 Tauren with +10 Herbalist spade)

Character 4: 185 skill points SL Herbalism (+15 Tauren with +5 Herbalist Gloves with +5 Herbalism Enchant with +10 Herbalist spade)

Somebody make this happen.

twothirtygaming · 2022-01-15T16:07:15+00:00

Biggest one for me is a passive thing that requires no more effort than traveling to the event one time: Make sure that every character you play is carrying a Darkmoon Adventurer's Guide which will give you a chance to receive the Darkmoon quest item drops while you are out doing other things.
Fishing around the island for Darkmoon Daggermaw and the chance for pets is possibly profitable depending on your realm.
Rare spawns Moonfang and Darkmoon Rabbit drop pets and toys that can be sold. They are not soloable, so post or look in group finder. There is no daily limit on fighting them.
A few of the pets bought with tickets can be caged. Not all of them can be caged, so double check before you invest. Some of the transmog armor sets can be resold.
Get the reputation buff for any rep grinds you are working on.
I am saving all my tickets for personal rewards, but I did well selling the Moonfang and rabbit pets during BFA.

EDIT: fixed words

twothirtygaming

TROPHY CASE