Eep!

Sorry about the hiatus, I've been exceedingly busy the last week or so and haven't had a chance to post (and slight writers block, but that's ok)

So, 4.2 is imminent. We all know what that means! There's some excellent opportunities to make massive quantities of gold, in a short period of time.

So far, here's what I've distilled from the patch notes and other sources (I'm looking at you, gold bloggers!)

1) The shuffle is getting nerfed again. This was to be expected, but don't let the new 'soft cap' of 16g fool you, that ore is still worth a bunch. All it really means for me is that the zephs I vendor drop in value significantly. That's ok, it's a small nerf and I look forward to even more people giving up on the shuffle, letting me profit even more from slightly more scarce enchanting mats.

2) A dearth of new gear is coming out. This of course means that enchants and gems will sell like lemonade on July 4th for a short period of time. I'm prepared, are you?

3) Some glyphs are changing. The huge overhaul with books/research is NOT happening, but some glyphs will see an uptick due to changes in BIS setups.

4) Summer is here. This yearly cycle will of course throw some markets off, but that just means more opportunities to make gold to me!

I've got about 80k worth of enchanting scrolls saved up (which I expect to be worth much more at that point) and hundreds of rare gems, as well a ton of the other items that will spasm upwards like truegold, leather, and dreamcloth. I'm also stocking a large quantity of Volatile Fire, which I expect to more than double in price.

On another topic, I recently spent a ton of gold on a quartet of mounts; 3x Reins of the Crimson Deathcharger and of course that epic seahorse that I snagged on another server. I managed to move 2 of the deathchargers for about 20k profit, but I'm having trouble moving that darn seahorse. I expect it will sell eventually though, and that will provide me with enough capital to potentially break 500k liquid before the patch. I certainly will afterwards!

I'm excited =)

Lets raid!

So I hear you like raids. I also hear you like PvP and maybe just like to watch other people play games. So we put a game in your game so you can game while you game. Pro.

In other words, announcing my live stream!

http://www.justin.tv/bheal

The stream will be active pretty much any time I'm not at work, so check it out!

Schedule right now (all times in CST):
Tues 9pm-1am Raid. Heroic mode BoT and either BWD or T4W to follow once its clear.
Weds 9pm-finish Raid. Heroic mode BWD/T4W, whatever wasn't done on Tues.
Thurs 9pm 5v5 Arenas.
Fri-Sun, TBD.

I hope you're as excited about it as I am about hosting it. =)

Watch live video from Mallrat's WoWtv on Justin.tv

Oops I did it again.

I spent all my gold. =/

Well, not all, but I'm definitely back down to 250k ish. I spent 25k on that Reins of Posiedon (which will come back to Illidan late this week and hopefully be sold quickly thereafter, although with such a big ticket item I don't expect it to sell immediately) and I bought a cheapish Reins of the Crimson Deathcharger for 60k. I should be able to flip the deathcharger in a couple weeks for 100-150k, but if not, it was a decently cheap new mount for my priest!

Sigh, I have gotta stop doing this. =)

I have an important announcement tonight, so stay tuned for more goodies from Mallrat!

Book of Glyph Mastery

All of us who use inscription know what this little gem is and how it works right now. For anyone who doesn't, BoGM and the two daily research crafts each have a specific set of glyphs, and once you've completed that set you no longer need to do any more of that type - but you do need to continue any you have not finished.

As is, you need over 50 BoGM to learn them all. Because this is a WotLK item, I've decided that the long term value of the books will only increase. Therefore, I had started stockpiling them, buying out any under 450g and relisting at 500g for storage. Well, two things occurred that changed my perspective.

First, these books started selling in mass quantities at 500g, double the average I was buying them at. This was due to me emptying the market out and essentially resetting it at 500g, so I stopped posting them.

Secondly, I noticed this today from the Q/A #7 - Professions:

Will you provide a way to speed up the acquiring of glyphs usually acquired through research and glyph books? Glyph books (Book of Glyph Mastery) are hard to come by now that people spend so little time in WotLK content. - Furlqt (NA/ANZ), 에르네스트린덴만 (KR), Kånê (EU-ES)

Yes. We will be changing the discovery spells so they can teach all possible glyphs, and the books will simply provide a no-cooldown method to do the same thing.

Wait. What? People will now *need* 0, but rich folk can just buy some 200 books and just learn everything instantly?

What does this mean? Well, for me it means that I plan on holding a ton of these books, and once this change goes live... /evil chuckle. I think I'll go for about 2 bank tabs full, or ~2000 books. That seems a nice number, and I'm already 10% there. =)

This just goes to show you, be aware of all blue posts, not just patch notes!

Other things of interest:
- Chaos Orbs will be unbound in future patches. This generally means *new* orbs will be unbound while existing ones are unchanged, so I would not stockpile them.
- Archaeology has some interesting changes in store, but nothing really concrete yet.

Happy goldmaking!

Extreme mount sniping!

I bought gold today, I confess it.

I did it totally legit too! I was browsing the AH via undermine, and did a search for rare mounts/pets using the given tool (by the way, check that tool out if you haven't - "companions" under "enhancements") and saw that someone had Reins of Poseidus up for 250k.

Like any good goblin, I immediately checked its page out to see what kind of prices this sold for elsewhere. I found that 250k was a good price but very slightly high. most sold for between 200-250k, with the max being 450k and... what's this.... one up now for 20k on some backwater server?

Surely not. 20k? I had to see this for myself.

It was up. I immediately added the seller to friends, and told him I'd give him 25k to unlist it while an xfer went through. I then transfered a mage over with some gold, and bought it.

Total resources invested: 25k, $25, and 1 hour. Estimated return? 200k+.

I essentially bought 150k gold for 50 bucks xfer fees.

And in 3-4 days, when this mage transfers back, I'll be one exceedingly happy goblin!

The curse of 300k

300k is the bane of my goldmaking existence. I first hit 300k over a month ago, and shortly thereafter I spent an absolute ton of gold. I went back down to under 200k for a day or so, while I splurged on all sorts of goodies and reinvested lots of capital.

About 3 days ago, I hit 300k again, and got all the way up to 340k before the same thing occurred. This time, however, I was cautious and I've been hovering right around 300k as a variety of things occur

First off, I've acquired a couple farmers. A couple friends of mine were asking me how to make gold, and after trying to explain economics to them for a while I just gave up and said "you know, if you buy these cheap herbs and mill them, and then turn them into ink, I'll buy them, that's how you can make gold"

And they did.

Now, I get hundreds of blackfallow and inferno ink in the mail, at reasonable but below market value prices, and I think everyone has benefited from the arrangement.

First off, I am able to devote the time that I had previously used milling and inking to other activities. Sure, I lose out on that profit, but I intentionally set my buy point just below the midpoint of profit, so that I'm still making a killing on glyphs, dust, cards, and everything else.

Secondly, my friends are able to churn through thousands of herbs and know that they are making money! Anything that I need that they don't provide, I just continue to do myself and it works out fine.



Another friend asked me what I was doing with all the saved time, to which I replied: "Prospecting." He thought it was pretty funny. =)

The moral of the story? Don't let yourself feel bad if you manage to outsource things. The bottom line is that everyone makes gold this way if done correctly.

Got JP?

Today I want to talk about something that used to be mainstream but has since vanished from the thoughts and minds of many.

I, like many hardcore raiders, have a surplus of both honor and justice points. Now there are these newfangled trade good vendors, but the stuff they offer is just so amazingly expensive that it's truly a waste of gold. For example, on Illidan I can purchase a 200g Maelstrom Crystal for the low low price of 3750 JP/HP.

While I appreciate the thought, Blizz, do you really expect me to be *happy* that I have to nearly cap the bloody things just to get 1 crystal? I'll pass, thanks.

Instead, I opted to find alternate ways to spend my excess honor and jp.

Remember back in Wrath, when epic gems came out? Eventually they were purchasable via honor and jp, and that has never changed. Cold (whose blog you will find here) posted today about how these gems still sell remarkably well. Well, I can corroborate that story, these gems often sell for 2-300g, simply because not a whole lot of people are still making them, and almost no one is picking up the recipes now.

Note, these gems cost 220 jp OR 165 honor. The math is close, but it is NOT worth it to trade jp to honor to purchase these. You can get them from Harold Winston in Dalaran for JP, or in Orgrimmar / Stormwind for honor

Happy hunting!

Size Matters!

Stack size, that is.

This post is dedicated to all of the industrious goblins out there who listed 217 of any item, in stacks of one.

Please go die.

On behalf of every goblin out there, I would like to thank all the players who list your stacks in reasonable numbers. 5, 10, 20, 200. You make our day. If you list large quantities of things in stacks of one, you are only hurting your own sales. Now on certain markets it's fine to list a reasonable quantity of items in stacks of 1. Darkmoon cards, fortune cookies, even dust/essences.

However, if you list more than 30 auctions, you're not going to sell as many. List 10 in stacks of 1, and then put a stack of 20 up! Not only is it less work for you to open the mail, but that stack of 20 is a lot more appealing to anyone who needs more than 1 item!

If I'm posting a dumb amount of something, I like to post in a ton of different stack sizes. I'll post a handful at 1, 6-8 in stacks of 2, and so on for stacks of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, and 20. It's a bunch of work to vary it so much, but guess what? They always sell.

And after all, isn't it all about making sales? At least that's what my boss tells me every day. =)

And there was much rejoicing!

Yay, darkmoon faire rep finished!

One step closer to a nice shiny new title, Mallrats the Insane.

I actually ended up making a good chunk of gold while doing this, because of my inscription business. I would have made a lot more, but I got impatient and decided to push through exalted this month instead of waiting until 4.2.

I've probably spent far too much gold so far in May, I spent probably 100k this week on random things like a Vial of the Sands and whatnot, heh. I'm still ahead, at around 280k liquid, but it could have been so much higher!