Bibliophilia and You

It means "love of books." Really. But why should we love books? There's actually some good money to be made in becoming a book dealer of sorts. Many books (and other bits of paper in the form of recipes, plans, schematics, patterns, etc.) are sold in the game by NPCs in remote or little-known locations. For those seriously focused on power-leveling a profession, it's often more convenient to visit an auction house and pay a premium for a needed book or recipe.

I've done both the slog through the wilderness to acquire the needed book and bought it at exorbitant prices on the auction house. It's really been a call of whether I want to trek all the way out to Arathi Highlands, the depths of Ashenvale, or Feathermoon Stronghold right now or not.

So what are these books that can make you some spare cash? It depends on the trade or secondary skill you're targeting. Let it be said that each trade has some valuable recipes hidden on vendors scattered across the world. Knowing where the people who sell the things that people want is the key to making gold. But, I'm not going to focus on the disparate trades. Instead, I'll look today at the books that are available to anyone because they are for the secondary skills and not a particular trade. Before you buy any of the following books,though, check the profits to be made by looking at the going AH price on your server.

First aid requires three books pre-Outland. At 150, you need the "Expert First Aid - Under Wraps" to advance up to 225 skill. This book, and two other volumes "Manual: Heavy Silk Bandage" and "Manual: Mageweave Bandage," are all available from the same vendor. For Alliance, they are in Stromgarde Keep in the human portion (from entrance keep making rights until you're at the vendor). For the Horde, all three books are available in Breckenwall Village in Dustwallow Marsh.

Cooking requires the "Expert Cookbook." The Alliance has it decidedly easier as their book is in a 20-30 zone. The Horde equivalent is in a 30-35 zone. If the books were actually obtained by the character needing them, the Horde must wait longer before being able to safely travel to the location. However, in some form of equity, the Horde book is located in a village (Raventusk Village in Desolace, to be exact) with a flight path. The Alliance book is buried in the bowels of Ashenvale, quite a trek from the nearest flightpoint of Astranar.

Finally, fishing requires a book from Booty Bay. In general, this book seems to sell less well than either the cooking or first aid books. Perhaps this is because fishing is the secondary skill least likely to be pursued; perhaps it's because the book is easily found.

All of the above books sell; some sell better than others. If there already seems to be a market for the books on your server, it can be dangerous to attempt to break into it. You do run the risk of undercutting to the point where the market is destroyed. You also run the risk of not being able to be competitive. Some research will be needed on your server before I recommend venturing into either market.

If this is an interesting topic, I would be willing to expand into vendor-purchased patterns for various trades. Many of these can be sold for very high mark-ups, however to write the article would take some time for fairly in-depth research. Leave a comment if this is something you'd like to see covered.

Ten Commandments of WoW

(Author's Note: This is not intended as offensive, sacrilegious or blasphemous to anyone. The Ten Commandments, though, make a nice frame of reference for just about anyone to discuss ten rules. I wrote these rules in the general style of the Ten Commandments. My additional interpretation is below each Commandment. If anyone is offended by this post, I apologize in advance.)

I. I am your Guild. You shall have no other Guild before me. You shall not make an application to another guild.
(If you are unhappy with your guild, by all means find a new guild. But it's just tacky to be doing that looking while you're still in your guild. It'll look better to both your current and future guild if you have the guts to quit while you look.)

II. You shall not take the Guild's name in vain.
(Don't do something to make your guild look bad. You are the representation of your guild out there in the wide world. The world of guild leaders is remarkably small, and if you are an ass, word will get around.)

III. Remember the Raid Day to keep it.
(This means not signing up if you're not going to be there. Don't make someone hold a spot that you have no intention of filling. It holds up the entire guild. Also, be ready at least a while, like 15-30 minutes in advance. Being ready means having repaired your armor and have everything you need to raid with you.)

IV. Honor your Guild Leader and Raid Leader.
(Both of these people work very hard to make life good for the guild. Don't do anything to make their lives harder. This means following directions in raids and not causing drama in guild. Don't do anything that makes these already overworked individuals work ANY harder.)

V. You shall not kill (unless it be the next in the kill order).
(Know the kill order. Follow the kill order. Assume that those assigned crowd control will continue to control their mobs until it's time to kill the mob. Please don't "help out" by dotting a hunter's trap or mage's sheep target. It just makes the mob uncontrollable.)

VI. You shall not raid with another Guild. Honor thy raid ID.
(If you are absolutely positive your guild won't need you, then go ahead and break this one. But seriously, you should be most interested in getting your closest allies the furthest along. This means not getting saved to a Karazhan on Thursday when the guild might need you on Friday.)

VII. You shall not Ninja Loot.
(Loot is the single largest cause of all drama. Loot is the one thing that will cause normally peaceful folks to act up in anger. Don't be the cause of asshattery.)

VIII. You shall not bear false witness against your Guild mates.
(They're your guild. Don't tell lies about them. It's just common sense.)

IX. You shall not covet another's mobs.
(There are plenty of mobs in the game. Don't intentionally steal someone else's kills. I don't care if you are horde and they are alliance, it's just not cool.)

X. You shall not covet another's veins or herbs.
(If you see someone fighting RIGHT NEXT to an ore vein or herb, assume that they intend to use it as soon as they're done fighting. This goes a long way to not tarnishing your guild's name ore reputation.)

Blizzcon 2008 Questions

I admit I have a few questions. I've read all about the fact that there will be a Blizzcon this year (in October). Tickets, as far as I know, are not yet available for the event. However, it does raise some interesting questions for me.

Blizzcon has traditionally been used as a public relations event to announce new games and expansions. The timing of this event seems to be off, though. Vivendi (the parent company of Blizzard) expects that the second WoW expansion will be released "in the second half of 2008." If that expectation is true, we would presumably already have a release date by the time of Blizzcon 2008.

With the announcement of the date of Blizzcon, I don't think anyone expects to have WotLK before October 10. We also don't expect the date of release to be a big announcement at Blizzcon. If Blizzard will make the projected release of WotLK, that release date must already have been released.

So what will Blizzard announce?

One possibility is a Starcraft II update or release date. Development is still continuing on on that title. Another possibility is Diablo III. Blizzard acquired the diablo3.com domain name from a fan site. While the acquisition of this domain does not ensure the eventual release of Diablo III, I fully expect Blizzard to return to the Diablo world eventually. Another possibility, from what is already known, is that Blizzard also has a non-WoW MMO in planning. What this MMO will be is unknown, but part of the Blizzcon 2007 attendance pack was a beta key to an unannounced MMO. They could certainly fill us in on some more details of that in October.

So, that's my thoughts on what Blizzcon means. I'm actually thinking trying to go this year. I'll be very excited to get my hands on the loot bag and wonder what kind of Murloc-Themed in game item will be available this year.

Warning - Spotty Coverage Possible

I wanted to let you all know that I'm suffering some fairly severe pain from what I believe to be a herniated disc. That said, it's not generally comfortable to be in any one position for long periods of time (i.e. raiding for 4 hours) and the medication I'm taking makes me a little muzzy-headed. This also is not indicative of thought provoking, intense blog posts.

So, a warning that updates may not be either as timely or as cerebral as some of the posts around these parts.

Gem Combinations

Today I'm looking at crafted gems. This discussion doesn't consider the gems that can be purchased, are quest rewards or are drops in dungeons.

When you look at the gem possibilities for socketing you gear, you quickly can determine the following about the primary colors of gems:

• Red Gems affect Strength, Attack Power, Agility, Spell Damage, Dodge or Healing
• Blue Gems affect Mana per 5, Stamina, Spirit or Spell Penetration
• Yellow Gems affect Spell Critical Rating, Spell Hit Rating, Intellect, Resilence, Spell Haste, Hit Rating, Critical Rating or Defense.

Some of the color characteristics, don't combine with other colors, leaving the primary as the only option for increasing that statistic. These "pure" stats are Parry and Dodge (from Red) and Spirit (from Blue). All yellow characteristics can and do combine.

So, that leaves us with 5 combinable red characteristics, 3 combinable blue characteristics and all 8 yellow. So there are a potential for 15 purple gems (of which there are 6), 40 orange gems (of which there are 7), and 24 green gems (of which there are 6).

Sadly, its obvious that Blizzard can't put every combination into the game. Some of the combinations wouldn't even make sense for any class in the game (Spell Haste & Agility or Spell Damage & Hit Rating), but some of them would be welcome additions (Attack Power & Hit Rating or Healing & Spirit).

Please visit the gem resource I mentioned a few days ago to determine exactly which gems you want in YOUR gear.

Edited: There is indeed a crafted gem that combines healing and spirit , and not surprisingly is purple. However, it's pretty well hidden in that the base gem requirement is not a Shadow Draenite, Nightseye or Shadowsong Amethyst. Instead, the base gem is a shadow pearl. Thanks to Awlbiste's eagle eyes for catching this mistake.

Tailoring Recipe Drops

Time for another installment of trade-skill drop locations. This time, we're going to address the bind-on-pickup recipes for tailoring. For each of the other installments, we've addressed the instance or non-instance portion of the drops.

For tailoring, the non-instance part is easy. There is ONE bind-on-pickup tailoring pattern outside of an instance. That is the casters around Manaforge Coruu who drop the pattern for the Spellfire Bag. This is the enchanting specific bag.

And that's it for the non-instances.

Instance Drops

Blizzard looked kindly on the tailors as far as instances go. Without discussing twenty-five man raids, there are over a dozen patterns scattered out there-all with drop rates around 1%. Here they are, broken down by instance.

The Steamvaults

• Warlord Kalithresh drops the pattern for the Battlecast Hood.
  

Shattered Halls

• Grand Warlock Netherkurse drops the Spellstrike Hood pattern.
  

Shadow Labyrinth

• The final boss, Murmur, drops the pattern for the Spellstrike Pants.
  

Botanica

• Thorngrin the Tender, the third boss, drops the pattern for Battlecast Pants.
• Warp Splinter, the final boss, drops the pattern for the Whitemend Hood.
  

The Arcatraz

• Dalliah the Doomsayer, either the second or third boss depending on which you do first, drops the Whitemend Pants pattern.
• Arcatraz Sentinels (there are several) can drop the pattern for the Arcanoweave Bracers.
  

The Mechanar

• Pathaleon the Calculator, the final boss, drops the pattern for Araanoweave Robe.
• The Arcanoweave Boots pattern can be dropped by Sunseeker Astromages, of which there are several.
  

Magister's Terrace

• Kael'thas Sunstrider can drop the pattern for the Unyielding Girdle.
• Unyielding Bracers pattern, which matches the girdle above, is also dropped by Kael'thas.
  

Karazhan

• Phantom Valets can drop the pattern for the Soulcloth Vest.
• The matching Soulcloth Shoulders recipe is dropped by Phantom Attendants.

Sunwell Plateau

• Trash mobs in Sunwell Plateau drop the pattern for Sunfire Robes. (thanks for the correction in comments)
  

So, if you tailors out there are missing key BOP patterns, don't waste much time in the wide world; crawl into the dungeons instead. There are quite a few patterns to check off your list, and at such low droprates, you're going to be spending a lot of time in there if you want to collect them all.

Molten Core - A Perspective from 70

So, last night my guild went to Molten Core. It was a great piece of nostalgia. From the perspective of someone who is now 70, there are some things that have changed, some things that still hold true, and some things which I had completely forgotten.


Things that have changed:

• It's perfectly viable to have one 70 protection paladin tank things that used to take 5 tanks and 4 off-tanks (mages, warlocks, etc.) like Major Domo Executus (tanked single-handedly by a paladin) or Garr (tanked by our feral druid/protection paladin team).
• Getting an unexpected add of Lava Annihilator, Lava Surger or even 2 Molten Giants is no longer an insta-wipe.
• One DPS class (like an elemental shaman) pulling a pack of imps leading to Lucifron doesn't immediately cause a party wipe.
• Fifteen raid members is perfectly viable -- even if some of them are low 60's types.
• Four healers for fifteen raiders is probably overkill. One of the healers could have brought a DPS alt.
• Paladins and Bears can actually tank and tank effectively.
• Shadow is a viable spec for a priest.
• Passing out water or healthstones is mega-super easy and doesn't require addons (like Vending Machine).

Things that are still true:

• Curses and magic effects still suck. For priests the addition of Mass Dispel cleans up a lot of the cursing duties, but there's still a ton of cleansing to do.
• Sulfuron Harbinger's adds still heal if you don't separate them. Instead of doing it the "right" way, we wound up running them out of mana.
• Packs of five core hounds still have to die at nearly the same time. We had one re-ignite problem. This reignition winds up getting the hounds out of synch health-wise and causes some rather serious problems.
• If you don't focus on the adds a boss brings with him, you're going to run into issues.

Things that I had forgotten:

• Lava cores and fiery cores drop from packs pretty regularly.
  
• Major Domo's chest isn't assignable via master looter.
• The gear drops are (nearly) all class restricted. Classes were only meant to have one viable spec before BC (Druids, Paladins, Shamans and Priests are all healers. Warriors are all tanks.)
• some pretty cool patterns drop in MC.

All in all, it was very fun. I went in there on my priest hoping to see one thing drop - The Eye of Divinity. I know that Anathema/Benediction is a completely underwhelming staff at 70, but I've always wanted one. Luckily, I had the Eye of Shadow from a long time ago, so now all I need to do is the quest.