On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the guns fell silent across europe. The Great War, or World War One as we were to later call it, had come to a close.

It was decided to mark that date as a reminder of the sacrifices of those who served their country. Today is the ninety first anniversary of that day. In the United States it is called Veterans Day.In other parts of the world it is known as Armistice day or Remembrance day, but the reasons for the day remain the same.

I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the people, whatever their nationality, who have taken it upon themselves to defend their country, whichever it may be.

In donning the uniform and doing your job you have earned my respect.Even if the most dangerous thing you ever did was to fight off the crushing boredom of waiting for a battle that never came.

Thank you.

Hi folks,

Just figured I would take a quick break from NaNoWriMo to throw in my two cents worth on the pet store.

Yep, the same damn thing everyone else is talking about.

I see people screaming about how selling an in game pet for real dollars is game breaking.

I see people complaining about various other account services as well, faction transfers and PvE – PvP realm transfers chief among the complaints.

I have read about how this is a horribly slippery slope. Apparently we will wake up one day and find them selling conquest badges for real money or something.

I have also read a few articles where the authors were extremely unconcerned. essentially saying “they are just pets, and pets have been for sale for a while. Just look on ebay.”

I suppose my take on all this is a little different.

I don’t see it as a way to separate the haves and the have-nots within the game, although to some extent it will. I also don’t see it as some kind of slippery slope that Blizzard might go sliding headlong down at any moment. I see all the changes that have been coming in the last six months or so as a window into where the future of WoW lies.

Since my brain is mush from the whole “Write a novel in 30 days while simultaneously doing everything else life calls on me to do” thing so this might come out a bit disjointed. Sorry about that.

We are all fantasy gamers here right? Well, lets take a walk down fantasy lane. Pretend for a while that you are an executive for a company. We will call them Blizz because I am too damn tired to make up a cutesy name right now.

You have this game, it is literally the cash cow for your business. 

Just like a farmer you will tend to that cash cow as best you can. As a farmer your job would be to milk that cow for as much as you can without causing it to dry up. After all if it goes dry you are hosed, but you don’t want to leave any milk there that you should have taken. 

Now as this executive you know about the next generation MMO, the one you hope will turn out to be the next cash cow. The last one is getting a bit long in the tooth after all. Now you have a few problems.

You don’t want to compete with yourself for subscribers.

You don’t want to just turn off the old game, after all there is money to be made there yet.

You have promised all along that you would never allow out of game purchases to give an in game advantage (a promise artfully broken by the refer-an-alt program, but meh.)

The logical thing to do would be to simply convert you existing game from a subscription model to a microtransaction / free to play model.  If you could pull that off you could run the new one on a subscription model without forcing your customers to choose.

Another advantage would be in having competition in the microtrasaction MMO market, something you sorely lack at the moment. After all, you don’t make games to make friends, it’s a business. The object of business is to make profit, thats simply the way it works.

Ideally you would figure out a way for players of your old game to get a bit of a leg up in the new one. Perhaps by implementing a points system for doing tasks within the game.  This would be a lot easier to implement if we force them to tie all their games together under one login, we should do that as early as possible to work out the bugs.

Let the points earned in the old game be useless there and only spreadable in the new one (selling only vanity stuff or BOA starter gear of course). That way people from your old game would feel like they had money in their pockets for the new one, what better reason to try it out.

Now, knowing that a straight shift would scare some subscribers away you come up with a long-term plan. Start integrating the microtransaction model into the game. Proceed very slowly and cautiosly, until by the time your new game is ready all the infrastructure is in place.

Once the new game is released you can then announce that you are graciously going to make the old game free to play, while leaving the microtrasactions in place to still make a profit. Most of those that prefer the subscription model will move anyway,  so you can always start selling epics later.

Sitting back you think to yourself, Good plan.

Lets do that, we’ll start with pets.

Everyone loves pets.

So here we are, the lights in the pumpkins have gone out. The headless Horseman has gone back to sleep for another season, the cackles of his laughter are a fading memory.The air is getting crisper, the frost is starting to make it’s early morning appearances. Fall is here, at least where I live.  Just like the real world it’s time to start thinking about Winters Veil.
Yes, I know, I really should wait for after Pilgrims Bounty before I post this, but I figured all the stores are getting decorated already. I might as well go ahead and write this up for those that (like me) are trying for the Merrymaker title.

Particularly those looking towards that Violet Proto Drake from What a Long Strange Trip it’s Been.

For starters I suppose I’ll just list the achievements involved in the holiday. As you read you’ll see why I am posting so early. There are a few things you should have in order before hand, and some money-making opportunities for the prepared.

If you plan to do your farming in advance you will need the following to complete the achievements:

• 6 Small Eggs
• 4 Bolts of Runecloth
• 2 Bolts of Woolen Cloth
• 1 Copper Bar
• 4 Rugged Leather
• Cooking skill to 325
• Quests completed to open the “Bomb them again” daily with Ogr’ila.
• Everything else can be bought off of vendors in your capitol city.
• If you plan to do the Tailoring or Leatherworking portions yourself the skill required if 250.

Now on to the meat of the post.

The Merrymaker meta-achievment simply requires the 12 other achievements to be completed. It rewards the title “Merrymaker” as well as counting as one of the eight achievements needed for What a Long Strange Trip it’s Been.

On Metzen! Save Metzen the Reindeer.

The quest for this comes from Kaymard Copperpinch just outside of the Auction House in Orgrimmar, or Wulmort Jinglepocket (coincidentally) just outside the bank in Ironforge.

You’ll receive a ransom letter about Metzen the reindeer and the two locations you can find him.

One will be in Tanaris over in Lost Rigger Cove at about 68. 41. The other location will be in Searing Gorge at 70. 34. In both locations he will have four guards ranging in level from 44-47. If you’re at a low-level you may want to bring friends to help. All you need to do is talk to Metzen and use the reindeer dust on him to complete the quest.

Scrooge Throw a snowball at Cairne Bloodhoof during the Feast of Winter Veil. OR Throw a snowball at King Magni Bronzebeard during the Feast of Winter Veil.

Fortunately snowballs are easy to come by this time of year. On a side note, a bank alt full of snowballs will make you a killing in mid summer. I bought my first ever ground mount that way.

During the holiday they can be purchased from your friendly neighborhood Smokeywood Pastures vendors. Engineers that were lucky enough to get the pattern can craft a Snowmaster 9000, which can turn water into snowballs. Last but not least, for the truly cheap amongst us (like me) you can gather free snowballs from the ground in Alterac Mountains. I figure I will have to spend some time looking for The Abominable Greench over in Alterac anyhow, might as well save money.

Note: Remember to pick up the quest “The Reason for the Season” from your Smokywood Pasture friends, which will lead you to talk to Cairne or Bronzebeard anyway. Don’t be like me and forget.

‘Tis the Season During the Feast of Winter Veil, wear three pieces of winter clothing and eat Graccu’s Mince Meat Fruitcake.

This is probably going to be the most annoying to finish, or at least the most expensive. The three pieces of winter clothing are:

• Red Winter Hat / Green Winter Hat: These drop from bosses in some regular (or heroic) WotLK instances. The Red one is available from Grand Magus Telestra in The Nexus, and the Green one is available from Mage-Lord Urom in The Occulus. I plan to do the Nexxus so the hat will match my other stuff.
• Red Winter Clothes (Alliance) / Green Winter Clothes (Horde): Tailoring 250.  The pattern is sold by the Smokywood Pastures vendors in Orgrimmar or Ironforge. Then again you will sometimes receive one in the mail after completing the Metzen or Greench quests. Makes sense to wait until after you’ve done those. If you get lucky so you can save yourself a few coins. Also I recommend farming the mats now rather than waiting to buy them in the Auction House. People like me will be making a nice profit from those who waited.
• Mats for the clothes are Bolt of Runecloth x 4, Bolt of Woolen Cloth x 1, Red Dye x 2, Rune Thread x 1.
• Winter Boots : Leatherworking 250. Same as the clothes. These can be bought or received in the mail after doing the quests, Farm the mats now, yadda, yadda, save money.
• Mats for the boots are Copper Bar x 1, Bolt of Woolen Cloth x 1, Rugged Leather x 4, Rune Thread x 1.

Simply Abominable Complete the quest to retrieve the stolen Smokywood Pastures’  treats and receive a Smokywood Pastures’ Thank You.

You can pick up the quest for this from Kaymard Copperpinch over by the bank in Orgrimmar, or Wulmort Jinglepocket just outside the bank in Ironforge. Yes, the same ones you got “On Metzen!” from.

This will send you to Alterac Mountains  to locate a snowman 35. 72. He’ll give you a quest to kill The Abominable Greench, who spawns every couple minutes nearby. Unfortunately, the area will likely be heavily camped, especially early on in the season. Here are a few ideas to make your life easier.

• Go early in the morning or late at night, possibly even putting this one off for a few days till the crowds die down. I plan to do this one last.
• He has three spawn points: 30. 52, 29. 61, and 40. 73. Pick the one with less people camping him. He spawns randomly at any of the three, so just stick it out.
• If your there with friends group up and all camp the same spawn point, your odds get much better.
• Make a macro, and keybind to something handy. I use “x”, your mileage may vary. Here is the one I used, just add in your instant cast tagging shot. I use Arcane Shot on the Hunter, Shadow Word Pain on the Priest, and plan to use Death Grip (yank and spank) on my Death Knight. 

/tar The Abominable Greench
/cast [exists] WhateverYourInstantCastIs

 
Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho’s Use Mistletoe on the Horde “Brothers” during the Feast of Winter Veil. OR Use Mistletoe on the Alliance “Brothers” during the Feast of Winter Veil.

To get mistletoe, you need to emote a /kiss at the Winter Revelers inside any of the inns in the major cities. Like trick-or-treating you can only do this hourly. They will randomly give you some Mistletoe, a Handful of Snowflakes (needed for the achievement Let it Snow) or Fresh Holly (can be used in the achievement Fa-la-la-la-Ogri’la).

 This achievement is a bit different depending on faction. The Horde are a bit better off if you are already 77 or higher, where the Alliance have more running around to do.

 
Horde: There are 3 brothers to find. 

• Brother Malach can be found around 51.22 in Undercity,
• Durkot Wolfbrother can be found at 40.54 in Borean Tundra, 
• Brother Keltan is found on the floating ship in Icecrown.

Since the only way to get to the airship is by using your flying mount I hope you are 77 or better with Cold Weather Flying. Well, I suppose you could be doing this on an alt and purchase the tome of cold weather flight for them, or even getting a summons from a friendly Warlock. Either way, you have to find a way up there.

 
Alliance: Here you get lucky, while there are a few more people to visit getting to them is way easier, especially for lower level players.

• Brother Wilhelm – Goldshire near blacksmith 40.65
• Brother Kristoff – Stormwind Cathedral Square 45.38
• Brother Benjamin – Stormwind Cathedral, near pillars 41.28
• Brother Joshua – Stormwind Cathedral, end of corridor 38.26
• Brother Cassius – Stormwind Cathedral, inside the right room 43.26
• Brother Crowley – Stormwind Cathedral, entrance to right catacombs 41.26
• Brother Nimetz – Stranglethorn Vale, Rebel Camp 37.3
• Brother Karman – Theramore, near the target dummies 67.47
• Brother Anton – Nijel’s Point, Desolace on the balcony of the inn 66.7

He Knows If You’ve Been Naughty Open one of the presents underneath the Winter Veil tree once they are available.

Just like my house as a kid you don’t get to open the presents until the morning of December 25th. On the plus side they will be there until the end of the holiday on January 2nd. For those of you (like me) who may not log in on Christmas day you can still get this later. Rumor has it that opening a present from a previous year will work, however I can’t test it since I opened mine all last year

With a Little Helper from My Friends Earn 50 honorable kills as a Little Helper from the Winter Wondervolt machine.

The Winter Wondervolt machines are located outside of Ogrimmar and Ironforge, with a nicely placed one in the center of Dalaran. Very similar to the G.N.E.R.D. rage achievment from Hallows End with one notable exception. One that makes it a true Pita.

The costume doesn’t persist through death.

Oh, and I feel sorry for Druids since it counts as a costume and is dispelled when you shape shift. I suppose 50 honorable kills isn’t too annoying, especially since we have two weeks to do it. Myself, I plan to go heal me a few AV runs, I need the honor anyhow.

Fa-la-la-la-Ogri’la Complete the Bomb Them Again! quest while mounted on a flying reindeer during the Feast of Winter Veil.

If you have done the Bomb Them Again! quest for the Ogri’la dailies you are pretty much set. Otherwise you will need to do a series of quests to open up the dailies. Unfortunately that puts a lot of new players (or newly leveled alts) in a place where they have to go back and work on rep with what amounts to a dead faction. If you haven’t done those pre-Ogri’la quests they start with Mog’dorg the Wizened. There is also a good guide to the questline in the comments for the Bomb Them Again! quest.

Also note that the group quests are now soloable, at least by a level 80.

Once you are done with that you need to get your hands on some Holly (Preserved or Fresh works). This can be a reward for blowing kisses or from the quest to save Metzen the Reindeer. They can also be bought can be bought from other players through the Auction House since they also are not Bind on Pickup. Doubtless someone will be selling their extra (I know I will).

Note: Once again Druids take it in the shorts. You will have to be on a real flying mount to turn this in. One good thing though, you don’t have to be on a reindeer when you are doing the quest, only when you turn in. So save that Holly in case you get dismounted, just use it right before turn in.

Crashin’ & Thrashin’ Gain 25 crashes with your Crashin’ Thrashin’ Racer during the Feast of Winter Veil.

Christmas morning everyone should have one of these sitting under the tree. Um, use it until it crashes 25 times. Not quite as simple as waking up in the morning, but close.

Let It Snow During the Feast of Winter Veil, use a Handful of Snowflakes on each of the race/class combinations listed below.

• Orc Death Knight
• Tauren Shaman
• Undead Rogue
• Gnome Mage
• Blood Elf warlock
• Human Warrior
• Night Elf Druid
• Troll Hunter
• Draenei Priest
• Dwarf Paladin

You can get Handfuls of Snowflakes by doing a /kiss to a Winter Reveler in any major inn. There is a chance at getting Mistletoe or Fresh Holly as well, which will be useful anyway. It feels oddly like trick-or-treating again in that you can do this only once an hour. I plan to hit the inn every time I go past, just to make sure I have enough.

I personally plan to do this one the same way I did the Pumpkin on the head one from Hallows Eve. I will sit outside the bank in Dalaran, possibly running around town a bit. I suppose you could do this in a battleground or out in the world as well, but I am entirely too lazy for that.

The Winter Veil Gourmet During the Feast of Winter Veil, use your culinary expertise to produce a Gingerbread Cookie, Egg Nog and Hot Apple Cider.

Huzzah! another grind (well, maybe). This achievement requires you to have a cooking skill of at least 325.  The three recipes are available quite easily by either by purchasing them from the Smokywood vendors or as a random quest reward in the mail after whackin’ the Greench. I have also seen these recipes listed for fairly high prices in the Auction House, but that’s not really necessary.

Of all the ingredients you need the only one that you can’t buy right in your home city is the Small Eggs. Depending on where you are and what faction and level you are, check out the mobs that drop there Here.

The other option (and one I would frown upon) would be to buy them on the Auction House. There are people out there that will, so people like me will list them at hugely inflated prices during the holiday. I don’t do it because I am evil, I do it because people are willing to pay it.

As a side note you can’t get the achievement by simply having these items nor by eating/drinking them. You need to actually craft them! There are those out there who will list the cookies, cider, and egg nogg in the Auction House as well, hoping to get money from those who don’t read the tooltip carefully enough. That’s one I won’t do.

If you would also like to finish the quest Treats for Greatfather Winter  you will need a total of 6 small eggs.

A Frosty Shake During the Feast of Winter Veil, use your Winter Veil Disguise kit to become a snowman and then dance with another snowman in Dalaran.

You should  have received The Winter Veil Disguise Kit is a reward from completing the Stolen Treats quest. Remember, the one  to kill the Abominable Greench? It’s actually not a quest reward, but you should receive it in the mail soon after completing the quest. I don’t know offhand where the group of dancing snowmen will be, probably somewhere in Dalaran. I suppose I’ll just keep on the lookout while looking for people to throw snowflakes at.

Hopefully this helps a few people along their way to the title of Merrymaker.

*********************************

There is another holiday achievement that is not required for the Merrymaker title, I suppose I should list it too for those that may be curious.

BB King (Alliance)

Pelt the following leaders:

• Cairne Bloodhoof
• Lor’themar Theron
• Vol’jin
• Lady Sylvanus Windrunner
• Thrall

BB King (Horde)

Pelt the following leaders:

• King Varian Wrynn
• High Tinker Mekkatorque
• Tyrande Whisperwind
• Prophet Valen
• King Magni Bronzebeard

Just a quick note on something of great importance.

A guildmate of mine was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.  The guild, Sidhe Devils of Keal’thas (alliance) will be holding an event to both show our support for our friend and help raise money for further reasearch.

A whole lot more information (and a much better written post on the subject) can be found Here.

Please take the time to go have a look.

If nothing else, please have yourself checked as recommended by your physician.

I now return you to you originally scheduled NaNoWriMo hiatus, already in progress.

-Dech

November is a wonderful time.

The leaves are changing, the air is crisp, things are starting to settle down for the winter.

There are holidays such as the Day of the Dead, Veterans day, and Thanksgiving. It is a wonderful relaxing time of the year.

This year though, along with everything else, there is a little something new.

Something that will likely consume all my free time, making blogging infrequent at best.

For the curious, it is a challenge. An attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. Needless to say I likely won’t be posting much here during the month of November.

I do have a few things that I have already written that are scheduled to go up, but not much. A Winters Veil guide to the achievements, a veterans day post, and a mostly finished post on leveling tailoring similar to the way I did Alchemy (although I would still have to do the experiment).

So there you have it. I’m not going away for good, but taking an insanity break.

I’ll stop by to check comments and respond to emails, but otherwise the blog is on autopilot until December.

Kick back and enjoy the archives, theres beer in the cooler and a pot of chili on down by the fire.

Try not to mess the place up too much before I get back.

There was a time in ages past when A blogger wrote a post about leveling Alchemy on the cheap.

In response to the comments on that post he decided to put his money where his keyboard was and see just how much it would end up costing.

Why are you looking at me like that?

Ok, Ok, I wrote the post like two weeks ago, sue me.

Anyhow, two weeks ago I took on the task of seeing just how much it would cost me in the long run to level Alchemy purely from the auction house. I did use some mats that I already had laying about, but I take their value into account. I also picked up a few more items once I reached 450.

After it was all said and done I had leveled to 450, specced for transmutation specialist, and gotten the materials for the final transmute quest at 450. In total I spent just under 1300G in cash and used about 550G or so worth of my own storehouse of materials. We will just call it an even 1900G to have a reasonably solid number.

Now, as of this writing I have only done two of the epic gem transmutes toward the quest at 450. I have three left to go before I can start transmuting Cardinal Rubies. My shopping list included the mats for making each epic gem once.

Here is whats left after over a week of listing.

Transmute spec really helped out on this one. I used fifteen of these to skill up from 435 to 450. I ended up with 19 of them after having it proc twice.  Since about half of these have sold for a bid and half on a buyout i’ll split the difference at 60g each and call this 420G once they all sell.

I also have a few flasks left over.

The flasks of agility and greater agility have been slowly selling off, but the earthen elixer and elixir of detect undead have not done so well. I am simply going to consider there a loss at this point. At best I could hope to get maybe another 10G out of these, but we shall see. More likely I’ll save the relisting cost and simply send them to my kids so they can use them on their small army of mid level characters.

Over all the strategy of crafting things that people would buy has worked out pretty well. I still have four epic gem transmutes to go over the next several days, and I am finding an average profit of about 100G on each one. That should put me at somewhere in the neighborhood of 800G still coming in from this project.

Another thing I did is to make use of the extra herbs that I bought for the leveling process. I did not waste their value by turning them into low level  potions. While those do sell I took a loss on every single thing I made until I started crafting at about 350 or better. Instead I used inscription to mill them into inks. In the same way as tipping an Enchanter to D/E a bag full of greens you have been carrying about you can find a friendly scribe and pay them to craft the inks.

Or simply put them back in the auction house, thats up to you. Personally I happen to have a scribe so I did it myself, then sold myself the inks at 80% of market value.

The idea was not to eliminate losses, that is not going to happen with low level stuff. The idea was to limit them to the point that the gains from the higher level stuff would balance out. So the question is, how did we do? We still have an estimated 800G coming back to us from the meta gems and the as yet untransmuted epics.

What do we have already?

I started with 50G to cover listing fees, when it’s all said and done I should end up with about 1980G from this little adventure.

So the answer to the question is:

While you might take a loss on some things, especially before about 350 or so skill, over the long haul you can make alchemy pay for itself.

I put my money where my keyboard was, and I’m glad I did.

I have read a few posts this morning while catching up on my feed reader. Well over a hundred just from this weekend actually. In there were quite a few gems, I am going to talk about a pair of them now.

Euripides over at Critical QQ wrote a rather interesting post about his lack of enthusiasm about the lore while raiding. He goes so far as to say that the boss does not really even need graphics or fancy named abilities, and could in fact be a featureless blue cube named “boss”.

Both Larisa and Elina at the Pink Pigtail Inn chimed in with their thoughts as well about reconciling the story behind the game to the mechanics of it.

They are both good reads, go check them out.

Seriously, go read… I need to go make a fresh pot of coffee anyhow.

Back? Good.

Here, very briefly is my take on the story behind the game and how it relates to the actual playing of it.

I love the stories behind the game, I really and truly do. In fact I think Blizz has done a good job of bringing the stories to life. They have lots of interweaving plotlines, some spanning several zones and levels.

The stories as I see it fall into two categories. Tales told while leveling and tales from endgame. Sometimes they tie together, such as the Shadowmoon Valley quests leading to Black Temple. Sometimes they kind of drop the ball (we are in TOC for what reason again? I must have missed it since I hate jousting.)

The problem with the lore while leveling is the speed at which we now do it. Seriously, Diashan, my Death Knight, did parts of Hellfire, Negrand, and Terrorkar before hitting 68 and shipping out to Northrend. I use to hit 70 somewhere in Netherstorm.

Where I used to run out of quests in a zone and have to go find another my Shaman (at 18 i think) is having quests go green or grey. She is leaving zones half complete simply because she has outleveled the content.

Am I bitching? No. I chose to put the shoulders on her, I bought the breastplate, I choose to only level her rested. I am just making a point. Those with refer-an-alt will outlevel it even faster.

I think that one of the things I am most looking forward to in Cataclysm is the whole reworked leveling experience. I look forward to working my way through and actually finishing a questline before it goes grey on me. I have actually put off leveling a couple of alts for now, just because I want to see what’s in store for me.

Hell, I am almost tempted to put all my affairs in order and take a break till the expansion. I won’t since I have so much fun running with the Sidhe Devils, but I will definitely be backing off a bit.

Now lore in raids and instances is another story. The stories are grand, the characters are well developed, and the artwork is phenomenal.

At least thats what I see on videos.

You see, in an instance I am far to busy watching health bars, cooldown timers, aggro meters, deadly boss mods warnings, and staring at my fet to make sure I am not standing in green goo/fire/void zone/spilled kool-aide or whatever the random “kills you if you don’t move” crap is for that particular fight.

If I want to see what the boss looks like I go to youtube or tankspot or any number of other places to see it. When I am engaged in the fight itself I simply don’t have the time, especially if I am on my Priest. I glance away from the green bars… hell, I blink at the wrong time… and we all die.

It’s not that I don’t want to look around, it’s that I simply can’t spare the concentration. I wonder if they still put sound effects in the raids? Myself, I can’t afford that distraction either. I haven’t raided with the sound on since Karazhan. If it’s not on vent, I simply don’t hear it.

Want to solve the lack of healers problem Blizz? Make it less like playing whack-a-mole while trying not to blink.

I’ll try to answer the question simply. Yes I would love to get involved in the lore, I hope to get far more involved once Cataclysm comes. While I am raiding though, I  just can’t do it.

I’d love to, I simply don’t have the time.

It’s been an interesting few days in Dech’s world.

Most of the reasons I haven’t posted have nothing to do with Wow, and as such won’t be included here. One thing that has been occupying a good chunk of my time lately though is all about Wow.

More specifically about one of my characters.

Drupadi the Death Knugget had spent months doing a whole lot of nothing. Well, nothing but her daily jewelcrafting quest and crafting glyphs to help team Dechion with its overarching goal of owning more gold than they need. Somehow she dosen’t think she’ll ever see that though, Dechion simply is not ruthless enough.

Silly priest, always seeing the good in people, always trying to help others.

That way lies madness.

Oh well, at least he keeps the bar tab paid.

Months she sat in Dalaran, content to enjoy her 74′th season. Nearly retired, she even had thoughts of shipping off to Ironforge and taking up a new career as a banker. If it werent for the voices she would have found a nice tavern there to move into, hanging up her sword forever.

Then, rumors started to surface. Rumors coming out of the area near Icecrown.

Travelers through the tavern in Dalaran told of a flaw in Icecrown’s defenses. A small thing, not enough for an army, but for just a few perhaps.  One grizzled old Dwarf particularly deep in the cups even talked about putting together a strike team. A group slated to go deep in the bowels of the citadel and kill Arthas where he would least expect it.

Where he lives.

Diashan got up from her table, tossed a heavy pouch to the barkeep, and headed out the door.

The voices had been particularly nasty of late, she needed to tell someone to shut the hell up.

She had let herself get into miserable shape. Her gear was a random hodgpodge of things she had found on the bodies of those that had fallen to her blade. She had even cleaned most of their blood off before taking it as her own. She needed some exercise, and a new suit of armor.

After all, one does not simply walk into Icecrown.

Two weeks later…

Now as she has been training she began putting a few odds and ends into the bank towards the day she might be called upon  to do some tanking duties. A bit of armor here and a mace there, the occasional trinket or gem. All towards eventually heading into Icecrown and telling Arthas to shut the hell up to his face.

She will likely just get killed for her efforts, then again it’s not like it would be the first time.

When I posted my leveling guide for Alchemy  a few days ago something kinda surprising happened.

It got comments.

Not that you wonderful folks don’t comment often, you do. It’s just that the content of the post was not one that I expected to generate much response.

Thanks… Seriously, it’s nice to know folks appreciate the work that goes into some of this stuff.

Well, in these comments a valid point was brought up. Is it possible to level Alchemy essentially for free?

Good question. I decided to try and answer it.

Yesterday I went to the auction house and bought the shopping list in that post with about an extra 15-20% of each item. The only exception was the dark jade, huge citrine, and eternal fires for the earthseige diamond transmutes. I already had more than enough of them sitting in the bank on my Jewelcrafter.

All total I spent just over 950G on that list of mats. If you include the value of the transmute mats it would have cost me roughly 1250-1300G to buy it all. This was without waiting for good deals to show up in the auction house, just taking the cheapest of what was available.

Yes, I dropped over 1000G on an experiment for my readers…. what of it?

After my spending spree I sat down for the rather tedious semi-afk process of leveling. Roughly three hours later I parked Drupadi for the night. In that time she had gone from nothing to 425 Alchemy and had the mats on her to push to 435 with stacks of stuff left over.

I decided that since I was planning to specialise in transmutation it would make a good bit of sense to go ahead and do that before I did transmutes to finish leveling. With the help of many donations of outlands primals from my guild, the wonderful Sidhe Devils, I will be finishing my transmute master quest right after I log in today. I’ll finish leveling up right after that.

Then comes the fun part, selling all the stuff.

As of now I shuttled all the stuff I made off to an alt that usually spends his time cooling his heels in Darnassus. It may take a while to get it all through the auction house, so I figured I could separate it like this and see how much I really get back from selling all my leftovers.

Will I make the 1400G I need to make his pay for itself?

Only time will tell.

Well Lets see here. Apparently I have this character that I would like to level Alchemy on. Now, like everyone else, I don’t want to spend a ton of money doing it. My solution is to farm up all my own herbs.

Now while this may seem self explanatory, my problem is that I have no Herbalist. One would think that this will leave me with no alternative but to buy all my herbs in the auction house. I figure at current prices it would cost me about 1K gold to level strictly by buying from the auction house. Thats a little on the expensive side.

Well, I will pick some up there if the price is right, but there is another way. By knowing in advance what I am going to need I can take herbalisim on the character who will be the alchemist and farm everything up before hand. Of course that means I need a shopping list.

Leveling Alchemy 1 – 450 on the cheap

Notes:

• Dont forget to train, it wastes materials. I know this from experience.
• I am making the choices I am because of both skill up potential and resale value. If you are both lucky and patient you could scoop everything up off the AH when it is cheap and resell everything you craft for enough money to have it come out almost even. Even if you are not in it for the long term money anything’s  better than making stuff just to vendor it.
• Alchemy Apprentice is 1-75
• Alchemy journeyman is 75-150
• Alchemy Expert is 150-225
• Alchemy Artisan is 225-300
• Specialisation in Transmutation, Elixirs, or Potions is available through a quest at 325 skill. Minimum level 68.
• Alchemy Master is 300-375
• Alchemy Grand Master is 375-450
• If I think of anything else I’ll add it here.

Alchemy 1-60

• 59 x Minor Healing Potion - 59 Peacebloom, 59 Sliverleaf, 59 Empty Vial
• Keep the  healing potions, you will need them for the next step.

Train

Alchemy 60-140

• 60 – 110
  50 x Lesser Healing Potion – 50 Minor Healing Potion, 50 Briarthorn
• 110 – 140
  30 x Healing Potion - 30 Bruiseweed, 30 Briarthorn, 30 Leaded Vial

Train

Alchemy 140-210

• 140 – 155
  15 x Lesser Mana Potion - 15 Mageroyal, 15 Stranglekelp, 15 Empty Vial
• 155 – 185
  30 x Greater Healing Potion - 30 Liferoot, 30 Kingsblood, 30 Leaded Vial
• 185 – 210
  25 x Elixer of Agility - 25 Stranglekelp, 25 Goldthorn, 25 Leaded Vial

Train

Alchemy 210-285

• 210 – 215
  5 x Elixir of Greater Defence - 5 Steelbloom, 5 Goldthorn, 5 Leaded Vial
• 215 – 230
  15 x Superior Healing Potion – 15 Sungrass, 15 Khadgar’s Whisker, 15 Crystal Vial
• 230 – 231
• 1 x Philosopher’s Stone – 4 Iron Bar, 1 Black Vitriol, 4 Purple Lotus, 4 Firebloom
• Note:  You get this Recipe from Alchemist Pestlezugg in Tanaris
• Another note: Keep the stone, you’ll need it.
• 231 – 250
  19 x Elixir of Detect Undead – 19 Arthas’ Tears, 19 Crystal Vial
• 250 – 265
  15 x Elixir of Greater Agility – 15 Sungrass, 15 Goldthorn, 15 Crystal Vial
• 265 – 285
  20 x Superior Mana Potion – 40 Sungrass, 40 Blindweed, 20 Crystal Vial

Train

Alchemy 285-360

• 285 – 300
  20 x Major Healing Potion – 40 Golden Sansam, 20 Mountain Silversage, 20 Crystal vial
• 300-310
  10 x Volatile Healing Potion – 10 Golden Sansam, 10 Felweed, 10 Imbued Vial
• 310-325
  15 x Elixir of Healing Power – 15 Golden Sansam, 15 Dreaming Glory, 15 Imbued Vial
• 325-335
  10 x Mad Alchemist’s Potion – 20 Ragveil, 10 Crystal Vial
• 335-340
  5 x Super Healing Potion – 10 Netherbloom, 5 Felweed, 5 Imbued Vial
• 340-360
  23 x Super Mana Potion – 46 Dreaming Glory, 23 Felweed, 23 Imbued Vial

Train

Alchemy 360-450

• 360 – 365
  5 x Icy Mana Potion – 10 Talandra’s Rose, 5 Imbued Vial
• 365 – 380
  17 x Spellpower Elixir – 17 Goldclover, 17 Tiger Lily, 17 Imbued Vial
• 380 – 385
  5 x Potion of Nightmares – 5 Goldclover, 10 Talandra’s Rose, 5 Imbued Vial
• 385 - 395
  12 x Elixir of Mighty Strength – 24 Tiger Lily, 12 Imbued Vial
• 395 – 405
• Upon reaching 400, you can  start doing Northrend Alchemy Research and can craft your Alchemy Trinket, so you might as well do it now and get the skill ups.
• 12 x Elixir of Mighty Agility – 24 Goldcover, 24 Adder’s Tongue, 12 Imbued Vial
• 405 – 410
  5 x Runic Healing Potion – 5 Goldcover, 10 Icethorn, 5 Imbued Vial
• 410 – 425
• 20 x Runic Mana Potion –20 Goldcover, 40 Lichbloom, 15 Imbued Vial
• 425 – 435
• 10 x Transmute: Earthsiege Diamond – 10 Dark Jade, 10 Huge Citrine, 10 Eternal Fire
• 435-450
• 15 x Transmute: Skyflare Diamond - 15 Bloodstone, 15 Chalcedony, 15 Eternal Air 

This should bring you to 450. congratulations, you can now do 5 of the 6 epic gem transmutes. Pick up the quest for Transmute: Cardinal Ruby from the Alchemy trainer in Dalaran and once you have transmuted one each of the other five types it will open up for you.
 Profit!

 Shopping list (keep in mind you will not get a point every time, I would overstock by 10-20% or so)

• 74 x Empty Vial
• 65 x Leaded Vial
• 99 x Crystal Vial
• 170 x Imbued Vial
• 59 x Peacebloom
• 59 x Silverleaf
• 80 x Briarthorn
• 30 x Bruiseweed
• 15 x Mageroyal
• 40 x Stranglekelp
• 30 x Liferoot
• 30 x Kingsblood
• 45 x Goldthorn
• 5 x Wild Steelbloom
• 70 x Sungrass
• 15 x Khadgar’s Whisker
• 4 x Iron Bar
• 1 x Black Vitriol
• 4 x Purple Lotus
• 4 x Firebloom
• 19 x Arthas’ Tears
• 40 x Blindweed
• 75 x Golden Sansam
• 40 x Mountain Silversage
• 38 x Felweed
• 20 x Ragveil
• 101 x Dreaming Glory
• 10 x Netherbloom
• 40 x Nightmare Vine
• 20 Talandra’s Rose
• 70 Goldclover
• 41 Tiger Lily
• 24 Adder’s Tongue
• 10 Icethorn
• 40 Lichbloom
• 10 Dark Jade
• 10 Huge Citrine
• 15 Bloodstone
• 15 Chalcedony
• 15 Eternal Air
• 10 Eternal Fire