Last night I moved my main, a rogue, off of my old server Altar of Storms to a server where I have some friends who’ve come back to the game.

During my last server transfer I was still on my journey to hit the gold cap of 214k and was very adamant to ensure I brought over every last copper I could, I had about 150,000g total worth (including inventory) with 90,000g of that being in actual gold, but had to reduce that down to 20,000g.

In order to transfer everything I had to buy about 70,000g worth of items, luckily I ended up turning a profit.

Transfering servers with a large sum of gold will be easier now in Cataclysm however as blizzard has raised the amount of gold you can bring along for the ride to 50,000g. I noticed this at the character transfer screen and the updated blizzard character transfer FAQ. Note that this is only for characters lvl 81 and over.

In personal WoW news, I haven’t been playing much (actually haven’t stepped foot into Cata) but I finally got to the starting area with my rogue who’s also my scribe/engie, had a lot of fun and going to try to hit the new gold cap with this main while seeing how I can level up JC/Ench on my DK back on my old server. I’ll report back my findings and research as usual.

A guild bank is an essential tool for any player serious about making massive amounts of gold in world of warcraft.

Previously, you would need to acquire 10 signatures from other players in order to start a guild, this would require you running around asking each person and probably paying them 10-20g each to sign your guild charter. In patch 4.0.3 the requirement to start a guild has been dropped to 4 signatures required.

If you haven’t yet started up your own guild bank now’s the time.

Uses of a Personal Guild Bank

1. Storing Excess Inventory

Obviously if you run out of room in your personal bank and inventory the guild bank is a great place to store excess items. While you could mail items off to your alts and store it in their banks it can be quite a hassel to constantly log off/on different characters if you forgot to mail all the appropriate items to your crafting main.

Each guild bank slot can hold 98 items and the price to purchase each new tab are the following: 100g, 250g, 500g, 1000g, 2500g, 5000g (total of 9,350g if you buy all tabs)

I’d suggest stopping at tab 3 unless you really need the space.

I saw this cool little chart at the consortium forum that has a breakdown of the cost per slot of guild bank tabs. From 1g per slot up to 16g per slot at the last tab.

2. Easily Handle Inventory Between Alts

While you could use the mail box to switch items back and forth, having a guild bank and linking each of your alts to have access to withdraw/deposit items allows you to easily manage your inventory across the whole server. No need to log off/on to get some extra mats from an alt.

3. Take Advantage of Price Fluctuation

One great way to make gold in WoW is to be knowledgable in the prices of the materials you consistently deal with. You’ll notice at times that the price of certain materials may drop really low for a few days; whether its due to a spike in supply, the day of the week or just some weird anomoly. If you usually buy Item [X] for 20g but see a bunch listed for 12g a certain day you can overstock and store the rest in your guild bank.

Many of the changes we’ve seen with cataclysm has already begun to take effect on the wow economy, inks of the sea no longer converting, drop rates for rare recipes higher, and prices mostly plummeting across the board.

One thing that always holds true though at the start of each expansion is the huge demand for the new gathered materials available at game launch. I wrote about this before when WOTLK came out.

Super Inflation of Gathered Materials

Back in the first week of Wrath the price of the new herbs/ore as well as lower level gathered materials shot through the roof:

(screenshots taken from first week of WoTLK)

and as for the Outland herbs/ore that were the top material before WOTLK, there was the opposite effect.. demand lowered and prices dropped:

We’ve already seen most of the price decline occur as players are quickly getting rid of stock, but still expect further price drops.

As for the new herbs and ores introduced in WOTLK, here was the effect:

These screenshots were taken 3 weeks after the release of WOTLK but it tells you a lot.

The price of Tiger Lily’s were around 70-80g/stack in the first couple days of launch, the price dropped almost 300% after 2 weeks! This goes to show that if you can mine/herb fast at the start of the expansion you’ll get top gold right away. As for Cobalt Ore the effect was even higher with prices tanking 400% of the original first weeks value.

The biggest dilemma you’ll have to face is whether you’ll want to use these materials on your profession toons if you’re trying to hit a server first profession to 525. This is my plan but we’ll see what happens on launch day

Have many of you prepared a miner/herbalist or skinning alt specifically for Cataclysm? Gathering incessantly or do a mixture of both gathering and leveling?

Some people I regularly talk about the wow economy with have mentioned that the Darkmoon Card of the North now only requires 1 eternal life to craft, down from 3.

Darkmoon cards used to be a profitable way to use up all those left over snowfall inks but as time went on the value of the darkmoon trinket, which has been around since the start of wrath, was losing its status.

News that the insane achievement will still be obtainable in cataclysm is good news to scribes as we will have a way to still sell darkmoon cards for those looking to increase their rep.

Darkmoon Card Profitability

Eternal lifes used to go for around 20g, the price has now dropped to 7g 50s on my server.

With the lower material requirements and the fact that inks of the sea are less valuable as they cannot be converted for all lower inks, heres the current costs and profit levels on my server:

Cost to make each card:

Snowfalls are practically worthless, but sell at an average of 6g on my server.

Snowfalls = 6g x 6 = 36g (old cost 12g x 6 = 72g)

Eternal Life = 7g 50s (old cost 20 x 3 = 60g)

Resilient Parchment = 50s

Total: 44g (old price to craft was 132.50g)

On my server the price for the following decks are as follows:

Darkmoon Card: Greatness = 1,137g (142g per card)

Darkmoon Card: Death = 849g (106g per card)

Darkmoon Card: Illusion= 560g (70g per card)

Darkmoon Card: Berserker= 800g ( 100g per card)

but the main value after Cataclysm will be keeping cards in their basic form such as Nobles, Chaos, Undeath and Prism decks so players can turn them in for rep. However they may remain as a good trinket for new players leveling from 80 – 85 that didn’t raid in WOTLK.

Nobles Deck = 3328g (416g per card)

Unfortunately my auctioneer data hasn’t seen a Prisms/Undeath or Chaos deck since I’ve reset it.

If we average up all the darkmoon card totals we get an average of 104g 50s per deck, with a cost of 44g = 60.5g profit per craft.

See how many decks/cards you can sell and keep in mind that if eternal lifes are above 10g on your server you should cross reference the cost of frozen orbs that you can easily convert to lifes.

MMO-Champion and WoW Insider are both speculating that 4.0.3 is going to hit servers live tomorrow.

In 4.0.3 according to the PTR Jessica Sellers will no longer allow you to convert inks of the sea into any other ink you want, meaning that if you usually keep a large stockpile of inks of the sea like I do and just convert when you need to, you’re going to be in a tight situation and having to buy the lower end herbs which will skyrocket your costs to make glyphs.

If you have read this before servers have gone down then I strongly suggest that you stock up on equal amounts of other inks with your inks of the sea so you don’t get stuck!

Expect the prices of lower end herbs to rise and Adder’s Tongue/Lichbloom/Icethorn and other northrend herbs to begin to drop.

Scribes are wondering what is going to happen to glyphs in Cataclysm? Well a lot more information has been released and there is a lot to report.

Glyphs Become Permanently Learned

Back on June 14th I reported that blizz was considering making glyphs “learned” thus making them permanent and never had to be purchased again by a character. A few people in the comments said this probably wouldn’t happen but it looks like this change is going to go through since it’s all over the beta.

What does this mean? Some bloggers have suggested it’s not that big of a deal and it’s an opportunity in disguise as it’ll drive competition away, I have the opposite feeling and truly believe that sales are going to drop drastically. Sure in the first few weeks of cataclysm there will be huge demand for glyphs but once everyone’s main has learned every glyph there is in the game, what market are we going after then?

I would also suggest that currently the large portion of our sales are from raiders who swap out glyphs for certain encounters and need to keep purchasing them from the AH, these types of sales won’t happen anymore.

A new reagent though is now required to remove or replace glyphs you’ve applied, it’s called Dust of Disappearance and has a vendor cost of 10g or it can be crafted by scribes for 2 Blackfallow Ink.

This could be a new avenue of revenue as players will most likely buy these in stacks of 20 and keep them in their inventory, what is means for a scribe though is the maximum price you could hope to sell these for is 9g99s and will likely be crafted by every scribe so it depends on the price we can get our blackfallow inks at.

RIP hundreds of glyph sales a day, I’d say I’ll miss you but I will admit the time sink of inscription isn’t to my liking.

Prime, Major and Minor Glyphs

A new category of glyphs will be added – Prime Glyphs. Prime glyphs will be the most important major glyphs we use currently or new glyphs that have a profound impact on your skills. Major glyphs will be the same as current minus some of the more powerful ones in the category. As always the minor glyphs will be more for convenience or flavor for the class.

Glyphs Now Require 3 Inks

At the start of WOTLK some glyphs required 2 inks while others only required 1, inscription was simplified later on so that all glyphs only required 1 ink. Taking a look now at wowheads cayaclysm database you can see all prime, major and minor glyphs now require 3 inks each.

That essentially triples the price of glyphs so it’d be wise to stock up on all glyphs aren’t becoming charred.

Charred Glyphs

Current tooltip text of charred glyphs:

“While it appears this glyph was burned horribly and no longer contains any magic, a vendor might not know the difference…”

Blizzard is making changes to a lot of glyphs, they have stated that previously glyphs were too powerful and will be nerfed a bit. Some glyphs will change to other ones once Cataclysm arrives and others will be turned into grey items which will essentially be vendor trash

Here’s a complete list of all the glyphs that will become charred and pretty much worthless, be sure to sell these off on the AH before Cataclysm arrives and don’t stock up on them. Keep in mind these will sell for 50s each at the vendor, I’d say you could buy glyphs that others are selling for less than 50s on the AH before Cataclysm but the profit margin is too low you’d rather have the bag space free.

I found this list at http://db.mmo-champion.com/search/all/charred_glyph/ you have to click on each charred glyph though and then “created by” to see the glyph name. 13 in total.

Warlock
Glyph of Siphon Life

Mage
Glyph of Arcane Explosion
Glyph of Fire Blast
Glyph of Scorch
Glyph of Mana Gem
Glyph of Fire Ward

Hunter
Glyph of Volley

Warrior
Glyph of Barbaric Insults
Glyph of Last Stand
Glyph of Taunt

Death Knight
Glyph of Icebound Fortitude

Druid
Glyph of Survival Instincts
Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation

Changed Glyphs

Here’s a list of glyphs that are going to change from the existing glyph to a totally different glyph. Credit goes out to JenniferAngel on the JMTC forum for putting the hard work into creating this list.

Glyph of Avenger’s Shield (41101) -> Glyph of Focused Shield
Glyph of Avenging Wrath (41107) -> Glyph of the Ascetic Crusader
Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom (43366) -> Glyph of Insight
Glyph of Blocking (43425) -> Glyph of Shield Slam
Glyph of Blood Strike (43826) -> Glyph of Blood Boil
Glyph of Bloodthirst (43412) -> Glyph of Bloody Healing
Glyph of Charge (43397) -> Glyph of Long Charge
Glyph of Corpse Explosion (43671) -> Glyph of Path of Frost
Glyph of Dark Death (45804) -> Glyph of Death Coil (DK)
Glyph of Divine Storm (45743) -> Glyph of Templar’s Verdict
Glyph of Enraged Regeneration (45794) -> Glyph of Intimidating Shout
Glyph of Execution (43416) -> Glyph of Bloodthirst
Glyph of Eternal Water (50045) -> Glyph of Mana Shield
Glyph of Flash of Light (41105) -> Glyph of Word of Glory
Glyph of Frost Armor (43359) -> Glyph of Conjuring
Glyph of Frost Ward (43360) -> Glyph of the Monkey
Glyph of Ghostly Strike (42965) -> Glyph of Revealing Strike
Glyph of Holy Light (41106) -> Glyph of Divine Favor
Glyph of Hunger for Blood (45761) -> Glyph of Vendetta
Glyph of Ice Armor (42743) -> Glyph of Pyroblast
Glyph of Lava (41524) -> Glyph of Lava Burst
Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave (41535) -> Glyph of Totemic Recall
Glyph of Living Bomb (45737) -> Glyph of Slow
Glyph of Mana Tide Totem (41538) -> Glyph of Grounding Totem
Glyph of Mocking Blow (43398) -> Glyph of Demoralizing Shout
Glyph of Pestilence (43672) -> Glyph of Resilient Grip
Glyph of Plague Strike (43548) -> Glyph of Pestilence
Glyph of Remove Curse (42753) -> Glyph of Cone of Cold
Glyph of Rending (43423) -> Glyph of Slam
Glyph of Righteous Defense (41100) -> Glyph of Righteousness
Glyph of Seal of Command (41094) -> Glyph of Rebuke
Glyph of Seal of Light (41110) -> Glyph of Seal of Insight
Glyph of Seal of Righteousness (43868) -> Glyph of Dazing Shield
Glyph of Seal of Vengeance (43869) -> Glyph of Seal of Truth
Glyph of Seal of Wisdom (41109) -> Glyph of Light of Dawn
Glyph of Shield of Righteousness (45744) -> Glyph of Shield of the Righteous
Glyph of Spiritual Attunement (41096) -> Glyph of Divine Protection
Glyph of the Ghoul (43549) -> Glyph of Raise Dead
Glyph of the Wise (43369) -> Glyph of Justice
Glyph of Totem of Wrath (45776) -> Glyph of Shamanistic Rage
Glyph of Unbreakable Armor (43553) -> Glyph of Pillar of Frost
Glyph of Vigilance (45793) -> Glyph of Furious Sundering
Glyph of Vanish (43380) -> Glyph of Poisons
Glyph of Vigor (42971) -> Glyph of Kick
Glyph of Water Elemental (42754) -> Glyph of Dragon’s Breath
Glyph of Water Mastery (41541) -> Glyph of Water Shield
Glyph of Water Shield (43386) -> Glyph of the Arctic Wolf
Glyph of Whirlwind (43432) -> Glyph of Raging Blow

Blizzard recently hosted a Cataclysm Press Event that was covered by wowhead and wow.com

A lot of major news was released and features were scrapped and put back on the drawing board.

One big change on the gold making front was a redesign of how glyphs were inscribed.

Medium Glyphs Added

To make up for the loss of the path of the titans, Blizz has introduced medium glyphs which are “fun” or aesthetic changes. These glyphs are not meant to give  you any stat bonus or min/max advantage.

More glyph slots and new glyphs to manage will provide a nice boost to a scribes income.

You Keep Glyphs Forever

A change that could crash the inscription market was revealed in the press event. Players who purchase glyphs now have them added to a list and won’t ever have to buy them again! They can freely swap glyphs they have bought in the past to juggle ones they use for different encounters.

Most other professions have a consumable element to their high profit items. Jewelcrafters create gems that must be replaced for each new piece of gear attained, same go for new enchant scrolls, eternium belt buckles, potions, flasks, ammo and so on.

Scribes will now only have runescrolls of fortitude as their sole consumable good to sell.

A blue posted upcoming changes that will occur with the release of Cataclysm. These have been out for about 5 days now but it’s a very broad overview of what blizzard is looking to do with professions in Cataclysm. I am making every effort to get into the Cataclysm Beta so that I can report back everything to do with gold making and professions so you can prepare yourself.

Here are some highlights that stood out for me that are going to change the way we make money and use professions:

1. They are changing BS/LW/Tailoring so that you get random stats on items you create in the leveling process. This will have a larger impact for the higher end items that are created since there will be an optimal stat combination that will be in high demand. This change lowers the amount of competition you’ll be dealing with selling those crafted BoE’s but it will randomize it.

2. Multiple skill ups from higher mat cost items. This is a great change! it will open up a lot of opportunities to still level economically from expensive items to craft and in the later tiers it is sometimes these expensive items to craft which are most sought after but people avoid crafting them while leveling because it’s not worth it.

3. Specializations removed, moving towards more of a cooldown method. I think it’ll be more like how JCing is now – lots of recipes to get but you are limited to how many you can research or gain from dailies, or you can spend lots of gold to get the recipes faster. (more of a reason to stock up on gold now)

What I still want to see

- A revamp of how the auction house and economy works. Right now the system favours those that “camp” the auction house and just undercut by 1 silver. Either institute a larger deposit cost, introduce fee when you cancel an item or change the AH to be where people can place “orders” and you can fulfill the order (like EVE)

Cataclysm Profession Changes

You can find the original post here

General

• Perks will continue to exist across all professions, and will upgraded appropriately.

Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, and Tailoring

• Many of the green (and possibly some blue) items made during the process of leveling these professions will contain random stats. In most examples, two stats on these items will be set, and two will be random. The idea with these items is to mix up the skill leveling items so you’re not just, for example, creating 10 pairs of boots that are all exactly the same.
• Superior-quality items that require more materials than other recipes in the same skill range provide multiple skill-ups. For example, if a recipe takes three times the reagents, it will give you three skill-ups.
• We didn’t feel like we were getting much flexibility from specializations, so they have been removed for all three of these professions. The intent was to help people diversify their profession to feel different from that of other players, but through other professions we’ve found systems that work better to this end, such as simply making recipes available that you can earn over time.
• To follow up the previous change, all items that required a specialization are now useable by anyone.
• Tailoring the high-end Cataclysm items will center around a single cloth type that can be crafted through five different recipes — each with their own material components and a long cooldown.
• All three professions will create their starter sets of PVP gear, which will be upgraded with new recipes every season. In general, these are meant to keep pace as an entry-level PvP set below whatever the current Hero Point set is.

Alchemy

• New elixirs will be about 75% as strong as flasks. So you can get more total stat points with two elixirs, but flasks will still be the best at giving you a single offensive or defensive stat.
• New unique material used by nearly all high-level recipes will be created by alchemists on a one-day cooldown.
• New Mysterious Potion created with common materials restores health and mana in a massively random range, as well as sometimes granting the benefit of another potion. The health and mana range is from 1-20,000 and is able to crit. The minimum amount restored, however, is scaled upwards by the Alchemy skill, making it a great choice for alchemists to keep for themselves.
• All potions and elixirs now use the same basic vial type. Flasks still use a fancy vial.
• New Alchemist Stone.

Enchanting

• In general, material component costs for most recipes are more moderate in how much they require, while the highest-end recipes will still require large quantities. The goal of this change is to make the leveling recipes more consistent and not create unintended roadblocks in getting to the higher skill levels.
• An enchanter vanity pet is being added.

New Cataclysm weapon enchantment preview:

• Avalanche — Chance to deal Nature damage on melee hit/spell hit.
• Elemental Slayer — As expected, this enchantment helps players deal devastating damage to elemental creatures.
• Hurricane — A stacking haste proc.
• Heartsong — Mana regeneration through increased Spirit when chain-casting spells.
• Many more maximum-level enchantments are still in progress.

Engineering

• Engineering is still being designed, but expect new unpredictable gadgets to use on yourself or enemies. Toys, explosives, and even a new vanity pet or two. Oh, and powerful mechanical bows and crossbows in addition to guns.
• In general, we want Engineering to remain a tradeskill mainly focused on creating fun or useful gadgets for the engineer, but we are exploring options for items that can be sold to other players for profit.

Inscription

• With the large number of class changes coming with Cataclysm, many existing glyphs will see new functionality.
• Minor glyphs are woefully uneven from one class to the next right now, so they’re a focus for us to clean them up and try to ensure that everyone has minor glyphs they’re excited about.
• New Darkmoon Cards will be added, with hopes they’ll all be as awesome as the Greatness card.
• We’ll be adding more major glyphs as well, but in the hopes of making them as balanced as possible, we’ll likely wait until after the expansion ships to add any for the new abilities in Cataclysm.
• New and more desirable off-hand and relic recipes will be added.

Jewelcrafting

• Some gem colors have changed! Hit is now blue. Mastery and Dodge are yellow. Intellect is now red. These simple changes have created a much more diverse matrix of gem cuts.
• New Jewelcrafting dailies will be introduced.
• Many cuts are being added to support the new Mastery stat.
• Some new Cataclysm jewelry recipes have completely random properties, and can sometimes create superior and epic versions.
• Jewelcrafters will have some fun new (and potentially lucrative) vanity items, including fist weapons, rhinestone sunglasses, monocles, and stardust (sprinkle on players for entertainment).

Herbalism, Skinning, and Mining

• All Cataclysm herbs have the chance of containing Volatile Life.
• There won’t be a new Lotus equivalent in Cataclysm. Alchemists will use the more reliably-found Volatile Life to create the new high level flasks.

Herb Example:

• “Heartblossom — Named for its deep red color, this delicate flower grows close to the ground, and always in pairs. If one blossom is taken, the other flower begins to wilt immediately and dies soon after. It is considered very unlucky to disturb a Heartblossom without blessing it first.”
• Savage Leather, the basic Cataclysm leather, can be gathered from most creatures found in the expansion areas and can be converted to Heavy Savage Leather at a 6:1 rate.
• Pristine Hide, the rare Cataclysm hide, can be found when skinning creatures in the expansion areas, or be converted from Heavy Savage Leather.
• Obsidian is the new common mineral found when mining in Cataclysm, and can contain gems, Volatile Fire, and Volatile Shadow.
• Elementium is the new uncommon mineral found when mining in Cataclysm, and can contain gems, Volatile Fire, Volatile Water, or Volatile Earth.
• Pyrite is the new rare mineral found when mining in Cataclysm, and can contain gems and Volatile Fire.
• Previous Elementium Ore and Bar used for classic quests will be renamed to Elementium Ingot and Hardened Elementium Bar.
• We like the gathering perks as they are; not a game-changing bonus but something themed and fun. But as all tradeskills are in the design stages these are still being discussed to a degree.

Cooking

• Cooking is still in the early stages, but we plan on continuing with daily quests, feasts, and some fun new recipes.
• We liked the cooking dailies that had players picking up items that spawned in the world near the quest giver, so most if not all new cooking dailies will work similarly.

First Aid

• Bandages will have a short cast time and put a heal over time effect on the target for 8 seconds. This effect is broken by damage.
• Three new bandages! That’s right: THREE!

Bandage preview:

• “Dense Embersilk Bandage” Heals for 34,800 over 8 seconds. Requires 3 Embersilk to create.

Fishing

• Lots of new fish and other fun items to catch! Fish are still used to make premium food.
• New fishing dailies.

What are your thoughts of the changes?

I have seen a trend with the majority of players who contact me via email or on the forums I frequent in which their question usually starts with “So I’m trying to stock up on gold for cataclysm…”

Gold still has meaning currently, as there is still a lot to purchase, and with the release of the next raid, Ruby Sanctum, coming out shortly there is no doubt that new BoE items will be up for grabs.

The one great thing about having gold is that it suffers the least from depreciation than any other thing in WoW through expansions. Items used in gems, enchants, glyphs, and all other WOTLK professions will experience a drop because Cataclysm will bring with it new raw materials to make even better enhancements to our items. I have a list of these new items but I’m waiting on the NDA to be lifted before I report everything here, hopefully I can find a way into Beta so I can report back information to you guys and get my research started..

Preparing for Cataclysm

Are you doing anything different to prepare for cataclysm? I believe it is too far to do much as there is still a healthy economy going on and the big drop in prices won’t happen till later in the year. With the summer coming and people downing the lich king we may experience a lull in activity, Ruby Sanctum will keep some around but it is inevitable that some players will take a break and just wait for Cataclysm.

Why Stockpile Gold?

We all hate to grind, but love to have a “head start” when the next big thing comes around. Imagine when WOTLK came out you could be the first person with the new mammoth running around (and back then people would be amazed at it, now it’s an everyday thing) or you could have picked up your Darkmoon Card: Greatness the first month it hit the shelves.

Powerleveling Cataclysm Professions

This will be my biggest motivation, I want to try to get as many professions to maximum as fast as possible and see how many realm firsts I can achieve. The problem is that all these materials will need to be mined/skinned/gathered and I’ll be paying no doubt 5x the cost instead of just waiting a few weeks for the market to saturate. However you can be sure that you’ll have a nice monopoly on your hands for a few weeks in your market if you are one of the first with any given profession.

Inscription made way more profit at the beginning, this may be because QA3 wasn’t well known and information wasn’t out yet as to how profitable the glyph market was, Greedy Goblin probably was one of the first to spill the beans on this one. But this time around I’ll be looking during the beta and the early days of Cataclysm to find those gold mine markets so you can exploit them right away.

Hitting the Gold Cap Before Cataclysm

With more of the game content being “completed” by players they are looking for new challenges to tide them over in the meantime. Hitting the gold cap can be a rewarding experience as it seems like a very concrete goal and unlike achievements you can actually use the reward to benefit you in the future. Most people who hit the gold cap don’t have to grind for gold for an entire expansion (but I guarantee you most get addicted to making gold had going below 100,000g again so they’re never “poor”)

What are your motivations for stock piling gold?