A popular feature he has on his website are his WoW jumbles released every Friday that are pretty difficult but fun to do.

He offered to make one that is WoWConfidential themed so thanks to him.

Fill in the words below, it will turn green if you are correct. Good luck!

I was invited to be a guest on The Elitists podcast to talk gold making.

It looks like we will be recording the show this Friday, February 4th Saturday, February 5th and we will be discussing a whole bunch of different topics regarding the wow economy and making gold in WoW:

- Professions vs farming vs dailies

- Auction house flipping

- Gold Addons an essential to compete? is this how it should be?

- Gold guides debate

Those are just a few samples, who knows where the conversation is going to go but I am excited.

It is a small world, it appears the host of the podcast, Tristan, lives in the same city as I do; Toronto.

If there is anything specific you’d like me to bring up in the podcast let me know in the comments below.

I would like to invite all my readers to the WoW Confidential chat room, located on irc at Quakenet #wowconfidential

I’ve been using irc for the past couple of months while I’m playing WoW, I found it was a great way to connect with others who have similar goals in WoW and I’ve learned so much about gold making from the conversations that took place there.

As a solo player not part of a guild, it has given me a place to socialize while I am doing a mundane part of my gold making strategy like milling herbs.

So why not come on by, I am always on while I am playing (between 6:00pm EST – 12:30am EST) I will be happy to say hello and welcome you to the channel. Username is Kraklin.

How To Join

download IRC here

connect to Quakenet

type  /join #wowconfidential

There are many shady methods that players utilize to make money on the auction house.  The methods try to trick a player with confusing quantity and price strategies that look like legitmate prices but are really just a visual trick that can easily go unnoticed if you don’t have certain auction house addons showing you price per unit.

This trick I’m about to explain has been around for a while but the use of it has grown in recent weeks, particularly with Mammoth Cutters and Saronite Razorheads.

The Scam

A player will post a stack of 100 mammoth cutters or saronite razorheads at a price just under the going rate of 1,000 ammo. What ends up happening is a buyer sees a stack of Ammo going for 2 gold cheaper than the next auction and buys it up (assuming it was a stack of 1,000) but is duped when they collect and discover the auction was 900 quantity short.

The reason this is easy to manipulate is because the default blizzard auction house UI sorts auctions by lowest “total” price, so those 100 auctions show up first.

As you can see, the price of the first batch looks very attractive to a buyer, half the normal price! but in the heat of trying to grab a quick deal, they fail to realize that is a stack of 100 and not 1000.

If you mouse over the icon you can clearly see you are paying 6s 65c per UNIT, which is 6x higher than the average price of 1s 7c.

The scam is even worse when people are utilizing the Auctioneer UI, look at the screenshot below how it shows item quantity:

Someone well versed with Auctioneer could tell instantly that the first batch is no good because of the PCT on the far right showing it is at 511% of the average value. The quantity of 1000 being shortened though could confuse new users of auctioneer.

Be careful and always check Price Per Unit

By always using the “show stacks as price per unit” you can avoid a mistake of buying something way over priced.

While it isn’t against the rules to do this, it is in a very grey area and I’ve chosen not to profit from it.

I do believe in getting gold by any means necessary, however this crosses the line for me and I just wouldn’t feel good at the end of the day making someone else feel ripped off and cheated.

It has been almost a month since my last post and I wanted to give an update on what you can expect for the future of WoWConfidential.

The sites focus has revolved around gold making, class leveling guides, raiding build suggestions and other helpful articles to improve any World of Warcraft players game.

I have been spending the last few weeks learning new gold making techniques and talking with players who have amassed  500k+ gold. With this new knowledge I will be producing more content towards gold making methods and will be discussing topics such as the wow economy, my journey to hit the gold cap, dominating your profession market on the AH and anything else gold related.

While I may still include guest posts on excellent guides to do with PvP/PvE or other aspects of the game, expect the majority of the posts to be centered on how to gain lots of gold in WoW; whether you are looking for the fastest way to get that 5k for your mount, or looking to make hundreds of thousands of gold for fun and profit.

Stay tuned, be sure to subscribe to the RSS as I’ll keep up a regular posting schedule. I will be looking to recruit some gold making gurus to voice their opinions as well. Expect to see a lot of new articles, ideas and methods on how to make a lot of gold in World of Warcraft.

I wanted to take a moment and thank all of our readers for helping us hit 1,000,000 views.

I started WoWConfidential back in July 28, 2007 and the mission of the site hasn’t changed from what I set out to do in my first post:

“Welcome to www.wowconfidential.com Have you ever wondered how people make their gold so fast, level multiple twinks and have an epic mount for all of them? What are you missing out on, you play the same amount that they do, what are they doing that you don’t know about?

Here at wowconfidential.com I will try and unmask all the best kept secrets in the game to give you the leading edge to play at maximum efficiency. Posts will range from the fastest known ways to make gold (other than buying it) to leveling techniques, rep grinding, maximizing dps, best attainable loot and so forth. Your input and suggestions will really help me out here, leave comments on my posts or send me an email at info@wowconfidential.com to suggest new topics on whatever you have been dying to figure out about this game. Lets unmask those best kept secrets and spread the wealth! (amongst us)”

As for the future, expect more frequent posts which will focus more on the WoW Economy, methods to make gold and also the introduction of a forum.

As World of Warcraft evolves as a game, it is in Blizzards best interest to keep gold as a valuable and sought after resource as an alternate way to obtain gear, character improvements, mounts, “gold sinks” and various other useful items in game.

So, you’ve just reached 80 and after long days leveling you need to get gold together to get some gear, and the necessary enchants. You are 450 in mining so you decide to get out and start mining. You get about 200 saronite ore and 10 titanium ore after a couple of hours searching. So you’re thinking that should be a few hundred gold towards your new gear and enchants. You get to the auction house and look at prices, your jaw drops as you see a stack of saronite going for 12g, and this is the average within the auction house.

So for your 2 hours work you have around 200g, and if you are selling saronite on the auction house and it doesn’t sell you have the deposit prices to worry about. It doesn’t make financial sense to mine saronite at this time purely for selling on the auction house.

With this in mind lets look at the options that will make money.

The key point here is the use of mining, while you would think the higher level ores would be at the highest price, it simply isn’t the case now. The problem being that there is a huge supply of saronite, because it has a very high spawn rate, and most miners farm this regularly. So it begs the question what does make money?

Well, with regard to the high level ores, the only one worth collecting now is titanium. With the latest patch and epic gems, it has risen in price. This has also had the effect of driving titansteel bars up in price, thus these are a good source of income if you are smelting them daily. The main difficulty is that everyone is doing the same thing and it is a rare spawn as it is, so its a matter of luck how much you can gather over a period of time.

So is there any point in gathering saronite ore? The answer is yes, under certain circumstances. The key to making money is in your second profession. If you have taken another gathering profession then you have the problem that most people are having, there is simply too much supply, too little demand. This has driven the price of most high level ores and herbs through the floor, so to speak. For example you can buy a stack of saronite ore for around 11-13g per stack on my server just now, and this is not uncommon.

Jewelcrafting

The key to making money in any profession is in repeat sales. So we have to look at what sells no matter what gear level people have. Gems are a necessity for all classes so Jewelcrafting is an excellent 2nd profession with mining. You can prospect the saronite ore for gems, which, even in light of the epic gems now available, still sell at a reasonable price.

You may think the uncommon quality gems wouldn’t sell, but actually in stacks they sell very well generally, better in fact than the rare gems on some occasions. The reason for this is that in alchemy, for transmutes, you require the uncommon gems and rare gems for various transmutes to produce higher quality gems.

The highest priced gems in my experience tend to be Scarlet rubies, and if you have these they sell for around 30-40g each on average. The other rare gems sell for 10-30g each depending on how the market is on a particular day.

You also have the option of cutting the gemstones for others, though I would not cut huge amounts of them and put them in the AH. The reason for this is again the deposit price. It would be better to keep a few of each gem uncut in your bank and charge for each cut, than to lose gold by putting your gems on the AH and getting only a few sales.

Blacksmithing

The other logical option for a 2nd profession is becoming a blacksmith. This is a viable option though again, in my experience, most of the good gear you can make is now being eclipsed by the new badge gear. The only real goods you can make that have repeat use value are the eternal belt buckle and titanium weapon chain/titanium plating. There are a few epics which may sell, I.e. the weapons, but again I have found that they do not sell regularly enough to warrant making too often.

With regard to selling such items it is probably best done at the weekend when most people are on and your auction gets the most exposure. Alternatively you can sell through the trade channel and avoid any extra costs, though you are relying on a buyer being on when you are, which is of course the disadvantage of this method.

Another point to blacksmiths, don’t forget to make skeleton keys! There are usually people looking for rogues to open lockboxes, and this can provide a small profit for you if you offer this service.

If you are looking at other options from mining and blacksmithing, make some of the specific gear sets, or even better keep the trade mats in the bank for sets. This will allow you to make them if someone asks for them on the trade channel. A new tank for example will use some of the defence gear you can make until he has gained some heroic gear.

I personally have never had much success selling gear or weapons, so its not a road I have followed. Just to give an example of why, I had the same gear on the AH for a week without selling, and tried unsuccessfully to sell pieces of epic gear via the trade channel about 5-6times, hence I decided it was not a way that worked for me.

General Mining Points

When you are looking for ways to make money the AH is your main guide to prices and supply/demand. It will not be the same on any given day or week, and prices do vary – hugely sometimes. An addon like Auctioneer is essential to give you an estimate of the value of trade goods. I use regularly and have found it to be extremely useful.

A second addon which I consider a necessity for gathering anything is Gathermate and its respective data file. It highlights where nodes/herbs have been found previously and gives an indication where the highest concentrations of materials can be found.

Now let me address the issue of someone who has taken 2 gathering professions, i.e. skinning/mining. Obviously you don’t have the ability to prospect ore, or make armour/weapons with it. So how do you make the most of your professions?

One possible solution is to arrange with a jewelcrafter to have your ore prospected, and pay them for their service. This gives you access to other options without having the profession yourself.

If this isn’t an option open to you, perhaps you have leveled solo to 80 and you want to gear up before looking for a guild, then you need to look at the other minerals you can mine.

On my server, Sporregar, I have found that many of the lower level minerals are actually better money makers than the Northrend equivalents, apart from Titanium. Thorium and Mithril actually sell at 20g+ per stack, and have the advantage that there is much less competition farming them. From Outland, adamantite and fel iron also sell at better prices, again in my own experience 20g+ per stack, and you can use your flying mount to collect them faster. As I previously mentioned it varies from day to day. Sometimes I have seen Thorium at 40g+ per stack, and sold it at that level.

Now this may come as a surprise to some as you would not expect these sort of prices, but people, in my experience, are never happy with just one character. Even at the top level of raiding people can and do get bored, so they make a new character and start again. This is why there is demand for the lower level trade goods, as well as new people joining the game for the first time.

With new characters there are new professions to be leveled, so again we can look at alternatives to simply selling the ore. The original high level gems, i.e. Large opals, Azerothian diamonds etc, all sell for comparatively high prices. At the present time opals are around 25g+ each on my AH.

The major difference here is that there is not the same demand as the top level gems, so caution is advised when dealing with these. If you are putting these on the AH, don’t put a lot on at once(i.e. More than 5-10 of the same gem) as it will drive the price down very quickly, a few at a time will encourage the price to stay high. The ores can have a similar problem, but with the lesser supply it does help to keep prices more stable, and I have found they usually sell without problems. Check your AH regularly to see when the price is high and when there is too much competition.

To give an example of this, albeit it was Ebonweave cloth from one of my alts, I originally put a stack of 10 on at 830g buyout when there was about 12 other Ebonweave auctions as well. It never sold over 48hrs. I put it back on, on a Saturday with only 4 other auctions available at 1000g and it sold within a few hours. The other auctions were all around 125g each, when a few days before it was around 85g per cloth. This is why I say make sure you know the prices for trade goods all the time, a day or two can make a big difference.

A good way to use your mining is to combine it with another task you are doing. Lets say you want to get a disgusting ooze pet. The best place to farm oozes is considered to be the Eastern Plaguelands, within the 2 scars. These scars also happen to be a good place to farm thorium ore. So if you are gathering the ore while killing the oozes you are increasing your overall income and not simply doing one or the other.

A point to keep in mind generally, is to try to combine tasks together as it will increase you overall efficiency and lower the time you need to spend doing things that you don’t enjoy.

A last point to keep in mind is that 20saronite bars vendors for 25g, so if all else fails you can buy saronite ore at less than 12g 50silver and always guarantee a profit.

Hope this guide helps you to make some gold and think about other ways to apply your abilities.

For those of you into WoW PvP and even a little Warcraft 3 you’ll enjoy the broadcast of the 2009 Warcraft Regional Finals.

It has already started for today, going until 2:45pm EST.

However the finals are tomorrow for the 3v3 Arena bracket, be sure to tune in as watching the best of the best in arena can really show you how you can improve your own game.

Watch it here http://eu.blizzard.com/rf09/

Deciding to level up your druid and having trouble finding out the best leveling spec? In this article we will discuss the talents offered in the various trees and which route will ensure that you are getting to level 80 the fastest.

The purpose of this leveling spec is to take all talents which increase damage, reduce traveling speed and improve solo questing/killing ability whether it is in the form of utility talents or straight out damage.

The only other way to increase your level speed is to follow a leveling guide that shows you the most efficient routes and quests to do in northrend, I’ve found Zygor’s Guide to be the most useful and it is all done with an in-game interface.

Druid Leveling Spec

You will be leveling 70-80 as feral, while a lot of people prefer to go balance as they enjoy the play style more, there is no doubt that feral has less downtime and higher survivability. You can also tank with this spec in instances whenever you want to take a break and have some fun.

At level 70 your spec should look like this: (0/51/10)

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZxGMcfrz0eR0Idfo0E

A few key notes on the talent build:

Rend and Tear

For DPS this ability only affects shred which is an ability not really used while leveling. Ferocious Bite sucks up a lot of energy and can really slow down your flow when it is usually just overkill when finishing off a mob, I’d use it only if you know it will all be used up to finish off a mob.  You will need to throw 3 points in here however to reach Berserk.

Infected Wounds

A nice leveling talent but if you are looking to do some serious tanking while you are leveling I’d take points from here and put them into Natural Reaction and Protector of the Pack.

Mangle

Your bread and butter talent, however it is best to pick up our 16 points in restoration first before finishing off Improved Mangle.

This is what your talent build should look like at 80: (0/55/16)

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZxGMcfrz0eR0Iuio0Eczb

Gearing Up for Leveling

Your most important stats go as follows: STR>STA>AGI>INT. STR bring the most important as it effects your attack power (1 STR = 2 AP). STA will be useful for you if you also decide to do some tanking, and AGI will provide you with the extra boost for crit and AC (1 AGI = 1 AP). INT is useful for emergency heals and situational uses but focus on STR.

Glyphs

Glyph of Rip
Glyph of Shred

The Feral Tree provides the fastest leveling with no downtime and will get you to level 80 the fastest.

Combine this with a leveling guide to get to 80 the fastest, Zygor’s Guide is the best if you have a little money to spend, since the guide is all done in game with a complete interface to guide you, you get what you pay for.

It’s no secret that World of Warcraft can really pull you in and encourage you to keep playing and progressing. It does this by providing constant challenges, rewards and making you feel like you are progressing with every task you accomplish where you can see the ultimate goals you set to be a master at pvp/pve coming closer and closer.

We spend countless hours researching the best ways to make gold, track the auction house to buy and sell in demand items, and come up with strategies to down the toughest bosses and arena teams. I always thought that if I put the same effort into researching the auction house as I did following the stock market I’d be a millionaire by now!

It all makes you think, is there a way to apply the motivation that World of Warcraft gives you and put it towards real life tasks and goals? It seems one social media site is trying to put that to the test.

http://www.chorewars.com/