3.0.8 updates from 7 January

Previous 3.0.8 posts:

• Patch 3.0.8 for Balance and Resto Druids
  
• 3.0.8: Bits of News
  
• More on 3.0.8 for Caster Druids

No sooner do I post some news, then we see more arrive later that day! 3.0.8 is shaping up to be a fairly significant patch — no new content or huge changes, but a whole host of minor changes that add up to a lot.

Let's see, where to start? How about level 16? You'll now be able to train Aquatic Form from the trainers, rather than running the quest line. I get why they're doing this; the quest line takes a good bit of time due to a lot of travel. Still, it's a bit sad; the druid form quests really add to the flavor of the class. It's unclear whether the quest line will still be available or not.

For more substantive issues, the first thing to note is that it's now confirmed that Nourish will now benefit if a Wild Growth HoT is present on the target. This will increase Nourish's viability as a raid healing tool.

A bigger buff for Nourish is that it will now be affected by the second-tier Balance talent Moonglow, reducing its mana cost by 3/6/9%. Moonglow is a common talent to take in Resto builds, if you build up to Nature's Grace and Nature's Splendor. So this will be an instant buff to Nourish for many Resto druids. I'm starting to find a lot of use for Nourish, and these buffs will pump it up even more. Now, if we could just get a Nourish glyph...!

In items, the set bonus for the Deadly Gladiator's Refuge has changed. The old benefit was a .2 second cast time reduction on Regrowth; the new benefit is to reduce the cooldown on Swiftmend by 2 seconds. The Deadly Gladiator gear all requires high arena ratings (though they'll be reduced by 100 with the patch); you'll need an 1750 rating to get even one piece, and a minimum of 1950 to get the four-piece bonus. I'm more likely to become a GM than to get a 2000+ arena rating, but I wish you luck!

The two-piece bonus on the Tier 7 Heroes' Dreamwalker Regalia (10-man) and Valorous Dreamwalker Regalia (25-man) are changing. The old bonus reduced your Rejuvenation cost by 5%, but that's changed to reducing the mana cost of Lifebloom instead. Rejuv fans will see this as a nerf, but Lifebloom is such a staple that this should be a buff for most of us.

Here's a bug fix that's a bit of a stealth nerf:

[Idol of the Emerald Queen]: This idol was providing greater healing than implied by its tooltip. It has been reduced to correct value.

Ouch! If you read the comments on the [Idol of Lush Moss], people have tested it and found that it provides only a small benefit over the Idol of the Emerald Queen. The assumption was that the Lush Moss idol was bugged, but it turns out we've had an overpowered idol ever since regular Slabs.

There are a lot of profession changes piling up. I've focused mostly on Leatherworking, but if you chose something else, take a look and see what's new. For example, miners will find that it only takes one whack to extract all the ore from a node. Also, the passive benefit Toughness will now affect your stamina rather than directly adding health. That will be a big help if you have buffs that leverage stamina, like Blessing of Kings.

But the big change for leatherworkers is another nerf:

The epic leg armor patches now require a [Frozen Orb] in addition to their other materials.

This means [Frosthide Leg Armor] and [Icescale Leg Armor] just got a lot more expensive to make.

My advice is to make as many of these as you can before 3.0.8 hits, but hold on to them; the AH price will probably rise. If you use them yourself, you might want to make a handful and hang on to them. They are also the easiest and cheapest way to level leatherworking from 430 to 440, so if you plan to do that, do it sooner rather than later!

Those are the biggest changes for caster druids in the latest batch. I'll post more as they arrive!

More on 3.0.8 for caster Druids

I find myself talking more and more about "caster druids". I'm using that term as a blanket for both Balance and Resto druids. I play both specs, and they share lots of concerns, particularly since Spellpower was consolidated. The two trees are suited to switching back and forth, both due to gear and to play style. So when I (for instance) look at notes for a patch, I'm looking at things that will affect both Moonkin and Trees.

Contrary to my earlier thoughts, we haven't yet seen patch 3.0.8. It might happen today, but current thinking is that it won't. Still, changes are on the way, and we'll probably see them before the end of January at the latest.

I've heard a few more changes beyond what I've discussed before. The one that will hit me hardest is a nerf to the [Battlemap Hide Helm]. It's a drop from Heroic Utgarde Keep, and I've been wearing it since it dropped. I got it for Moonkin but it's darn good for Resto too. Too good! It's somehow well over budget and it's getting nerfed, losing 16 Intellect and 32 Crit rating. Ouch.

Not specific to casters, but Enchanting recipes are changing by quite a bit. The short story is that WotLK recipes will require less dust/essences than before and more shards. On the whole, this should make enchants easier, but it will definitely pump up the value of shards. (Hmm...)

We will now be able to spend those Wintergrasp marks on a wide range of gear. It's PvP gear, so you'll give up some other stats to gain resilience, but still the items will be rather nice. And Wintergrasp is a lot of fun anyway!

Two new Kirin Tor rings have been introduced; healers will be most interested in the [Loop of the Kirin Tor]. Moonkin will probably still prefer the [Signet of the Kirin Tor]. All you need is 8500g for an epic iLvl 200 ring. It doesn't get easier than that!

There are also two new Leatherworking patterns, most interesting to Moonkin. The [Windripper Boots] and [Windripper Leggings] are itemized nicely and will probably be the pre-raid gear of choice for our feathered death-dealers.

Skinning is getting a Moonkin buff too. The passive benefit, Master of Anatomy, will increase its benefit from 25 to 32 crit rating.

Finally, there are two new interesting Balance glyphs. The [Glyph of Focus] will reduce the diameter of your Starfall but increase its damage output, while the Glyph of Typhoon will remove the knockback of Typhoon and reduce its mana cost. Both spells will be more usable in instances as a result.

So that's what I've seen so far. Overall some decent stuff; Moonkin will be especially happy about the glyphs and leather patterns. We'll see if new notes come out tomorrow!

Leatherworking: time to give it up?

First, the good news. Leveling Skinning is about the easiest thing you can do, at the launch of a new expansion. There's tons of dead animals all over the place, just ready to be skinned. I'm already at 450 skill for that, with probably about 150 Borean Leather in the bank so far. It's nice.

But I haven't made a single new leather item yet, and I'm starting to think that it's time to quit Leatherworking. That's really a shame, because I like it. The irony is that Blizzard has said that the profession changes were designed to route you to something you enjoy rather than something you felt you 'had' to take. I enjoy Leatherworking, but the available items are so bland and boring that I'm not seeing any use from the profession.

Leatherworking has always suffered (along with Tailoring and Blacksmithing) in that many of its products aren't consumable. Yes, you can make armor patches and leg armor. But the bread and butter of the profession — the leather or mail armor — is unlikely to sell for much. People just get better rewards from dungeons, rep, and badges. There are a few high-end items that you can sell, but those are pretty rare. Most things aren't worth the material cost. And the patches, while not bad, compete with enchants and aren't a huge money-maker.

The Bind-on-Pickup leather items used to be great, at least for me. I worked hard to craft my Windhawk set. It was a bit better than T4 and lasted me through all of Burning Crusade. (I didn't get out much.) Raiders got some good BoP patterns too. But it appears that Blizzard won't do anything this good any more, which really kills the attraction and value of Leatherworking for me. Even if there was comparable gear, I took pride in wearing something that I'd made myself; it marked me out as a leatherworker (though the models were crappy) and made me feel that the profession gave me something unique. Without that, my motivation is much less.

Drums were a Burning Crusade addition designed to make Leatherworking more attractive. And they did! The effects they added to battle were great and were a big advantage. Too big. Advanced raiding guilds had many of their players convert to Leatherworking so that they could chain-drum their way through challenging encounters. That is specifically what Blizzard wanted to combat (and rightfully so). So, they changed drums so that all drummers in a party or raid are subject to the same cooldown. Not a bad change, but as my normal party has three leatherworkers, we're really overstocked with drummers now.

So, Wrath has another answer: fur linings. These are crafter-bound wrist enchants, like the ring enchants that enchanters get. They're not bad. Compare Fur Lining - Spellpower to Enchant Bracers - Superior Spellpower. The fur lining gets you almost 125% more spellpower than the enchant. The attack power advantage is about the same, while the Stamina bonus is huge. There are also fur linings for resistances. It's all pretty nice.

But that's what Leatherworking reduces to: +37 spellpower for me. That's it. Beyond that, I've lost my unique (and pretty good) armor; any value from my Tribal Leatherworking specialization, and much of the utility of my drums. It's depressing.

I haven't looked at it, but I suspect that Blacksmithing is in much the same boat. Enchanting is probably about where they were before, as are the consumeable professions of Alchemy and Jewelcrafting. Tailoring at least gets their flying carpets, and Engineering gets their choppers and a host of other unique and cool items.

So will I switch? I'm reluctant, since Alamein has been crafting leather her entire career. I'm still hopeful that I'll see some useful changes with future patches. Besides, I don't have time to level another profession while I'm leveling up. So I'll probably hang on to Leatherworking for now, at least until I reach level 80 and/or the 3.1 patch comes out (and we see more recipes). But if things stay as they are, Alamein may have to become an Alchemist or Inscriptionist.

Current WotLK Questions

I've read a lot about Wrath of the Lich King. I'm pretty sure I've seen most of the info that's available, but I still have questions. Here's what I'm wondering about, in no particular order:

• Where should I start? I like the concept of two starting areas in Northrend. I'll probably switch back and forth a bit, and eventually level in both areas. But I'd like to focus on one or the other initially, and I'm not sure which to choose. That will depend partially on which one is aesthetically more pleasing, but I'm also concerned that there will be quest chains that give must-have items.
  
  
• How will Inscription play out? I've talked about this more in an earlier post. My main questions at this point are around the specific mats needed (will they change?) and how we will learn recipes. I might want to level Inscription, but I'd like to know more first.
  
  
• How will Resto work out for Druids? The Balance tree looks well set, but Resto is still a bit dodgy. Phaelia at Resto4Life is (as always!) your best source here. My main concerns are around the utility of our two new heals, Nourish and Wild Growth. Right now they look a bit useless. I'm also concerned about the Replenish talent. Right now it looks vastly underpowered. I have hopes that these will still be tweaked, but as it stands these all look like they'll go unused.
  
  
• How will Lake Wintergrasp work out? In concept it looks extremely cool and fun. I'm a big fan of the epic nature of AV and this looks like it could go to the next level. On the other hand, it could be a mess. The resets and timing will be a major concern. I have hopes and fears in equal measure for this zone.
  
  
• How much will the new honor items cost? Honor and marks are being reset for WotLK. I totally understand why that is necessary — the players who complain "but I farmed 75k honor!" are exactly the problem that's being addressed. But I'd like to know how much the new items will cost. I play battlegrounds because I enjoy them, so if my honor and marks are lost, I won't mind. But I'd like to put them towards something of value if possible.
  
  
• Will fur linings be useful? I know about the fur linings for bracers. They sound OK, but I can't imagine using them instead of a 'real' bracer enchant based on what's available now. They are all resist gear, which might be kind-of handy but won't compare with +spellpower or whatever. So I want to know if there will be really useful fur linings that would be a real advantage for leatherworkers.
  
  
• Will leatherworking specialization matter? So far, there's no patterns that are specific to Tribal or other leatherworking specializations. That's a shame, considering that my Windhawk set lasted me through my whole level 70 career. Some of the normal items look pretty good so I know there will be useful stuff. But I'm not sure yet if it will match Windhawk.
  
  
• Will my machine handle it? Blizzard is amazing at its ability to do wonderful games with relatively minimal hardware requirements. But I look at the new detailed models and I'm concerned that my Macbook Pro will be at its limit. It does fine now, but will that continue?
  
  
• When will 3.0 hit? We know the WotLK date: 13 November. But I'd like to know when the interim patch will hit. That will obviously have a huge impact, but I'm most concerned about auction house prices and honor points. I guess my preference/expectation would be in a couple weeks, around 7 October. We'll see if I'm right.
  
  
• Can I get the Collector's Edition? I really want it!
  
  
• Will they get some good features in quickly after WotLK? There are a couple things that won't make it in that I'd like to see. One was the option to have different skins for druid forms. The other is the ability to switch between two specs without paying a big respec fee each time. Everything I've read indicates that those are in the works, but won't be here for the launch. I'm very hopeful that they'll get there soon.

That's a pretty decent list for now. I'll update if/when we learn more!

One time, I saw a khorium vein

Wow - is this stuff hard to farm, or what?

I was running Shattered Sun dailies with Sali, killing the demons at the portal on Dawning Square, when I saw that a khorium vein had spawned at the back of the portal. Of course, that became my first priority. I was about 50% on health and mana, and there was one Irespeaker walking near that vein. But knowing time was limited I took her on at short range. I killed her with about 10% health and mana left but immediately went to mine the vein. I was just finishing the second hit on the vein when two other miners showed up. In other words, I got there just in time.

It felt like I had won the lottery.

Alamein is a skinner, so that's been my main experience with gathering skills. There are rare leathers that you need too, but the experience is different. Take for example the [Cobra Scales]. They're skinned from a few specific snakes in Outland, found either in northern Shadowmoon or in a specific corner of Nagrand. The snakes are slightly rare and are in tough areas to farm (good number of level 70+ mobs wandering around), and the scales are only a 10% chance to drop when you skin. So you have to do a good bit of work to find them, hence they're rather rare.

Compare that to khorium. Basically, the veins can spawn anywhere in Outland, in place of a normal adamantite or fel iron vein (a 2.5% chance). If you need khorium, all you can do is travel all over and hope to get lucky. For some reason, khorium is unusually expensive on Shandris; a single ore goes for 10 to 12g. So any khorium vein that spawns will be mined almost immediately. Miners will drop whatever they're doing to get it, and will spend a lot of effort if needed.

The rarity is exacerbated because you need khorium for everything. Almost every useful high-end engineering recipe needs khorium, and I believe blacksmithing and jewelcrafting are similar. Sali needs 8 [Khorium Power Cores] for her epic flyer; that translates into 48 khorium ore. If I spend an hour mining (cruising on my slow flyer), I might find a single khorium vein.

Those Cobra Scales, for comparison, are used only for a few specific recipes. Those include Cobrahide and Nethercobra leg armors, which sell well. So the scales are useful — but there are other rare drops that are used for other recipes. For other items you might need Wind Scales or Nether Dragonscales or Fel Scales and so forth. Each drops from a few specific mobs and is used for a limited set of recipes.

The skinning flavor works quite well: specific leathers for specific recipes, farmed from a few specific mobs. This wouldn't feel as good for mining -- there shouldn't be so many variations of ores. However mining khorium shouldn't be such a crapshoot. I would add specific veins that only spawn khorium, but make them hard to reach and challenging (but possible) to farm. For instance they could spawn in deep mines in Netherstorm and Shadowmoon. If you want to clear a mine of tough mobs and wait for veins to spawn, your hard work would pay off. But at least you could do something to get khorium, rather than wait to get lucky or to pay for someone else's luck.

A Tale of Two Professions

I've now leveled two crafting professions to 375. They provide an interesting comparison.

Alamein is a leatherworker. There wasn't a lot of thought in the choice -- not much more than "she wears leather armor, so she should be a leatherworker." It's worked out fairly well. The drums are quite nice, though we have to be careful since both Wyrmm and Firegrin are also leatherworker/percussionists. We just have to time our drumming so that it doesn't overlap. But the biggest benefit has been the Windhawk Set. Alamein is unlikely to get rid of that until fairly far into WotLK. It's not only a strong set, but its bonuses work very well for switching back and forth between Resto and Balance.

Sali is an Engineer. I really chose it just because it sounded fun, and it has been. The [Destruction Holo-gogs] are top notch. The trinkets are great for early levels, and the mote extractor is great for making money. However, mages get less use out of engineering than most classes. All the bombs are pretty much useless, since mages can do that kind of thing better anyway. That also rules out Goblin engineering as a specialty. Goblin engineering isn't bad but the [Gnomish Poultryizer] is rather pointless too due to Polymorph. And the crazy +stamina on trinkets isn't all that helpful either. And there's not much you can sell as an engineer that will make you much money. So while I'm still enjoying it, it's not a huge advantage to me either.

I expected the benefits to be different, but I was surprised at how different the leveling experience was. The first factor is that Sali, as a gnome, gets the +15 skill bonus. When it comes to leveling those final points to 375, that's huge. She got the last 5 points all from making parts -- felsteel stabilizer and so forth. With Alamein it was a real struggle to reach 375 -- even more so before the 2.3.0 patch that reduced rep requirements to get drum patterns.

The second part is that 375 skill was huge for leatherworking but anticlimactic for engineering. With leatherworking, 375 meant that Alamein could make the Windhawk set -- the whole reason Alamein took the profession. For engineering, Sali could make her epic goggles at 350 skill. While the new epic goggles are fantastic, they rendered all the old goggles obsolete. So the gnomish schematics learned at 375 are pointless. I am interested in making the [Gyro-balanced Khorium Destroyer] for Firegrin, so 375 still has some value. But for Sali, there's nothing worthwhile at 375.

If I had to theorycraft, there's no comparison: leatherworking is both harder and more beneficial. I got three quality armor pieces and a whole array of drums to use. Engineering gets me a great helm and not a whole lot more. But beyond the straight stats, it's just a lot of fun. And that's worth a lot! I'm not sure what WotLK will bring. I haven't seen anything special yet for either profession; I'm sure that the high-end itemization isn't around yet. I'm curious whether they'll advance the specializations; in particular I'm looking forward to seeing whether leatherworking continues to give me good gear. We'll see how it goes!

Earn Big $$ Now!

With a long weekend, I spent plenty of time in Azeroth. There was plenty to do and a lot of interesting events. For instance, I left my guild, not for any single reason, but just because it wasn't quite clicking for me. They seem like good guys, and I wish them well in their future activities.

I did accomplish some nice goals. Alamein was able to level from 40 to 43 over the weekend, in great part to grinding turtles for their scales, in order to complete the Wild Leather quests. She was able to finish those too, which got her skinning and leatherworking up quite a bit.

But I'd have to say that the focus was to make money. And -- no surprise -- that was driven by reaching level 40. Now, Alamein didn't really have a burning need for a mount. As a druid, she has the Cheetah Form (Travel Form, really). That gives her a 40% speed increase, while a standard mount jacks it up to 60%. So a mount is nice, for sure, but hardly mandatory. But still I really wanted to get Alamein past that hurdle. I knew I'd be better off financially if I could just get the mount out of the way and then figure out what comes next economically.

Starting on Thursday night, Alamein had about 35 or 40 gold in her pocket. Amazingly enough, by Sunday night she was up to 135 gold. It was astounding to me that she could make so much so quickly, as she'd never broken 45 gold before. And this included reaching level 42, with perhaps 10 gold in training costs.

So how did she make 100 gold in such a short time? I was shocked myself, but when I look back, it was a combination of good planning and luck. In fact, it was right about 50% planned and 50% luck. Working from memory, here's an approximate breakdown:

Crafted Items: 25 Gold
Based on what I've read, I wasn't expecting to make a lot of money from leatherworking. So I've been surprised to actually make a good bit of cash from it. The key for me has been to watch for cheap materials at auction. For example, [Shadowskin Gloves] require two black pearls, which have been going for about a gold each on Shandris. But, by watching the auctions closely, I've been able to find several black pearls for an average somewhere near 40 or 50 silver. I've always got a list of the materials I'm looking for -- usually quite a while before I'm actually making the item. This means I can make a pretty good profit on what I make.

Over the weekend, I sold the gloves, the [Gem-Studded Leather Belt], the [Wolfshead Helm], and a few other items. In all, I think that added up to about 25 gold, which contributes to the "planned" category.

Dropped Items: 40 gold
The first bit of luck came on Thursday night. Alamein was wandering through Stranglethorn Vale, working to close out the Skullsplitter Tusks quest. Towards the end of the night, she killed a troll and found a [Speedsteel Rapier] waiting for her. That's a pretty good sword in itself, and it has the blue-item cachet and a glowing enchant. Moreover, there's just not a lot of good weapons in the 35 to 45 level range. All that translates into a good auction value. (It also means I was glad I couldn't wield it; the temptation would have been great.) As it happened, I was able to auction it for about 30 gold. So, 30 gold to luck.

During the weekend, I had a few other decent drops. Not too much that I remember, other than a [Headstriker Sword of Power]. That sold for about 5 gold, and the other drops for about 5 more. About what I should expect for the fighting I did, I think, so I'll add that 10 gold to the planning column.

Reselling Items: 35 gold
There's one source for this income: Bottomscanner. I hadn't used it before this weekend. But I knew I'd need an aggressive strategy to make money, and this seemed like a good approach.

On the whole, it worked as expected. I found some good deals on random things, mostly materials like Essence of Fire or Core of Earth, or consumables like armor kits. I was able to turn those around and auction them, generally for about a 50% profit. A few things took a while to auction but eventually I think everything sold except for one pair of green leather pants, which I eventually sent to my alt Gazala for disenchanting. (Moral: crafting materials and consumables are generally less risky.)

I did have one huge success though. Early on, Bottomscanner spotted an auction for [Schematic: Sniper Scope]. I don't have a high-level engineer, so I didn't know anything about that schematic. But I did know one thing: Auctioneer had seen it a few times at auction for around 20 gold, and it was being offered for a buyout of 75 silver. Needless to say, I bought it immediately.

My 'general' reselling netted me about 15 gold, which I put against the planned income; it was about what I expected. The schematic auctioned for around 20 gold, which I mark down to luck.

There you have it: in the end, it was half luck and half planned. I'm sure there are better ways to make a quick 100 gold, but this worked out well for me. And it's worth noting that the 'luck' was seeded by some solid plans. I knew that I could get some good drops in Stranglethorn, and I knew that Bottomscanner might find some good deals for me.

And in the end? Alamein traveled to Darnassus and introduced herself to a charming black Nightsaber, so she's now traveling around in style. And — of course — she'll continue to look for good auction deals.

End of the Great Hold

Lots of different things going on this weekend. We knew this would probably be the last weekend of holding at 39, with some hope that Firegrin would level up 40 with the rest of us. So that meant either battleground, crafting, or alts for the rest of us. For Alamein, I was most interested to get her the [Highlander's Lizardhide Boots] as a battleground reward.

Friday night then was a battleground night for us. I think I did about five battles, at some times with our whole crowd. And, for the first time, I was on a winning team in the BG. It was quite close — I believe the Horde had about 1850 points when we crested 2000 — but fairly solid for that. The first half of the match was pretty balanced, with both sides holding 2 nodes and fighting over a third here or there. The second half saw the Alliance grab that third node, and mount assaults on others. So we spent a lot of time at either 3-1 or 3-2. So that gave us a solid lead that we nicely held on to.

I had a rather good game there, as did quite a few people. I think I spent most of the time near the lumber mill, with one or two others. (I did write down one name, I'll look it up later in the day. But I do remember his "For FRODO!" yells.) Some of the early attacks got up near the mill itself, but most of the second half was fought near the crossroads below. The sight lines from the lumber mill are great, and allow you to see what's going on at the blacksmith and the farm. It's nice when you're able to control the approaches rather than fighting desperate battles at the node itself.

That battle also marked the end of the Great Hold. I had flown to Refuge Point to buy rations, and joined the group there. Wyrmm happened to notice that he'd received a quest there, which he could complete, and those few points pushed him over 40. I've never heard someone so disappointed to ding a level. Seeing Wyrmm jump up pushed Eric over the edge, so he brought Cargarios to 40 on Saturday. Then last night, I took Alamein up to 40. Wyrmm's already at 41. Firegrin is still at 37, so he didn't make it all the way. But at least it's better than the 5-level gap we had before.

Last night I played two more Arathi Basin battles to get my my 20 honor marks for the boots. And these were the complete opposite spectrum; I've never played in such lopsided battles. The Alliance side were normal pick-up groups; I'm not sure if the Horde were a premade team or not but they were definitely much more aware of what they needed to do. It was sad how quickly they were able to bottle the Alliance up at the stables, and before long they were fighting us right in the graveyard of Trollbane Hall. When one team has all five nodes, well, the game finishes very quickly. The second game went even quicker, mostly because I joined in halfway through. I suspect that many of the Alliance had bailed out. It was 3-2 when I joined but complete chaos for the Alliance, and once again we were fighting out of our graveyard. A rather disheartening experience.

Still, I got my last two marks and flew to Refuge Point to buy the boots. Sweet!

The other thing I did on Sunday was pick up the Wild Leatherworking quests. The quests themselves are easy enough, but the hard part is getting materials. I think it comes to 64 thick leather, which is a lot of grinding, not to mention the 22 turtle scales needed. I took Alamein to Dustwallow Marsh last night to hunt for the turtles; it was while grinding them that she dinged 40. She's still short on both scales and leather, so it's going to take a little while.

A fun weekend though, with promises of more to come. I believe a trip to Razorfen Downs is in order...

The Leather Scene

Last night was quiet for me. I only completed one quest, "The Green Hills of Stanglethorn". It's different, which is nice; this is the quest where you have to collect the missing pages of the book from random mob drops around the zone. I wonder if the designers anticipated how this really works: people sell the pages at the AH. I believe I bought all but one page at AH, probably spending about 1 gold in the process. If I were so inclined, I could auction the thick leather armor kits and still make a profit -- even aside from the experience. At any rate, it was nice to finish that off and free up bag space!

The rest of my time I worked on leatherworking. As I mentioned yesterday, I wanted to make a set of armor for grinding in cat form. Alamein is still specced for Restoration (yes, that mess is a topic for future discussion) and doesn't plan to switch to Feral. The caster/healer hybrid is pretty handy; I typically act as caster/healer for small questing groups and then as a pure healer for instances.

But that leaves soloing. As long as she's outside, Alamein can grind some difficult mobs, thanks to Entangling Roots and self-healing. But that's not ideal for everything. If she's indoors, she doesn't have Roots to lock down the mob. Perhaps more importantly, grinding as a caster is a bit slow this way. Druids don't have huge nuke spells, so a mob may require a few cycles of Moonfire-Roots-Starfire-Wrath-repeat. That takes time; it also burns mana, so she has to drink after every fight or two. It's a successful but slow approach.

There is a shortcut: cat form. When fighting mobs just a bit lower in level, she can grind very efficiently that way. The key is whether she can fight two or three mobs before needing to heal; if she can do that, then she kills maybe twice as fast as she could with spells. And that's wearing caster gear. With some additional armor, and some +agility/+stamina gear, she could be even more efficient.

Plus, cat form is fun!

So that gave me a desire to make some of that fun rogue-style armor. Fortunately I was able to find some cheap thick leather on auction to make it possible. Here's what she made:

• [Dusky Bracers] (+8 agility)
  
• [Dusky Belt] (+8 agility, +8 stamina)
  
• [Nightscape Tunic] (+15 agility, +6 stamina)
  
• [Nightscape Headband] (+12 agility, +11 stamina)
  
• [Nightscape Shoulders] (+11 agility, +5 stamina)

Not a bad set of fighting gear, though there are a few pieces missing. She doesn't have any good boot or glove patterns. So she kept her [Infiltrator Gloves of the Eagle] and bought [Huntsman's Boots] of some sort at auction. (EDIT: actually they were [Insignia Boots].) For pants, she already has the [Triprunner Dungarees] which are perfect.

That completes that set. None of these items are terribly expensive in materials other than the leather -- she only had to buy bolts of silk at auction. So she made a few extras of each to sell. And that got her skill up to 215 -- so she could also make her coveted [Big Voodoo Robe]. That will help her caster gear as well, easily replacing the Guardian Armor she's been using for some time. So, not a bad night's work of leathercrafting.

I'm curious how much the melee gear will improve Alamein's melee capability, so I'll probably try that tonight. With some Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch time coming up, I'll have to decide how I want to fight in PvP. I suspect she'll use some combination of gear to give her flexibility, and might fight more in cat form than she has before. Should be fun!

Weekend Update

I don't have any major insights to offer today. I didn't play as much this weekend, as real life was quite busy instead. So I'll just feature a few odds and ends.

39 and Holding
Last week, we decided on a leveling plan. Our hunter friend Firegrin has been a consistent 5 or so levels behind the rest of us. He just got started later, and it's hard to catch up when you're questing with the players you're trying to catch. Not to mention that he's the only one of us with a child!

So, DK proposed that we advance to level 39 and then hold. That's mostly to get Firegrin up to equal level with the rest of us; it also allows us to spend some time in the battlegrounds without sacrificing levels. So far, it's working. Wyrmm and Cargarios are holding at 39, while Alamein is at 38, just a couple bars from 39. Firegrin has progressed rapidly to 35, so it's not like we'll be waiting long.

Alamein has progressed mostly through running quests in Desolace; now she's starting on Stranglethorn Vale as well. These have proven to be solid places to move up quickly; the only challenge is to stop at 39.

Guild Movement
As I've mentioned, three of us (all save Wyrmm) were in the same guild. I've been conflicted about it for a while, but amusingly it was Cargarios who decided to /gquit first. He's now currently unguilded, while Firegrin and Alamein are still members. I'm not in a rush to quit but I'll be interested to see how things move. At this point, I'm not getting a lot of value out of the experience, so we'll see what happens.

I'd had one semi-annoying experience with a guildie. He'd pinged me, wanting help transfering items between characters. I agreed, and spent a half-out shuttling back and forth between Stormwind and Ironforge. He didn't tip or anything, which I really didn't expect from a guild mate. But I was still annoyed. When we completed the last trade, he just ran away. I sent a /t back of "are you finished?" and got a response of "yep". I'm not a terribly sensitive guy, but at least a "thank you" would be a bare minimum for using up a half-hour of my gaming time.

So I was amused to see him in the Auction House a couple days later... as a member of a different guild. He said hello so we chatted for a bit. He claimed he'd been "trying out" his friend's guild. While I was watching, he /gquit and asked to be re-added to my guild. Oddly, I couldn't do it. I could select the option but he never saw anything. Not sure what the story was there... but frankly I'm not too disappointed.

Leatherworking
I've grown a bit frustrated with my leatherworking. Alamein's skill is up to 208 and she's hit a wall. There are some key patterns that she can't buy or find, like the Swift Boots. But more importantly, she can't find enough thick leather. With mobs up to 40 or so -- about what she can comfortably farm -- thick leather still seems to be a rare drop. So I can't collect enough leather to make a significant number of items. And there's just not enough profit in farming heavy leather to convert it -- I'd be better off auctioning it and buying thick leather.

Which is all fine, except that I'd prefer to do the work myself. And that just won't happen. Now that I'm at 38, I'd love to wear the Big Voodoo Robe, but I stubbornly refuse to buy it at auction. I want to have it say on the label... and that's going to take a bit of time.

I do think though that I'm going to make a set of +agility/+stamina armor for Alamein. I don't want to respec; she'll stay a caster/healer druid. But for grinding mobs -- especially shooters and casters who aren't really rootable -- she can do much better in cat form. Now if I can just figure out how to get the bag space to hold the extra armor...

Leatherworking for Fun and Profit

About a month ago, I made a conscious decision that I was going to do my best to have Alamein use armor that she'd made for herself. A deceptively simple goal, and one that seems exactly where I would think Blizzard would want the professions to go.

Results have been mixed to this point. You can take a look at Alamein's profile and see what gear she's wearing. It includes just two items that she made: the Green Whelp Armor and Guardian Pants. She also made Guardian Armor that she'll wear when melee is unlikely -- as when healing in a group. Each piece has an interesting story.

The Guardian Pants were the first of these she made, and they've been useful for a long time though new gear is starting to look good. These were actually the easiest to get -- the recipe comes from the trainer, and the materials are common (though it's a bit tough to find bolts of silk cloth at auction on Shandris).

The Green Whelp Armor was another interesting story. She saw the recipe at auction for a good price a long time ago, and bought it to hold. As her leatherworking approached 175, these started to look attractive, and like a good money-maker. So I asked Cargarios to help me in the Swamp of Sorrows, and we farmed the green whelps until I got the four scales I needed. We were slightly over our head, and had to be very careful not to aggro more than one or two at a time. But with a bit of hard work, it came out, and the armor is fantastically useful for soloing (and PvP too I think, though I'm not completely sure yet). And she has since sold two or three of these at auction as well.

The Guardian Armor is a recent acquisition. I wanted to make that for a long time -- the +intelligence and +spirit is useful for a caster druid. The problem is the materials, and in particular the Shadow Oil. There's just not a lot of it at auction since an alchemist/herbalist can sell the materials for more than the oil. The Trade channel didn't bring any help, and I was starting to scan the auction house for materials when the oil finally popped up. I bought one and made the armor, but there's no way to sell this for profit, as the oil goes for about 1.5 gold. I haven't used it much yet, but we'll see how it does.

So those are the success stories for how leatherworking should work. You get some good recipes that you can make, and that come at a time when it's useful for you. Some of the better recipes require a lot of work on materials, but that's OK too.

But what about the disappointments? One is the Guardian Bracers that Alamein wears. That's actually a leatherworking recipe, but it requires a skill of 195. The bracers are great, but she still can't make them yet -- and she's had them for a while. So that's disappointing. For a non-twinked character, it's just a lot easier to buy those at auction than to spend the time and money to level the profession so fast that she can use them at level 34.

And those items (chest armor, pants, and bracers) cover it all. The rest are things that Alamein either found or bought on the auction house. I think she found the belt, which is roughly equivalent to the Guardian Belt she could make... if she had the recipe. There are no good leather glove recipes for a caster druid up through 225 skill, other than the Gloves of the Greatfather, and that's a difficult recipe to get. Similarly, there are no good caster shoulders either, no good boots until the Swift Boots, and no good caster head until the Big Voodoo Mask. And she's looking for bolts of silk cloth to make the decent Guardian Cloak, since she just found the recipe at auction yesterday.

So from 9 armor slots, that's 2 that she has made, another 2 (the belt and the cloak) that she could have made... and five where she had no choice. I suppose the situation would be a lot better if she were a rogue or a feral druid; there's good gear for agility and strength. But those attributes have little use for a balance/resto druid.

But what about profit? Leatherworking has been decent for making some cash for Alamein. I mentioned selling the Green Whelp Armor. I set an early goal to track down the recipe for Barbaric Bracers, and those have sold relatively well. Then she went to even greater lengths to get and make the Gem-Studded Leather Belt. (Which is a very cool belt... but not so much for a healing Druid.) The armor goes for about 1.5 gold, the bracers for between 1.5 and 3 gold, and the belt for around 3.5 or 4 gold.

The key is to find the key materials at good prices at auction. Right now I'm scanning for the gems for the belt, and it's a tough job. The gems typically sell on Shandris for somewhere between 50 and 80 silver. So with five gems required for the belt, at that price I'd have 3.75 gold invested, even before adding the other materials. So to be profitable I have to look for auction bargains. It's possible, but citrine and jade are in so much demand for other professions that it just doesn't happen often. When I can comfortably solo the green whelps, I'll farm them and make a few more Green Whelp Armor too. All in all, making those three items has probably made me a net profit of about 10 or 15 gold. Not a ton... but not bad when my current bank is about 30 gold.

So it's a major struggle just to keep leatherworking relevant. I know that making a profit was always going to be difficult. (If I really wanted to make money, I'd farm and sell leather.) But it's disappointing that I have so few chances to make my own equipment.

Hopefully that will get a bit better as I progress. I've got my eye on some Big Voodoo gear...