Bible of Dreams

Handling the Primordial Saronite

If you haven't already made your way into Icecrown Citadel and checked out the quartermaster, you may not be aware that unlike ToC and Ulduar 25-mans, wherein many yummy crafting patterns fell from the bosses, you will be needing to purchase your 3.3 epic crafting patterns. Specifically, you will need to have appropriate reputation levels (honored for one pair, revered for another pair or patterns) plus a primordial saronite to purchase each pattern.

There are two ways to obtain the primordial saronite -- they drop at 50% or less off the bosses in Icecrown Citadel 25-man raids, or you can buy them for 23 emblems of frost. Personally, I don't see a lot of folks taking the latter route straight out of the gate since we'll all be needing to spend hundreds of those emblems on purchasing our tier 10 gear.

Our guild is still undecided about how to handle the saronites as they drop. We do have a guild crafter rank, Swashbuckler, already in place. For runed orbs, our guild sold them to guildies, from the gbank, at half the going auction house price. I've proposed that we either give them to the guild crafters, as they hit the appropriate rep levels,  or sell them to them at no more thank 1/4 the going auction house price. Even the latter would be a pricey proposition for crafters.

Personally, having acquired a substantial number of patterns both before and after being named a guild crafter, and so far having made about a dozen pieces for guildies and friends of the guild, and nothing for myself, find it a little hard to rationalized spending my gold on buying primal saronite for four patterns, when it's unlikely I will make the items for myself (at best, I could see myself crafting a pair of boots.)

One of the rules of being a guild crafter is that since you get priority on dropped patterns you don't charge guildies for crafting the items. Thus, if we don't give guild crafters the saronite, we are basically saying "oh hai please spend 3k per pattern in costs you will not be able to recoup unless you shop yourself out in trade chat for a few weeks." I doubt most of the folks would do so -- or would even have the cash reserves to do so even if they wanted to.

How's your guild handling the primal saronite? Or how would you like to see it go?

Professions Synergy

 

This sexy Tauren is my bank alt. He is one of the primary keys to my ability to make my horde-side professions somewhat profitable. But the other equally important component to that profitability is my having chosen complimentary professions that can help each other out. For my horde characters, it breaks out like this:

• shadow priest is a tailor/herbalist
• mage is an alchemist/herbalist (elixir mastery for the flask procs)
• shaman is a miner/jewelcrafter
• druid is a skinner/leatherworker
• SO has an enchanter and an inscriptionist

Alliance-side is similarly aligned:

• druid is an enchanter/skinner
• mage is an alchemist/herbalist (elixir mastery for the flask procs)
• shadow priest is an inscriptionist/herbalist
• SO has a leatherworker, engineer, and blacksmith

That's right. Not only did I pick my alts' professions with an eye on how they could feed into each other, I took my SO's professions into consideration as well to come up with a mix that would cover most of our bases.

Each day, my alchemist transmutes an epic gem and sends it to the JC. The JC makes an icy prism daily, sending the blue quality gems back to the alchemist, along with the eternals she mines, cutting the epic gems and sending them to the bank alt. All herbs gathered go to the alchemist for making whatever flasks I need and whatever elixirs are selling well in the AH. The two maxed fisherwomen do the fishing daily (the third does it only when it's the sewers, slowly increasing her skill), sending any usable fish to the bank alt to be held for the druid's eventual push to 450 cooking.

Alliance side had mirrored this as well, until I faction changed the shaman and moved her over to the horde. Additionally, as I leveled the tailoring and the SO leveled the leatherworking, all excess items that were not especially saleable were funneled to the enchanter for DEing. The inscriptionist made me plenty of scrolls so no enchanting skill-up points were ever wasted.

These interwoven professions didn't initially happen by design. But when I moved my shadow priest to her current server and started up my army of alts there, I did take what I'd learned from several years of good professions synergy with my Alliance characters and apply it. Some professions, especially enchanting, are really expensive and time consuming to level without having additional toons and their professions excess feeding into them. And since the excitement over getting to train new recipes and make fabulous new goodies has long been a driver of getting me to work on my alts, it works out very well all around.

So next time you roll an alt, and are tempted to pick two gathering professions or a repeat of an easy profession you've previously breezed through, take a minute to think about if you have an opportunity to make your profession leveling less painful -- or more profitable -- by considering it in context of your own little crafting cabal.

WotLK Epic Tailoring Patterns

With the announcement of the 3.3 epic tailoring patterns, presumably purchased from a vendor in Icecrown Citadel, I figured it was time for a big list of rare drop/non-trainer epic tailoring patterns.

3.3 Patterns (ilvl 264)

Location: TBD. Purchasable with Honored or above reputation with the Ashen Verdict, a new faction related to the siege on Icecrown Citadel.

• Leggings of Woven Death (Revered)
• Deathfrost Boots (Honored)
• Lightweave Leggings (Revered)
• Sandals of Consecration (Honored)

3.2 Patterns(ilvl 245)

Location: Rare drops off bosses in Trial of the Crusader 25.

• Royal Moonshroud Robe (A)
  
• Royal Moonshroud Bracers (A)
  
• Merlin's Robe (A)
  
• Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers (A)
  
• Royal Moonshroud Robe (H)
• Royal Moonshroud Bracers (H)
• Merlin's Robe (H)
• Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers (H)

3.1 Patterns (ilvl 226)

Location: Rare drops off bosses in Ulduar 25.

• Sash of Ancient Power
• Spellslinger's Slippers
• Cord of the White Dawn
• Savior's Slippers

These craftables all share one thing in common: a pretty significant crafting cost. However, if you're a raider who has had bad luck in seeing a specific drop, or if you don't raid frequently, it can be worth it to drop the cash on an item like the boots or a belt.

They all require WotLK specialty cloths (i.e. Moonshroud, Ebonweave, Spellweave). By tier, they have separate 25-man raid-only drop items (the current 2 eventually became purchaseable by badges) that can make up the bulk of your farming time or cost: Runed Orb and Crusader Orb. The 3.3 patterns require Primordial Saronite to purchase the patterns and to make them. It is unknown at this time if that will be a rare drop off the trash in the instance or how it will be obtained by players.

Jewelcrafting

A list of my known rare Jewelcrafting recipes, to be updated as I gain new patterns.

Tailoring

A list of my known rare tailoring recipes, to be updated as I gain new patterns.

Profession Grind: Books of Glyph Mastery

Two weeks ago, I decided my level 70 Alliance scribe really should learn all the Book of Glyph Mastery glyphs. Unfortunately, I was already broke Alliance-side from my druid’s quest for the fawn pet. And I don’t play my alliance characters at all. So it's not like I needed to do this -- I am just completionist about my professions.

But I came up with a sensible solution: I had her sell glyphs every day until she could afford to buy her books. And last night she learned her final glyph. I spent on average 30 minutes per day making glyphs and listing/relisting them. Invaluable in this effort was trading in ink of the seas for all the other inks, and using LilSparky's Workshop and Auctionator to help me see at-a-glance which glyphs were profitable  so I did not waste time making glyphs that sold for less than their materials cost. I spent in the 70-90g range per glyph book, and ended with a 3k G profit, after accounting for cost of supplies and purchasing the books. Not too shabby.

And on a related note, it really does seem rogues are not raiding any longer—their glyphs almost never seemed to sell.

No profession grind like this is complete until you make yourself a chart, so here’s mine after the jump.

New Fishing Pole

After months of fishing dailies, I finally received one of the new poles in my reward bag. It's the Bone Fishing Pole. Same +30 fishing as the Kalu'ak pole, but instead of underwater breathing it grants +40 shadow resistance. Appropriate enough for a shadow priest, yes?

It's a nice looking pole tho I do wish it had a unique lure/bobber thingy. Oh well. It's nice to have a new toy regardless.

Tailoring Rep Grind: Herbalism Bags

I admit it: My Sporeggar rep grind started out as being about the herbalism bag, but I stayed for the Exalted rep to obtain the adorable pet. The Cenarion Circle on the other hand 1) had no pet and 2) was the bane of my existence when Silithus was a new zone and my druid had to farm rep there healing guildies as they slaughtered the annoying (then Elite) bugs.

Thus, my tailor lacks the CC herb bag. One of these days I *will* get around to doing the grind tho, and I'll be sure to pop over and re-read Psynister's post on the CC rep grind.

Wrath of the Lich King Patch 3.1: Bringing the Fishing Dailies Back, Now in Northrend

One of my laments when we initially launched into this expansion was its lack of fishing dailies for fisherwomen such as myself. So when 3.1 brought with it fishing dailies, I was thrilled to say the least, and hopped to discovering the Mystery of the Ghost Fish and gathering many fishing treasures, such as Jack Sparrow's compass, and a bank alt pimp hat. One of my guildies was lucky enough to obtain a fancy fishing rod. But I have yet to see one of those (despite fishing across 3 toons), and no bobbers or turtle mount. Cue crying.

Like its predecessor in Outlands, the fishing quests carry an achievement for completing all of the quests: Chasing Marcia. Here's an overview of the quests you must complete to obtain it:

The Ghostfish
Take the newly zippy flightpath from Dalaran to Sholazar Basin's River's Heart flight point. After disembarking the plane, turn around and start fishing in the lake. It can take a few minutes for you to loot the ghost fish. IMPORTANT NOTE: as soon as you loot one of these babies, you must click on it and eat it. It will despawn 60 seconds after being caught so don't do what I did the first time and fly back to Dalaran with it in your bags...While you're out here, you may want to fish up some Nettlefish for your guild's resident fish feast maker.

Jewel of the Sewers
This is a 2-for-1 fishing activity since while you are down in the sewers waiting to fish up some corroded jewelry for this quest, you have a chance at obtaining the Giant Sewer Rat pet and achievement. I had the person next to me obtain this the other day and I seriously wanteed to push him into the sewer water. Ahem. Personally, when doing this quest,I like to eat a Magic Eater and cast while sitting down (or transformed into creatures like the whelp, above.)

Dangerously Delicious
I kept putting off this one until I realized that the Alliance and Horde flightpaths into Winterspring each have adjacent pools in which you may fish. Of course, ever since I realized that, this quest hasn't popped up. FINE. Also of note (theank you Kadomi) is Wintergrasp fishing is an easy way to obtain all of the fishies you need for your fish feasts without travelling the globe. Which reminds me of the many times I stood around in uncooperative AVs fishing back in the old days...

Monsterbelly Appetite
For this one, I have been flying to Unu'pe and flying east to their adjacent icebergs. Be sure to turn on your fish pool tracking. You'll find the Monsterbelly pools out here. If the other pools are up instead, you can fish them out to help the Monsterbelly pools repop. I lack the patience to just fishin the sea until a monsterbelly happens along but you could do that also. Be sure to loot the "Bloated Monsterbelly" you fish up to retrieve the arm. Return the arm to the first aid shop in Dalaran for your reward.

Blood is Thicker
Fly out to the Borean Tundra flight path of your choice and head towards the lake full of poachers south of the Amber Ledge. If others are out here doing the quest, you can use someone else's pool. Otherwise, kill a big mammoth or other creature and jump into the water, creating a red pool to fish from. Typically, I got 3 fish per cast, making this my quickest fishing daily. WHile you are at the lake, fish up some musselback sculpin for fish feasts.

Helpful Hints

1. Use your best fishing poll and a lure to avoid trash. If youhaven't yet maxed out fishing, get on it as that will help you have fewer casts for the quest objectives.
2. Make sure you are not in a raid group. You can not fish up the quest fishies while in a raid.
3. Grab your cooking and/or jewelcrafting dailies at the same time. It's often efficient to do them all in one circuit.

Your Just Rewards

The gray trash from your Bag of Fishing Treasures can range from a few coppers to 100g vendor price. But not so fast-- the gray jungle hat is actually something you might want to give your favorite lowbie or bank alt since headpieces are hard to come by at low levels. There is also a chance for a rare pet, the strand crawler.

Happy Fishing!

Mystery of the Ghost Fish Revealed!

Loving the new fishing quests so far.

Engineering Needs an Interdimensional Pocket

Overheard on Vent:

"I think in one of the next expansions what engineering needs is an inter-dimensional pocket so you could just show up in a town."

What an excellent idea. Of course, like the teleporters, I would suspect it would do things like randomly port you into whichever town it felt like. Including...cross faction towns. Oh yes, that sounds like a delicously evil new engineering device we definitely need...

Compiling My Cooking Recipe Book

I was  obsessive and completionist regarding my professions long before the Achievement System was put into place. But Achievements have exacerbated these tendencies. Case in point: Cooking recipes.

I had always thought my druid had a comprehensive selection of the recipes available to the Alliance. I mean, yeah I wussed out on the Broodlord chain well before I had the recipe for [Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops]* in my grasp, but I did have all the cooking daily recipes and even the Cenarian Circle’s [Smoked Desert Dumplings].

But then I spied the Sous Chef Achievement for 100 recipes, which was achievable before the Expansion, and was perplexed. How had I missed another 15 possible recipes? Thinking back, it’s possible that on my first character (who, incidentally, is still my main) I didn’t pick up cooking initially, and thus hadn’t gathered all the lowbie recipes. Also, with the addition of the Draenei starting area, they must have added some quests and recipes there as well.

And then I saw the Chef de Cuisine achievement for 160 cooking recipes, only attainable after progressing through Wrath, at which point I got serious about it. And thus, another big ol’ list was born…

Download my list of Warcraft cooking recipes in a PDF or read on for the list in HTML after the jump.

* Turns out this annoying recipe is required to get the achievement as of right now, unless you are a rogue and can thus learn thistle tea. Patch 3.1 will provide at least a couple new recipes to solve for that.

Fishing Dailies Return in 3.1

El's Extreme Anglin' has the scoop on the new Dalaran fishing dailies that will launch in 3.1. And here I had just been complaining yesterday about only having fishing and JC profession dailies. Lots of great junk rewards in them, including lucrative vendor trash, some bank alt bling, and a crawler minni pet! Whoohoo!

The five rotating quests are available in Dalaran, from Marcia Chase the Fishing Trainer who buys your vendored coins next to the Eventide Fountain. A search of professions-related quests on WoWHead lacks details on the 5 dailies El dug up, but it does turn up a daily from Old Man Barlo in Crystalsong forest. We'll see if and when that goes live as well.

I am a little disappointed they went with additional BoP fishing poles as rewards, rather than a new and improved fishing line to augment the shiny epic Kalu'ak fishing pole, or a BOE pole you could use to help get your lazy alts started fishing. Oh well!

:)

Cooking Achievements Update

Pre-expansion, I compiled a guide to the Cooking Achievements that lead to the "Chef" in-game title. After skilling up my cooking on multiple characters, I've discovered that at least three of the required recipes for the Northrend Gourmet achievement do not appear to be currently attainable -- Kungaloosh, Fish Feast, and Orca Stew.

There are quest chains that reward you with a stack of Kungaloosh and Orca Stew, but neither quest provides you with the recipe to make those items. The FIsh Feast looks like it should be a Dalaran Cooking Awards purchase, but it's not on the vendor. Since the achievement requires you to make 45 of 46 possible recipes, these omissions would make this achievement not possible. I have a GM ticket turned in on this topic and will report back if they let me kow how this issue is going to be addressed.

Minor Glyphs: a Checklist

As previously noted, I swapped one of my characters over to inscription and quickly leveled her up to the pre-Expansion maximum. I have been dutifully conducting my inscription research every morning, learning a new minor glyph each day. After about a week, I started finding it hard to keep track of all the ones I have learned-- and of which ones I have equipped on my various characters.

Thus, I made myself a table of the available minor inscriptions, with spaces to check off which ones I have learned plus which ones I've equipped. I've turned that into a PDF. You can also view it as HTML below, behind the cut. Enjoy!

363 Inscription in a Day (but not on Patch Day)

As soon as I decided which character was going to level inscription, I started old-world herb farming. It's fairly boring to run around in the lowbie areas collecting herbs, so I did that in small spurts, starting about a month prior to the patch. I made a list with each herb arranged by tier of use for inscription, and tallied my herbs, and kept herbing until I met the BETA users consensus on about how many herbs it will take to level. Of course, those numbers changed a good 3 times from my initial tally, so there were a few revisits to the Hinterlands, both Plagues and STV. My ultimate herb cache was based on the numbers from Banana Shoulders' indispensable inscription leveling guide.

The last pre-patch preparation I made was to go to WoWhead and read about just what all the major inscriptions did, then ticked off the ones I wanted to be sure to make for my four Alliance characters. It was a bummer, initially, to realize that only the major glyphs are trainable, and that so many of the pre-375 glyphs (i.e. everything 350 and above) require materials from Northrend. Oh well. Wrath of the Lich King will be here soon enough. I hope that it doesn't take until then, however, for my inscription research spell to conjure up the mage polymorph polar bear cub and penguin glyphs (I caved and bought one of the latter for 75g but would like to be able to make them). Wish me luck.

Here's What I did Once the Servers Came Up on Tuesday

I lol'd that I actually thought my ain server would be up and playable on patch night. It's twitchy even on non patch weeks. My secondary server was up, however, and I was able to log on there and play around a bit. And as an aside, I've had the missing flying mount and 1 pet returned, but I am still without my Black Tabby.

But on Wednesday, my main server was crashing less often so I dove in.

After milling and making inks for hours, primarily following the aforementioned guide, but substituting the rare inks and the cards you can make with them whenever possible, I got up to 363 inscription.

I milled about 1700 herbs or so to get there (I may be in denial and that # may be closer to 2000).

I donated 60 or so glyphs to my guild bank, and have sent out minor glyphs to friends for their alts. It's been a blast so far. And I have helped a number of 70s fumble their way through choosing and equipping their first inscriptions. It's too bad there isn't an ingame newsletter (an Azeroth Times) to push out information to folks since it appears from the "What's a Lexicon of Power? Where is Lexicon of Power?" questions that lots of folks do not read patch notes or profession guides.

The only annoyance thus far has been with strangers whipsering me, LOLing at minor glyph prices in the 35-45g range and saying "how much if I just give you the mats?" Uh, same price. Why? Simple math.

With current AH prices, leveling inscription took $1700-3400g in herbs, plus $400g training, and parchment costs. Therefore, strangers have no reason to expect me to give away an inscription I learned through research (1 possible new minor glyph every 20 hours). Prices will go down a bit overall after folks have their first set equipped, but its my opinion that glyphs should be similar in price to blue gems a few months back, especially for minor glyphs sice they are more scarce.

Dealing with strangers wanting cheap/free glyphs reminds me of how annoying leveling enchanting was, with all the non-tippers. And the peeps who would agree to a fee for rare enchants then not cough it up and find all their mats right back at them in the trade window. Thankfully, inscription's vellums will mean I won't have to go through that again -- I can just make extra enchants and cast them on vellum. I can then send them to my alts(yeah! finally!) or put them in the AH. A much appreciated alternative to reenchanting my gear over and over to skill up.

So YEAH! for inscription!

Cooking Achievements in Wrath

Although it's not as awesome as "Iron Chef" you can earn a "Chef" title from achievements after Wrath of the Lich King launches. To earn the title, you need to complete all of the following cooking achievements:

• Grand Master cook
• The Cake Is Not A Lie
• Kickin' It Up a Notch
• The Northrend Gourmet
• Second That Emotion
• Critter Glitter
• Our Daily Bread (differs for horde and alliance)
• Dinner Impossible
• Captain Rumsey's Lager
• Sous Chef
• The Outland Gourmet

Read on for details on each achievement's criteria.

P.S. Collecting all the recipes in game is not required for the Chef title, but it is a related achievement. I've compiled a guide to all the recipes currently available in game and how to obtain them.

Enchanting

This will be a frequently updated list of my known enchanting recipes.

Alchemy

This list will be a frequently updated place for me to keep track of my known alchemy recipes.