Elkagorasa the Casual

Overview - Making gold on the auction house is an easy and reliable way to increase your wow pocketbook. I have not reached gold limit, but I don't scrape by. By doing only the very basics each day, I have recently purchased a 16kg mount (March) and a 9.7k gold battered hilt (May) within a matter of months. I don't grind for my mats (who has the time??) , and I am not about to start leveling yet another alt, so that I can do multiple professions ("Elk" the Casual , remember??). I spend maybe 30 - 60 minutes each week on this. Addons -   Use of add-ons are key to running a successful gold making business in WoW. They add simplicity and consistency to the process that would otherwise require lots of organization. Keeping track of trends, materials costs, creating your auction-able items, and finally posting and collecting your rewards! Auctioneer - This addon provides additional functionality to the typical Auction House window. Straight out of the box, it allow...

With some gold burning a hole in my pockets, I ran over to the auction house today, plunked down the 9700g for a battered hilt . If you don't already know, this is the 'epic' quest chain that has you rebuild one of the "ancient" weapons. The quest chain has you piece together the pieces of the weapon, fix them, bless them then get permission to use the weapon. When completed, you get to choose from 4 different swords. I am loving the Lens of the Mind  ( comparison ) as a Warlock. Sure I'll lose some +hit, but I'll gain: 7 Int 20 Sta 54 Crit (1.18%)   107 Spell Power Once you get the hilt, you head up to the Argent tourney grounds and meet with a weapon specialist up there. He helps you identify the hilt. Once you've identified it, you get a surprise meeting with an ICC boss, who tells you to STOP. It's a very dangerous weapon that this boss helped destroy to prevent the Lich King from finding and fixing. Night Elf in Filthy Animal One...

When Blizzard first announced that it was working on a Remote Auction House , I had my concerns. Gold Farmers posting 24 hours a day, playing the markets on all servers, hackers stealing my account info and wiping me out, or even myself scanning the AH all day at work, to just be able to quest when I am at home. Checking out the links and reading through the FAQ , it looks like it won't be any of those. It will be a subscription service (free during beta), $3/month when in production. You can only do 25 transactions a day. It requires your WoW credentials, so got Authenticator?  No addons (yet). There isn't an "Auctioneer" available yet that will scan the AH and tell me how much something I should sell something for.  The major benefit I see this being useful for, purchasing upgrades from the office.The issue being 2-fold, no way do I want to pay $3/m for a new subscription and not carrying my authenticator around with me all the time. The AH Beta consists o...

Coming soon to Azeroth near you, the world is going to dramatically change. Terrain changes, class changes, even opening up new locations and progression. How can one prepare for this? How am I preparing for this? Quests / Zone changes - The most pressing issue I have at the moment is trying to capture quests and zones that I missed while leveling my main. I would absolutely love to get the Loremaster title before Cataclysm drops, but I am not pressing it hard. I have turned off my Find Herbs, and running with Find Low Level quests, when I fly taxis through Classic. I found I have about 6 incomplete quests in Kargath when I ran up to Gnomeregan . Clearing stock - With a number of the recent changes, the economy on my server is slowly dropping. Raw gems that used to see for 300% profit are now down to 150% - 200% profit. People are finishing off the end-world content, Lich King is now on farm and they're just not getting the massive gear drops. Those that aren't raiding,...

Welcome to our Tour of Azeroth : Lost series. As part of this mini-series, I, Elkagorasa, will take you on a short visit of a couple of sites that resemble or come directly from the TV show Lost . First stop, The Statue . The Statue can be found at the end of the land mass in Azshara .  Azeroth's version is a bit different as both feet are plainly visible, and it is destroyed at the thigh, not the shin. Since the flight that crashed into the original statue was not an aircraft, but a zeppelin, it did a lot less damage. Speaking of zeppelins, lets all head back to Orgrimmar and fly on over to Northrend, hop on the zeppelin over to Borean Tundra. Now head north into Sholazar Basin, off to one side of Bittertide Lake ( map ). There you shall find a hatch very similar to the one built by the Dharma Initiative, but one off. Probably what they get for using Goblin help to build the bunker?? Locke (blade vendor) (Desmond) David Hume Yo...

Do you help new players, if so in what way?  ( source )  If you've read my About page, you'll know I started playing WoW on the encouragement of friends. At that time, I was helped leveling, getting gear and grab as much XP and gold by running dungeons. I enjoy the camaraderie of the game. In many ways, I felt like the apprentice to the master raider.Continuing that tradition, I am more than eager to help my fellow guildies out (and their many alts). If it be, group quests, or helping 2-man a low-level instance, or even a generous gift of 10-20 gold to get them started, Elk is more than excited to help out. Heck, sometimes we find low-level quests that still needs to be completed for Loremaster . Taking that outside the guild, I am a bit more reserved. While, I'd love to be that rich benefactor that hands out gold to all entry level characters, I realize that there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there. Those that would simply create 5 new characters in order to ...

Monday night, I gambled and tried out a Heroic ICC-10 PUG run. Unfortunately, I learned that I am totally underqualified for Heroic modes. Well, at least according to the other 9 players. Gear-wise, I think I am right in there, but as for knowledge of the fights, I am, well, ok. Basic strat for Marrowgar : Attack boss, avoid blue fire, avoid whirlwind, fight boss, all the time attack bone spikes asap. Unfrotunately, we wiped around 6 times. Then the 'truths' started coming in my direction. Not enough DPS   - I am moving around too much, well yeah, blue fire = bad! refreshing dots and life tap when up. Hitting the barbs too slowly or too late - I am affliction! Expect 1second per shadowbolt, or slow ticks of corruption. According to Recount, my favorite bone spike attack was Haunt. Healers out of mana before end of fight, can I go Destro? They "needed" someone spec'd into Regeneration. I guess they all can't be warlocks, but I never heard of this happe...

After reading through the Operation Gnomeregan propogation about the Alliance(-only) planning to retake the Gnome home city in the upcoming expansion, I felt rather miffed, left-out, sad. Why do the Alliance get this cool new project to work on??..  I want the fun of reclaiming some lands for the brothers of my horde clan. /cry Then, I got over it and moved on. Blizzard doesn't play that game. They try their very hardest to balance the experience for both sides of the fence. Alliance get Gnomeregan Horde get Echo Isles Now, if you don't play an Orc or Troll, you probably never saw the Echo Isles area. It consists series of islands at the very southern tip of Durotar ( map ). This was that group of quests that lead to the killing of Zalzane  (Note: soon to be feat of strength ), the evil witch doctor who took over this land. Vol'jin's Darkspears settled in nearby Sen'jin Village, which they have since used as a staging point to attack Zalazane. Over the ye...

I was reading through the Dev notes about the upcoming zone revamps. One of the zones to get a major revamp is Mt. Hyjal. This area is going to become a major entry level quest hub (78 - 82) in Cataclysm. It sounds like from what I've read it'll be a phased zone like Icecrown. With these changes to Mt. Hyjal, I am curious as what will happen to the current raid zone there? I don't think it will be soloable like Gnomeregan, but definitely should be easier as it's an end-game (BC) raid. One more achievement that I'd like to get completed before Cataclysm drops. As it rolls up into the Outland Raider achievement .

Alright, so the run to Gnomeregan wasn't that bad. Dalaran -> Orgrimmar -> Stranglethorn -> Fly to Kargath -> ride through Loch Mordan -> tunnels to Dun Morogh. Total travel time ?? I queued for and completed my dungeon daily and pvp daily in the middle of the entire trip. (2 wins in PVP, most excellent - only serious achievement getters and die-hard pvpers). Inside the dungeon, I followed Cassandri's walkthrough almost to a tee. I mistakenly followed her instructions to the exit before I killed the last boss, so I had to back track a bit. No problems, as at level 80 all the mobs are paper. I had to put my felpuppy into passive mode to avoid him killing the bosses with his death breath, before I could put a dot on them. Best of all, I got the cool helm that drops off the end boss.  Now my " Around Town " outfit features a satelite dish helm!

The other day, I was reading through the Dev Twitter Chat that is posted over on the WoW forums and made a few notes. Most of the topics that I found interesting, were clarifications on points that we've already heard in the class changes, or questions about specific spell series. Here's what I found immediately relevant to myself: 310 Mounts trainable - Not clear if this is related to all players (have 310% mount and not). To me it has two possible interpretations. First, I have a 310 mount, and if I can train and convert all my mounts to 310 speed. Second thought, like the Cold Weather tome, you could send this to your alts and get them the 310 speed. IMHO, Blizz don't waste dev time if it's option 1. Having gone through the holiday achievement, it should be given to me. If it's option 2, I could see a definite need for it, my dk could be my herbalist and go around gathering mats for me on his 310 dk mount. Update (5/5/2010): It certainly is happening, but...

I was reviewing my reputation with  the various factions today and I realized that I've hit Exalted with about 15 different groups. 16 (of 20) according to the achievement page. This implies to me that I should have or be really close to completing the Ten Tabards achievement. Unfortunately when I review, I currently have only equipped 7. So, how do I go about acquiring the remaining 9 that I've earned? How do I even figure out which ones I've already purchased? Due to the lack of stacking or separate character tab, I've tossed the " Championing " tabards as soon as I hit exalted. OK that means I've worn: Argent Crusade Ebon Blade Kirin Tor Wyrmrest Accord Next, I have my guild tabard (5) and my Explorer tabard (6). Ok, I just realized that I got a tabard from fire festival (7). Whew! Thanks for lending your ear, er eyes. Now for the remaining tabards.  I qualify for all of the horde tabards, but they appear to be 50 champion seals each (s...

I am one of those Horde players that have yet to complete Gnomeregan . One, it's hard to get to, especially if you (like me) didn't do the quests to get in there and second it's a very big zone. Last time I tried to solo it, I got lost in the entry areas. Worst off, this enormous zone, that you can't mount and ride through, lots of running around (lost). Coming soon, it sounds like this area may not even be available: For Mekkatorque, however, his plan goes beyond just reacquiring lost technology. The retaking of Gnomeregan will determine his place in history, either as the high tinker who lost the gnomes' beloved capital, or the one who reestablished it as the center of innovation on Azeroth. Operation: Gnomeregan is about to get underway.( source )  I guess that I am going to need to revisit this zone, because I really, really want to complete the Classic Dungeonmaster achievement. I am not too worried about Cataclysm closing down this zone, but if I a...