Cartographer

For those of you who don't use it, Cartographer is a very nice addon for World of Warcraft that adds a coordinate system to your map. This makes it easier for people to explain where things are on message boards, guild members, etc. It also shows general level brackets for zones, instance maps, and has a whole slew of other great features. Read up on it at the link above!

However! Today, a guildmate of mine tuned me into the fact that Cartographer has another very useful purpose: Gathering! With the use of some nifty databases, Cartographer can put little points on your map showing you where ALL the possible spawn points are in any given area. That can be mining nodes, herbs, treasure, questgivers/turnins, whatever. This makes it so, so easy to follow a route around a zone to gather materials, because you now know every possible place it can spawn. I can't stress how much easier this makes gathering! And unlike Gatherer, you don't have to have found it first for it to show up on your map: it's just given to you!

You can download the databases from Curse, in the form of LUA files. You need Cartographer installed, and you also need to get the dependent program for whichever nodes you want. Look under the "dependencies" header on the link provided.

Installation is simple enough. Make sure you aren't logged in. Extract that Cartographer addon to your World of Warcraft\Interface\Addons folder, and extract the database files (the LUA files) to your \World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\_name_\SavedVariables folder. Make sure you enable the addons on your character select screen, and you're done!

Make Life Easier With Gatherbook!

First of all, if you have a gathering profession, and don't have Gatherer, get it! What it does is keep track of where you've mines, herbs, etc, and what you got from gathering it! Also, it communicates with other Gatherer users in your guild, so anytime someone finds something, you know where! Very useful in large guilds.

Now, Gatherbook takes it a step further. It essentially is lots and lots of Gatherer information rolled into one, so you'll easily be able to see where you need to go to RELIABLY find certain items! It can be kind of confusing to use, so I would direct you all to this page for comprehensive instructions!

PPP: Adamantite Breastplate

Time for another PPP, that is, Particularly Profitable Pattern installment, a guide to buying and reselling vendor items for easy gold!

There's nothing quite as annoying as falling for your own tricks. I've been leveling up Blacksmithing recently, and when I was perusing the Auction House, I ran across Plans: Adamantite Breastplate. This is a very decent chest piece to have when leveling up, especially if it's your first time beyond 60. And if you're a completist, like me, and want ALL the Blacksmithing recipes... well, I bought it out at 13 gold. Only later did I find out it comes from a VENDOR in Telaar! I bought it for over twice as much as it was worth, and counted it a decent deal, until I found all of this out.

So, if you're in the area (check the link above to find out which vendors sell it), look for these plans! If I fell for it, anyone would.

Psychological Tricks on the Auction House

There's no better human trait to exploit than GREED. It's the basis of sales in our society. If something is on sale, you're more likely to buy it, whether or not you need it. After all, it's on SALE! Buy it when it's cheap, because otherwise you'll pay more. You can effectively create a "sale atmosphere" on the Auction House, too! It's kind of underhanded, but it can give you a nice edge.

Find a pair of items on the Auction House, like a blue piece of equipment. You need to have 2 of them, and no others on the Auction House, so take some time to hunt around. Now, send one of the blues to an alt, and list it for a high price, maybe twice the normal price. Then get on your main, and list their's for closer to the real value.

What you're doing is taking advantage of people's eye for good deals, even other Auctioneers. When someone sees how much less your main's listing is than your alt's listing, they are more likely to buy it, because it will seem like such a great deal! Sure, some people will see through it, but we all know there are a lot of unintelligent people in the game, don't we? =D

Easy Disenchanting For Easy Gold

Most people tend to consider Enchanting a money sink. Well, if you're trying to get to 375, it is. ALL professions are money sinks, if you want to get them to 375. But you don't need to be a high level Enchanter for this to work!

Enchanting materials are always in demand. Not only are they used in Enchanting, but some of the materials are used to transmute cloth, or in various other professions. The key is being efficient!

One of my favorite runs for disenchant able items is Scarlet Monastery. Across the 3 areas, there are quite a few bosses! So, this is simple enough. Run the sections as fast as you can, kill the bosses, disenchant their higher-level drops, especially any blues. Rinse, repeat. Obviously, this is best when done by a stealth class, but any high level character can do it. Between Archanist Doan, Commander Mograine, High Inquisitor Whitemane and Herod, there's a lot of potential for profitable disenchanting!

Since this is so easy to do, don't be afraid to undercut the competition more than you might otherwise. You can get more of this stuff more easily than a lot of them probably are, who are only selling the materials they HAPPEN to come across!

Get that First Mount!

There are a ton of tactics out there to help people get their mounts as fast as possible, but I prefer a straightforward approach. This technique works best on older, well-established servers, but also works great on new servers, for other reasons.

The Deadmines. I love this instance. You can easily do it as Horde or Alliance. From about 30 on, you can run it yourself fairly easily. In one run, you'll probably get 6 or 7 or 10 green drops. Low level green drops, right? Who cares?

Well, if you're on an old server, the player population is rich. When they roll a new character, they want to buy what they need, not farm for it. On my server, a Seer's Belt goes for 2 gold. 2 gold is nothing to someone funding their character with a level 70 alt. So, those green items, sold at these very high prices, really do add up.

Alternatively, on a new server, the items will be very in demand again as people level their characters. This means they'll move fast, but as the population isn't as rich as on an old server, you won't be able to charge as much. Still, you can make a mint doing this, at least from a low-level, new player point of view!

Picking Manathistle

Mana Thistle is a great herb for alchemists. Other than having a cool name, it is needed for many higher end recipes, such as the various Cauldrons, and most of the highest level elemental protection and healing/mana potions. Also, when you pick it, it restores some mana! How cool is that?

Mana Thistle can only be picked by a master Herbalist, that is, 375 skill. Aside from that, the places it grows most consistently can only be reached with a flying mount! So, this is not an easy herb to get, which means it tends to sell high and well.

• In Terokkar Forest, you can pick it in the southeast corner, at Skettis. Also, in the Barrier Hills just above the Aldor base.
• In Blade's Edge Mountains, check out the Pinnacle Vortext to the west, and Felstorm Point in the north.
• In Netherstorm, in the northwest, at Socrethar's Seat.
  
• In Shadowmoon Valley, check out the southeastern Netherwing Ledge.

Here's a link to Thottbot to help you. Just click on the zone you want to check out and it'll bring up a map. This stuff sells for 50-60 gold per stack on most servers, so if you're an Herbalist, get picking!