Vanity Sells - Blood Elf Bandit Mask

For those of you who have never seen it, this is the Blood Elf Bandit Mask. Bask in its glory. Yes, it takes up your head slot, and has no stats. But it looks as cool as hell, and that has some definite weight when it comes to pricing! And yes, this is somewhat difficult to get, but not too hard if you know how. This, one of the coolest "vanity items" in the game, sells for maybe 50g or more, depending on the server. I have almost never seen them on the auction house, and I know plenty of players, even high level ones, don't even know they exist! So, yeah, this can sell for lots of gold.

You need to head to Azuremyst Isle and kill the Blood Elf Bandit. Now, here is where it gets tricky. Scope out the map (click the link to go to Thottbot), and you'll see that the bandit pops up in a number of places. They will stay in the general zone they spawn in, but they are STEALTHED. Not that a high-level player will have trouble seeing a stealthed level 7 mob, but still, it makes it harder. And if you kill it, there's only a 10% drop chance on the mask! Rough, I know, but that just drives the price up. Also, the mob respawns a short 2 minutes after being killed, which is nice.

So what do you do? Simply run a route that takes you through all the spawn points (pretty much just a big oval, folks, not too hard). Really, unless there is competition, you should be able to find and kill him every 7 or 8 minutes, so you can probably get 1 mask per hour, more if you're rather lucky.

Now, this is an ALLIANCE zone, so it's more likely to be farmed by Alliance toons. So if you get one, it's worth a shot putting it in the neutral Auction House, because however rare it is for an Alliance to have it, a Horde having it is even rarer! Adjust the price accordingly, and let your Horde friends know it's available. Or, if you're on a non-PVP server, put it up for sale with your Alliance toon, buy it with your Horde, and then relist it on the Horde auction house at a higher price. Ooo, sneaky!

So, next time you have nothing to do, give this a shot. It's a bit unconventional, but hey, some players LIVE for having cool looking characters (especially on RP realms). Happy farming!

Sick

Sorry for the lack of updates, everyone. I'm sick right now, haven't felt up devoting that kind of brain power to anything. I work tonight, and that is going to suck. >.<

May the Grind Be With You - More Aldor Rep

Boy, am I sick of grinding Aldor rep. I've been LIVING at Legion Hold in Shadowmoon Valley for a week, grinding whenever I play. It's contributing well to my flying mount fund, but still, it gets old.

So, today I tried a new spot - the Arklon Ruins, southeast of Area 52 in Netherstorm. Wow! It's actually a great place to grind. The mobs are Artifact Seekers and Felblade Doomguards. Unlike the Legion Hold mobs, who have high-damage spells you need to watch out for, these mobs only auto attack, and weakly. They are quite squishy, and I only had to stop to eat about once per 10 or so kills. Also, they drop Marks of Sargeras at about 30%, which is 5% higher than the mobs at Legion Hold! It doesn't seem like much, but it really is. They also drop Fel Armaments more. In 1 hour of grinding I got 2 greens, 42 Marks, and 4 Fel Armaments! The only downside is that I didn't come out with 100+ Netherweave to sell. :(

So, there you have it. For a speed grind, hit Arklon Ruins. For lots of gold as well as rep items, Legion Hold.

Skinning Quillfang Ravagers in Hellfire

Crystal Infused Leather, aside from sounding very cool, is used in most high level Leatherworking recipes. However, it's kind of a specialty item in terms of where it comes from. It sells anywhere from 10-15g per stack on my server, so it's worth it to grind for it. It's not very hard, either!

Head to Hellfire Peninsula, and grind on Quillfang Ravagers. Kill, skin, rinse, repeat! Hold onto the Fel Scales they may drop, and keep your fingers crossed for greens! This is a somewhat out of the way spot (check the map for location), so don't worry about too much competition!

This isn't fancy: skinning is a straightforward deal! File this info away into your list of good gold grinding spots, or for when you roll a Leatherworker. ;)

Mapwow.com

Mapwow is a very, very useful tool. Basically, it's like Google Earth, but for World of Warcraft! Even better, you can set it to show the spawn points of any environmental nodes, like herbs, mining nodes, or treasure chests!

With the ability to zoom out, you can find which zones have inherently more of whatever item(s) you are looking for. If you're a rogue, I suggest you begin farming treasure chests in Outlands as soon as you have the ability. You can gather lots of blues or epics with some persistence and luck (or, lacking luck, just lots of persistence). Or if you're a blacksmith, make some keys and go to it! I do recommend that if you're going to go farming for things like this, have at least your epic ground mount. Of course, a flying mount makes everything in Outlands even easier, ESPECIALLY when you can bypass all the mobs and get to where you want to go without hassle!

Alternatively, look up the Cartographer addon in Google, and you will find that it can be set up to modify your maps ingame to show these same spawn points. I have more info about that particular functionality in my post about Cartographer databases!

May the Grind Be With You - Alliance and Horde in Shadowmoon Valley

Okay, everyone, this one is kind of fun. In Shadowmoon Valley, in the Outlands, the Alliance town is "Wildhammer Stronghold", and the Horde town is "Shadowmoon Village". These are two of the main quest hubs in the zone for each faction, and interestingly, you don't even need to leave town to complete one of them!

For the Horde, the quest begins with Chief Apocethary Hildagard, and for the Alliance, Zorus the Judicator.

The quest you are interested in is the second of a chain, the first of which there are no requirements to take, other than speaking to Fantei in Shattrath first. So, find your NPC and knock out the first quest, and accept the second, which for the Horde is Spectrecles, and for the Alliance is Harbingers of Shadowmoon.

This is a typical grind quest, but here's the kicker: It takes place INSIDE a town. The mobs are very easy to kill, level 67-68. They drop lots of Netherweave, and are plentiful and quickly spawning. In short, this is a perfect, safe, lucrative place to grind! And the best part is that you're perfectly safe! So, next time you get ganked at your favorite grind spot, keep in mind that you have a much, much safer option open to you!

Get the Edge in the Auction House

Something few people take into consideration in the Auction House is the ORDER that items are listed in. The major factor in this is what the BID is set to. So, if you're undercutting someone's buyout, and they have a lower starting bid, their item gets listed higher up on someone's search results.

Now, no one is going to buy an item they don't even know is on the Auction House. Every little edge counts, and this one is easy to apply. Before listing something, check to see what your competition is. You'll already be undercutting their buyouts (you'd BETTER be, if you're listing it with competition!), but make sure you undercut their BID price as well. It only needs to be a little bit, and that will ensure that your item gets highest priority in someone's search! Every little bit counts.