Zug’s Gold Mastery Guide, Reviewed

 Reviews  1 Response »
Sep 302008
 

Note 6/6/11: Zug’s guide is now “Dominate WoW Gold” and that’s where the links below will take you. I have not seen that product, the review below is regarding a copy of the original Zug’s guide, which was pretty good. I expect the new product is, as well. Currently I’m using the Tycoon addon and finding that it fills my gold acquisition needs.

Zug’s Gold Mastery Guide

Zug, at ZugGaming.com, was kind enough to send me a copy of his World of Warcraft Gold Mastery Guide for review and I’ve been reading it over for the last few days.

I’m even using his “Tuesday Techniques” which I think will turn a tidy profit.

All in all I’m quite pleased with the guide and have no problems recommending it. I would like to see videos of some of the Auction House stuff, but it’s easy to read, well laid out, well written, and full of good tips and useful info.

You can snag your copy here, or read on to see more detail on what’s included in Zug’s guide.

Zuggy’s Gold Mastery Guide is actually six guides in one. You get guides for grinding, cashing in on professions, limited items, daily quests, auction house mastery, and a tools and tips guide.

The Grinding Guide – Grinding is the most common way to make WoW gold and Zug included plently of recommendations here, including maps marked to show specific locations. Also included are a number of tips for more efficient grinding, including beverage recommendations (Mountain Dew, of course.)

While grinding is a tad on the dull side (Ok, a LOT on the dull side) it’s a proven method for making gold and is the method of choice for a lot of players.

The Limited Items – If you’ve read any of my previous gold posts you’ll know that I’m a fan of limited items. Buy ’em cheap and sell ’em high. Zuggy’s Limited Items Guide is a pretty complete listing of vendors, their general location, and which item(s) you want to look for. While it’s easy enough to look up locations on Thottbot, exact locations would have been a nice addition to the guide.

Still, this list makes it easy to get on your epic mount and make the rounds of the vendors, then mail all your goodies to your banker for resale at large markups.

This works because many people aren’t interested in wasting time looking for vendors and checking to see if they maybe have that item in stock, this time. So you provide the convenience of easy availability and they pay you more than retail for the favor.

The Professions Guide – Yes, they can be used for making gold, some of them anyway, rather than burnng through your existing cash stash. Enchanting, blacksmithing, leatherworking, and others (in addition to the gathering professions) are covered here. Note – this isn’t a profession leveling guide. You’ll have a chance to grab one of those when you grab his guide.

The Dailies Guide – All 70s know to do their dailies for easy gold, rep, and loots. Which ones are the best though? (yeah, I know. Quel’Danas.) Zuggy lists all the dailies by area, notes which ones are worth doing and how much you earn from each. He also includes links to WoWhead for each quest if you need info on who, what, and where. Very nice.

The Auction House System – This is where the real gold is made in WoW, through mastering the Auction House. Zug covers which addons you need (Auctioneer, Gatherer, and others.) as well as how to install and use them to best effect.

He does a great job of covering how to use Auctioneer and uses screenshots to good effect. Videos would have been a nice addition here and I asked him about that. He agrees that it’s a good idea so I think current buyers of Zuggy’s guide will see some nice updates and stuff coming up, rather than having a forgotten product.

Tips, Tools, and Tricks – this one’s a catch-all for stuff not mentioned elsewhere, including the right way to make a bank alt, as well as leveling and more profession notes.

So why not just BUY gold? Ever read that Terms of Service agreement that you automatically click “agree” to when WoW is updated? Buying gold, items, accounts, etc is prohibited, so Bliz will ban your booty if they find you’re buying stuff you shouldn’t. Still, it’s your account…

With a guide you’ll end up making far more gold for far less money than a seller will charge you. Grab a copy of Zug’s guide here, follow the tips, and you’ll forget about ever wanting to buy gold again. Your account will breathe a sigh of relief and you’ll enjoy flying around on that epic flying mount (or riding that 15k, 3 person mount when Wrath comes out.)

Leveling Inscription in Wrath

 Professions  4 Responses »
Sep 302008
 

Inscription is coming in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and with it is another opportunity to do something with that herbalism skill.

Too Many Annas has the story on what kind of herbs you’ll need to level Inscription, as well as a link to the Inscription 101 Guide.

Siha recently posted a fantastic and extensive guide to leveling inscription in the upcoming patch (3.0) – kind of as a head-start for the expansion.

Now, I’m not one to get too into this whole beta business, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but with a release date announced and patch 3.0 on the PTR, we’re going to see some changes to BC before we actually see the Lich King CDs on our desks. And, well, I’m all for being prepared – especially on an old server (Feathermoon has been around since release) with extremely high prices for EVERYTHING, even low level stuff. Right now stacks of low level herbs are selling for around 5g on a good day, and that’s well before anyone is going to actually use them to level inscription!

The rest: Stashing Herbs

edit: I’ve posted an herbalism leveling guide (to prepare for Inscription) and a review of Penn’s Professions Guide, which will help you to power level your Inscription skills.

Update 3/20:  Well, inscription has been around awhile, now. Any thoughts? A commenter says, “the info looks less..why don’t u provide on this..”  Parsing the mangled English, I think he’s asking for an inscription guide on this site? I wrote one, but it’s on GotWarcraft.com, here: leveling inscription.

You’ll find that Inscription is pretty easy to level and far less expensive to level than any of the other crafting professions. It has some cool items just for the scribe, too. Oh yeah, it’s also a major cash generator as far as I’m concerned.

The Gnaked Gnome Race

 Just for Fun  Comments Off on The Gnaked Gnome Race
Sep 302008
 

Yes, Big Red Kitty has gone mad. Waitminute… what do you mean he was already there? Sigh…

Oh, right…. gnaked gnome races.

Yeah, that’s right. 10/04/08 is the great gnome race from the hatching area to Booty Bay. Good thing it’s not on a PvP server. (Does gnaked = ganked?)

What’s that? You want details? Oh, those…

Ok, go here: This is Not a Drill!

edit: Now if it WAS a PvP server we could have the Naked Orc Gnome Hunters competing alongside the race…

Wrathful Thoughts

 wrath of the lich king  1 Response »
Sep 262008
 

Transferred my 70 BE Rogue over to the Wrath Beta the other day. So here are some gameplay thoughts.

It’s interesting having to redo my talents everytime I log in. Went with a 51 pt combat build (s1 swords) this time around. With Blade furry, sword spec, adrenaline rush, unfair advantage… It’s Cuisinart Rogue! 🙂 May have to try a bit of herding…

I’ve only been through a few of the quests, halfway to 71 now, but there are some that I really like. Freeing NPCs and having them help out is always fun.

Smashing 100 undead with a tank that’s armed with a big saw… Well, that quest’s good for a little extra grinding. “Hey boss, I killed 3,650 of the scourge things, is that ok?”

Riding under the flying carpet was interesting… (sorry, no screenie, I was asleep at the switch.) Guess the Devs thought it was a glider type parachute.

Speaking of parachutes, yep you’ll get to parachute down at one point (at least.) Very cool.

Joined a guild, Violence, that has 350+ members. Quietest guild I’ve ever been in.

I like the mist effects.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to Wrath.

edit: by the way, I’m already seeing green gear that’s, in some ways, as interesting as my s1/s2 PvP gear. I expect in a couple levels I may be thinking about going back to greens.

Paladins, WAR, DnD, and Stuff

 The WoW Web  Comments Off on Paladins, WAR, DnD, and Stuff
Sep 252008
 

Paladins in Warhammer Online? Is this what Paladins were meant to be? From Blessings of Kings, the Warrior Priest:

I gave the Warrior Priest in Warhammer Online a whirl. This class is awesome! If the class plays at endgame like it does now, Blizzard is going to lose paladins to WAR. (At least, if there are any old-school hybrid paladins left.)

Do you play the Pen and Paper RPGs, such as DnD? I have been since, oh, ’79 or so, right about the time the original DnD Player’s Handbook came out. What about you? Tobald’s MMO Blog asks the same question:

My pen & paper roleplaying group just started a new campaign, this time playing the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game (2005 edition). I’m playing with these guys for years now, various campaigns, usually every second Monday evening. But we are all around 40ish, and sometimes I feel like being a dinosaur when rolling dice and scribbling on character sheets.

The rest: Do you play pen & paper RPGs?

Spooncraft has some thoughts on leveling Blacksmithing before Wrath, or waiting till after it hits. Ask Spoon: Should I Level my Professions now or wait until Wrath?

Have a Hunter who’s approaching 70? Check out Aspect of the Hare’s The Hunter Enchants Cheat Sheet: Burning Crusade Edition

You want enchants. I see a lot of freshly-minted-70 hunters who do not have their gear enchanted, or have them enchanted incorrectly. Fear not, Pike is here to help while her WoWish avatar Tawyn goes off to get smashed at Brewfest (Seriously, part of Tawyn’s RP is that she’s an alcohol fiend. Brew-of-the-Month-Club has her name all over it.)

In this guide, I’m going to tell you the best enchants you can get per item slot, and how to get them. As a forewarning, do note that this list is PvE-oriented. So let’s start at the top:

Zuggy has some remarks on the Rogue’s Assassination tree: Rogue Opportunity Changes – Build 8982. Of course, I expect that any changes to the Rogue (and other class) talents aren’t finalized yet. Expect more in the near future.

There’s been some pretty big changes to the rogue class during this wotlk beta, none larger than the change to mutilate and positional attacks, but blizzard just tossed out yet another curve ball…take a look at the rogue changes for beta build 8992.

And in the This is Just Fraggin’ Cool department: Today, I was Reminded Why I Play WoW

Edit – In the “Some Things I’d Really Like to See in WoW” department: City of Heroes is coming out with some cool stuff.

  • Multiple Builds. One character, two builds. Wouldn’t this be a cool thing for raiders who also PvP, or Visa Versa? I’ve seen it suggested a few times by WoW players.
  • Leveling Pact. Have a buddy that you like to play with, but one or the other of you gets to play (far) more often than the other? CoH is going to implement a leveling pact where you and your buddy’s XP is shared. As either of you levels the other gains XP as well, whether or not they’re online at the time. That way you and your partner stay at the same level.
  • And, of course, the CoH character builder, which just pwns every other one out there.

You Know You’ve Been Playing Too Much WoW When…

 Just for Fun  3 Responses »
Sep 242008
 

It’s old, it’s been done, but I’m still going to do it again!

You know you’ve been playing too much World of Warcraft when…

  • You start another one of these discussions/threads
  • you change your homepage to Thottbot/WOWHead/etc.
  • You look at Democrats and Republicans as Horde and Alliance (and the Goblins are the Independent parties.)
  • you get confused or upset because you can’t walk through people in real life.
  • You refer to other people and make note of their faction, class, and probable level. Jack Bauer is a …
  • You and your computer chair have become one
  • You pass a cop and wonder if you just aggroed him.
  • The rest of the family goes on vacation without you, since they know you’ll be lost in the real world.
  • You wonder why all the hunters have the same pet when you walk through your local dog park.
  • You end your blogging about WoW, because you turned around to see that your significant other was playing, and how can she possibly play when you, yourself, are blogging??????
  • You run around the streets, wearing nothing but your underwear, shouting “GOLD PLS!”

Some of the above were swiped from the following sites:

And a few more YKYBPTOWOWWs from the WoW Forums:

  • When asked where something is, you respond with “Look it up on thottbot, gosh….”
  • When you and your RL friends start calling each other by their WoW character names.
  • You tell your co-workers you’re going to go loot the vending machine because at least it’s 100% drop rate.
  • When you open Firefox and start typing your account information into the Google search bar.
  • When you say gold instead of money IRL (In Real Life) and don’t notice.
  • when you try to gank garden gnomes
  • When you confuse the date for a spec build. (Ok, it’s 9/24/08… that’s 9 pts in assassination, 24 in combat, and 8 in subtlety…)

Add your own in the comments and they may get added to the list!

And in the Apropos of Nothing department…

You’re on Notice!

Put ’em On Notice here.

Low Levels CAN Make Lots of Gold in WoW

 Get the Gold  3 Responses »
Sep 232008
 

I got the idea for this from a gold blog, MakeWoWgold – Myth #5 – Low levels can’t make gold – and thought I’d add my 2 cents worth. Especially since I make 95+% of my gold with low levels.

Low levels characters can make a lot of gold and some will even argue that they should make pretty much ALL of your gold. The tips below are covered in vastly greater detail in the Massive Gold Blueprint, but what I’m putting down here will get you started.

What they’re not doing, of course, is grinding motes on the Elemental Plateau or hunting up adamantine ore or Fel Lotus in the Outlands. Heck, even newbs can do this stuff and make gold.

The method is to buy low and sell higher and this can be done with your level 1s. You’ll need some seed money which you can get from your high level or by grinding ore for a bit. Then you look for the deals.

Find vendors selling limited items. These are the items that are only available in small quantities from any given vendor, generally 1 to 3 at a time. Once bought they’re gone until the vendor gets new stock (a few minutes to a few hours.)

All of the big cities have these vendors and many of the small towns do, as well. The two item vendors at the DarkMoon Faire have quite a variety of limited items, which is why you’ll see people camping them.

Many, not all, of these items will sell for more, sometimes a lot more, on the Auction house than what you pay for them. For example, you can buy Fel Lotus (every once in awhile) from the Faire for 4 gold a piece, then sell it for 15-30 gold, depending on all the usual factors.

Clothing items also sell. The White Wedding Dress, in Stormwind, sells to you for about 1 gold and sells on the AH for 8-12.

When you find items make a note of their prices and check the Auction House prices. Make it a habit to do that and you will start finding items that are very much worth your while to buy and resell. The items prices will vary wildly from server to server, so you should really make youir own list. The Auctioneer addon is a big help here, but even if you don’t have it or want it you can still do this stuff.

Certain basic items needed by crafters also sell nicely. Some crafters look to powerlevel their skill and just buy everything off the AH. They’re not interested in deals or best prices, they just gather it all up and gain 200 points to their skill in a couple of hours. So on some servers you can buy the Copper Rod, needed by Enchanters, for pennies and resell it for several gold.

Park a level 1 alt in each of the majors cities, send them some gold to get started (when you have enough) and then you won’t have to spend time flying all over the place. With these alts in place you can log into Alt #1, buy stuff, and then send it to your banker. Repeat with Alt #2 and Alt #3.

Every now and then you will see a killer deal on the Auction House. Buy it and resell it. This is one of the methods used by some to make lots of gold.They just by a lot of stuff at a time and resell it.

One of the nice things about this is that you don’t have to use your high levels for grinding/farming. Use the low levels to get the gold, use your higher levels for the fun stuff.

Now go make a stash.

Level 80 WoW Talents and Builds

 wrath of the lich king  5 Responses »
Sep 212008
 

The Wrath is coming. Time to hide.

Of course, one of the big changes in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion is the changes to all the various talent trees. As you probably know, Blizzard isn’t just adding a few new talents or increasing the level cap to 80. No no no, there’s a little more to it than that – they’re making large changes to existing talents and shuffling around their exact position in the talent trees.

So what I’ve put together here is a collection of posts, from various places, that discuss the level 80 talents and changes. Some of these also offer build suggestions, both from raiding and PvP points of view. In addition, If you want to play around with talent builds for your own characters you’ll find the level 80 WoW talent calculator here.

Of course, the changes aren’t 100% finished, all of this is still in beta test, and Blizzard has been known to make big last minute changes. We can count on more changes along with the usual collection of nerfs and maybe some buffs. Still, it’s a place to start thinking about how you might spec your characters when you upgrade to Wrath.

Update 10/14: The 3.0 patch has arrived and here’s an update post on what’s happening with the WoW Talents and Builds.

’nuff said, here ya go!

WotLK: Build 8962 – 4 Extra Points for Frost – When the WotLK expansion hits, as I level up, I will start filling in the Arcane tree until I get Focus Magic. When I hit 80 and start raiding again, the talent build that I will most likely be using is this: 80 PvE/PvP Frost.

WotLK Paladins May Have “Shocking” Potential – All of the above said, the following, were I to PvP as a Shockadin at level 80, would be my talent build without question:.  Allow me a couple caveats with the above build: …

Tanked! Revaluing Feral Combat Talents in Beta Build 8926 – The pictured talent build is essentially what I’d like to be using at 80. All PH NYI (place holder, not yet implemented) talents are now “live” on beta, and it’s pertinent to note that the talent “Mother Bear” has been renamed to the …

Want to hit level 80 fast? Looking for ways to familiarize yourself with Northrend without wasting valuable playtime running around in circles? Check out the Killer Guides’ Wrath guide and get ready to go before the expansion hits.

Shock and Awe: The Art of Dual Shockadins in WotLK – Both of these assumptions are based off of items I found in the WotLK database at WoWhead situated around an item level of 200 (the item level which seems to be the base for epics at level 80). In addition to these two assumptions, …

Why 3.0 will change Arena entirely – Much like when Blizzard imeplemented the WoW 2.0 41-point talent trees into the game shortly before TBC, and much of the dissaray it caused, the WoW 3.0 talents are almost entirely based around players being level 80 and consequently …

Truckload ‘o Changes – At level 80, this 80 spellpower. Much higher than it was before. I believe it is still weaker than Flametongue Totem and doesn’t stack with it. Twin Disciplines – The tooltip was fixed to read: Increases your spell power on instant …

8926 DK changes, Blue Posts, and Site News – They may be fun in that you get a lot for your money, but they work against the design goal of being able to build a customized talent tree for your character. They also make spec parity or class balance a lot harder when there are …

A look at our Bear Tanking future in Wrath – Clearly (I hope) a class that could do rogue-level dps and warrior-level tanking with the same talent build is the kind of thing that makes other players a little miffed. But we’re reevaluating a lot of old (and some admittedly tired) …

[Druid] The 3.0 patch – cat build edition – That’s about .66% dps per talent point, which just isn’t that good. This may not make the cut at level 80; it’s still lower per point than master shapeshifter. Rend and Tear barely makes the cut. Assuming that you’re only hitting …

WotLK Hunter Pets – Major Changes – Pets will still have to level to some degree, but it will be a lot more transparent than it is now. A level 1 beast trained by a level 80 hunter will hop to level 70 instantly. That way the pet isn’t completely useless while you try

Edit: Big Red Kitty says – Beta Talent Builds, Just Say No – “OK, see? The hunter class is going to be totally mixed up. Anything and everything people have said, including us, is kaput and moot.”

Edit: By the way, don’t forget to grab your free Death Knight Starter Area Leveling Guide.

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