Changes in [Recipe: Savory Deviate Delight]'s droprate

On most servers the once rare [Recipe: Savory Deviate Delight] is now flooding the Horde's Auction Houses.

• Avoiding losses

Be sure to take the recipe out of your snatch list.
Since the prices are collapsing you don't want to buy one for mistake.
If you have already some of these recipes and were planning to flip them, start selling them one-by-one on the Alliance AH... Try not to lower the price of the item, if you have to undercut somebody try not to undercut him too much (remember, a single copper is all that is needed).

• Making money

You should check the difference in price between the Horde's Auction House and the Alliance one: while the rising number of recipes has already lowered their price for the Horde, this could not be true for the Alliance. This can and will change wildly from server to server (and even from day to day).
If you have a way to do cross-faction trading*, this could can a really good source of money: I'm now buying these recipes horde-side for 50-80 gold and selling them to the Alliance for 750-850 gold.
The profits will diminish in the next few days, but I think you'll still make money from this for a long time, if you're careful... Cross-faction trading is always a sure gain and these recipes will still be more common for the Horde than for the Alliance: you should just double-check you're buying them cheap enough.

Recognizing pre-Cataclysm deals

Now, everyone and is mother is trying to dump their WotLK goodies before Cataclysm hits... wait!

I know lots of people already talked about it! You surely have read already a lot of advices, like buying [Saronite Ore] (under 62.5 silver a piece you can smelt it and sell the [Saronite Bar] to a vendor for profit, so saronite stockpiling can be totally risk-free, depending on the prices on your server) or [Abyss Crystal] (it's the best way to stock enchanting mats, since you can break it... and in some server it's getting cheaper than [Greater Cosmic Essence]).

These are useful advices, but depending on the economy of your server they could not work... For instance, a stack of [Saronite Ore] still goes for 23-26 gold on my server (there as been a beautiful week in which they went for 12.50 gold a stack, but then someone has started to drain the market stockpiling for Cataclysm...). 

The problem is, when a "niche" is found and posted on a blog, there is probably some other player in you real that will start to do his/her best (or worse) to follow the advice, making things difficult for you.

Some times the solution is simple: you should read the advice, ask yourself "how did this blogger managed to find this trick?" and start to apply the same reasoning yourself, to find other ways of doing gold... Blaming the competition isn't an excuse: there are so many different things that can be done in farming the AH, that no competition could cover them all.

So, how much will today's mats be worth come Cataclysm?

There is an easy way to get an idea: look for the prices of the corresponding BC mats (i.e. check the price of primals when deciding if you should buy eternals). I'm seeing that some of the WotLK in my server are dropping in price and are now cheaper than the corresponding mats from BC. If you consider also the inflation that we will see in Cataclysm, anything cheaper than his BC counterpart will be more valuable some months after Cataclysm... Obviously, try to run [Golden Draenite] and similar exceptions out of the equation.
This is actually just a rule of the thumb, that doesn't take into account lots of things, but for the most common mats it will work. If you want it's still a good thing to check wowhead to better understand why the item is worth (I hope you should already have at least an idea of this, if you're considering buying it... Never buy an item you don't know!)

Even if you don't do extensive researches, if you will, as you should always, diversify, you'll gain a lot more than what you'll loose. Buy different mats for every crafting professions! If people are willing to buy something from BC for 10 gold now, they'll surely pay more for the same kind of thing when Cataclysm comes! Remember, there will be 3 major reason for BC and WotLK mats price increase:

• Inflation
• Remotion of portals from Dalaran and Shattrath (until 4.0.3 farming BC materials was easier than how it will be farming BC and WotLK materials from now on)
• Flying in Azeroth: more people will farm mats in Azeroth than in the Outlands and Northrend... Surely a larger percentage than now, since the possibility to fly will make it a lot easier, and the zones will be closer to where the characters are than in the last two expansions.

You could also consider the reduction of XP needed for leveling from 71-80: even if people choose gathering professions, they will stay less time in Northrend than they did before.

So, try not to stop at Saronite... Everyone is buying these. Continue to buy it if it's at the right price, but stockpile different things... The more you diversify the better! You can be nearly sure of avoiding losses, and you'll be ready to gain from every fluctuation in your server's market.

I'm not going to post for some days

You could have noticed I didn't post anything in the past few days.

I'm sorry, but I was very busy preparing for an exam (university), and now I'll take two day off just to relax (away from my computer :/). I'll surely write something before the weekend (or during it).

[that's just to say: No, I didn't stopped caring about my blog after just a week ^_^]

Make your low-level banker a scribe!

Not everyone has lot of level-capped alts, so I want to share this advice to those of you that have just one or two level 80 characters. You'll probably have some really low-level character that could make a profit out of Inscription!
As it is now, Inscription becomes valuable at skill level 75, when you start making "Minor Inscription Research" that let you learn new Glyphs. Since the Glyph you (as for everyone else) learn is random, you could end up with some very valuable Glyphs known. So you just need a level 5 character to start to gain thousands of golds from this profession.
You can do this also if you already have a scribe and you want to double the number of minor research you can do... But you should be aware that this will be good just on the short time (sooner or later you'll discover everything anyway) and can make management quite tricky. Try it at your own risk!

Obviously, it's better if you don't use the character with which you play the AH game... It could fill your bags even more and make things messy. Do it just if you're sure you can handle it.

Guide: How and Why you should level an alt

Today I'm posting the first "Guide" of this blog... I'm creating a "Guides" section so everything will be easily accessible. I'm trying not to repeat things too easy to find, I'll instead provide links to other guides when neccessary.

The purpose of leveling an alt
There are mainly two reason to level an alt:

1. Having more characters means that you'll have the ability to max out more professions. This is of great importance if you want to diversify your business (and if your serious about gold making, you should want this) and if you want to be able to make profit of every change in the game (think about Glyphmas).
2. Rolling a character of a different class gives you a new prospective on the game. This is great both for finding a new interest in World of Warcraft in a boring period and to understand the needs of the other players (which can be useful to better understand your server economy and what is valuable for other classes first-hand, but also to play better when you're in a group).

Both of them should be enough to convince to start leveling alts: this weeks before Cataclysm are the best period, since most of the game has become a bit boring (except the AH, every price went crazy and it's kind of fun trying to guess how they will change in this days and how to maximize the profit).
Obviously most of you won't be able to level an alt from 1 to 80 before Cataclysm, it really depends on how much time you have to spend on it, but you should begin now, or start leveling the character you already have... If you don't have a Death Knight already you should consider starting with it, since you'll begin at level 55 and it's quite good at leveling.

Some thoughts about professions skill level cap

Once you reach level 75 you'll be able (come Cataclysm) to learn the final rank of your profession, rising your skill level cap to 525, but many sources are saying you'll probably need level 84 to learn all you need to actually reach skill level 525. Also if this wasn't true, there is another reason for which you should try to take your alt to level 80 before Cataclysm: for every profession there will be some recipes that you can buy only when you are of the appropriate level to complete quests or farm reputations.

So you should try to take at least the alts with the most interesting professions (or those to which you plan to give them) at level 80... In this way you'll have less work come Cataclysm to level them if you discover that you need to.

Inscription starts to be valuable at an early level, so you could want to make an exception and give inscription also to those alts that you don't plan to level up too much.

Gathering professions while you level
Whatever are the profession you want on your alt, you should give him gathering professions while you level (obviously this applies just to newly created characters... If you're just taking an alt from 70 to 75/80 to increase the maximum level of his professions, don't change the ones you already have!). Every guide you'll read, except those really new, will tell you not to do so, but now collecting herbs and mining give experience, so they won't slow your leveling as they used before 4.0.1... Skinning still doesn't give you experience, but it doesn't take you out of your way, so it's not a big loss of time.
Once you learn mining and/or herbalism you'll be able to track nodes of each professions (and of both professions at the same time). Most old player are not very used to this, and probably don't have both profession on the same character. If you can, you should take a character with both profession at maximum level and keep them, since this enable you to farm in a more efficient way (once you hit level cap your main source of income shouldn't be farming, but there is no reason not to be able to do it the best you can. This saves you lot of trouble if something is missing from the AH (as it's now on my server with herbs, since everyone is making glyphs and/or leveling inscription)).
Once you reach the level at which you want to take your character (75 or 80), you can unlearn the gathering professions and start learning two new ones.
Another option is keeping the gathering professions until 85, so if you plan to level your alt to 85 you'll also be collecting ores and herbs that will still very valuable for the first weeks (or even months) of the expansion. If this is the case, be sure to buy *now* all the mats from Northrend that you'll need to level the new professions you want to give them... All Northrend mats will grow in price some time after the expansion, since most people will be in the new maps. Consider their prices from now to December the 7th to be the minimum price at which you'll see them.

Crafting professions for when your alt reach the level cap
You should have on at least one character the following crafting professions:

• Enchanting (this is better on your main)
• Inscription
• Jewelcrafting

Alchemy is also a good source of profit, but these are the ones you should absolutely have. Both Jewelcrafting and Inscription are made so that everyone has different recipes, so you'll find quite easily a niche all for you within the profession, while enchanting is both very profitable now that you can sell your enchants at the AH using [Enchanting Vellum] and sort of a gathering profession thanks to the ability to disenchant items (this second thing is why you should have it on your main).

These are the crafting professions you can have on more than one character without any loss:

• Alchemy (since the more profitable things are on cool downs, doubling the character with this profession nearly double the profit done with Alchemy)

(I know it's just one, I'm keeping it in this format so I can change this easily if things change... You also have some utility from a doubled Jewelcrafting and Inscription, but I don't thing it's worth it, unless you already have all the other professions maxed out)

If you don't have a Tailor/Leatherworker/Blacksmith on your guild willing to help you to craft the items you need for your character you could also want to have one of these professions, usually on your main (to get high-level patterns that requires reputation with some raid).
Lastly, I'll repeat that having a farming alt is quite a wise thing... If you don't have lots of gold it's an insurance that will help you rise some money if you loose gold in a too risky investment (obviously this is just for when you're under 20k and you unwisely finished your money buying lots of [Razzashi Hatchling]  that became valueless shortly after... you shouldn't do that kind of thing, but some people are strongly pulled by the rush of making easy money, specially at the beginning), if you already have a good deal of money and don't need farming, this will still help you in those times in which some resources totally disappear from the AH.
It's been days since I had a chance of buying low and mid-level herbs on the AH and some times you just don't stockpile enough.

Best classes for leveling up
Since this is an alt and not your main, you should focus less on the role you want to play and more on efficiency. This has one exception: if you are not satisfied with your main character you should feel free to level something you think you may enjoy playing as your main, just to see if this is really what you want... If it isn't, you'll still have another alt, if it is you'll just have rerolled a new main. Please note that in case you want to rise an healer or a tank the best way is probably using the Dungeon Finder the most you can (this will also let you know how you actually play that class while in a group).
If you're just looking for fast leveling, your best choices are:

• Death Knight (obviously)
• Hunter (you should absolutely spec Beast Mastery to level)
• Druid (you should spec feral, you'll also be able to join Dungeon Finders as a tank, meaning very fast queues. There is actually a distinct spec for feral cats and feral bears, but it won't do so much of a difference while tanking low-level dungeons, and taking some tanking talents won't totally screw your ability to kill mobs faster while questing)

If you want to use this alt as a gathering one, you should probably roll a druid, since it has an instantaneous flight form and doesn't have to exit from this form to gather things... It's like being able to gather herbs without dismounting (this has changed so many times now that you should check if this is still true when you read this guide... I'll try to keep the post updated). If you want your alt for crafting professions, and you don't care about RP, remember you don't need to be ashamed if your Death Knight is a Tailor... just because he's wearing plate he doesn't need to be a Blacksmith.

Buy that fast mount
There is no reason not to buy the fast mount and the 280% flying mount. You must remember that sometime, when you're thinking you're saving money you're actually just wasting time. Back in TBC, when you could get the 280% flight form just when you were already at max level it was useful just to gatherer, now you'll need it also for the next 15 level (counting the 85 level cap that we'll have in a few weeks).
However, except for gatherers (and main characters), I don't think the 310% flying mount is really worth the money.

The best free guides for power-leveling
My favorite site for leveling guides is wow-pro. They even have an addon to load their guides directly into your game... It has some glitches (not many), but it actually works quite well if you follow it from the beginning. If it doesn't work for you (that could happen if you started doing quest by yourself before loading the addon) just ignore the advices that doesn't apply to your situation (you can check the boxes to tell him to skip to the next step).
And if the addon bothers you too much (didn't happen for me), you can just read their guides, and maybe print them... Another good addon is Carbonite, it's a bit more precise than the new Blizzard's quest-tracking UI, I personally don't use it anymore (but I really use the less addons I can).
They're updating their guides to Cataclysm, so even if you read this post past December you can still follow my advice and go to check their website. For the most lazy of you, this is the page with the leveling guides.

I'm not giving you links to any profession-leveling guide, for three reasons:

1. There are hundreds of them and since I didn't try most of them I can't really point you to the "best ones".
2. All these guides are very easy to find, just Google for them
3. Come Cataclysm everything will change, and not every website will be updated fast... I don't want to give links that will be outdated so soon (while wow-pro has already leveling guides for Cataclysm)

Anyway, the same wow-pro has some leveling guides for most profession, but their not at the same level as those to level your character (level level level... can I make this sentence without repeating so many time this word?). I strongly advice you to look for more than one source and try to compare them before starting, as this can save you gold and frustration.

Move your bank alts to Exodar! (or Undercity/Silvermoon)

Still level 14, but fighting back

Great News: The Final Phase of the Elemental Invasion has begun!

Wicked cults unleash havoc on Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, and while lots of innocents are dying around you and the elements themselves are rebelling  against the once great dominion of Mortals... The thing that really makes you mad is that all of this makes all mailbox and bankers/auctioneers despawn in the cities of Stormwind/Orgrimmar and Ironforge/Thunderbluff.

Trying to hide

At first I laughed at my problem, and found the people complaining in trade chat quite annoying (but at that time I was killing the elementals, not checking the AH). When I found myself for the fifth time in the middle of an invasion (in just two days), I started to feel the problem...
But complaining doesn't help you: the best thing is to evacuate! 
For Alliance characters I suggest Exodar, since Bank and Auction House are closer than in the impossible city of the Night Elves. I'm not sure about what is better Horde side, I'll check tomorrow.

How some of your investments could become risk-free

Tip: When you're stockpiling for an incoming change, if you see that the anticipation of said change has already made the prices grow, sell part of your goods!

This is actually a technique I use with most things that common sense would tell will sell higher after some patch: I usually start to gather them well before the patch hits and, if their prices are high enough some days before the patch, I sell from 1/4 to 1/2 of them.

This made me some money in lots of situation in which I would normally have lost them. At the beginning of WotLK (when everyone had already reached level 80, but before Ulduar opened up), there was a patch that was rumored to make Dream Shards a lot more valuable. Prices skyrocketed: something like from 4-5g each to 15-16g (I'm not sure about the actual numbers, but it was pretty much like this) until the day of the patch, when in few hours the touch an historical minimum: they had even lost value compared to the prices pre-hype, as lots of players had stockpiled Dream Shards and couldn't find a way to get rid of them.

But since I had sold half of the Dream Shards I had stockpiled just before the patch hit, I actually managed to gain from the circumstances.

What if prices had went even higher after the patch?

I would have lost part of my income, but I would have done lots of money anyway. Selling those mats before the patch made mine investment totally risk-free.

How can I apply this in Cataclysm?

I'm not sure you can, actually. It depends on your server economy.

If there is a lot of people "playing the AH", then there is a good chance that some goods that should increase in value come Cataclysm (maybe the same you're stockpiling... if you're not, you should start to search the net for advices, read blue posts about the expansion and try to figure yourself on what you could do some profit). If prices on some of these items grow higher than when you bought them, just sell some... I usually do this only when prices double from when I took the items (or at least nearly double).