A few guides and shopping lists are floating around to prepare yourself for rerolling a Death Knight. With the introduction of a brand new class into WoW and the fact that all races start in the same area, the leveling process in the first few weeks is going to be chaotic. That’s where these guides come in.
Scattered around Azeroth and Outland are many repeatable reputation quests. Almost all of these quests offer experience the first time you turn them in and usually some bonus reputation as well. There are a dozen or so of these quests that are well worth doing after your Death Knight escapes the Scarlet Enclave. The major ones being the cloth turn-ins for every city faction and the turn-ins for Outland factions. I’m not going to go into much detail about the quests themselves, but the complete shopping list should give you an idea of what items to start investing in.
300x Wool Cloth
300x Silk Cloth
300x Mageweave Cloth
300x Runecloth
6x Blasted Boar Lung
6x Scorpok Pincer
11x Basilisk Brain
14x Vulture Gizzard
5x Snickerfang Jowl
1x Imperfect Draenethyst Fragment
1x Flawless Draenethyst Sphere (very rare unless you kill Teremus, you can probably skip this one)
30x Core of Elements
30x Crypt Fiend Parts
30x Bone Fragments
30x Savage Frond
30x Dark Iron Scraps
2x Thorium Bar
1x Golden Rod
8x Hi-Explosive Bomb
8x Unstable Trigger
10x Unidentified Plant Parts (or 360x to get you to Honored before you do Zangarmarsh quests, helping you to hit Revered for your head enchant before you leave Zangarmarsh)
6x Bog Lord Tendril
10x Mature Spore Sac
10x Glowcap
6x Fertile Spores
5x Sanguine Hibiscus
30x Arakkoa Feather
10x Oshu’gun Crystal Fragment
3x Pair of Ivory Tusks
10x Mark of Kil’Jaeden (for Aldor)
10x Mark of Sargeras (for Aldor)
1x Fel Armament (for Aldor)
10x Firewing Signet (for Scryer)
10x Sunfury Signet (for Scryer)
1x Arcane Tome (for Scryer)
The Death Knight starting area quests will get you past level 58. Afterwards, you’re forced to roam around Eastern Plaguelands for a while - with dozens, maybe hundreds, of other Death Knights, all competing to complete the same quests. The reputation turn-ins will give you a significant boost (a level or two initially, and a few bars every few levels during Outland leveling) and will allow you to push past the chaos into uninterrupted leveling.
In less than two weeks, we’ll be exploring brand new territory with thousands of new items. We’ll have to transition to the new (lower) value of gold and it’s going to be a bumpy ride. For a while, the market is going to be out of whack with Outland items being dumped into the market to make room for the goodies in Northrend.
It’s hard to predict exactly how the economy will react to these changes, especially considering I wasn’t playing during the launch of the Burning Crusade. On one hand I could say prices will drop drastically because everyone will be eager to get rid of them for new gear, mounts, etc. in Wrath. There are dozens of gold sinks to motivate players to spend, spend, spend. Many players believe dumping everything they can into the AH is a great way to make some quick gold. And it is, but it has its consequences.
But, then again, the value of gold is going to drop. There will be a lot more gold in the economy with the new quests and it’s going to take some time for players to adjust to seeing these larger numbers next to the gold coin in their bag. They’ll feel wealthy initially, willing to spend more on new and old items. This could drive prices upward. I definitely believe this will happen long term. I just can’t say much for the short term.
My guild is slowly emptying the guild bank and stock piling gold to buy ourselves the first BOE recipes we can get our hands on. There’s a lot of crap in there that’s been rotting since the first days in Karazhan. I’ve yet to see a guild use their guild bank effectively. We do well dishing out epic gems and enchanting materials to our raiders that get new loot, but there’s still four other tabs full of crap that’s rarely touched! Today I offered to take the position as the guild accountant, at least for the liquidation process. I’m sure it’ll be worth clearing out the bank to make room for new materials, patterns and consumables, but I’m not sure how far the 15-20k gold will get us.
I personally just bought a few yellow, red, and purple gems with my badges, had them cut, and sold them for 250-300g a piece. I’ve also bought some of my guild’s high end mats to craft into BOE epics and sell. I’m mostly shooting for one of the server’s first two-passenger mammoth mounts. It’ll be nice having my own vendors attached to my mount for repairing and restocking on ammo. I just hope they are part of some faction I can get exalted with for a 20% discount.
So, how are you preparing for Wrath of the Lich King? Please take a few minutes to post a comment and share with all of us. We all benefit from each other’s insight, and you may spark an idea for a new WoW Economist article before Wrath!
With the introduction of the Achievement system in pre-Wrath patch 3.0, more opportunities for profit have surfaced. Many pet collectors and skunk lovers are going after the 50 vanity pets achievement for their own Reeking Pet Carrier. Since the release of the Burning Crusade and the addition of the skunk critters throughout Terrokar, many of us have been dying for our own skunk mini-pet. Now that our wish has been granted, we’ve been sucking up all the vanity pets we can get our hands on.
High demand and lowered supply - you do the math! Here’s an opportunity for some really easy profit, especially for those playing on PVE realms. There are about 30 different companions that can be purchased directly from vendors, and I don’t think any of the vendors have a limited supply. A quick trip around the world will earn you some exploration and trick-or-treating achievements while you stock up on these vendor-sold vanity pets. Selling these on the Auction House will usually return 10x your investment, sometimes more.
If you are Alliance or you play on a PVE server, keep a close eye on Lil Timmy as he is a rare spawn NPC that sells only one White Kitten before despawning for hours. The last White Kitten I saw on the AH was priced around 200g. I can’t say if it sold or will sell, but if it does, that’s a hefty profit for wandering around Stormwind.
I personally spent the time to travel around and collect the pets while exploring and I’m very close to getting my own Stinker. I’ll need to spend a few hours farming for the oozling and whelplings before I’m done. The skunk is definitely an awesome and unique pet and well worth the effort. I’m not the only one who thinks so, either, so get out there and make some money off ‘em!
To keep inflation down, gold sinks in the WoW economy are a must. Usually, these are just vanity items that suck some of the pure gold out of the market. Thanks to Warcraft Econ, we now know of quite a few from the current build of Wrath’s beta server. Below is a video highlighting some of them. I’m really looking forward to having my own vendors attached to my mammoth!
The inscription powerleveling guide I’ve been working on is finally complete! Naturally, there may be a few mistakes, so I urge you to try the guide on the PTR or once 3.0 goes live. If you find something wrong or you have a better route for a certain portion of the guide, feel free to leave a comment and let me know!
At the moment, it’s pretty pointless to level inscription past 350 as there are no new recipes for 355 and beyond. The only way to learn new recipes after 350 (and the only way to learn minor glyphs) is through Minor Inscription Research, which has a 20 hour cooldown. Below are the materials required to get to 350 inscription. The pigments come from different sets of herbs, which you can see on Wowhead by clicking each pigment’s name. The average return of each herb is about 2.5 pigments per mill (5 herbs), so you’ll need about double the amount of herbs to get the necessary pigments listed below. I plan on having one extra stack of each as a buffer in case of bad luck.
The following uncommon pigments have a chance to be milled from each set of herbs. With the volume of herbs required for the pigments above, you should have no problem getting these pigments.
And finally, the parchment below can be bought from the inscription supplies vendors near every inscription trainer.
60x Light Parchment
121x Common Parchment
155x Heavy Parchment
30x Resilient Parchment
Now that you’ve stuffed your inventory full of materials, let’s plow through this guide. I started out at the Ironforge trainer until 300 Inscription, then moved to Honor Hold to finish up. You’ll need to make a few trips to and from the bank to mill the herbs and use the pigment, but make sure you mill enough Nether Pigment to bring with you to the Outland to get from 300 to 350 inscription.
I need your help! Because of the short supply of certain herbs on my server, I haven’t got very far in writing the inscription guide. I just didn’t have enough herbs to copy over to the public test realm. I’ve been wasting a lot of time farming them manually on the PTR.
So that’s where you come in!
I know you’ve been stockpiling herbs over the last month or two. If you could prepare one character full of a few stacks of each herb, copy it over to the PTR (US PVP realm), and mail me the stacks of herbs, I would greatly appreciate it. You can send the herbs to my PTR character, Frolic (Alliance on the US PVP realm), or whisper me if you catch me online. I should be on the PTR for most of the day. If I can get a few of you to do this, I should have the inscription power leveling guide finished by tonight.
I was a bit surprised when I heard that the new profession, Inscription, is coming well before the Wrath launch. Eyonix stated that the pre-Wrath content will be patched “in the coming weeks” and according to some of my own insider info, Wrath isn’t scheduled to launch until early November. I can only assume the patch will land somewhere in the middle. I’m hoping for sooner than later.
Iktomi hinted in a comment in our last post that we might have some success selling “tradeskill power leveling packs” of herbs to new inscribers. Perhaps even a step-by-step guide to go with the raw materials. That will likely fetch more profit than the soon-to-be-inflated market price of herbs. Did anyone try this with Jewelcrafting in the Burning Crusade?
Whether you plan to sell your herbs individually on the auction house or in packs directly to new inscribers to quickly boost their skill, I’d highly recommend investing gold into herbs as soon as possible. Once the patch hits the test realms, I’m guessing prices will slowly rise on the live realms, then sky rocket when the patch goes live. It’s also worth noting that Cenarion Herb Bags aren’t that expensive to craft and hold 25% more herbs than Netherweave Bags. I was recently invited into the Wrath beta so I’ll be working on an Inscription power leveling guide as soon as I get a stock pile of herbs to transfer over.
This post will be one of many analyzing the data we receive from the Wrath of the Lich King beta. If you have beta access or a spare key and wish to share information with us (or loan us a key), we’d love to hear from you! Please leave a comment and let us know.
Inscription is the new profession in Wrath of the Lich King and has been mentioned numerous times over the last six months. However, we never really knew what materials were required for this new craft. Until a few days ago…
It seems Herbalism is the complimentary profession to Inscription. To inscribe spells or scrolls, ink is used. Obtaining ink is much like Prospecting for gems - you crush five herbs using Milling for one (or more?) ink.
From what I’ve heard, the first three low level inks (Ivory Ink, Silver Ink, and Earthen Ink) require the first three low level herbs (Peacebloom, Silverleaf, and Earthroot respectively). I can only assume each successive herb is used for it’s own color/type of ink.
This is going to be huge for the herb market! Mining is primarily used for Blacksmithing, Engineering, and Jewelcrafting while Herbalism’s only major profession is Alchemy. Inscription is Herbalism’s new best friend in the expansion and we will see a significant rise in herb prices, especially in the first few weeks. I’d estimate 5-10x in the first few weeks (especially for the lower end mats, not so much the higher end ones), and slowly drop down to 2-3x current market prices where it’ll likely remain.
I’ve got six “storage bins” ready for herbs, so I’ll be stocking them up like mad over the next many weeks. According to my girlfriend, Wrath is scheduled to launch November 3rd, so we have plenty of time to buy all the herbs our little bank alts can hold without artificially inflating the market and overpaying.
The Holiday Fireworks Vendors are out and it’s the only day of the year to get some insanely cheap Red, White, and Blue sparklers! According to Wowhead, the price of these sparklers averages anywhere between 4g and 7g - a pretty good return if you ask me. They will take up quite a bit of valuable inventory space though.
Like the snowballs, you’ll probably have to wait a few months before they actually reach this price. But I bet you could start selling today and make a gold or two per sparkler if there’s no competition.
So if you have a few extra character slots, store some extra sparklers and ground flowers for a rainy day! By the time you remember you still have a stock pile, they might be worth selling.
It looks like the economy is beginning to settle down after the initial rush for Season 4 gear. I’m sure there’s a bit of fluctuation left to go before I’d consider the market stable again, so no need to rush getting rid of everything you invested in for the new arena season. You still have time.
I found it interesting that the motes and primals went up quite a bit more percentage-wise than Void Crystals and Greater Planar Essence. I still have a few stacks of Void Crystals to dump and fortunately the prices are still high enough to make a good profit after AH fees. I was a little frantic before Season 4 trying to gather up all the cheap enchanting materials and took about 2k gold in loans from friends. They’re all paid off and I’m sitting at about 2,300 gold and double that in items to sell. It was a success for me and I did well considering it was the first time I’ve taken advantage of the new-area-season inflation.
How did you do with Season 4? Leave a comment and let us know how much profit (or loss, but I sure hope not) you ended up with. We’d love to hear!
A few guides and shopping lists are floating around to prepare yourself for rerolling a Death Knight. With the introduction of a brand new class into WoW and the fact that all races start in the same area, the leveling process in the first few weeks is going to be chaotic. That’s where these guides come in.
I was a bit surprised when I heard that the new profession, Inscription, is coming well before the Wrath launch. Eyonix 
