Archive for November, 2008

Death Knight preparation and investments

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

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.

Posted in Class Specific, Factions & Reputation, Farming, Investing, Resources, Wrath of the Lich King | 14 Comments »

How are you preparing for Wrath?

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

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!

Posted in Auction House, Patches, Wrath of the Lich King | 18 Comments »