Work, work...

work_work_logo Yes, the famous quote of the Orc peons. But could it fit better to our daily lives?
I know that aside from my main work in diplomacy I tend to spend most of my time either collecting herbs, mining, fishing or cooking. I also know that I am not the only one who has ended up with this kind of chores to keep the private or group economy floating. But what can we do to lessen our workload but still make enough copper to survive and repair our gear?
Here are some tricks that I have picked up during the years..

Getting started

Pick up one or two of the so called gold maker professions,  these are mining, herbalist or skinner. They will provide a base income that you will be able to build your empire on. The use of these professions do not cost anything to train up to a descent level as they do not need any materials. Either sell everything you collect or save for future use in your empire. These jobs can be done both by inexperienced adventurers and more experienced people who are also doing dailies.

Get a reliable banker who cares for your finances, keeps your auctions up to date and is able to sell the things that you collect in your bags when on trips.

This will get you a base income.

fishing

Enchanting and inscribing

When training up your professions you can ask if your banker may want to become your enchanter as well. Quite a handy extra job for a banker I must say. Every item you collect will pass through her hands at some point. This leads to our next point:

Recruit an enchanter to disenchant all low level and unusable gear that you find. And make it a habit to ask the group disenchanter to disenchant anything that you win but do not need. Usually even rare items are worth disenchanting rather then trying to sell.

Ask someone to become your scribe, the glyph market is still very busy and combining your herbalism with someone else's inscription talents will open up a flow of gold. But keep in mind to stay updated on what glyphs are selling good and what glyphs are rare on your auction house. There is no need to create glyphs that are selling for a few silver when there are glyphs around that can be sold for 30-100 gold pieces. Information on what to create is important. Ask your banker, she should know. Another great way to turn inscription into gold is to combine it with enchanting, creating this small papers that enchanters can use for storing their enchants can be sold for a good amount of money and stored enchants on the auction house are always in demand.

Last profession that is useful and can easily be turned into a gold factory is tailoring, there is always a high demand for bags and.. well.. there are a lot of fashionistas around.. bags and shirts sell, and they sell for nice amounts of money. When learning tailoring each apprentice will create a huge pile of low level gear that can be sent to your enchanter for either enchanting or disenchanting. Low level gear with a factory made enchant on can be sold for a much better sum then each one separately.
Please note that tailoring does not produce the same amount of gold as enchanting or inscription does, but it is a nice addition nonetheless.

The market

banker_at_ah Each role in your empire will need to know the current prices and fluctuations on the market and it is up to your banker to supply them with that information. Each role will want to know the current prices on materials as well as the products that they can create with these materials. They are the ones with those lists so it is up to them to decide what products will be most profitable, but you will need to bully them to not create too many of each product as that will, in the long run, make prices drop. Keep rare items rare! This is easier to say then do as everyone will be tempted to create 10 red pirate shirts as they are going for 15 gold each.. But if you have that many of them out at one given time, chances are that there will be other people noticing your product. Well, you want other people to notice your products but you do not want your competitors to notice them as they will start creating the same items and undercutting your prices and in no time the whole market for that product will be in a downward spiral.

Woes of healing

woes_logo I had a conversation with a young and mid experienced holy priest last night.
She told me that she was training hard in healing groups in different dungeons around Azeroth, she was proud to announce that she had finally visited Blackrock Depths after long hours in the Sunken Temple and Zul'Farrak.
She did complain about some things though.
First off, as the sole responsible of keeping the group alive through the different encounters, she felt that the other group members most times did not understand how the different roles should interact with each other.
First off she had some remarks on some of the tanks that she had trouble with.

Tanks

tanksA person who has volunteered for the Tank role should be prepared to get bashed a lot. The one purpose of the tank is to keep all enemies hitting him or her instead of the rest of the group. So, two things that should be important for a tank is the ability to prove to the enemy that she is the most threatening person in the group. How she does that is entirely up to the tank, the key here is that if the tank is unable to do this the job gets very hard for the healer as she must divide her attention to up to 5 people instead of 1. And damage dealers are unable to focus on their task as there are enemies up close hitting on them. It does not take a goblin engineer to figure out that this is a recipe to disaster.
Another thing that annoys her about tanks is that there are so many people out there that say that they are tanks, but in reality they are not.

"One time I ended up in a group with a paladin tank, no problems I thought as I've seen paladin tanks before and it is usually not problem. But after the first encounter with some enemies I started to think that something was really really wrong with this tank as I had to heal him a lot more then I usually have to even at bosses. After a closer look at his gear I saw that he was a Holy Paladin with a short sword and shield... With almost only Holy gear. I made my excuses and left in a hurry..."

As tanks primary role is to get beaten with a stick, they should have gear that supports this. Armor, Stamina are at least the least one can expect them to stack!
Last thing, if the situation turns ugly, the primary focus of the tank should be to keep the healer safe. Yes, we might loose a few group members but mostly the healer can resurrect them before the next encounter. But if you loose the healer, well, then the whole group is screwed.
And do please keep an eye on the healer, if she is sitting down and drinking.. Maybe you should wait until she finishes up before rushing to the next enemy. A healer that is drinking is probably running low on mana, and without mana, there will be no healing..
Lastly, tanks should study instances… It is commonly assumed that tanks know their way around. If a tank goes the wrong way, the group will become demoralized and eventually just desert.

Damage dealers

dps I will not divide damage dealers to melee or ranged as this applies to both. Very general ideas and thoughts.

"I have spent some time with damage dealers that do not understand the dynamics of group roles. They have no clue of how to behave in a group and just rush into situations even when the tank and or healer isn't ready. Instant disaster."

It is usually the tank who starts a fight with the enemy, give her a chance to do that. If you start to engage enemies instead of the tank the tank will have a hard time getting the enemy to hit her instead of you. And you want the enemy to hit the tank, trust me.
Do not complain about the speed that the group is progressing in, trust me, let the tank decide the pace or else she will start making mistakes and you do not want that!
As a damage dealer in a group your role is to put down the enemies as fast as possible. But that is not all, each time that you make an attack the enemies will feel that you threaten them more. And if you threaten them more then the tank, they will start attacking you instead. So the primary responsibility is to put down the enemy as fast as possible but still not generating more threat then the tank.
If the enemies for some reason think that the healer is the most threatening one in the group and start attacking her while the tank is busy holding off an other group of them, please get the enemies to attack you instead. A healer who is taking damage has a real hard time keeping the group alive and well. Attack the enemies, let them start attacking you and run to the tank and she will threaten them to attack her instead. Easy task, very easy to forget about.
Oh yes, damage dealers are usually the ones that turn rude against the healer, tanks mostly do not. I will only remind you once, do not be rude against the one person that is keeping you alive! It does not take much for a healer to decide that you are unworthy of her services and you do not want this either as this usually ends with you dead and the healer asking "did you say something?"

Healers

healers "Ok, I may be a little biased here but I will try to analyze myself a little"

Healers are responsible for the safety of the whole group together with the tank. They are usually not seen as a part of the group but they do provide services that everyone requires.
Never ever sacrifice the tank, do what you must to keep the tank alive. Know how to use dispels, cures for diseases and every other spell in the book. They are vital for almost every dungeon.
Never ever sacrifice the tank but try to keep the other people alive as well. They are not priority, do not focus on them.
Heal over time makes you life easier, a lot easier. With a great group that is the only thing you need, I've been to Maraudon and only used my renew spell. With an normal group, keeping the heal over time spells up on the tank will make the other spells less frequently used. I can't remember how many dungeons I've been in with Renew and Flash Heal only.
With less good groups you will end up using heal over times on the other members as well and some times a fast normal heal as well.

As with gear, having a lot of mana regenerating stats is a must. A lot of the time you are in a battle, you will not be casting any spells and this time is great to regenerate you mana pool as when things turn ugly, you want that pool to be full.
Do not over heal too much, especially do not over heal other group members but the tank. Only heal when you must (not counting the heal over time on the tank) and save you mana to situations when it is needed. I know that until I figured out how to use my renew spell I used flash healings on all members of the party, this not only drains mana in no time, this also keeps you occupied with casting them.
If the tank picks up rogue enemies from your team mates when ever they stop focusing on her, they usually only get in a blow or two and you can heal that with an instant heal over time spell. Using a long cast spell on other members then the tank when it is not needed makes you loose focus as well and situations around the tank can turn ugly very very very fast indeed.

On another matter, it is important for healers to let the tank protect them. If you as a healer get attacked by enemies, get as close to the tank as possible. Never ever run away. If you run away and the tank notices, she will have to run after you and thus it will take her longer to get the enemies to attack her instead of you.
"Whenever I get attacked and there is no one around to take them off me, I tend to run through the battle, clap the tank on her shoulder and get into position on the other side. This is usually all the time needed for the tank to get the enemies to switch focus. Another thing I do, not because I think that it really helps but I like to think that it does... I tend to use levitate a lot on myself, the effect is that I will be floating above the ground as long as I am safe, if something attacks me the effect will fade and I will be on the ground. I like to think about it as a visual cue for the tank that something is happening."

Summary

A good group consists of a good tank and a good healer, the damage dealers do not matter as much as long as they are ok. A group with either a bad tank or a bad healer is a group that will end up dead. A group with a great tank and a great healer will mostly be ok and can make up for mistakes made by the damage dealers.
A group with a great tank and a great healer and great team players as damage dealers will not be stopped.
Know your role, know your expected behavior, know your limits!

My take on world domination – Jennie Nowind

nowind_world_domination
My take on world domination
by Jennie Nowind.

To begin with, I know that there are many people wondering if I really have double personalities and to them I can only say yes and no.
The double personality issue that I've had has not presented itself in a over a year. I've been told that it probably has been my own imagination but I can assure you that it was real.
Last time it happened was when Eowind and I were in Undercity, she had to knock me out and drag me out through the sewers after I had switched and cursed her. Luckily for us both, she has always been able to cope with me during my splits.
nowind_basinSo, there.. Now that we have covered that we can move on to the real reason why I am writing today.
There have been many attempts on world domination during the last years. Demons, orcs, death knights, scourge, undead and nasty elves have all tried but so far no one has succeeded. Lucky us.
The reason why I do fight against all of these would be kings and queens of the world is not that I dislike the idea of world domination. No, its more that I dislike the idea of other people ruling over me.

I have always gone my own way and I do things a little differently compared to even other warlocks. When they switch to destruction or demonology, I stick to affliction... Is it because I am stubborn? Not really, I just like the idea of curse and forget and know for certain that whoever got that last curse will drop dead in a little while. I can focus on my next target or if no such exists I can always sit down and enjoy the show.
Another reason why I do like curses is that my favorites do not take forever to cast and they do not leave a trail in the air. These two can give me a better angle on things in a hectic battle. I can stay out of harms way and still be able to curse everyone in the actual battle and there is nothing but their fast diminishing health that tells them that I am around… Somewhere…
Even though I do not have the power of turning invisible like feral druids or rogues, I like to see myself as the grim and silent reaper of souls, and it is always harvest time...

nowind_cullingOops, got a little carried away from the real subject at hand, where were I? Oh yes, I do not like to be ruled by other people, or demons for that matter. I am quite used of being the one in control of the situation.
I can accept working with a team to pursue my goals and if someone wants to be the leader of that team, sure no problem. As long as they know what they are doing, otherwise.. Well, I seldom stick around to see how they perish.
The only gang that I can stand being around is the people that Eowind introduced, even that strange analytical death knight banker of hers is a joy to converse with.
Carried sideways again. World domination, the fact is that I don't think that this world has anything worth dominating and I am surprised every time someone comes around and tries. I wonder how long it will take before the next lunatic steps forth now that Arthas is surrounded in his own citadel, or was he already killed? I honestly do not know with all the rumors these days.
Well, whoever it is, I do hope that he or she at least has the sense not to try it in Northrend. I want to fight my next battle in a more temperate climate as I think that I have seen enough snow for now...
Yes, I think it is time to leave north for now and maybe travel a little... Perhaps torment some Trolls in Durotar or a Tauren or two in Mulgore…

Until next time, Nowind

Unforgotten Places – The South Sea Islands

logo-south-sea-islands As I was scouting out the farm at the Veiled Sea I decided to continue to Tanaris. This lead me to Land’s End Beach and from there I saw some islands in the south. The legendary South Sea Islands. As I have never visited them before I decided to take the detour.

Getting there


001-getting-there From the southern tip of Land’s End Beach start swimming east. until you see a formation in the seabed as shown in the following picture:002-getting-there Swim as far out on the ledge without hitting the deeper waters and take a final deep breath, you will need it. When you feel that you are ready, start swimming southward, and it is important that you do swim directly towards south. Any deviation in direction will lead to a drowning accident. It must also be noted that you will not survive the swim without any speed boosts. As a druid I’m lucky enough to have an aquatic form but there are ways for other classes as well. Like the fishing pole that turns you into a fish, or swim speed elixirs etc.

003-first-glance-south-sea-islands When you hit shallow waters again, luckily unharmed, you will have reached the South Sea Islands. Enjoy your stay but remember that it is just as long swim back.

Northern Island
004-northern-island-goblin-labratory

The northern island is the first one you will see, it contains some goblin laboratories and its population consists mostly of sand, give or take a pirate or two.

Oil Rig

005-oil-rig-south-sea-islands

There is a goblin style oil rig located between the northern and southern island. The oil rig seems to be active but I did not find any workers around it. Maybe it is run by the pirates that live on the islands.

Southern Island

007-southern-island-south-sea-hutsThe southern island is where the bigger part of the pirates reside, it seems like they only take turns guarding the northern island. Here you will be able to find a few huts and a water tower as well. Does it surprise anyone that the huts are in goblin style here as well? It seems to me that these islands were once inhabited by goblins. Maybe this was once one of their outposts, the rumor does say that their main islands are located somewhere in the South Sea so I do not find the idea all too far fetched.

006-south-sea-islands-pirates

Unforgotten Places - The Veiled Sea Farm

veiled-sea-farm-logo 

There is a farm in the Veiled Sea!

Ok, ok.. From the beginning. While in Dalaran I usually meet a lot of travelers and I try to engage them in conversations. The other night I met this fellow fisherman and he told me about the catches that he had made along the shoreline of Silithus. I tried to point out that Silithus did not have any shoreline but the fellow insisted that it had, just that it was not reachable from Silithus. The key here was that you have to swim from either Feralas or Tanaris, but he promised that the catches were worth the effort.

veiled-sea-farm-map

So, as a new owner of a Sea Turtle, I thought that I would take her out for a swim and I set off to Feralas. From there me and my turtle swam south towards Silithus and I must say that the man was right. The amount of Nightfin Snappers, Summer Bass and Salmon that I have hooked.. Not to mention Lightning Eel.

sea-turtle-veiled-sea-farm

We continued to ride southward and when the shoreline started to show a tendency of shifting eastwards at the southern point of Kalimdor, that was when I first saw the windmill. Tensing a little, as it looked like a Tauren one, we continued towards it and soon a ‘farmtent’ came into view, also that in Tauren style. But after a while of sneaking around I figured that there was no one around even though there was a fire burning in one of the tents. I spent some time in and around the farm but I couldn’t find anything useful and no tracks of the owners.

veiled-sea-farm-cave

A little bit to the east from the farm is an entrance to a cave, but that was empty as well. I tried prowling around the place but the only thing I could find was some old bones.

veiled-sea-farm-inside-cave But there you have it, there is a farm in the Veiled Sea!