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9 years later, a venerable trinket finally dies
There are very few items in World of Warcraft that have much of a shelf life beyond the games in which they debut. No matter how powerful and prestigious they are, they get nerfed, or their level range is restricted, or -- most commonly -- they're simply outclassed by bigger and better gear. Thunderfury lasted through early Magtheridon kills in The Burning Crusade before Blizzard nerfed its threat. The Luffa was resurrected for a few shining weeks to help guilds kill Moroes before the developers squashed its use for anyone past level 60. Even the most hotly contested BC trinket and Wrath trinkets, the Dragonspine Trophy and Deathbringer's Will, were eventually scuttled by DPS, no matter how much intra-guild bloodletting they'd inspired before. However, the Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon somehow managed to fly under the radar for years. While it was never the best trinket in any tier outside of classic, it was still a pretty solid regen piece (albeit more so before in-combat regeneration was improved during Wrath). I got mine after Aertimus at Hotstree noted in early Wrath that it was still shockingly good almost five years after it appeared in the game, and I knew legions of healers who pulled theirs out of mothballs or went to hunt the Beasts deck themselves as a result. You never know, we all said, when it'll pop up in the middle of a sea of "better" trinkets and still be one of your best options for regen. No more. As Blizzard announced during a hotfix late on April 4 for the recent patch 5.2, the Blue Dragon "now has a reduced chance to activate its effect for characters that are level 61-69 and its effect no longer activates for characters above level 69." I guess it'll be in the bank for good now, because I just don't have the heart to get rid of a workhorse trinket that performed its job faithfully for so long.
Gold Capped: How to get a MoP Darkmoon trinket
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Basil's re-reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! The Darkmoon Faire comes to town once a month, and if you want to get one of those amazingly good darkmoon trinkets, you're going to need a fairly large pile of gold. There are a couple of ways of going about it with varying levels of cost and effort. Interestingly, our own Fox Van Allen became a "Darkmoon Mogul" last expansion when he made his first million gold. At the time, you could simply make as many cards as you were willing to mill the ink for, and people willing to make those cards could profit in spades. There's still money to be made in this, however don't walk in with your eyes closed -- the system has changed, and there's more risk now than ever. Getting one the hard way Getting a deck for yourself can be expensive and simple, or cheap and complicated. You basically have two choices: hustle for cards to make your own deck, or buy a finished deck or trinket.
Ink traders finally accepting new inks
If you're looking to get a Darkmoon Deck made before the end of the faire, you might be interested to know that despite a false start earlier this week, the Ink Traders and inscription vendors now accept trades of 10 Ink of Dreams for a Starlight Ink. Ink Vendors finally updated. Very sorry for the delay. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) October 12, 2012 The Darkmoon Faire is only around once a month, and the one on now is ending this Sunday, October 14th. Unless the Faire is going on, you can't trade, for example, a Crane Deck in for a Relic of Chi Ji. This expansion, unlike in others, Darkmoon Cards require an item that can only be made once a day by scribes, the Scroll of Wisdom. Scribes who have been hanging onto their Scrolls should probably look into making them into cards now that the inks can be gotten cheaply, since by the time the next Faire rolls around, there will be 3 more weeks worth of daily cooldowns waiting to be turned into cards. These trinkets range from pretty good to among the best in slot for most classes, so almost everyone can use one, and many people really want one. Additionally, since the Starlight Inks have been so expensive lately, the epic quality shoulder enchants have been quite expensive. Now that you can trade the much less expensive Ink of Dreams in for them, you should see the prices lower on the Greater Ox Horn Inscription, the Greater Crane Wing Inscription, the Greater Tiger Claw Inscription, and the Greater Tiger Fang Inscription. Maximize your profits with advice from Gold Capped. Want to know the very best ways to earn 10,000 gold? Top gold making strategies for auctioneers? How about how to reach 1 million gold -- or how one player got there and then gave it all away? Fox and Basil are taking your questions at fox@wowinsider.com and basil@wowinsider.com.
Insider Trader: Beat the RNG making Darkmoon cards
Insider Trader is a column about professions by Basil "Euripides" Berntsen, who also writes Gold Capped about how to make money using the auction house. Email Basil your questions. We've all heard someone say something to the effect of "I don't make Darkmoon cards because I don't have enough gold to beat the random number generator." What do they mean? Here's the situation: Darkmoon Cards of Destruction are craftable by maximum-skill scribes, and they award a completely random card. There are 32 possible cards they can give you in four different "suits" of eight, and if you match up a whole suit, you can create one of four Darkmoon decks. These decks start a quest that, when turned in at the Darkmoon Faire, provide one of the best trinkets in the game. The Darkmoon greatness decks last expansion "outlived their iLvl" in the sense that since they were so perfectly itemized for quite a few classes that they would reward their owners with better performance than later-tier trinkets, especially token-bought trinkets. Looking at the new decks, they are almost as perfectly itemized, so I suspect that they will provide their owners many months of use before they get overshadowed by some new drop. What this means is that everyone wants one of these, and they're very expensive to make and thus very rare.
Insider Trader: Inscription heads into Cataclysm
Insider Trader is a column about professions by Basil "Euripides" Berntsen, who also writes Gold Capped about how to make money using the auction house. Email Basil your questions. Inscription is going to be going through some changes in Cataclysm. We've already had a pretty massive overhaul in patch 4.0 with the changes to glyphs, but we're in for some more after the expansion ships. Obviously, the mats we use will change: the new common pigment from milling is Ashen Pigment (for BlackFallow Ink), and the uncommon one is Burning Embers (for Inferno Ink). Kaliope, who I've come to rely on for beta profession information, informs us that the best herb to get the Burning Embers from is Twilight Jasmine, found in the Twilight Highlands. As in Wrath of the Lich King, we will be able to trade the common inks for the uncommon ones; Jessica Sellers has updated her price list to accept Blackfallow Ink. It's going to be a single Blackfallow for a single older ink, as well as 10 for an Inferno Ink or Snowfall Ink.
Alliance get first community unlockable from Darkmoon Faire
The Alliance have unlocked the first community prize from Blizzard's Cataclysm ramp-up site, The Darkmoon Faire: Your Fortune Awaits. Visitors to the site choose a faction and "Like" certain pages on Facebook in order to earn points for their respective side. The Alliance, with 11 percent, has unlocked a video interview with Gary Platner, the leader environment artist on World of Warcraft. Head over to the Fortune website to check out the video. Update: The Horde has also unlocked its first community video, an interview with Jesse McCree, the lead level designer for World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
The Queue: Definitely not a kitten, at all
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I think we can all agree that the above picture is not a kitten, thus ending the cute-baby-animals theme used in header images in The Queue once and for all. The Dark Wayne asked: There's one question that's been on my mind ever since 3.3 came out: Will we be able to obtain Shadowmourne or at least Shadow's Edge in Cataclysm? If we can, will we also still be able to get the fancy box of lore trinkets that drop when you kill the LK with it? Given that it's part of the We Are Legendary guild achievement, all signs point to yes.
The Queue: Trinket-Palooza 2009
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Allison Robert is your hostess today again (our condolences).I'm in an autumnal sort of mood, hence today's picture. Yes, I know that Barrens trees always look like that. We got a really interesting question about trinkets the last time around that really caught my attention, so a lot of today's Queue is going to be comprised of an Enjoyable Stroll Down Memory Lane and Into Holy ^$*# Look At That Trinket From AQ40 How Has That Not Been Nerfed Yet.Starlin asks...So, what's up with Brewfest this year? Anything new or updated?Fortunately or us, Kisirani posted on this same question yesterday. To summarize, there are no major changes to the holiday, but Coren Direbrew has been updated to level 80, the mount drop rates haven't changed (nor are they now required for the Brewfest meta-achievement), and no new pets or mounts have been added. You can reasonably expect a beefed-up holiday boss with a new loot table (most likely of ilevel 200 items, possibly 219 if they want to match the gear from heroic Trial of the Champion), but otherwise the same experience as last year. I'll have an OverAchiever for the good folks seeking Brewfest achievements up on the site soon.
Wrath 101: Darkmoon Cards
Now that that Silas Darkmoon and his merry bunch are in town -- well, if you'd like to call outside of desolate Shattrath your town -- it's a good time to take a look at the four new Darkmoon Cards that have come out in Wrath of the Lich King. The method of acquiring the cards, unlike in the past, is no longer as random as it used to be. The new darkmoon cards can be created through the Inscription spell Darkmoon Card of the North, which is learned from Grand Master Inscription Trainers at skill level 400. It still isn't easy to get the right cards, of course, as each Darkmoon Card of the North can produce one of eight cards from four different decks. With a little patience and a lot of resources, it's possible to get the right cards or trade for them. Failing that, there's always the Auction House, which is still the most common way to complete a deck. You will also sometimes see entire decks for sale. Realm economies notwithstanding, the most expensive deck will be the infamous Nobles Deck. What is the this deck and what Darkmoon Card does it give? A look at all the new Darkmoon Cards in Wrath after the jump.
Insider Trader: Inscription from 200 to 305
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.For the past two weeks, Insider Trader has been helping you level your Inscription cheaply and efficiently. Beginners should read through the walkthrough up to skill point 100, as it not only shows you how to reach it, it discusses the basics of Inscription in detail and offers some helpful hints. Once you've reached 100, move on to the guide to hitting 200. You will need to be at least level 20 to complete this!This week, I am walking you from skill 200 to skill 305. At 225, you will need to be at least level 35, and by the time you hit 300, you will need to be level 50 in order to train from 301 to 375. Remember to click on any of the Wowhead herb links to view detailed maps of where to find each herb!
