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5 ways to get rich off an agonizing grind
Skyshards are a bit like leprechauns: Some people never see them, and some -- usually the heavily inebriated souls awake at 2 am -- see them all the time. You need 10 for a Sky Crystal which brings Alani crashing out of her route around the Vale. Because that's the only way to get the Thundering Ruby Cloud Serpent, and because some of us are working on Mount Parade and will barf the next time we see the Argent Tournament, sometimes you just have to resign yourself to a long and boring grind. However, if you've got to kill thousands of mobs anyway, you might as well make the most out of it and improve your hourly genocidal "wages" with a few things: Helpful Wikky's Whistle A rare drop off Major Nanners. While definitely the least helpful item on this list, the Whistle isn't expensive to use and doesn't use a trinket slot. Blow it, and a tiny hozen will appear. Talk to him, and he'll run off to forage for you while you kill mobs. Once you get to around 50, Wikky will reappear with a Bag of Helpful Things. Warning: He vanishes fairly quickly if you don't talk to him, so keep an eye on the emotes in your chat screen. He'll always announce his presence. More past the cut!
Spirits of Harmony confirmed unbound in 6.0
Over in the land of Blizzard twitter, Senior Game Designer Jonathan LeCraft has confirmed something that should make crafting and various Mists of Pandaria-era projects far easier for players: in patch 6.0, Spirits of Harmony will become unbound. @mfgIcarlos Yes, it will be unbound with the expansion. - Jonathan LeCraft (@TheCrafticus) June 4, 2014 While I personally would loved to have seen this happen in 5.4, late is better than never. This way, folks will be able to buy, sell, trade, and store Spirits on whatever toon they like. Though most of the things we currently use Spirits of Harmony for will almost certainly become obsolete in the new expansion, their being unbound will make collecting legacy recipes or completing old quests (such as the Pandaren Cooking Ways) much simpler for future alts and players.
Spirits of Harmony may become BoE after all
Spirits of Harmony, the Mists of Pandaria currency used by many professions both for supplies and for crafting, have been BoP since the expansions launch. The last we'd heard, there were no plans to make the items BoE by the end of expansion, as with Cataclym's Chaos Orbs and Wrath's Frozen Orbs. However, a tweet exchange last week between Professions Designer @hwoome and a player suggests that the resource might not stay BoP after all ... and might even make the switch to a BoE item sooner than we'd thought. @StarkRavingCalm No harm in 6.0? I agree. Maybe even a little earlier. ;) - Hwoo (@hwoome) March 28, 2014 While it's not a confirmation by any means, the tweet came from a game designer, which suggests at the very least that the issue is not off the table for discussion as previously thought. Whether or not we'll see Spirits lose their BoP status is still up in the air, though -- so I wouldn't worry about stockpiling the items for now.
No plans to make Motes or Spirits of Harmony account wide
Thanks to Chaos Orbs in Cataclysm, which began life as a BoP item, but became BoE with the last patch, and Wrath of the Lich King's Frozen Orbs, many had assumed that Spirits of Harmony would lose their soulbound status towards the end of the expansion. Community Manager Lore has confirmed once and for all that there are no plans to make this change with Spirits of Harmony. @rebrown38 @WoWMonk No plans to make those (or Spirits) account-wide. - Lore (@CM_Lore) March 21, 2014 We're not entirely sure on the reasoning behind this decision, but it might be something of an annoyance for players. Although, with previous expansions at least, the item was largely completely irrelevant by this point. Spirits of Harmony, in so much as they can be traded for items in the Shrine, have at least held some value. So don't stockpile them for an alt's crafting, on the basis that they might become BoA, or for an auction house bonanza that may never come.
Why head to the Isle of Giants?
Patch 5.2 introduced the Isle of Thunder, but it also introduced some other things to explore. One of these things has some players absolutely mystified -- the Isle of Giants. Located in the northernmost reaches of Kun Lai, the island is home to a never ending stream of giant dinosaurs and the Zandalari Dinomancers that seek to capture them for their own purposes. Why are the Zandalari so concerned with getting dinosaurs? Well, if you've wandered around on the Isle of Thunder or stepped into the Throne of Thunder, you'll see that the Zandalari are pretty keen on enslaving the dinosaurs and using them as mounts, pets, and even raid bosses. The bigger question on the mind of a lot of players, however, is why we should be concerned with the Isle of Giants at all. With no quests, no portals, no lead-ins and no clear defined purpose besides the world raid boss Oondasta, why would we want to spend any extended amount of time on the island at all?
Patch 5.2's jewelcrafting changes and how to profit
There are going to be some new important recipes in 5.2 for Jewelcrafters: a "prism" style daily cooldown Serpent's Heart, and a no-cooldown recipe that allows you to craft the uncut meta gems, Primal Diamonds, out of gems and Spirits of Harmony. Kaliope reports that both recipes are world drops in Pandaria on the PTR, and shouldn't take long to farm. Serpent's Prism would have been a better name While the profession is better designed than ever (with much less waste for shufflers and far fewer items ending up at the vendor), the Serpent's Eyes that you get while prospecting Mists ore tend to pile up. They're used to make the 450 crafted jewelry, but the market for that isn't nearly as large as the supply of Serpent's Eyes. Many people end up making these into blues and disenchanting them so they're not wasted. Now that all JCs will have the option of turning three Serpent's Eyes into a prism every day, that will provide an outlet for the Eyes that may be more profitable than the 450 blues. So far, only a few Prisms have been opened, but they seem to award a random blue gem, just like prisms from expansions past. Since it's on a daily cooldown, it's unlikely to be able to push down the price of blue gems much. Is it worth using Spirits of Harmony? The new Primal Diamond recipe has no cooldown, but requires Spirits of Harmony which are their own sort of cooldown. One criticism of Jewelcrafting has been that JCs have nothing except research and extremely low-liquidity mini-pets to spend their Spirits of Harmony on. Jewelcrafters generate Spirits as quickly as any other character, and in theory, it'd be nice to have a JC option to use them on. Especially seeing as how anyone doing daily research will have almost certainly finished learning all their cuts by now.
Patch 5.2 PTR: Cache loot receives a buff
It may seem silly to complain about having more currency to spend, but players have been by and large unhappy with the caches of gold rewarded as an alternative for loot when killing a boss in Mists of Pandaria. The argument does have some weight, however; and it's also been addressed before, in a slightly different fashion. When boxes that dropped from holiday bosses were viewed as disappointing because they contained nothing other than points, those boxes were adjusted to add actual items. And let's face it -- when you're given a box of something, you really expect something to be in that box. Gold just doesn't cut it. Apparently Blizzard agreed with this sentiment, and the caches, deemed "failbags" by some, have been adjusted on the PTR to offer something far more substantial, according to a post by Bashiok on the official forums. Bashiok The change is still in for the failbags to ... not be fail. They'll have a chance to contain things like very valuable grey items (essentially randomizing the gold you get from the bags), LFR versions of non-boss loot, Spirits of Harmony, consumables, pets and mounts, and... maybe some other stuff I forgot. Lots of things! Opening them should have some anticipation and surprise now. :) source Trash drops, consumables, pets, and mounts? Count me in. This change ought to make getting that cache of items a heck of a lot more appealing to players. After all, if you get a surprise box of goodies, it ought to be full of fun!
What you should plant on your Tiller's farm
This hit my inbox the other day: What's the most profitable thing to plant in a farm? I'd assume in most cases people plant for their profession or whatever raw material sells for the most. I, however, am a chronic alt-oholic and have every profession maxed and available to me. I don't raid and can't stand dailies, so I only have patterns available that are vendor trained, bought with spirits of harmony, or learned off a cooldown. So what's the start and end of the equation? -Matt So what is the most profitable thing to plant on your farm? Matt assumes correctly that the majority of people simply plant what they can use to avoid having to buy off the Auction House. There is plenty of opportunity to improve this, though! Generally, the least profitable thing to farm is vegetables. This is only true because everyone else already farms them, and they're all you can farm until you get farther into the Tillers reputation grind. The reputation seeds for leather, ore, cloth, or enchanting mats are generally lower yield than simply getting Harmonies and trading those for what you need, and that's generally less than you'd get by planting Enigma Seeds, selling everything you get, and using that gold to buy leather, ore, cloth, or enchanting mats. In short, the most profitable thing to plant is usually Songbell Seeds or Enigma Seeds. Songbell Seeds Songbell Seeds provide you with Motes of Harmony, which provide Spirits of Harmony. If you have a profession that requires these to make items valuable to other players or allows you to use them to skip daily cooldowns, then you can figure out exactly how much one of them is worth and do the math.
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.
Blizzard previews the Spirit of Harmony and profession changes
Mists of Pandaria makes changes to a wide variety of game systems, from your class talents and abilities to how tanking works, and professions aren't immune to this sweeping revamp of just about everything. On the official site, we're being treated to a nice preview that covers the new Spirit of Harmony crafting material and how it will be used in the game. The Spirit of Harmony is a material used in crafting, yes, and it assembles from motes like primals did in The Burning Crusade, but it's also a bind-on-pickup item that can be traded for various benefits, depending on your profession. Nethaera breaks it down for us: Nethaera -- Professions: Living in Perfect Harmony Here are some examples of the many ways that Spirit of Harmony can be used: Alchemy: Purchase an extra Transmute. Archaeology: Purchase a restored artifact. Cooking: Exchange for an Iron Paw Token. Enchanting: Buy reagents. Engineering: New mounts and personal goggles. Herbalism: Purchase herbs. Inscription: Purchase rare inks. Jewelcrafting: Use to purchase extra daily discoveries. Tailoring, Blacksmithing, Leatherworking: Used to create epic items. Purchasing materials may not ultimately be the most efficient way to gain resources, but it can be an added convenience to purchase something with Spirit of Harmony rather than going back into the world to get it. The Spirit of Harmony vendor can be found in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. source While the Spirit of Harmony will be BoP to start, Nethaera does mention that it may become bind to account to help players with crafting or profession specialist alts to get the most use out of the system, although that's not been decided yet. For now, it'll be bind on equip. Head over to the official site to get the rundown on how the Spirit of Harmony will work for crafting. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Gold Capped: Spirit of Harmony crafting limitations
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 Spirit of Harmony is going to be the limiting factor in a lot of craftable items in Mists of Pandaria. Just take a look at all the recipes it'll be a reagent for -- some 153 so far, and they haven't even finished designing the professions. The interesting part of this is that the Spirits (and the Motes you can turn into Spirits) are going to be bind on pickup, which means that you can't trade for them. Does this means that you will not be able to level a profession up to the new maximum skill level without farming Spirits and Motes of Harmony yourself? Will it mean the end of readily available, entry-level crafted PvP and PvE blues?
