Mad Max
Since the last post I've been concentrating on continuing to push my blacksmithing skill and as such, pretty much all I've done is to go out into various areas mining for materials. As I mentioned last time, there's plenty of cobalt all over Northrend - especially in Zul'Drak, Borean Tundra and Dragonblight - so it wasn't hard to get from 350 to 400 and I think it was somewhere around there that the plans I was learning began to include saronite.
At that time I started mining Sholazar Basin pretty much exclusively. There are some saronite deposits to be found in Icecrown and Wintergrasp (and I think I've seen a couple around the Storm Peaks) but Sholazar is definitely the place to go.
Unfortunately every other miner knows that too, so there are times when it can take time to gather everything you need because there are just so many others grabbing the stuff as fast as they can find it. All the same I worked up a tactic, and a strategy, that seemed to help.
The tactic is quite simple and relies on the fact that most of the people who have fast birds, and use them to beat me to mineral outcrops, tend to fly high. I found that on my slower bird, if I stay much lower - hugging the ground - I can still spot an outcrop at the same distance and have a slight edge in getting to it. The Crusader Aura helps a bit, I'm sure, because it gives a twenty percent boost to mounted speed. There is one guy I've seen around Sholazar a few times, an Orc flying an epic dragon, and while he's beaten me to the punch most times there have been several times where being closer to the ground got me to the saronite just ahead of him.
The strategy works like this: at every five points many of the 'orange' plans that are guaranteed to make you a skill point turn to yellow. At the same time the Grand Master blacksmithing trainer in Valiance Keep (and presumably the trainers in Dalaran and Valgarde) has new orange plans. The trick is to look at all the new plans and select the item that takes the least amount of materials; often there will be more than one that'll work (for example I think there are plans for cobalt helms and boots that both take four cobalt bars) and in that case I generally picked the item that had the higher market value at the auction house. Also it helps to pick things that don't have expensive extra ingredients that you'd have to buy - for example some items require Eternal Earth or Eternal Shadow and those aren't a problem because I found you get a fair amount of Crystallized Earth and Shadow from the saronite deposits; on the other hand some plans call for Eternal Air, and Crystallized Air just isn't in evidence so you'd probably have to buy the stuff.
Once you've picked the best item to make, figure out how much material you need to make five of them (that is, look at the plans and multiply everything by five). Now go mining until you have what you need, then go back to the forge and make your five items. Go back to the trainer, get the next set of plans, and repeat as necessary.
I was able to do this and because of the sheer amount of cobalt and saronite around I didn't have to fast-track the process by buying ore or bars from the auction house, so for the last few days my money reserves haven't been draining away.
This strategy works fine up to 435. There it breaks because at that point all of your orange plans turn yellow and the trainer has no more plans until you hit 440. It's possible that there are plans you can buy from a vendor, like the adamantite ones I had to get from Telredor earlier, but I wasn't able to find any. In any case the best bet seems to be to pick one of the newly-yellow plans (likely the same plan you used to get from 430 to 435) and go grab enough material to make ten of them. Yellow means that you should average a point for every two items you make - you can't count on that but if you've got enough to make ten then you should be at least close to 440 by the time you're done. It worked for me.
At 440 you get a bunch more plans - but now you have another problem because these all require titansteel. Lucky for me I had my stack of twenty so I was able at least to make a couple of points, and while I was at it I made for myself a Titansteel Destroyer - a two handed mace that does some serious damage. I'll probably make another one, because those things are worth around a thousand gold at auction and I could really use the cash right now.
Since then I've made a few more things, including a couple of saronite items from 'green' plans that through sheer luck made me two points. As a result I am, if I remember right, at 447 or 448 (you think I'd remember something like that, but I really can't be sure until I look again).
As I mentioned, my money pile hasn't been shrinking but at the same time it hasn't really been growing either. Some of the items I made have sold, but many haven't and in particular this mostly includes the high value items. I was able to sell one titansteel item for close to five hundred, but I've had two shields, a helm and a breastplate - each worth over four hundred - up for auction for a couple of days without a bite. It's a bit frustrating because at the moment I'm back down below the four thousand gold mark in the bank and money from those sales would be enough to get me up to five thousand. I can't make people buy them, unfortunately. If they bounce back to me I think my best option would be to try to hawk them on the trade channel at, say, twenty-five percent below market.
Being so close to maxing out the blacksmithing, there isn't the urgency any more to go mining so often (although I still have to provide Kate with eight saronite bars each day so that she can make titanium to help with the titansteel bars - of which I'm continuing to make one every day). As such I'm now free to pursue other things. Kate's been battling in Wintergrasp, sometimes two or three times a day, and I've joined in a few times too. We created a 2v2 arena team, although we've still got to get to an arena and have a go (I know we'll get cut to bits, at least at first, but I'm still anxious to try it). I've got a stack of old quests in Dragonblight and Storm Peaks to close out. There are a stack of achievements to go after. And of course, I can mine and smith for stuff to sell to keep some cash coming in, so that I might eventually get my fast flying mount. There's plenty to do.
At that time I started mining Sholazar Basin pretty much exclusively. There are some saronite deposits to be found in Icecrown and Wintergrasp (and I think I've seen a couple around the Storm Peaks) but Sholazar is definitely the place to go.
Unfortunately every other miner knows that too, so there are times when it can take time to gather everything you need because there are just so many others grabbing the stuff as fast as they can find it. All the same I worked up a tactic, and a strategy, that seemed to help.
The tactic is quite simple and relies on the fact that most of the people who have fast birds, and use them to beat me to mineral outcrops, tend to fly high. I found that on my slower bird, if I stay much lower - hugging the ground - I can still spot an outcrop at the same distance and have a slight edge in getting to it. The Crusader Aura helps a bit, I'm sure, because it gives a twenty percent boost to mounted speed. There is one guy I've seen around Sholazar a few times, an Orc flying an epic dragon, and while he's beaten me to the punch most times there have been several times where being closer to the ground got me to the saronite just ahead of him.
The strategy works like this: at every five points many of the 'orange' plans that are guaranteed to make you a skill point turn to yellow. At the same time the Grand Master blacksmithing trainer in Valiance Keep (and presumably the trainers in Dalaran and Valgarde) has new orange plans. The trick is to look at all the new plans and select the item that takes the least amount of materials; often there will be more than one that'll work (for example I think there are plans for cobalt helms and boots that both take four cobalt bars) and in that case I generally picked the item that had the higher market value at the auction house. Also it helps to pick things that don't have expensive extra ingredients that you'd have to buy - for example some items require Eternal Earth or Eternal Shadow and those aren't a problem because I found you get a fair amount of Crystallized Earth and Shadow from the saronite deposits; on the other hand some plans call for Eternal Air, and Crystallized Air just isn't in evidence so you'd probably have to buy the stuff.
Once you've picked the best item to make, figure out how much material you need to make five of them (that is, look at the plans and multiply everything by five). Now go mining until you have what you need, then go back to the forge and make your five items. Go back to the trainer, get the next set of plans, and repeat as necessary.
I was able to do this and because of the sheer amount of cobalt and saronite around I didn't have to fast-track the process by buying ore or bars from the auction house, so for the last few days my money reserves haven't been draining away.
This strategy works fine up to 435. There it breaks because at that point all of your orange plans turn yellow and the trainer has no more plans until you hit 440. It's possible that there are plans you can buy from a vendor, like the adamantite ones I had to get from Telredor earlier, but I wasn't able to find any. In any case the best bet seems to be to pick one of the newly-yellow plans (likely the same plan you used to get from 430 to 435) and go grab enough material to make ten of them. Yellow means that you should average a point for every two items you make - you can't count on that but if you've got enough to make ten then you should be at least close to 440 by the time you're done. It worked for me.
At 440 you get a bunch more plans - but now you have another problem because these all require titansteel. Lucky for me I had my stack of twenty so I was able at least to make a couple of points, and while I was at it I made for myself a Titansteel Destroyer - a two handed mace that does some serious damage. I'll probably make another one, because those things are worth around a thousand gold at auction and I could really use the cash right now.
Since then I've made a few more things, including a couple of saronite items from 'green' plans that through sheer luck made me two points. As a result I am, if I remember right, at 447 or 448 (you think I'd remember something like that, but I really can't be sure until I look again).
As I mentioned, my money pile hasn't been shrinking but at the same time it hasn't really been growing either. Some of the items I made have sold, but many haven't and in particular this mostly includes the high value items. I was able to sell one titansteel item for close to five hundred, but I've had two shields, a helm and a breastplate - each worth over four hundred - up for auction for a couple of days without a bite. It's a bit frustrating because at the moment I'm back down below the four thousand gold mark in the bank and money from those sales would be enough to get me up to five thousand. I can't make people buy them, unfortunately. If they bounce back to me I think my best option would be to try to hawk them on the trade channel at, say, twenty-five percent below market.
Being so close to maxing out the blacksmithing, there isn't the urgency any more to go mining so often (although I still have to provide Kate with eight saronite bars each day so that she can make titanium to help with the titansteel bars - of which I'm continuing to make one every day). As such I'm now free to pursue other things. Kate's been battling in Wintergrasp, sometimes two or three times a day, and I've joined in a few times too. We created a 2v2 arena team, although we've still got to get to an arena and have a go (I know we'll get cut to bits, at least at first, but I'm still anxious to try it). I've got a stack of old quests in Dragonblight and Storm Peaks to close out. There are a stack of achievements to go after. And of course, I can mine and smith for stuff to sell to keep some cash coming in, so that I might eventually get my fast flying mount. There's plenty to do.
Labels: Games, Human Paladin, WoW
posted by Pete Ford at
2:49 PM
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