Good ol' Moroes is right. Preparations must be made...for Cataclysm. That's right, I am late once again, and I've only recently started to prepare my bags for Cataclysm. But insane profits are on my wishlist for this year's early Christmas (November 2, so I've heard), so take a look at my current arrangements.

Saronite Ore (and others)
Been investing a lot in hundreds of stacks of Saronite and a few dozens of stacks of the rest of the ores. I'm currently sitting on nearly 200 stacks of Saronite and raising every day. Not so sure how I will handle them all at the expansion launch, but I'll find a way! I heard these things will get a surge of demand because of all the new Alchemists and Engineers (those greedy green new guys in the Horde) that will show up, so I didn't think twice and started stockpiling right away.
Current investment: Close to 3,000 gold.

Inscription Goods
Inscription has been one of the best sources of income for me and even though it's still not certain how it will work in Cataclysm, I think it surely won't die. Therefore, I've been getting the cheapest herbs, and started building my Cata-labeled stocks of glyphs for all classes, vellums, inks, runescrolls, nearly everything that this Profession can provide! I'm still working on what to do with the leftover inks I will have after all this, as I haven't read a lot about them yet, but hopefully they won't become useless (pretty please, Blizzard?). In summary, I'm expecting a deja-vu of 3.2 all over again. Are you with me?

What else are you hoarding for Cataclysm, and why are you certain that it will provide profit?


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I've been hit with loads of information (and I really mean LOADS) about Cataclysm lately, which are said to influence the economies by then. There's a lot of speculation going on apparently, on subjects like:

• Zul'Gurub is no longer a raid instance.
• Glyphs will be needed only once (they will be like spells).
• Some vendors that currently sell valuable items will disappear.
• ...And there's a lot of other examples.

I know the Beta is online at the moment, but how reliable is this kind of information this far away from the actual 4.0 release? How can people immediatly guess all the consequences of such events? I think it's good to speculate, because when people are brainstorming possibilites, some of them actually make sense, but I've been reading lots of non-sense like "Inscription will die" or "I won't be able to make money anymore due to these stupid changes, bla bla".

Maybe I was unlucky on finding mostly this kind of quitters (I called them slackers a few months back) but it makes me be happy about it. Strange feeling, I know, but bear with me. People cannot be 100% right when they speculate and come to a conclusion. But if they find out that they were wrong, they can and WILL change their mind (especially in this game), and take a step on the opposite direction. So, all these quitters that I'm talking about will be there on the markets that they criticised themselves, it's just a matter of when. With their loser attitude, they will probably not take action towards leveling their professions right when Deathwing blows Azeroth up, which gives us - astute people - an immediate step ahead of these competitors. For how long? Until all the losers realise they were wrong and start climbing their way to the mountain top that we set foot in a few weeks (or months) back! So, think ahead of time and you'll make a blast on the beginning, but eventually, everyone will catch up, and the role you'll play will be exactly the same as it is right now. Why worry about it so much, if you'll be rich either way?

Make your money now, while you're preparing to go ahead all those slackers. But remember, they'll be your competitors soon enough.


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So, what was the general reaction to the new Cataclysm features? Myself, I love Worgens, thought Goblins weren't right for the Horde at first, but changed my mind, etc. But overall, I got this feeling of "I must play it!". Lots of people say they will come back to WoW when Cataclysm arrives, and of course, they share the same feeling as me. So, why do we get so excited with new features which are still far away, and not as much by stuff like the Crusader's Coliseum, or Icecrown Citadel?

Do we unconsciously have a need for "fresh starts", even though, it's not really a fresh start, but you get "fresh" raids and other content that make you feel like starting gathering stuff again, like new gear tiers, etc?
Perhaps, and that's all we need to keep paying for this game. People whine a lot about this new expansion, but they will play it for sure, like they did with BC and WotLK, because they're addicts...well, in a certain way, we all are!

I found this video that kind of represents a lot of people's reactions, parody style:



"Once an addict, always an addict" :)

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I found this topic on the EU Official Discussion forums (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=10543458711&sid=1) and it sounds like a very good idea to me. The poster happened to quote someone from the US forums.

"I was so pumped out about this idea and those that followed by others in that thread that I had to share it with the EU community.

Link to original post: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19377462227&sid=1

The actual post:

Please do this, Blizzard. I want Deathwing to patrol the skies of Azeroth, occasionally swooping down to attack towns. This is a newer, bolder, more dangerous Azeroth from the looks of things. We need Deathwing to keep the fear of him in us. We need him to not pull an Arthas and constantly retreat saying "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME, GADGET! NEXT TIIIIME!"

Please have him actually attack our towns regularly. Or not even that. I would be happy just seeing him flying around. It would be awesome to be questing somewhere, the sky darkens, and you look up to see Deathwing soaring above you.

Edit: While Deathwing is insidious, and has definitely plotted and manipulated in the past, it's clear now that the time for that is past him. He's made his move, and he is showing himself to be a force of nature. The story introducing him for this expansion describes him as erupting from Deepholme with a primal rage.

Behaving like the Lich King has simply would not fit him at this point in time. He is a hurricane of fire and death, and his destruction of Azeroth is not complete.

Please retain this force of nature feel to him throughout the expansion.

2nd Edit: Someone later in the topic mentions that this might make it look like Deathwing really has nothing better to do than roam around menacing. No real plans to make, in other words. I think that's a good point!

But I think we could have both. The key is to not make this occurance TOO common. I think it's important that Deathwing make his presence known, but it's also important that in doing this his presence isn't trivialized. Every hour would be way too often, I think. I'd say not even every day."

How amazing would it be to have Deathwing flying around in Azeroth, making you aware of his presence? I totally agree that the Lich King was kind of weak, because we get to lay him down a few times, and that shouldn't happen if he is so powerful as he should be. At least, he should be quite an opponent on 3.3 :)

What about you, what would you like to see updated in Azeroth? Would you like new features like this one?

My suggestion...more legendary weapons, instead of only 1 per patch. They implemented Val'anyr (*drool*) on 3.1, now they say they will implement a new legendary weapon (Shadowmourne) for Hunters and DKs anyone who can use 2H axes (even though "The stat allocation may not benefit hunters or shamans as much as warriors, DKs or paladins. ") on 3.3, and a caster one on Cataclysm. Why not implement more than 1 weapon at the same time, but making them way harder to obtain? That way, every class would be able to get a legendary. And I mean they should be HARD to get, very hard. The kind of hard that makes you think it's impossible, the kind of hard that shows why it's called a Legendary.

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Stats simplification

What we were finding is that in many cases things had just become so complicated that players were not making intelligent decisions based on their knowledge of how various stats benefited them. That sounds like what you wanted to have happened, but it really wasn't. Instead players would pull up a BiS list, or plug the item into a spreadsheet. If the answer was "upgrade" they equipped the item. We could pretty much just give the items a name and art and make all the stats not displayed.

If you were one of those players who picked up a piece and understood how armor pen vs. attack power benefited you or whether defense was still worth collecting after you had hit crit immunity, then you were in the minority. Hopefully we can get back to a system where eyeballing an item's stats has some chance of being right. (Source)

How exactly will choosing stats be hard in Cataclysm? If we analyze the new stat system (based on the information so far), we have:

• MP5 removed, Spirit will be the regen stat for everyone.
  

• Spell Power removed, Intellect will raise your damage/healing.

• Attack Power removed. Leather/Mail armour will give Attack Power through Agility and Plate will give Attack Power through Strength.

• Defense removed. Tanks will get it through talents, so they don't have to get 'capped' through gear.

• Armor Penetration removed. It seems it's too hard "mathy".
  

• Stamina: Players will notice more Stamina on gear as Defense, Spell Power, Attack Power and Armor Penetration are removed. 
  

• Haste: Will also increase the rate at which you gain energy, runes, and focus. Retribution paladins and Enhancement shaman will have a talent that allows them to take advantage of this benefit.

With this, we have 5 main stats: Spirit, Intellect, Stamina, Strenght and Haste.

Can we think about this in a non-easy mode way, by any chance...? I mean, Warrior and Death Knight tanks will stack Stamina and Strength (and DKs will also stack Haste because of the quickest rune gaining); Paladin tanks will stack Stamina and Strenght (and Intellect? Not sure as I'm not into Pally tanks); Druid tanks will stack Stamina and Agility. Healers will stack Intellect, Spirit and Haste (considering Haste will stay the same for healers). As for DPS:
Rogues - Agility/Haste/(Stamina);
Hunters - Agility/Haste/(Stamina);
Mage - Intellect/Spirit(?)
...You see where I'm getting.

Am I missing something here, or is Blizzard intending to make those fewer stats much more complex than what was shown?

Note, I'm not whining on this post, I'm just looking at information and trying to understand it, based on what everyone knows so far. The ultimate difference between two players isn't their stats; it's skill. And Blizzard will never be able to change that. :)

Other than gear itself, the stat changes will also cause severe gem changes (and, therefore, Jewelcrafting changes). There's still not much to speculate on at the moment, because there was (close to) no information on this; we have to wait a bit longer.

Markco at Just My Two Copper made a good point 2 days ago, regarding these changes. He said that "Gems will either be destroyed or changed in some way".

I believe this change won't happen like the prismatic to coloured Dragon's Eye change, mainly because they wouldn't be able to change AP gems into Agility/Strength according to the player's will. These changes imply something bigger, something like destroying the gems themselves (removing them from the game), which means a demand boom for gems.

I'm 100% sure JC won't be negatively affected by these changes, and I'm confident that everyone will have to re-gem, meaning thousands of profit (some might be saying "Dream on!", but hey I'm a dreamer ^^). So, considering the information already given remains unchanged (ah, the usual gamble), it should be wise to start gathering Agility, Strength, Haste, Spirit and Intellect gems for that tiny little space in your bank tab named "For the not-so-far away future".

If you're too greedy to stockpile just yet, just wait for the Beta! ;) I'm making decent amounts of money from Jewelcrafting at the moment anyway! But hey, putting some gems "to the side" can't hurt, can it?

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Cataclysm sounds amazing. There isn't any feature that I don't like, even though I'm a bit reluctant about the stat changes (removing a lot of stats and merging them with others). How will this affect itemization? Will it turn gearing into an easy task, with just a few stats pre-determined for each class/role? We'll have to wait and see, but these stat changes will cause great disturbances in Jewelcrafting - reducing the number of gem cuts drastically-, won't they?

Archaeology seems a great feature. Only time will tell what mats it will use. If it's something BoE, I'll start stockpiling right now (even though the expansion should be over a year away).

Guild Leveling seems like an awesome idea too. Finally they implement something that rewards team work in an effective way, with stuff like mass resurrection and lower repairs. It's really something I'm looking forward to.

New races, the Goblins and the Worgens. I'm thrilled to know that the Alliance are finally getting a furry race, and that people will be able to have Goblin bank alts. My Worgen will be a Warlock; what about yours? :)

Now, I thought I should update the current blog situation, so:

Why no raiding related posts yet?
I haven't mentioned raiding in any posts yet because I'm currently not able to raid due to technical problems. I will start posting about raids hopefully in a couple of weeks (can't give a specific date, for obvious reasons).

Planning on posting topics other than money and your thoughts?
Yes. Oara made a nice suggestion, at the JMTC Forums, on the topic where I advertised my blog, and I'm definitely considering something like that. In the future, more topics should be added too.

How's the blog attendance so far?
It's looking good considering the blog is only a few days old. The numbers are:

Not bad, an average of 48 visits a day :)

To all the readers, hope you're enjoying the content on Too Greedy so far. I'm probably going to change the layout of the page soon, when I find the inspiration to do it. Don't hesitate to comment the posts with anything you find worth it, either to add something to the post itself, or just to share your own experiences!

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