November Ramblings

I know I neglect my blog. So I thank those that pop in to read my ramblings the odd two or three times a month I jump on to whine about the game.

Due to the fact I'm not raiding with any guild and LFR is my source of seeing raids, which is equal to taking a few friends and doing a raid boss from two expansions back it doesn't really take much of my time, there is a mechanic you might have to look out for but hey, the healers can heal you thru it so don't worry about it.
On top of not raiding, having family in and out due to holidays and the the doldrums of the daily's grind I'm not really enthusiastic about the game right now. I stay for the time sink it offers when I want to visit my toons. I do have a fondness for my toons. I've known them for years.

So what did this month offer for me in game:

Shade of the Horseman is no joke when you are in lvl 88+ Blue. The fight was ridiculous when the DPS is to slow to burn adds. I'm not saying its hard but the ONE time I did do it, I must have had 16 adds on me with health equal to what I had as a tank. I can remember the last time this fight popped up in TBC prior to Wrath launch and it took 2 minutes for this fight. This time around it was about three minutes per phase.

Blizz still made it tremendously hard for you to do any quests that require you to get a hold of other factions players toons. So now instead of hanging out in our home cities, watching the kids spam trade with Thunder-fury links, we now get put in an unmountable city where we have just about everything we want but an AH and the other faction. Oh and a way to get from point to point fast and well, a city that is fun to be in. I still don't think I have seen everything that this city we get stuck at, has to offer.

I will say, even thou LFR is scaled down and basically brainless we still get to see the brilliance of the fights and design Blizz put into the fights. Elegon is a wonderfully looking fight and simply a two phase fight that LFR tanks seem to not get. Garlon is pretty neat as well, kill some legs, slow the boss, kite and kill. Lots to do but simple. I also like the Spirit Kings. From what I see, the raids were done very well, much more so that the last few tiers of Cata.

I know 5.1 is here, I still haven't started the quest line that opens the new quests with rep, I mean lord knows that we have enough factions to grind thru, so wondering how the hell the basis of a new patch would be to add another grind is beyond me.

Lets not forget we now have brawlers guild, this is something that is like PVP but not. On top of it, you need to get an invite, the 1st round of invites go to those willing to sink gold into by going to the Black Market AH spend gold on this. Another idea that you have to wonder what the braintrust at the front office greenlighted this odd game mechanism.


My parting shot for this wonderful month as we lead to the kick off of Christmas. I flew to Halfhill Village to do my framing. I have the complete farm open to me, all 16 plots. I understand that you must not make this pure mindless, but from the time I picked my 1st plant until I finished it took me 13 minutes. This wasn't doing dailies, it was picking my plants, taking the "Why not Scallions" quest, grabbing my seeds and replanting. Almost a minute per plant. Why? I had 5 Critters to fight, 5 of my plants were tangled, and the others were either parched or infested. Not ONE plant was just pick and plant.  I did get 16 motes of harmony but it cost me so much time I wanted to scream.

Til next time, thanks for hanging in there with me.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday.

Jewelcarfting, its a bad joke!

Looking back

Chasey's professions are Jewel Crafting and Enchanting. She has always been an enchanter but the other profession has changed a few times. I don't remember the 1st couple, but one day before Naxx. 2.0 I went mining to get the Stam. that goes along with that profession. Shortly after I realized, I must go JC, I was spending SO much gold on gems. At the time I did it, I was looking to save gold and get the unbelievable JC only gem bonuses. My goal wasn't to be a gold maker or to collect all of the recipes that the game offered. I was to make my gems or gems for my alt's. and to get the profession only stats.

Towards the end of Wrath I got to get the real benefit of being a Jewel Crafter. The awesome gold oppertunity and doing what the money makers call the "Saronite Shuffle" by prospecting Saronite. It worked but I was never a true auction house mogul. It was to keep my butt out of debt. Doing the JC daily wasn't much fun but it wasn't painful. The money you made became much better than any of the drawbacks.

During Cata, the money from JC was sickening! I made painful amounts of gold selling gems. Until the epics came out. At that time, being a JC was a pain in the ass! The dailies weren't horrible but it was something you had to do to get the patterns you wanted and the sheer fact your bonus was almost void by being a JC hurt to the core. I wasn't raiding but it saddened me I could spend 250g to get the same stats I had already by being the owner of a crafting profession. I heard some talk of it, but in the end Blizz never did up the JC only gem stats.

Enter the Mist of Panderia

For almost the entirety of Cata, blue quality red gem cuts sold for above 100g. They hardly ever dipped below that until the release of epics and even then certain cuts stayed pretty close. Every 4 days you had a new pattern that you NEEDED and could make a profit.

MoP has brought us a guessing game and the NEED for a miner on staff to get the gems you need. As we sit less than two months from release day, the blue quality red cuts are 60g on my server. That is even for the brilliant cut, which is much needed by ALMOST every class.

I'm a tank, I need 3 or 4 cuts. I'm not looking to sell at this point, I'm looking to get the cuts I need for my gear. It took me close to a week of buy or xmuting to get my cuts, per gem. Now I did get extra gem cuts but NO ONE buys blues. It is almost at this point (yes, even now in game) better to vendor them. Because re-listing them for 5 days straight makes no Goblin sense.

I thank Blizz for giving JC's a mount. Its been glorious doing dailies to get the pattern. While I discuss this I can see almost non stop for another poor JC, and I say poor because there seems to be a million of us, are now selling the panthers for cost. Yes, there is zero money to be made in the mounts.

No this isn't all about gold with me, my complaint isn't that the poor JC can't make gold, the simple fact is I've had to rely on RNG to get my patterns. I still don't have the pure mastery cut and the ring and neck patterns were obsolete a few days after level 90 for any toon.

Just quickly on another note, I think Blizz really dropped the ball on professions for this whole xpac. Sure I think they cut down the BOT'rs by making raw mats so very plentiful. But being a LW, Tailor or Blacksmith requires you to level and GRIND rep! OH, yes more grinding with the alts. Enchanting doesn't even have a use for the sought after Spirit of Harmony.

On the Spirit of Harmony front, I'm not sure if Blizz has implemented a worse idea to "get people out in the world". Making them BOE makes some of the raw materials less attractive. To my statement on enchanters, and even JC's who get their patterns they want they are now sitting on these and selling the raw mats you can buy from the panda. If you look it really has put dent in the Golden Lotus market.

Looking ahead

I'm guessing as teir gear becomes more regular on the normal raiders, as opposed to the hard core. That will once again make the gem market profitable again, but...

Sure being a JC is still fun at this point. The money from the profession is dried up. We are now only able to have TWO JC only gems in our gear and even cutting the Meta's is less cost efficient than selling the blue quality gems. I'm hoping that Blizz makes a change to the profession in later patches. Again, not raiding I'm not really disabled by this other than not having incoming gold flow that came with being a JC once was. Blizz has fixed that for us by giving us 120 or so factions that take no less than 9000 dailies to do to become exalted with.

Currently, being a JC is a joke. If I was raiding hard core again or on a serious scales I'd be upset by the 'nerfs' to the profession only benefit.