WoW Weekly: The Bad Beta Tester

img: Blizzard

All's still pretty quiet on my end when it comes to Azeroth. Other than making good on my promise from the previous post---my banker is once again gold-capped---I still haven't been doing too much in game. However, that's about to change.

But before I get to that, let touch on the big news of the (previous) week: the Legion Beta is live! I haven't received an invite, and I'm not disappointed about it in the least. You see, I'm what they refer to in technical circles as a "bad beta tester." I'm pretty sure I got into the Cataclysm beta...pretty sure. But that alone gives an indication as to how much I actually played it. I bought my way into the Mists of Pandaria beta, and I was glad for it: I thought the game looked beautiful and I really, really wanted the early access. I took the opportunity to play through the pandaren starting area a couple of times (something I'd actually already done at the prior year's Blizzcon) and left it at that. I got into the Warlords beta as well, and didn't play much once again. Ho-hum.

One of the main reasons I don't go all out in Warcraft betas is because I'm really averse to learning story spoilers before the rest of my playmates have the chance to experience them. While I'm as excited as the next guy or gal for new Warcraft content, beta access doesn't fall under the "new content" category for me. Another big reason is the lack of time: I don't find myself in excess, so I have to be discerning about leisure activities. Some folks might point at those two truths and declare that I should not have opted-in to the beta in the first place. To those people, I fart in your general direction.

Blizzard knows what they're doing; for every tester who's trying to run through walls or fall through the world, there's likely a hundred others who are simply going about their routines, calling attention to bugs if and when they come across them. Both are valuable to Blizzard at the end of the day. So let's allow beta testers to be beta testers in all their varied glory, shall we?

On to the other stuff:

Gold-capped...Again
It happened last Friday. As my banker collected auction sales and garrison spoils from my level 100s, suddenly he wouldn't take any more currency. I'm currently sitting on 1.1 million gold across the account, which is a drop in the bucket compared to what some folks have made this expansion, but it's a nice chunk to head into Legion with. The economy is continuing to slide with people off-loading excess mats, which in turn is driving down the price and the likelihood of sale for certain craftable goods.

I'm unsure whether I should take part in a Great Liquidation prior to Legion, or if I should hold on to a cache of profession mats to sell later on once the market's not as flooded. Perhaps I'll consult someone much wiser than I, or perhaps you can leave your informed opinion in the comments!

Back in the Saddle?
If all goes well, I should be making a return to raiding with the guild as early as this week. Regular visitors may remember that in early April I decided to take a break from raiding for the first time in three years...just too much going on outside of the game, and not enough going on in it for me personally. It's weird to think it's only been six weeks, as it feels like it's been a lot longer. I miss the folks I play with and the night we raided together, and with the Warcraft movie, guild meetup, and Legion just around the corner, I felt now would be the perfect time to get back into the swing of things.

Also, our guild is currently giving out Heroic-Archimonde runs to friends and family of the guild who have interest in the mount but may not raid. If you are reading this, consider yourself a friend of this writer and would like your very own moose, hit me up!

Gauntlet Slayer Edition
Continuing my streak of exploring additional games during the Warcraft content lull, I dove back into Gauntlet over the weekend. I say "dove back" because I purchased the game when it originally launched and was left quite disappointed. However, since I last logged in, the developer has made a string of improvements to the game, including cosmetic and power items, as well as a more straight-forward and understandable progression. It's a fun little dungeon crawler, and just as it was back in the day, even more fun when played with friends.

Guild Meetup Colorado Edition
In just less than a month and a half I'll be heading out to Colorado for the second (potentially annual) Sapere Aude guild meetup. We I don't have many plans besides hanging, drinking, warming my bones next to a campfire under the night sky, and visiting the Ren Faire on the Saturday of our trip. I'd like to hit a dispensary too just for the experience, but I may not be able to fit that in to due time restraints and lack of guildie interest.

Garrison Gold-Making Until Legion

With the news that garrison gold missions will be nerfed at some point in the nearish future, and given that I haven't been logging in to do much besides garrison chores, I thought it'd be a good time to break down the steps I'm currently taking in order to pull in roughly 100,000g each month.

The setup I'll outline below isn't perfect, but it works for me. I'm sure there are opportunities I'm overlooking, but the goal here is to put in a little bit of effort for a lot in return. If you've got ideas or tweaks I could employ to make this method more efficient, please leave a comment below!

Standard Setup - 4 Characters

Level 3 Garrison with an emphasis recruiting followers with Treasure Hunter (increased gold rewards) and Scavenger (increased garrison resources). I have at least six followers with Treasure Hunter on each character, and nearly that many with Scavenger.

Level 3 Shipyard with a good cross-section of ships to counter threats.

Level 3 Salvage Yard for Big Crates of Salvage off of garrison missions. Logging in every day should provide you with roughly two-dozen crates per character per week.

Level 3 Profession Building to acquire profession materials used to make goods to sell on the auction house.

Trading Post to exchange garrison resources for profession materials.

Garrison Mission Priorities

Based on the setup I'm using, there are certain missions I give priority to when gold missions aren't available---something that will happen if you're regularly completing gold missions across multiple characters.

Exceptional Items - like Medallion of the Legion, Frozen Arms of a Hero, Elixir of the Rapid Mind, the gronnling mount, and the fire corgi; these are all things that can be sold to other players for a hefty chunk of gold. I actually make several of these priority when they pop, like the Medallion, mount and elixir, since each holds the potential to fetch several thousand gold on the auction house.

Garrison Resources - nice to have an abundance of these at all times, whether for building/augmenting ships or purchasing profession resources from the trading post. Having a good chunk of followers with Scavenger should ensure you always have a surplus of resources for when you need them.

Apexis Crystals/Oil - I have these at the same tier because really, your need for these may vary. Having an oil rig on your shipyard will negate the need to collect oil from garrison missions. I will generally go for Apexis Crystals as my third priority because I use them to buy the 3 bonus roll seals each week for use in Hellfire Citadel. Of course, these seals can also be purchased with Honor and garrison resources, but for the love of Azeroth do not buy them with gold!

Level 100 Missions - once you've exhausted the above, remaining Level 100 missions that grant XP (or follower upgrades) are priority since they have the greatest chance of rewarding a Big Crate of Salvage.

Follower Upgrades - If you've been running your garrison for a while, most if not all of your followers should be maxed at ilvl 675. Still, these items can be liquidated for gold. Since making gold is the whole point of this exercise, and you'll also be getting a number of follower items from your salvage crates, they deserve their place here as a source of gold.

Everything Else - clearing out a mission makes room for another, so even if it means sending an ilvl 675 follower on a level 91 mission, do it. Keep all of your followers busy to maintain a steady flow of new missions.

Shipyard Mission Priorities

Gold-Increasing Missions - these are different than the treasure missions rewarding gold and are indicated by the little star icon on your map: they offer a specific bonus to missions completed in that area within a certain time frame. One of these bonuses increases gold rewards by 100%. Knock these out first and pray a gold treasure missions pops up in that area.

Other Treasure Missions - Complete these to make room for new treasure missions to spawn---hopefully ones rewarding gold.

Salvage Yard

If you're knocking out missions daily, you'll acquire roughly two-dozen salvage crates per week on each character, more or less depending on the kindness of RNG. There are lots of valuable goodies in them, including old/current gear, profession mats, and follower upgrades. Each of these can be sold, or at least used to make more gold. I generally vendor all old-worlds gear that doesn't have a transmog value (hint: use TradeSkillMaster to easily determine this) and disenchant any Warlords gear. Given the price of enchanting materials on my server and the abundance of garrison resources, it's probably wiser for me at this point to start vendoring all gear. Profession mats get used to make stuff and follower upgrades get vendored. Depending on your take, it's possible to acquire several thousand gold or more per week per character via the Salvage Yard alone.

Professions

How you can utilize your characters' professions to make gold partly hinges on the health of your server's economy. Being on a server with a larger population has allowed me to continue selling Stage 1 profession items on weekly basis up to the present day. Additionally, bags, enchants, potions and flasks have been consistent sellers on my server. There may be a time, as I'm sure there are current examples, where it's more profitable to sell raw mats instead of crafted goods. That's up to you to determine based on your server. Personally, I pull in about 5-10k per week off of profession items I crafted using mats I purchased with garrison resources. 

The key is, you should be getting all of your profession items for free via spending garrison resources at the Trading Post. Of course, wait until the post is visited by the garrison trader who offers your desired item at the lowest cost, which is 4 garrison resources per item. 

There's probably some argument for continuing to utilize max level mines and gardens, but based on the rate I acquire garrison resources which I use to buy flowers and stone, I've decided it simply isn't worth my time. 

Banker

This is a bit of a goldmaking 101 tip, but I always recommend having a character posted in an auction house who will act as your banker. Not only does this guy hold all of my gold, but he also gets mailed and posts every sellable item to the auction house. Mainly, this has been crafted items and transmoggables. Though having a designated bank character doesn't make you gold directly, as you could post to the auction house with any character, it does save you time. And you know what the goblins say!

Don't Spend

I'm going to close this with the no-shit tip: try not to actually spend any gold as you're going through this exercise. Granted, spend your own gold how you see fit, but if you'd rather see your bottom line climb as quickly possible, you're going to want to practice pinching copper. At this stage in the expansion, there isn't a whole lot for your character to spend on anyway.

In utilizing this method, I've been able to pay for my WoW subscription each month while netting upwards of 100,000g in profit---without leaving the garrison.

What are you doing the make gold during the downtime between expansions?