Crafting IRL: Spicy Mac'n Cheese

  I like to cook, which is why I work at Olive Garden. I'm just a dishwasher now, but I'd like to advance to Culinary Assistant eventually. For now, my forays into cooking are limited to my own kitchen.

Tapping My Fingers, Waiting To Post Glyphs

I had the downloader getting seemingly stuck, but I just went ahead and left it alone, took a nap, boom, done.

I'd say I'm prepared. I took all my glyphs off the market, switched operations over to my new glyph poster/Ink Bank alt (Need the slot to start a Lock), and I'm ready to login and post like usual.

My final ink tally is (Ally/Horde):
Of the Sea - 14,832/866
Ethereal - 4,428/503
Shimmering - 217/74
Celestial - 1,920/171
Jadefire - 3,920/308
Lion's - 3,920/308
Midnight - 3,920/295
Total - 33,157/2,525 (35,682 across both)

That's 11,894 glyphs, on top of the 1,500 or so I have on hand (not sure how many, but probably closer to 2,000) My cost of mats is less than 10g, so all that ink cost 3g33s each or less. I'd say an average sell price of 40g per glyph is a good, conservative estimate, so at least 30g profit each. That's a potential 400,000g profit in my bags, at least. If prices rise to 100g each, that's makes it a potential 1,300,000g profit, all off of about 125,000g invested. I don't expect to sell them all right off, but they will all sell, eventually

I'd say waiting to post is indicative of my playing priority, but really, I just want to get that out of the way so I can start playing Beastmaster Hunter again. Haven't done that in PvE since TotC. It's been due. I tried it out on Beta, of course, so I have a good idea what to expect.

Priest healing looks as incredible as ever, and Shammy healing intrigues me yet again. I haven't devoted much time to it so far, so I don't fully understand the new cooldown paradigm. Using Riptide glyphed intrigues me.

DK tanking looks much the same, I'll just have to add the occasional Blood Boil to refresh diseases, and reforge for some hit and expertise.

Pally tanking I haven't looked at yet, but I'm sure WoW Insider has a good guide.

What I really need to do over the next week is finish leveling my Rogue, along with her Herbalism and Inscription.

And, of course, maintenance is extended 2 hours. Time to stop fretting and do something else.

Specialization vs. Diversification

  One of my constant struggles making gold on Warcraft is deciding what balance to take between specialization and diversification. Focusing on just one or two markets can help reduce the total amount of time and effort going into making gold, but to really get that extra bit of gold, one needs to be sure to tap many markets.

Last Minute Leveling, Milling, and Stocking Up

  My Rogue is at 73, which means she'll certainly become my 6th 85 before Mists releases. I'll be leveling all 6 to 90, since I want all professions in play, but which one I raid on, which one I PvP on, I haven't decided. I'll probably continue LFR on my Hunter first, then my Pally tank and Priest healer, then my DK tank and Shammy Healer. I might have to run LFR's on my Rogue for a trinket or something, but I'm probably not going to raid much at all as a Rogue.

  My Druid and Warrior are both at level 44, and I'm seriously considering picking up an extra copy of WoW this week, and using RAF on both of them. It would go against my general rule of not paying anymore than $15 a month (Only other money I spent was on one name change).

  I've milled through most of my Whiptail, topping off my Ink stash of 1 Inscription bag of Shimmering, 1 bank tab (~653 glyphs worth) each of Midnight, Lion's, Jadefire and Celestial, 2 tabs of Ethereal, and a mailbox full of Ink of the Sea. I expect to maintain a full posting of glyphs through the pre-patch on into the start of Mists, enabling me to focus new herbs on new products, without having to trade down for a while. I expect my Ink of the Sea stash to last for months.

  For a couple of months now I've been buying cheap Truegold and Chaos Orbs off the Horde AH, flipping what I could for an average of 112g each Truegold and 35g each Orb. I'm left with a few stacks which are growing, and sales are thinning. I think people are finally dumping stock and stopping crafting. Both of these items will probably loose value for a few months as the overall stock dwindles, but the prices should come back up by January. At least they don't take up much room.

  I've also decided to change my alt plans and roll a Dwarf Warlock again. I feel that having only 3 Horde characters is OK, especially since they're Pally, Druid, and Monk (all Tauren). I'm not going to roll a non-Tauren just for the sake of having another Horde character, out of some sense of balance. I might reroll my Dwarf Mage as a Horde Pandaren, though. I'm not sure. I actually haven't tried them out at all, and the Beta is a black screen right now, so I can't login properly. As it stands now:

Alliance
85 Kalven -      Male Dwarf Hunter         
85 Kalare -       Female Human Priest
85 Kalmali -      Male Dwarf Death Knight
85 Kalyka -       Female Dwarf Shaman
73 Kalyssa -      Female Dwarf Rogue
44 Kalida -        Female Dwarf Warrior
15 Kaldwell -    Male Dwarf Mage (reroll Panderan?)
0   Kalister -      Male Dwarf Warlock

Horde
85 Kallahan -    Male Tauren Paladin
44 Kallonika -   Female Tauren Druid
0   Kallum -       Male Tauren Monk

P.S. I told myself I wouldn't do it, but I bought more Whiptail. There were over 650 stacks for less than 13g each. How could I not sweep them up?

A Rare Opportunity

  BigBearButt makes the case for having a more casual kind of fun with the game while in this part of the expansion cycle, and it caused me to reflect on how I myself am playing on live and in beta.

  On live, I've been running a few FL's with guildies, to get the last few legendaries. It's just challenging enough to feel like it isn't a waste of time, nevermind the gear. I agree, the more casual aspect of running older content allows one to really take in the whole show. Even when leveling now, I'm sort of shedding the urgency to earn XP, and instead gaining experience. Hmm, I'm going to have to muse on that a bit.

  I'll muse later, I have a point to make. This Beta is a once-in-an-expansion chance to try out other classes and races at level 85! It's been so much fun! I've rolled Tauren and Dwarf Monks, male and female, just to try out their casting and melee animations. I've rolled Troll Warlocks and Forsaken Mages, and no, I still can't get into Forsaken.

  So take this opportunity to try a new class/race/gender combination. I recommend melee female Dwarves, especially with a shield.

  Also, my new celebrity crush is Tyler Ward. His voice sounds like a flannel blanket feels.

My Hunter Keybinds

  Keybinds and macros set a foundation for executing a solid rotation, effective cooldown management, pet control, and CC usage. Without effective keybinds, abilities fall out of use. Without macros, actions become slow and cumbersome.

  I suspect most players keybinds are somewhat organic, in the sense that they add abilities as they level almost haphazardly. That can lead to very disorganized keybinds. A new expansion is a great time to reorganize keybinds purposefully. Innovating one's setup, especially after a year or more of playing one particular way, can be a daunting task, but I have occasionally made fundamental changes to my keybinds, and have found that it's like rearranging furniture, in that the new keybinds quickly become the new normal.

Darkmoon Card of Mists Trinkets

  I just noticed that the rewards for the Darkmoon Card of Mists decks are up on Wowhead. All but the tanking trinket have primary stats as both passive and as a proc. This makes them very potent indeed, and may be BIS for a few patches. It makes them a bit uninteresting, though.

  Another thing I notice is that they are Unique-Equipped: Darkmoon Card of the Mists (1). This just means that healers will have to choose either the Spirit or the Intellect option, and that Guardian Druids and Brewmaster Monks will have to choose either the Agility or the Dodge option.

  Also important to note is that these trinkets will not be available until Oct. 7th, when the first Darkmoon Faire of the expansion begins. That leaves 12 days in which to level up Inscription and start grinding out cards.

Stable Slots Going Into Mists

  I have 13 pets I absolutely refuse to abandon, for any reason. I also have the remaining 5 Spirit Beasts, which I am very averse to abandoning. Of the remaining 8 slots, 7 are filled with pets that each currently fill a buff slot.

Non-Negotiable Keepers:
1. Hobs - Cat (Mastery)
2. Aroo - Wolf (Crit)
3. Ed - Hyena (Attack Speed)
4. Berry -  Deth'tilac (Web)
5. Citrus - Solix (Web)
6. Aotona (Snatch)
7. Kalvenosaur - King Krush (Crit, MS)
8. SASI - Jadefang (Kings)
9. Leto - Grubthor (Burrow)
10. Warpaint - Ban'thalos (SB)
11. TOTHEGROUND - Ghostcrawler (SB)
12. PocketHeal - Loque'nahak (SB)
13. Skoll (SB)

Other Spirit Beasts:
14. Ankha
15. Arcturis
16. Gondria
17. Karoma
18. Magria

Negotiable Keepers:
19. Raphael - Terrorpene (Shell Shield)
20. Soap - Wind Serpent (8% Magic Damage)
21. Ripper - Raptor (12% Armor)
22. Ravager (4% Physical Damage) to be replaced with a boar
23. Beeblebrox - Core Hound (Ancient Hysteria)
24. Jitterbug - Silithid (Stamina)

Mists Needs:
1. Water Strider (Spell Power, Crit, Water Walk)
2. Quillen (Crit, Battle Rez)
3. Porcupine (AOE stun)

  So it looks like I have to abandon at least two pets to be able to pick up all three of the new pets I believe will be needed. Of the negotiable keepers, though, each one brings a necessary buff, hence the dilemma. I might have to let go of a few Spirit Beasts.

Search Terms That Led Here, 2

  I'm getting hits, yay me! Most traffic here is from Blessing of Kings, who has been doing TOR stuff. Some also comes from Darraxus who has been doing something called DayZ (sounds like a zombie thing). I have no idea about either of those things. I also get a little bit from World of Lae, who happens to be the answer to the first search listed. Some of it also comes from Google, and I'll treat search terms as a sort of Q and A: