12,500 GOLD WITH BASTION OF TWILIGHT

     Do you have a level 90, decent gear, and know how to play your class? Good! Then read on and let's make over TEN THOUSAND gold per hour in Bastion of Twilight, the level 85 Cataclysm raid.

     This method has actually been around for a while, and is known as BoE farming, but with the new change where you can run 10 instances in an hour, this run is particularly profitable. While most dungeons take more about 10 minutes to clear once you run back to the entrance, this one is just one room and is a very quick in-an-out so you can kill everything and reset it all to get the full 10 runs. As far as strategy goes, we're going to go to Twilight Highlands, enter the raid, and just clear the first room of mobs and hope that we get some good epic drops (and a boatload of Embersilk Cloth). The cheaper items like the trinkets sell for around 500 and more expensive transmog items sell for 2500g on most servers because they're amazing and no one really goes out here much anymore. Oh, and sometimes level 85s use these for their stats.

     For my test I ran the dungeon for a full hour. The room consists of 48 total mobs: 4 stationary up front, two lines of 5 patrolling mobs, and four rings of 8 rogue-caster...things. They all have between 400k and 1.5 million health and melee for about 15-30k so they're not too bad but if you pull the whole room, just be ready. I recommend killing one group at a time. Even slow and steady, a pack at a time, one run is over in 4 minutes. Oh, and there are two mobs in the hallway that have a double chance of dropping epics. Kill those before you leave.

Dat Second Wind

     Over the course of one hour I was able to clear the room 8 times. Since I was testing several different pulling strategies and died (embarrassingly) about 20 times in the process, I see no reason why you couldn't make 10 runs. Still, a test is a test so we'll stick with my results and I won't extrapolate. I gathered 5 epics and 30 stacks of Embersilk Cloth. You can expect more if you're a tailor and have Northern Cloth Scavaging.

Possible Loot
   499 g - Bracers of the Dark Pool
   733 g - Unheeded Warning
   866 g - Phase-Twister Leggings
1,597 g - Carbine Crossfire
1,975 g - Tsanga's Helm

2,264 g - Chelly's Staff of Dark Mending 

2,897 g - Soul Blade
9379 g - Heaving Plates of Protection
2526 g average (1722 excluding high/low)

Loot from Test
   733 g - Unheeded Warning
1,597 g - Carbine Crossfire
2,264 g - Chelly's Staff of Dark Mending
2,897 g - Soul Blade
2,897 g - Soul Blade
1,380 g - 30 Stacks Embersilk Cloth @46g/stack
1,000 g - Greens/DEs/Gold drops
Total
12,768 g

That's all for this run. Although we won't get a good measure of an average drop rate until we get ~30 epics, we've gotten enough to start getting an idea. If 5 drops/400 kills holds true, you should get 1 more Epic if you do 2 more clears to get your 10/hour. Although, why stop at just 1 hour? This would add an additional (est) 2,500 g to your total, bringing the value of this dungeon per hour up to 15,000g. SO GET TO IT! Farm your heart out. :D

Thanks for reading my little WoW blog! You can follow me on Twitter here and Google+ Here. Visit my YouTube channel or just subscribe.  I recommend that all goldmakers download the TSM Suite and the UndermineJournalGE addon for all goldmakers. You can read my setup guide if you'd like. And remember that the key to making gold in WoW is just to 

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Are Role-Playing Servers Better For Transmog Sales?

     Someone on my YouTube channel left a comment yesterday claiming that transmog is worthless. While some people just rage that "lol greenz can't sell for 500g!" his basic point was more thought out; while transmog will sell on any server, it's only really a viable market on a Role Playing server where there are enough people transmogging to drive sales. As goldmakers this is an important thing to consider and I think we would all agree with that on the surface, or at least we would agree with the general rule of thumb that "Transmog sells better on RP servers." However I don't know of anyone who has delved into the topic analytically to find out if it's actually true or if it's just hearsay. So let's do that now!

If you aren't reading the Daily Blink, you should. 

     Before we see how many individual pieces people buy, let's look at actual mogs they wear at any given time, which is the driving force of the issue. We'll study how many people actually take each slot of their gear and transmog it and then see if there a significant difference on Role Playing Realms. While there are 11 moggable slots if you include the duel wielders, some classes only single wield, so I lumped together "Weapon" into one to simplify for a total of 10 moggable slots.  i.e.Fury Warriors who only mogged one of their two maces got counted as having a total weapon mog.

     I looked at a large sample of toons on each of four different servers: my home realm Tanaris (PVE- Ally pop 54,000), a large pvp server Darkspear (PVP - population 171,000), and then two popular Role playing servers Earthen Ring (RP - population 48,000), and Moon Guard (RP - Ally pop: 89,000). Before we get into the important analysis, there are a couple unimportant things that I learned inspecting a couple hundred toons, like:

• You'd be surprised how many mog just the hands
• You'd be surprised how many mog just the belt
• Heroic raiders go all the way or nothing at all
• PVPers never bother mogging their equipment (except of course for their weapons)
• The majority of moggers actually have a pretty decent sense of style, or I have none.

Results

     Ok, on to the good stuff. after looking at all these toons, the total mog rate is higher on average  for RP realms (some rates were the same or lower on Earthen Ring). Combining everything, 43% of the population on PVE/PVP didn't mog anything at all, while RP servers had only 23% completely unmogged. Interestingly though, when you take those people out of the sample, both RP and PVE/PVP players both mog exactly 54% of their available slots. and those that mog do so in the following priority system:

1. Weapon 80%

2-4. Head/Shoulder/Chest 70% (RPs order is Shoulder/Chest/Head with head devalued but let's call it a tie) 

5. Hands 62%

6. Legs 58%

7. Waist 53%

8. Boots 52%

     Something missing from the list? Oh right! Well the Legendary cape quest chain absolutely KILLED the cape transmog market; only 6% of people have a cape mog right now. Come to think of it though, cool cape transmogs might be something to stock up on for Warlords of Draenor that a lot of sellers might not have once everyone starts hitting 100 and the 608s become obsolete. #SadDay

Conclusion

     Moggers mog the same no matter where they are, however there may be more of them on RP servers, although not as overwhelmingly so as the grapevine may lead us to believe. If you're looking to enter the transmog market, focus on things near the top of the list and ignore capes and bracers, and be wary of boots and belts. Don't server transfer to take advantage of the phat mog markets on another server though, because that is mostly a myth. Although, we may need to do another test looking at sales data...

Thanks for reading my little WoW blog! You can follow me on Twitter here and Twitch here. My YouTube channel is growing and has lots of great guides over here. I recommend that all goldmakers download the TSM Suite and the UndermineJournalGE addon for all goldmakers. You can read my setup guide if you'd like. And remember that the key to making gold in wow is just to 

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How to Make Gold With: Blackrock Caverns (6,500 gold per hour)

Introduction     If you haven't done dungeon farming for gold, get to it! This is a great resource for gold farming, and each dungeon has it's own unique resource, from transmog, to leveling greens, to craftable goods, to rare BoE twink weapons. If you HAVE been around the block and have read a few gold guides before, the reason I started this particular series is because I find it slightly unethical to tell people that they can make "X gold per hour" when the person writing the guide only tests the instance by running it once, twice, or even five times. With 0.5% drop rates on gear, and when the blogger/youtuber extrapolates from a lucky drop, you then go in thinking that lucky Gold per hour is the average, when it isn't. So, I'll be running each dungeon 15 times- 5 times each on 3 differently geared toons (tank, healer, and dps) to give the most accurate information possible. Also, rather than just the gold made I made, you'll also be getting pretty much everything you'll need to know about the dungeon to prepare yourself for your goldmaking journey. I hope you find it useful, that it raises the bar for gold bloggers out there, and that everyone reading this demands more from dungeon guides you read in the future. Enjoy!


Blackrock Caverns

     Oh, who doesn't love Raz (RAZ SMASH), the sweethart? BRC is one of the first dungeons you run in Cata and is a surprisingly good farm thanks to 1) lots of mobs being tightly grouped together, 2) ever-in-demand cata 77-79 BoE greens, 3) lots of humanoids for embersilk cloth, and finally 4) the ability to use the Potion of Treasure Finding get an extra 500-1,000 gold per hour. The dungeon is located in the interior eastern ring of Blackrock Mountain. To get to it, run into the the southern entrance of the mountain, once inside follow the right wall around until you get to a corridor, and then at the split take a right. The entrance is straight ahead.

The Stats

Run time: <11 minutes
Bag Slots Req'd/run: 25
Mailbox: Searing Gorge-Iron Summit(N)
Main Loot: 77-79 Greens
Vendor @ Instance: No

Boss Count: 5
Lootable Enemies: 97
Mob Level Range: 82-85
Run Back Req'd? No, portal@3rd boss
Dangers: Evolved Zealots,
     Shadow Prison debuff

Walkthrough

     I like to start off pulling a the first big group together and killing all the mages and then the first boss. The first boss' Skullcracker isn't a problem anymore, so just burn him. Raz has a nice trick where as long as you DPS the other guys a little, he'll finish em off whenever he gets released (Raz hits harder than you do, but feel free to help him out...or loot, whatever). This saves a decent amount of time if you're going for speed, or if you're running on a low dps class. After you cross the bridge, you'll an fight Evolved Twilight Zealot (big monster guys). Kill these quick! They do an ability that knocks out 60% of your hp, so guess what two hits will do. :)
      Anyways, take a right after the zealot (away from Corla) for a couple extra mobs, kill another Evolved zealot down the ramp, burn Corla, then round up the huge pack of zealot humonoids by hiding behind a pillar and just AoE them all down. After you cross the next bridge (thanks Raz!) don't kill the boss immediately. Make a ring and a couple small stops along the perimeter looting the 19 mobs there; I got a Blue or Green from them almost every single run for some strange statistically deviant reason. To kill the Karsh Steelbender, hold him in the fire and single target him. Easy Peasy.
     These next packs can actually be pretty tricky if you aren't paying attention. Gathering up the 6 Twilight Obsidian Borers will give you 6 or more stacks of Shadow Prison that end up ticking for 24k damage per second each if you're moving. This hurts at 90. So even though you're in a hurry, stand still until the debuff falls off or is low. You can handle running around with a stack or two, but it's remarkable how quickly things can spiral with those guys so watch your debuffs after the forge. Also, I've found it much more efficient to skip Beauty and her pups entirely.
      Finally, for the run back there is a portal, although it is a little hidden. Just run to the forge room where you killed Karsh Steelbender, and it's located in the corner. It will take you all the way to the entrance. The run should take somewhere in the range of 7-11 minutes.

Profit-Results:

     For this test, AMAZING!  But first there are three things you can do to increase your gold take on this dungeon. First (and my only recommendation) is to use a Potion of Treasure Finding. I got an average of 2.8 chests per run from the 97 mobs with a minimum of 0 chest drops per run, and maximum of 7. The loot contained within averages out to a +850 gold gain per hour. Also, if you're not hurting on DPS, you can equip the Golden Fleece and the Golden Moss for an extra ~150g/hr and 300g/hr respectively, but since you actually have to click around and pick up all the gold piles, I dunno. I'm just too ADD for all that. I prefer speed.
     In this 15-run test we earned

"Cash" - 433g
     Gold - 312g
     Vendor Trash - 183g
     Repairs - (62g)
Loot - 16,494
     Greens - 12,673g (71 @ an average 172g/item)
     Blues - 3,821g (15 @ an average 253g/item)
     Embersilk Cloth - 2060g (497, 33/run)
Chests - 2,597g
     Embersilk Cloth - 218
     Volatile Life - 8
     Volatile Fire - 31
     Volatile Water - 7
     Volatile Earth - 15
     Volatile Air - 15
     Pyrite Ore - 16
     Elementium Ore - 10
     Greens - 4 @ 224g avg
Total: 19,524g
GOLD PER HOUR: 6,508g

Conclusion

     This is a fantastic dungeon for making gold, especially if you have a decent-dps Tailor who can get some extra cloth off the mobs. Greens are almost always in high demand, and you can even sell them for more than the prices listed recommend by the undermine journal. Jim, over at PowerWord:Gold recommends selling them most at 245 or 395 a piece and has kept those price points since Cata. You'll make fewer sales, but will make more per sale, so it's your call (adjust your prices depending on how often you farm up gear). If there's anything you think I left out of this one that could have made it better or more thorough, feel free to leave me a comment.
      Thanks so much for reading! I'll see you next time [btw, sorry for not posting in a while; I'm getting married in a few weeks and have been moving, blah blah first world problems] You can follow me on Twitter here and YouTube here (Want to see a video of the most efficient way through the instance? Well lucky you!) Until next time remember that the key to making gold in WoW is just to

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Every Day.

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