Ancient Pandaren Mining Pick Is A Must | No More Free Gems From Mining Ore Nodes!

Ancient Pandarian Mining Pick in MoP

WTF?!?  - Miners Can't Get MoP Gems From Mining?

One of the odd changes (I just discovered) in Mists of Pandaria is a nerf to the Mining profession.  The new MoP Ore Veins will no longer always have a chance to allow Miners a shot at getting free Jewelcrafting Gems from whacking on the various Ore Nodes.  The only reason I can think of for nerfing the chance of getting gems from ore veins is to combat the mining botters.  The botters already make plenty of money off of botting and selling the ores so removing the free gems from the ore nodes really isn't going to be much of a problem for them.  So really this type of nerf will hit the non-botting Ore farmers much harder.  Granted the odds of getting gems from ore nodes have always been pretty low, but the extra gem procs were nice increases to the profitability of farming ore yourself.  All is not completely lost though!

The Ancient Pandaren Mining Pick


The Ancient Pandaren Mining Pick is one of the new Rare Spawn items being introduced with the new Mists of Pandaria Lost and Found loot system.  The new Lost and Found system is similar to the Rare Spawn Vanity Items that are awarded from killing the MoP rare spawns, except that with the Lost and Found system there is no killing involved.  Many of the rare items are just scattered around specific spawn locations throught the Mists of Pandaria zones and can be found within chests or laying on the ground.  There are BoA items, weapons, and gear, as well as vendor trash that can award nice chunks of gold.  Hunting these rare spawn items and chests will earn you Achievements as well as a new title once you find 20 of these rare spawn items.  Only a pair of the items are must haves (The Ancient Pandaren Mining Pick and the Ancient Pandaren Fishing Lure / Charm) and nothing is anywhere near as cool as any of the WoW TCG Vanity Loot items.

The Ancient Pandaren Mining Pick is one rare spawn item that is a must have for any Miner who is looking to increase his profitability from mining.  This new Mining Pick is account bound, can be used as a weapon, and doesn't even need to be equipped to ultilize the main benefit of the item.  It allows you to once again obtain gems from mining in Pandaria zones.  The item's text reads:

"Allows you to find gems while mining in Pandaria.  Does not need to be equipped."

While it is account-bound and can be mailed to your other characters, I would highly recommend acquiring an Ancient Pandaren Mining Pick for each of your miners.  There's no reason to leave behind the chance of getting free MoP gems from Mining MoP ore nodes.  The downside is that it is a high level weapon (item lvl 404 / lvl 85 req) and therefore has a hefty repair cost (~8.5 gold), so anyone using the Instant Rez at the Spirit Healer will be paying extra to repair this axe as well.

Where To Get The Ancient Pandaren Mining Pick?

The Ancient Pandaren Mining Pick can be found on the bottom floor (Lower Quarry) of the Greenstone Quarry cave within the MoP zone, The Jade Forest.  It will be laying in plain view and will be sparkling.  All you have to do is pick it up once you find it.  I'm unsure of how long the spawn timer will take to reset after it is successfully found and looted by someone.  This will definately be one of the first things I hunt for before starting on my Mists of Pandaria Mining runs.  Get your own Mine Pick now!

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Check out some of my Squidoo lenses:  Alliance Vs Horde - Come Vote! | Diablo 3 Gifts For Gamers | Getting Started Podcasting 101 | Play Money by Julian Dibble | Auction House Junkies | Fluxx - My Fav Card Game

Recommended Guides: Secret Gold Guide | Journal of Marcus Ty | WoW Secrets

Druids of The Talon Daily Quests Farming

Druids Of The Talon Quests

The Druids of The Talon Chain

You will choose either Druids of The Talon or Shadow Wardens, which will lock you into your second phase of the Firelands Invasion daily quests in the Molten Front.  When you unlock the Druids of the Talon quest chains, you are in for a completely different experience than compared to the Shadow Wardens daily quests.  While the Shadow Wardens will have you killing Cinderweb Spiders and Druids of the Flame, the Druids of The Talon daily quest hub leads you into the battle against Elementals and the Flamewakers. 

The Flamewakers

The Flamewaker minions are considered Humanoids and have a hefty 52% chance to drop 1-4 Embersilk Cloth.  The Druids of the Talon Firelands daily quest chain will have you fighting Flamewaker Sentinals, Flamewaker Shaman, and Flamewaker Hunters.  All 3 of these Flamewaker mobs can be pickpocketted for a chance at Flame-Scarred Junkboxes.  So these would be prime targets for farming Embersilk Cloth, especially if you are a Tailor or a Rogue.  The Rogue could benefit from the pickpocket ability and the Flame Scarred Junkboxes.  The Tailor would benefit from the Cloth Scavenging Tailoring profession bonus.  The underground caves where the quests lead you are an excellent spot for farming Embersilk Cloth.  Bonus points for a Tailoring Rogue.  The spawn rate is very fast at the current time, so many kills can be piled up quickly.  Even if you are just here for the Druids of the Talon daily quests, you can collect a decent amount of Embersilk Cloth.

The Elementals

The Obsidium Punishers are another nice farming option for a Mining character.  Maybe one of your Ideal Alts has the Mining gathering profession and is working on his Firelands Invasion daily quests.  This is a great spot to farm up some Volatile Earth.  Any Obsidium Punisher gives a 15% chance of containing 1-3 Volatile Earths on its corpse.  You will fight a bunch of these on your way up the mountain to take the temperatures of the lava pools and kill Firehawks for the Druids of The Talon daily quests. 

These Obsidium Punishers are stone Elementals are their corpses can be mined by a Miner.  When mined, they have a 9% chance to award 1-3 Volatile Earths and a 5% chance to award 1-7 Elementium Ore.  Why are Obsidium Punishers crumbling into Elementium Ore?  Even though the Druids of The Talon daily quests may require the killing of 5 Firehawks, they are duds other than for the quest.  They drop nothing worthwhile, just grey vendor trash.

Just like the Land of Free Volatile Earth in Mt. Hyjal, this is another area in World of Warcraft where you may just happen upon a ton of corpses from other players completing the Druids of the Talon daily quests.  Often times there may be no other miner around and these free corpses will be yours for the taking.  Another bonus is that these mobs also count for the Jewelcrafting Daily quest to slay Elementals.

I've already discussed how to maximize the Firelands Starting Daily Quests.  Make sure to use both helpful guides in order to be fully efficient. 

Maximizing Your Firelands Daily Quests

Firelands Dailies In The Molten Front

Have you been preparing to profit from the unlockable vendors added with the Firelands Patch 4.2?  We had prepared our profession crafters and got them ready to race for Patch 4.2 and the new recipes for Blacksmithing, Engineering, Leatherworking, and Tailoring.  Then the Firelands Patch 4.2 dropped and the race to reach those recipes faster than our competition had began.  That race currently continues as players are collecting their Marks of the World Tree and preparing for their first choice of unlocking Druids of The Talon or Shadow Wardens.

Maximizing Your Choices

The new Firelands daily quests require daily attention and we are forced to spend some of our playtime on collecting the Marks of the World Tree.  If we are racing with multiple profession crafting alts, then the time commitment can get hefty, even with the best and fastest route to completion.  Since we will be repeating the same general groups of quests over and over, it is a wise idea to look at what options are the most profitable. 

You may have noticed that you have collected a few Volatiles while completing your daily quests for the Firelands.  The direct choices that you make in picking your targetted quest mobs will affect how many Volatiles you can recieve each day while doing your daily quests.  So why not choose the best options each and every time, since we have to do this same quests over and over?  I decided to dig a little deeper and loot at drop rates for the various mobs that can be chosen to complete a couple of the Firelands quests.

Hostile Elements
The quest Hostile Elements in the Molten Front is one of the Firelands daily quests that does not rotate.  This quest is available every day, but the choices you make can limit your potential earnings while fulfilling the quest requirements.  Hostile Elements requires you to kill 8 Charred Combatants, which can be either Charred Vanquishers or Charred Soldiers. 

Charred Vanquishers or Charred Soldiers?
Charred Vanquishers have a chance to drop 1-3 Volatile Fire when killed.  Wowhead.com shows the drop rate as a 27% chance per kill to award 1-3 Volatile Fire, while the loot table for Charred Soldier shows only grey items.  Captain Obvious says, "Don't waste time and effort killing Charred Soldiers, only kill Charred Vanquishers, so you can collect Volatile Fires.

Hostile Elements Quest Kill Options

Take Away
Ok, so this may be a simple tip, but did you research the options yourself?  Or have you been wandering around willy-nilly killing whatever you can to be done and get your Firelands daily quests over with?  The real point to take away from this is that you should develop an inquisitive mindset.  You should research your options to best maximize your earnings potentials.  That is what making gold and being efficient is all about - maximing your options and getting the most profit for the least amount of work.  Hey that's also the Generation X motive (I'm an Xer too)!

Mine My Corpse For Free Loots

Molten Behemoths and Free Volatile Earth

Another easy source of sellable crafting materials comes from the Molten Behemoths.  These mobs are in the surrounding areas and on specific dailies when their quest is one of the random daily quests even more are swarming the base in the Molten Front.  They only have grey items on their loot tables, but the real bonus comes from mining these giant corpses.  Wowhead.com shows their loot table from mining the corpse to have a 19% chance to gather 2-3 Volatile Earths and a 9% chance to collect 1-5 Elementium Ores.  Just like the Land of Free Volatile Earths, you can scavenge the area where these are killed and collect free Volatile Earths and Elementium Ores with your miner.  This is especially easy on the days that the Molten Behemoths are multiplied due to their daily quest triggered as one of the Firelands dailies.

WoW Herb and Ore Markets In Flux

Herbs Are Down and Ores Are Up

With the scare of the coming change to the vendorable price of the cut uncommon Cataclysm gems, many of the botters have already switched away from the bot farming of Obsidium Ore.  A lot of servers are already seeing a shortage of Obsidium Ore as well as a flooding of herbs on the Auction House.  It is obvious that the botters have switched from farming Obsidium Ore.  Some have even gone to gathering Elementium Ore, while the majority have switched to the bot farming of herbs.

Obsidium Ore is even on shortage and selling for a higher rate due to the lack of supply.  Herbs of all kinds are dropping in price as the markets are getting flooded.  Expect this to only get worse once Patch 4.1 drops if it includes the data-mined change to the prices of cut gems.

What Does This Mean?

Some players are in a frantic rush to prospect their Obsidium Ores, cut the uncommon gems, and vendor them for 9g each before the price could drop to 75 silver each.  Instead of dumping your ores to the vendor via gems, you might be better off selling the stacks on the auction house now that the prices has risen.

As far as herbs go, liquidate any products you have ASAP that were created from herb derived materials.  The value is going to plummet as other players start to be able to get herbs for far cheaper and in much larger supplies than prior to the big botting switch overs.  Mysterious Fortune Cards, Adventurer's Journals, Glyphs, Potions, Flasks & Elixirs are all going to tank, so dump all that you have pre-crafted before you are unable to sell them for close to what costs you already have sunk into them.  You will be able to craft these all for much cheaper than previously due to the flood of herbs.

6 Uses For Cheap Obsidium and Elementium Ore

Obsidium and Elementium Ores


Just last week we were informed of the data-mined information from MMO-Champion showing the prices dropping to 75 silver for cut uncommon gems.  The World of Warcraft blogging community has been writing heavily about this potential change.  Many players have started to process their ore and sell their gems.  Others are starting to dump their obsidium and elementium ores due to the sheer volume of their stockpiles.  Jewelcrafters that normally would buy up all the ore that they could find under the floor prices have stopped buying.  Players simply have a ton of stock of ores that they need to move through without buying anymore that they may get stuck with after the potential change goes live.  Less ore is selling, so the auction house is flooded with ore from bots that are still out farming elementium ore and obsidium ore.  The prices are dropping far.  What does that mean for you?  This is a buyers market.

Options for Obsidium Ore and Elementium Ore

With prices dropping lower than they previously have been, you can safely buy up both ores and process them to make a nice profit.  Here are a few options that you can use to make a profit off of the low priced ores.

1. Continue The Obsidium Shuffle - The obsidium shuffle still works.  You currently can still vendor your cut uncommon gems to a vendor for the full price of 9g each.  You can still buy out this cheap ore and process it like always.  Just stay away from buying more than you can use.
2. Smelt Obsidium Ore to Obsidium Bars - The prices of ore and bars should be directly related and rise and drop together.  The truth is that they don't on all servers.  Although these markets are directly related, the prices don't directly follow one another.  You might be able to make a profit converting the ores into bars and selling them as just obsidium bars.
3. Convert Obsidium Bars to Folded Obsidium - Similarly, the price of folded obsidium is often higher that the cost of 2 bars (or 4 ores), which is all it takes for a Blacksmith to create Folded Obsidium.  These are used in Blacksmithing recipes to craft weapons and armor.
4. Smelt Elementium Ore to Elementium Bars - See #2 above.  Elementium works the same as obsidium.
5. Convert Elementium Bars to Hardened Elementium Bars - Each Hardened Elementium Bar requires 10 Elementium Bars and 4 Volatile Earth to create 1 bar.  Miners can combined these materials and smelt a product that can sell for much higher than the parts.  1 stack (20) of Elementium will smelt into the 10 bars needed, so to see if this will be profitable for you, just check the prices on the auction house.  If 1 stack of Elementium Ore + 4 Volatile Earth costs less than the market price of 1 Hardened Elementium Bar, then there is profit to be made with your miner.  These bars are required by blacksmiths and are used as currency to purchase high end recipes from the Blacksmithing Metal Traders in Twilight Highlands.
6. Cogwheel Exchange - If you have an Engineer, you can make some cheap Obsidium Bolts to swap with the Engineering Vendor in Twilight Highlands as well.  The Obsidium Bolts can be converted to engineering cogwheels.

If these are new markets that you are going to try out, then be sure to test the waters lightly before jumping in and investing a lot of gold.  Start small and see if there is profit to be made on your Warcraft server.

Saronite Ore Solutions - Alchemist/Blacksmith/Miner

Got A Lot Of Saronite Ore In The Bank?

Many of us had stockpiled saronite ore at the end of Wrath of the Lich King.  I purchased all of my Saronite Ore stockpile at 12 gold or less per full stack of Saronite Ore.  Many times I would find the Saronite Ore for under 9 gold per stack.  Since 2 stacks of Saronite Ore smelt into 1 stack of Saronite Bars that sell for 25 gold per stack, simply smelting these Saronite Ores into Saronite Bars will yield a profit.  This gives me some leeway to experiment into different uses for the bars. 

Watch The Other Markets Of Side Products

Saronite Bars are used in various crafting recipes, but the main markets that may be seeing repeat sales are eternal belt buckles, titanium bars, titanium rods.  You can use a miner/alchemist/blacksmith combination on different characters as the best combination to move your Saronite Ore from your guild banks into gold in your stash.  Don't just look at the market prices of Saronite Ore and Saronite Bars.  Look beyond those to the next tier of crafting.  That is the level to play on.  Then you can look even farther into another level of crafting for more profits.

Miner

The Miner is used to Smelt some of the Saronite Ore into Saronite Bars.  Those Saronite Bars are then mailed to the Alchemist character and also are mailed to the Blacksmith character.

Alchemist

The Alchemist gathers the Saronite Bars from the mailbox.  She then transmutes them into Titanium Bars.  She is a transmutation specialization alchemist, which gives some extra Titanium Bars when it procs.  She keeps half of those Saronite Bars and sends the other half to the blacksmith character.  This character watches the Saronite Bar market on the Auction House and posts Titanium Bars onto the Auction House in bar form.  The market price tends to peak and spike often, so some days are good days to sell in Bar form and other days the market drops.  It's probably from a new alchemist leveling their alchemy skill.  Just hang onto the bars and sell them at a better time.

Blacksmith

The Blacksmith is used to turn the Saronite Bars and Titanium Bars into Titanium Rods.  These rods are required by enchanters.  There are many things that you can sell to leveling enchanters and rods are one of the best markets for Blacksmiths to watch. 

Eternal Belt buckles are still selling as many players are still buying the old belt buckles as they level or find blue gear.  Seems that they are saving their gold to buy the new expensive belt buckle once they get an epic or raid belt. 

You can also watch the Saronite Ore Bar market with this character and toss up a few at moments when the price spikes.  Or you can try to reset the market when there aren't many left on the auction house. 

Another market to also watch that involves Saronite is Titanium Shield Spikes.  If price spikes, craft and post one and test the market before cranking a bunch out just becasue the price jumped up.

Miner/Alchemist/Blacksmith

This has been the best combination for getting rid of Saronite Ore in various craftable item markets.  So if you are looking for a way to get rid of some of that Saronite Ore stockpile that is just sitting there, then try moving some out in these various markets.  The markets are starting to reset to higher levels for raw materials from Northrend as less characters are in Northrend and the farmers have moved into the Cataclysm zones for the higher priced ores.

The Land of Free Volatile Earth

Nodrassil, Mount Hyjal

A great place to put those mining skills to use is at the Mount Jyjal inn.  Just outside the initial quest staging zone of the inn, there are countess numbers of Scalding Rock Elementals.  These Elementals are fighting the guards and are easy pickings.  The guards will help you kill them, but once killed they can be looted and then mined.  When you use your mining skill on the Scalding Rock Elemental corpse, they have a chance to produce 1-2 Volatile Earths.  The greys that come from both looting and mining their corpses will pile up fast, but can easily be sold right back inside the inn.

Elemental Goo

Elemental Goo is one of the Horde daily quests that can be randomly selected as the daily for all jewelcrafters.  On days that the selected quest is Elemental Goo, this same area mentioned above becomes much more exciting and profitable.  The Jewelcrafting daily quest required the jewelers to loot 10 quest drop items from any Cataclysm elementals.  These elementals are the closest and easiest elementals near Orgrimmar.  There will be a lot of jewelcrafters coming to kill their 15-20 mobs for the 10 quest drops that will fly or portal right back to town.  They leave the corpses of the elementals scattered everywhere.  All you need to do is run up and down the kill lines and mine the corpses before they despawn.

The Scalding Rock Elementals also drop Lovely Charms during the Love Is In the Air in game holiday.

Twilight Highlands Blacksmithing Metal Trader

Kuldar Steeltooth

Kuldar Steeltooth and Brundall Chiselgut

The 2 Metal Traders in Twilight Highlands can only be reached after completing the required quest chain available once you hit level 84.  These new vendors trade smelted mining goods for their blacksmithing plans.  Kuldar Steeltooth is the Horde vendor and he is found at Dragonmaw Port.  Brundall Chiselgut is the alliance vendor and is found at Highbank.  These metal traders have a whoppin 34 Blacksmithing Plans available for your Blacksmith. 

There is no forge in Dragonmaw Port (unsure about Highbank) so make sure to come prepared with the bars already smelted.  If you need a forge for smelting you have to fly to the Krazzworks in the NE corner of Twilight Highlands.

Your Shopping List

There are 34 Recipes (Blacksmithing Plans) available total.

The accepted currencies for the metal traders include: 

Pyrium Bars (in 5 Stacks)

Hardened Elementium Bars (in 2 Stacks)

Elementium Bars (in 20 Stacks)

The total for all 34 Recipes is:  30 Hardened Elementium Bars, 200 Elementium Bars, and 45 Pyrium Bars. 

When broken down to the basic materials requirements for the Hardened Elementium Bars your total shopping list looks like this.  (Each Hardened Elementium Bar requires 10 Elementium Bars and 4 Volatile Earth.)

• 500 Elementium Bars (or 1000 Elementium Ore)
• 120 Volatile Earths
• 45 Pyrium Bars (or 90 Pyrite Ore)

Plan Ahead

Don't be an idiot like me.  Don't go there without your shopping list of required bars.  Don't go there and mail the blacksmith the ores to smelt.  Ouch!  No Forge?!?!  Yeah that big forge looking thing isn't even a forge.  Don't go there thinking that you can just buy these recipes with gold.  Don't be dumb like my pore blacksmith who arrived and left empty handed.  LOL.  Don't think you can smelt your own Hardened Elementium Bars without training the skill first (requires 500 mining skill.)

Obsidium Ores & The Big Three Professions Shuffle

Obsidium Ore Selling Idiots

Obsidium Ore - Farming The Auction House

Obsidium Ore was listed at very low prices on the Auction House.  Who would sell Obsidium Ore at such a low price?  Probably ignorant and uninformed farmers or players too lazy to put these to good use.  These Obsidium Ores were selling from 29 - 35g for full stacks, when I logged in early in the morning to hunt for deals.  My Mammoth Mining Bags are now overflowing as I bought 8k gold worth of Obsidium Ore at this price.  Wes, I beg to differ.  The dumbest Warcraft players are on my server!  Time to shuffle all these ores for major profits.

The Big Three Professions

The Big Three is the excellent gold making profession combination of Jewel Crafting, Alchemy, and Enchanting.  It was an added bonus if you had an Alchemist / Enchanter and could take advantage of disenchanting the Bind-On-Pickup Epic Alchemist trinkets for Maelstrom Crystals.  As of yesterday's hotfix, these are no longer able to be disenchanted.  The Big Three has been very profitable through out Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and now into Cataclysm.  Jewelcrafting was introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion, so The Big Three did not exist during Vanilla World of Warcraft.  If you are stuck and looking to expand your gold making oppurtunities, be sure to have The Big Three Professions covered.

• Jewelcrafting - Is used primarily for prospecting ores into uncommon and rare gems.  Also is used for crafting jewelry and weapons (like Carnilian Spikes) to be disenchanted.  Also is used for cutting gems and jewelry to vendor for a profit or sell on the Auction Houses of Azeroth.
• Alchemy - Is used to transmute gems and meta-gems, truegold and living elements. 
• Enchanting - Is used to disenchant jewelry and other items to create Enchanting materials like Dusts, Essences, and Shards.  Also used to create Enchanting scrolls to sell on the Auction House.

I also recommend that you take a look at the Venture, LLC Blog.  Stede has a nice post about making gold from Selling Cataclysm Jewelry.

Shuffling Your Ores

1. Buy ores from the Auction House or gather from farming.
2. Have the Jewelcrafter prospect the ores for gems.
3. Cut the rare gems and post on the Auction House.
4. Sell uncommon gems raw, cut and vendor, or craft jewelry & weapons for disenchating.
5. Send all jewelry and weapons to Enchanter.
6. Send some gems to Alchemist to Transmute rare gems and metagems.
7. Send those transmuted gems back and cut them to sell on the Auction House.
8. Have Enchanter disenchant all items and sell some Enchanting materials raw on the Auction House.
9. Create Enchanting scrolls to sell on the Auction House.

This processing of ores is profitable with most of the ores, but especially the newest forms of ores.  If you don't have The Big Three covered with your professions, then I highly suggest you start working towards having all three professions.  Jewelcrafting, Alchemy, and Enchanting are an excellent first set of professions to be working towards.

Are you covering The Big Three in your World of Warcraft gold making process?

Elementium Ore Nodes - Cataclysm Sweet Spot

Elementium Node Cluster in Uldum



 Cataclysm's Release Date Mining Strategy


So my plan was to gather as much ore as I could on day one of Cataclysm and max my mining as soon as I created my Electrostatic Converter.  Cold is a Miner / Engineer so my strategy has been to gather and sell everything I collect.  Gems are selling for around 175g each, volatiles 10-50g each, and ores are all over the board, but 200g a stack elementium ore isn't too shabby.  After I turned in my 25 daily quests, here's how I maxed my mining very quickly.  

1. Used my Fate Rune of Fleet Feet which I had bought from the witch in Icecrown with 15 Vrykul Bones.  Wowhead comments say it doesn't work while mounted, but it sure looked like it to me.
2. Circled the Icecrown zone farming Saronite & Titanium until my mining skill was 475.
3. Took engineer portal to Scholazar Basin.
4. Flew through the Way Gate.
5. Flew across Un'Guro Crater directly to Uldum.
6. Farmed Elementium Nodes and Rich Elementium Nodes (at 500 skill) and Pyrite Nodes (at 525).

I highly recommend this exact strategy when grinding up your miner as it is very quick, skips the heavily player quest areas, and gets you mining and selling the higher value ores much faster than using a regular zone progression.  Uldum is excellent for mining while a lower level as the mobs are not close to mineral nodes, so no killing is required.  This Cataclysm mining strategy was a modification, but very similar, to one of the strategies listed in The Cataclysm Mastery System.  

Elementium Ore Sweet Spot in Uldum

Elementium Ore Uldum Sweet Spot

While farming the mining nodes in the new Cataclysm zone Uldum, I found this amazing sweet spot.  The map above shows the location in Uldum.  The above map is from the North West corner of Uldum.  The sweet spot contained 5 elementium ore veins every time I passed by.  Four of these elementium nodes are viewable at the same time on the mini-map since they are super close to each other.  Just to the North East is another elementium vein spawn location that was also always present with this cluster of 4 nodes.  NOTE:  I was farming without completing any quests, so at this point I am unsure if this node cluster is affected by any of the zone phasing.

AFK Farming Options

One of the things I am constantly looking for are good "AFK Farming" locations.  Locations that allow you to camp a character and watch spawns on ores on the mini-map without having to move your character are nice spots.  I use these AFK farming locations while I am unable to give full attention to the game, but I am busy working on my computer at the same time.  

I just put World of Warcraft into windowed mode and move the window to the top right of my desktop.  This allows me to open whatever project I am working on in a seperate window and size it up for most of the screen, while leaving the in-game mini-map up in the top right corner of my desktop.  So I am free to browse the internet, work on blog posts, edit screenshots, etc while always keeping an eye out for those little yellow dots to appear on the mini-map signally the respawn of the resource I am watching.  

One of the best spots for this in Vanilla WoW was in the Badlands North East of Kargath inside the cave with the rock elementals.  By camping near the entrance of the little cave, I could moniter the Iron Ore veins in the immediate area and the occasional Gold or Truesilver node spawn all without having to move my character.  Leaving my work in the foreground and game mini-map in the upper background allowed me to multi-task both in and out of the game.  This Elementium Ore sweet spot is exactly the type of AFK farming location I am always hunting for.  Four nodes all spawning within so close proximity means I can camp this on a flying mount and drop down to gather ores as the veins spawn then return to my other task.

Anyone else found a sweet spot for farming ores or herbs?  

Anyone else use the windowed mode strategy to do two things at once?

Double Gathering With The 4.0.1 New Mini-Map Changes

About Time

New Way To Track

A new mini-map UI was included within the newest Patch 4.0.1.  Now all players can select multiple options to be "tracking" within the mini-map.  Each trackable group on the mini-map has its own marker as well.  Previously we could only track 1 thing at a time.  I rolled a test character and confirmed that both Mining and Herbalism (or Find Herbs and Find Minerals) can both be shown on the mini-map together (see above image).  This is a very nice change.

Double Gathering

With this new change it is much easier to make an uber-farming character with both herbalism and mining simultaneously.  A macro to swap back and worth tracking types is no longer needed.  You now can see the nodes and herbs on your mini-map.  This now is the ideal set-up for making money while leveling because it just became much easier and not annoying.  If you were leveling a character with double gathering you would never have to pass up a mineral node or herb again.  This is much faster of a leveling combo than Herbalism or Mining and Skinning.  Removing skinning when thinking of speed.  A major drawback is the time it takes to skin.  So Double Gathering as Miner / Herbalist is the ideal choice for ease and speed purposes.  Both selling herbs and selling ores / bars are in constant demand on any server and the new gold standard when making money while leveling. 

Track Low Level Quests

You also can now turn on the ability to always track low level quests.  This is nice because if you were a miner or herbalist working on the Loremaster Achievement, you couldn't track low level quest givers and your nodes.  Now it is set it and forget it!  So the new mini-map changes that Blizzard gave us are a very nice addition indeed.



What Class And Race Combo Do You Think Is The Best For A Farming Only Alt?

Guest Post: CappedByCata

A Guest Post from CappedByCata.com


First of all, I would just like to say a very special thanks to Cold. He has been very helpful in allowing me to branch out with my blog and obtain new readership, so I do very much appreciate it.

I wanted to return the favor with a guest post here at Cold’s Gold Factory.

Mining will never be as profitable as it will be at the beginning of Cataclysm.

Yep, that’s right. The start of Cataclysm will lend itself to some insane demand in the terms of Ore needed for crafters in Cataclysm. Expect prices to be in the hundreds of gold for a stack of the new Ore.

So what does this mean? Besides the fact that you need to be mining, there are a couple of ways you can take advantage of this niche. Once prices sky-rocket, a lot of people who dropped mining for raiding professions will quickly pick it back up and join in on the gold rush. Not wanting to go from Node to Node all the way until 525, they will look for any shortcut possible. This shortcut is where you come in.

The only other way to level up mining besides hitting a node, is to smelt. What this means is people will be willing to pay a premium for ores such as Mithril, Gold, Adamantite, etc in an effort to cut out a few of those nodes that will be in heavy competition. If you can already have a stock pile ready to go, you will be able to net yourself a very healthy profit.

Time really is Money

Gathering professions will once again be at their peak come Cataclysm. Having a Miner ready to go at the beginning of the expansion will make you an insane amount of gold if you’re willing to put in the time. Me personally, I’m taking 3-4 days off work simply to Mine. Sure this may sound a little extreme, but I know the Ore will never again go for as much as it does during those few days. People will be racing to get those realm first achievements, and it needs to be your goal to take the most advantage of those people as possible. If you spend those first couple of days leveling up, exploring new content, trying out new dungeons, etc, then you’re selling yourself shorts of the profits that will be available in those few short lived days.

So take advantage, friends and line your pockets, guild banks and bed sheets with shiny shiny gold.

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Thanks Wes for the guest post.  I agree with you and I already have been stocking up on ores.  I myself am focusing on the uncommon (green) ores that give a skill-up each smelt:  Silver, Gold, & Truesilver.  In my opinion these will be the most realiable for power leveling miners.  If you plan on mining, I highly recommend getting to max skill prior to the gold rush of Cataclysm.  I also expect to see a rise in the sale of Mammoth Mining Bags as well.  Thanks again.
 
Anyone else interested in guest posting, or swapping guest posts, either shoot me an email here or a private message over at The Consortium.

Saronite Droppings

Markets have definately changed on my server. Now multiple people have been dumping tons of saronite ore, maybe we have real bot miners on the server now. Anyhow, I am absolutely loving the hundreds of stacks of saronite ore I have been buying for under 12.5g per stack. Tonight I bought out 3 buyers for a few hundred stacks total at 9.5g, 9.7g, and 9.8g per stack of ore. This is great for making money afk, by just buyinging, bagging, and smelting it for 25g per stack of bars (takes 2 stacks of ore to make a stack of bars). Or you can shuffle it into gems or enchanting mats, or use it in crafting belt buckles, etc. At prices like this you can't help but buy them all up.

Ever realize you and another player are buying at the same time as you get the hated "This item no longer exists" message from the Auction House? I got into a fury of clicks for the stacks before my competing buyer got them. Then I tried to lay a trap for him, posting stacks of 2 ore for the same price we were buying out the full stacks for, but he didn't take the bait. Lol, oh well! Maybe he was using a snatch program. Screw Add-ons.