MoP Era Expansion Twinking | 80 Is The New 70



MoP Era WoW Battle Chest

 Expansion Twinking In Mists of Pandaria

The playfield has recently changed completely in a specific twinking specialization bracket: Expansion Twinks.  Catering to PvP Twinks of all brackets can be very lucrative, especially if you have a large Twink community on your WoW server.  So with the recent major change to the Expansion Twink bracket, some auction house tactics need to be adjusted.

What Is Expansion Twinking?

Expansion Twinking is a specific style of Twinking that requires the lack of the more recent expansions.  With the current PvP Battleground System, a Twink character must turn off their experience level in order to prevent leveling out of their chosen PvP Battleground level bracket.  If a player has a WoW account that does not have all of the WoW expansion upgrades, then their character is capped at a certain level based on which expansion upgrades have been applied to their account.  That's where Expansion Twinking comes in.  An Expansion Twink is simply a Twink character that is on an account that does not have all of the WoW expansions.  This results in a Twink character that cannot gain XP (due to the level cap for not having an expansion), which means the character also does not have to turn off XP in the battlegrounds.  The Expansion Twinks are able to reek havoc on the battlefields due to being able to join regular battlegrounds instead of the XP off battlegrounds that other Twinks are forced to join. 

Until just recently, the World of Warcraft Battle Chest only included WoW plus Burning Crusade, which left level 70 as the most common Expansion Twink Bracket.  Since the last WoW patch, some players in that bracket were unexpectedly leveling out of their level 70 and forced to abandon the level 70 twinking career.  What went wrong?  Blizzard changed up the standard WoW Battle Chest.  The current MoP Era WoW Battle Chest now includes WoW, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King.  While a level 70 character can remain twinking at level 70, that character must now pay to turn off their XP to do so, thus they are no longer an Expansion Twink.  The new Expansion Twink Bracket will be at Level 80, since players without any WoW expansions will be able to play through Wrath of the Lich King, since it is now part of the standard WoW Battle Chest.

Profiting From The New Expansion Twink Bracket

The biggest change I would make regarding profiting from this change to Expansion Twinking is in regards to selling level 77-80 Cata Greens.  This change instantly increases the value of any of the 77-80 Cataclysm gear pieces.  Due to the increased amount of stats on these pieces, they are no longer just for leveling characters.  Expansion Twinks will also be seeking out the best pieces to wear as they continue leveling within the battlegrounds.  Once the Expansion Twinks hit level 80, they can continue their gear acquisation, but most of the level 80 green gear from Cata drops are going to be better than the top end Wrath gear, including most epics. 

So if you are already in the market of flipping level 77-80 Cata greens, then it's time to raise the prices on the best gear, especially any lvl 80 BoE Cata gear with +Stamina and +Primary Stat.  Don't sell yourself short, bump the prices up and make more gold per sale.  Now level 80 blue gear with great stats combos, especially gear with gem slots, will be able to sold for a premium price as Expansion Twinks can use that Blue Cata gear and add Cata gems as well.  There will also continue to be a niche market for the level 80 useable Enchants, Gems, and Belt Buckles, etc.

Twinking.Net

If you are into Twinking or are looking to get started, be sure to check out the newer site Twinking.net, which is a twinking dedicated site ran by Inkobah, an old guest poster and friend of the site here at Cold's Gold Factory.

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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

Arena Season Compensation - Be Prepared!

Breaking News - Arena Season Compensation

As you may already know, some PvP players got completly screwed last Tuesday.  Azuriel did a great post covering the issue on how Blizzard punked some PvP players.  Blizzard has just released a blue post showing an attempt to correct the issues where some players got ripped buying gear that got replaced on the vendors a week later with better gear for the same price.  Check out the blue post below.  Alto has a post detailing the PvP gear costs and making gold with Arena Season 10.

"We wanted to let everyone know that we’re working to address the miscommunication that occurred regarding the introduction of new item level 371 PvP gear, and share our current plans.


For background, many players spent their Honor Points on item level 365 gear once Season 9 ended only to find that more powerful item level 371 gear was available when season 10 started. We should have communicated ahead of time that this was going to be the case, and we apologize for the mistake.

We’ve been working over the past few days to evaluate and determine the best course of action to offer players some kind of compensation for those who were caught off guard by the new gear. The plan we’ve found to be achievable within an acceptable amount of time is to provide players who were affected with 4000 Honor Points. This extra Honor would function similarly to the currency down-conversion in that it would stack over the cap, but you would not be able to earn more until you spent under the 4000 cap.

The process of determining who was affected is certainly the most difficult task of this issue, and the entire process of figuring out who should receive the Honor or not and then delivering it isn’t anything less than a giant undertaking. We’re still evaluating many of the processes that will be required to make this happen. Although we’re fairly confident we can pull it off, there is still a chance it may not be possible. Due to other service related work the soonest we would be able to distribute this Honor is the 7/19 Tuesday maintenance. More complicated solutions we discussed could take months to implement, but we felt getting something to those affected as quickly as possible was more important.

Although some of this is still uncertain we felt it best to let people know as far in advance as possible to allow for adequate planning. We’ll be able to provide more information and specifics on how this process will be carried out, and the requirements to receive the 4000 Honor, next week.

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience caused by our miscommunication. We greatly appreciate those who took the time to give us constructive feedback on the matter."

-Bashiok

What This Means For Auctioneers?

We can expect to see another wave of gems and enchants moving once these compensatory Honor points are awarded to the affected players.  So if your Inferno Ruby price are dropping lower than you would like, consider holding on to your cut Inferno Rubies them to sell once this next wave of free Honor brings in even more PvP gear purchases.  This wave probably won't be as big as the initial rush on the new PvP gear, but it should bring in a noticable spike in sales of item enhancements. 

So keep your eyes peeled as to when these Honor points are going to be awarded and be prepared to ride that wave of sales and get you close to your gold making goal or your Warcraft Econ Hall of Fame interview.

Battleground Bracket Changes and New Twink Markets

PvP Battleground Brackets Have Changed


In case you missed it, the brackets for the PvP battlegrounds have changed.  There are no more 10 level gaps for battleground characters.  This change will be great for those that are informed as we can snatch up gear off the auction house from the uninformed or ignorant players that will be posting Best-In-Slot level 13 and 14 items on the auction house.

Blue Post:  (Source)

The uneasy armistice between the Horde and Alliance is steadily cracking beneath the strain of Deathwing's devastating return and the Shattering of Azeroth, heralding a new era of bloody conflict.

The clash between the factions has also never been so hotly contested:  Battleground brackets now match up teams more evenly.  

The new brackets span five levels each, except the final bracket composed of level 85 players:

10-14               30-34               50-54               70-74

15-19               35-39               55-59               75-79

20-24               40-44               60-64               80-84

25-29               45-49               65-69               85

Fighters can also join the battle in Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm, and Alterac Valley at an earlier level than ever before:

Level 10 - Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch

Level 35 - Eye of the Storm

Level 45 - Alterac Valley

Level 65 - Strand of the Ancients

Level 75 - Isle of Conquest

Level 85 - Battle for Gilneas and Twin Peaks

These changes should offer players a more consistently competitive experience in the Battlegrounds as their characters level, as well as provide for more exciting PvP conflict than ever before.  Are you eager to try 35-39 Eye of the Storm?  How about 45-49 Alterac Valley?  Perhaps you'd like to cut your teeth on a 10-14 Arathi Basin.

New Twinking Markets


This change brings about a whole new option for flipping twink gear to level x4 characters.  Some research will need to be done to find what items are best-in-slot for the various classes at level 14, 24, 34, etc., but I am willing to bet that a lot of them aren't even blue items.  Many of them are probably green items.  So this is your heads up.  Get to researching gear and start off by buying up any cheaply priced level 14 blues.  I will report back later once I have a chance to get some research done.  Report back here, if you find any uber-items that end in level x4.

The WINTERGRASP Shuffle

Wintergrasp Commendation
Binds to account
Item Level 1
Use: Grants you 2000 honor.



The Wintergrasp Shuffle

Here is how i do my PvP shuffle to make gold in the AH.

Run WG as often as you can because this is by far the quickest and easiest way to get a ton of honor in a short amount of time. Try not to miss any WG battles while you are online. Make sure to complete every WG weekly quest on as many characters as u can to further increase your profits.

Completing all 5 quests nets you: 18,615 Honor, 66g 15s (at lvl 80), and 50 Stone Keeper's Shards.
When your faction has control of WG Keep, visit the WG Vendor and turn in all of your SK Shards and WG Marks for Wintergrasp Commendations. Each Wintergrasp Commendation gives u 2000 Bind-on-Account Honor.

Then mail all of these BoA tokens to your Jewelcrafter. Use the honor tokens on your Jewelcrafter (since he's probably logged in your capital city anyways) and use all of your honor to purchase Epic Gems from the Jewelcrafting vendor in your faction's capital cities PvP reward shop. Sell these epic gems as raw mats or sell the cut versions for even more profit.

So u can get a Wintergrasp Commendation (2000 BoA Honor) from:
9 WG Marks of Honor (from WG Wins / Losses)
30 Stone Keeper's Shards (from WG quests and running Heroics)
and it takes just 5 Wintergrasp Commendation to convert to an epic gem.
You also can purchase the Epic Gems with the honor your earn from your battlegrounds.

Most people have a ton of Stone Keeper's Shards just sitting in their currency tab with nothing to purchase and don't even know they can flip it. Trying to by honor off of people in the form of epic gem honor conversions has led to a TON of confusion in the trade chat and from the potential sellers, in my experience so far.

Each epic Gem only costs 10k Honor. I am constantly buying these gems with honor points and making a ton of money. Much more than buying titanium at ridiculous prices to hopefully get an epic gem proc.

Good luck and happy killing.