Competing For Profits

AKA “There ain’t enough glyph sales for the both of us.”  Needless to say, I expect my profit margins to take a hit while I try out my cunning plan to get my share of the market back from some rather insistent competitors.  And I’ve been amusing myself with a resurrection quote addon.

Thanks to a bit too much time spent in Wintergrasp, Fingle’s PvP gear is coming along nicely.  In about 17k more honor, she will be able to pick up the Hateful chest, which will give her the four-piece bonus, and she’s now wearing both the Titan-forged boots and belt.  I’ve been distracted by other things, so the frequency of her PvPing has come down a bit, and I’m seriously considering not putting too much time into it until after 3.2 and the battleground changes that will make them less painful (especially Warsong Gulch – yes please to a 20 minute game limit!).

It looks like my healing with Fingle will be affecting my raiding as well, as I’m going to be changing Mingle’s second spec to discipline to help out with healing Iron Council hard-mode.  We tried it a few times last night, and the raid damage was just flattening us.  I was on primary dispelling of Steelbreaker’s Fusion Punch (with our very talented other shadow priest backing me up), and with all my attention on that I didn’t really have the time to do much dps.

After a couple of wipes I whispered our healing officer and suggested that it might be a good fight for me to do as disc, to help with raid healing (or at least raid shielding) when I’m not dispelling.  The suggestion went down well, so if we go back to that fight tonight I’ll be sporting my shiny new (mostly repurposed) disc gear and a positive attitude.

Last night’s raid actually went surprisingly well, considering how often we’ve been off-form lately.  We started by one-shotting Flame Leviathan with four towers up, followed by one-shots of Kologarn and Mimiron, and two-shots of Auriaya and Thorim.  Iron Council was troublesome, as new hard modes usually are, but we were keeping a pretty good attitude about it all.

I’ve finally reached another milestone on Pringle, and it’s surprising they haven’t made an achievement out of it.

I mean, seriously.  450 fishing isn’t worth at least some kind of achievement spam?  That’s just ridiculous (and kind of disheartening).  They’re failed to recognise when you max out other professions as well, and I think it’s a missed opportunity on Blizzard’s part.

Speaking of professions, I’ll touch on the interesting times I foresee ahead of me thanks to some increasingly persistent competition in the Glyph market.  I noticed over the last few days that my sales have dropped considerably, and when I checked after posting my glyphs on Monday I found that by the time I’d finished listing my second group two people had undercut almost every glyph I’d listed in group one.

Needless to say, I’m not taking this lying down.  (Actually I’m seated, but that’s beside the point.)  I’ve changed my posting system to minimise the effect of being undercut, and lowered the undercut percentage in Auctioneer while I work on regaining a more substantial share of the market – I only started yesterday, and while my net profit has dropped quite a bit, I am still making a profit, plus I think I’m cutting into their sales as well.  I’ll see how things look later in the week, though, and see if further changes need to be made.

For now, though, I have things to do, fish to catch, and other chores to complete.

/wave

So How Long Do Glyphs Take?

In terms of a glyph industry, that is.  I was wondering about this, and decided to see how much time I put into it each day.

1. Cancel unsold glyphs
   4 minutes
   (There was 821 unsold today)
2. Collecting unsold glyphs, part one
   9 minutes
   (This is the Priest/Rogue/Shaman/Warrior/Warlock glyphs. The 50-mail-at-a-time limit slows things down quite a bit here, as does the delay between emptying 50 and waiting for the next 50 to arrive)
3. Back to the bank to change equipped inscription bags
   1 minute
   (I list so many glyphs that I can only work with half of them at a time.  It’s a little unwieldy, but I’ve made it work for me.)
4. Collecting unsold glyphs and sales, part two
   12 minutes
   (This is DK/Druid/Hunter/Mage/Paladin glyphs.  See #2 for mail server delay complaints)
5. Log onto Mingle, do Inscription Research, craft 10 of the new glyph
   2 minutes
   (Yay, I discovered the last Druid glyph!  Anyway, I only make the glyphs if they’re profitable – most glyphs discovered from Northrend research are, thankfully, so it’s then just a matter of finding out if they actually sell)
6. Check Bingle’s inventory levels and queue glyphs needing to be restocked.
   24 minutes
   (Thanks to the BankItems addon, I can see Bingle’s stock levels from the tooltips in Mingle’s crafting list.  I also record sales in a handy Excel spreadsheet, which adds to the time it takes – however, the extra information is well worth the extra time invested)
7. Brief interlude in Wintergrasp on Fingle with timer paused.
   - cue elevator muzak -
    
   (Yay!  Plus we won Wintergrasp back, so I scored three Marks)
8. Start crafting, and mail the glyphs to Bingle
   4 minutes
   (57 glyphs today)
9. Log back onto Bingle and perform a full scan with Auctioneer
   5 minutes
   (Not forgetting to set price levels for the new glyph I learnt and enable it for batch posting)
10. Start batch-posting the first glyph set
    15 minutes
    (Fortunately I can go AFK to make myself a nice cup of tea while this runs.  Unfortunately I have to remain in the auction house while this runs, and it takes quite a while with the numbers I’m posting currently.  I’m currently listing 4 each of 120 glyphs, so it takes a while.)
11. Back to the bank to equip the other bag set, the back to the AH to list the second half
    18 minutes
    (There’s fewer glyphs in this group, only 4 each of 112 glyphs.  Total glyph listed, 928)
12. Profit!
    (Or at least, there will be tomorrow)

So, 94 minutes later, that’s how it’s done.  That’s 61 minutes where I have to pay attention to the computer, and 33 minutes (while batch-posting goes on) where I can do other activities (such as catching up on my daily browsing).  It’s not the quick and efficient setup that, say, Gevlon uses, but it turns a regular and respectable profit for me for an affordable investment in time.  (I use lower price-points than he does, which is why my stock is so much larger, and the result of larger stocks is more time spent managing it – I suspect I’d do well to rethink my approach at some stage)

At this stage I can calculate how much gold/hour glyphs make me (which I’m curious to actually work out – up until now I’ve just collected my gold without thinking about it).  I think I’ll be reducing the range of glyphs I’m making soon (again), as I didn’t realise just how much time the lower profit glyphs are costing me (and also how much they’ll be cutting into the profit from my higher-valued glyphs).

So I think what I’d taking away from this exercise is that a little careful analysis of your gold-making activities has the potential to save you time (and increase your profits).  But of course, YMMV.

For now though, my dailies are waiting.

/wave

Diplomacy Has Its Place

Exalted with Timbermaw?  You know what that means…  Meet Dinglemouse the Diplomat.

Yay! for the WoWWiki Timbermaw Hold reputation guide, which made it quite a bit easier.  (Just a tip: If you want to work on it yourself, it’s a lot easier when you’re not doing at the same time as anyone else – I had to slow down the speed I was killing them in order to avoid getting delayed while waiting for respawns)

It’s actually been quite a fun few days.  My assorted decks have almost all sold (I’ve still got a single Berserker card to liquidate), and I was able to get a second pair of Spiked Deathdealers crafted.  That was sold, and I used the proceeds to get a pair of Indestructible Plate Girdles crafted, one for Dingle and the second to sell.

I’m currently waiting for it to sell, with a view to getting another item or two crafted for resale – sadly, patience is essential when trying to sell items at this kind of price, even when there’s no competition.  I’m also dabbling in the Eternal Belt Buckle and leg armor markets, and picking up cheap Runed Orbs as the opportunity presents itself.

If there’s one thing I’ve not experienced anywhere near enough, it’s the pleasure of tanking for a capable (and well-geared) group of players – this occurred last night, when I managed to finagle my way into the hard-mode Ulduar 10-man run that was idling last night.  They weren’t working on hard modes though, other than plans for hard-mode Mimiron – the main tank wasn’t able to get online at the planned time, so there was a couple of hours to play with, and they had Thorim, Freya, Razorscale and Ignis to play with.

Needless to say, I felt a tad overwhelmed (as this was my first time tanking these bosses), but apart from a nub mistake on Freya trash (where I used thunderclap next to some CC’d mobs, causing a wipe) I think I performed competently enough.  I was the Arena tank for Thorim, and we finished without a wipe (and in good time).  Freya wasn’t quite as smooth, but we downed her despite some co-ordination issues with the 3-add group where we kept killing one too soon, and had to deal with the trio self-rezzing while we were dealing with the exploding swarm of lashers that came next.

Thorim dropped the T8 shoulder token, but I passed on it for the other tank (who tanks the 25-mans, and needed it to get the awesome 4-piece bonus).  I was rewarded for my generosity with the T8 glove token from Freya, which has given me my first piece of T8, the Valorous Siegebreaker Handguards.  (The fact that it co-ordinates with my awesome new boots and belt is something I’m quite happy with – sure, the better stats are nice, but there’s still something to be said for aesthetics)

I’m still doing the fishing dailies on all my characters who can reach Dalaran, but the appeal is slowing fading – probably because of the lack of interesting rewards.  I think I’ve got a Porcelain Bell once in the last four days, and worthless glass the rest of the time.  (Mingle really needs that skull fishing rod – the one from the Walrus-men is quite lacking, especially for a shadow priest.  And whatever became of those fishing bobber models?)

Mingle only has four days remaining of Argent Tournament dailies before she’s an exalted champion with all the Alliance factions; she’s currently working on Gnomeregan.  It’s a pity that the limited appeal of jousting runs out so quickly – only Dingle has completed the grind so far, and the new dailies with 3.2 are quickly approaching, with the extra dailies that are only available when you’ve completed the existing Tournament quests.

But now it’s time for dailies (and regular AH checks – Yay, the belt just sold!)

/wave (of a profitable nature)

The Moderately More Human Edition

The best thing about the flu?  Ideally it’s not to catch it.  Failing that, it’s the part when you start feeling like yourself again.  I’m not quite at the latter stage, but at least I’m no longer feeling like I have a murloc in my throat.

I’ve finally got some numbers together from my glyph business, and it makes for quite satisfying reading.

For the seven days from 21st June – 28th June:
Total glyphs sold: 622
Average price per glyph: 9.74g
Average sales per day: 865.86g
Total income from the AH: 6061g

Most of my profits over that period have gone back into books of glyph mastery in order to learn those glyphs and Mingle now knows all 57 new glyphs, which just leaves the other glyphs to be learnt from Minor and Northrend Inscription Research.  (I also misjudged the number of books Mingle needed, and now have 9 surplus that I’ll re-list when the price goes back up – I picked them up for 50g-60g each, and prices last week peaked at 100g, so I should be able to make my money back on them pretty safely)

As Bingle is struggling to manage the glyphs she currently holds, I’m going to limit my inventory to the eight 32-slot bags she carries.  That gives me 256 different glyphs I can work with, from the 340 in-game, with 41 remaining for Mingle to learn.  Now it’s a matter of winnowing out the less profitable glyphs so I can replace them with new discoveries.

I’ve also burnt through half of my stockpile of Snowfall Ink, and made 40 Darkmoon cards.  All I need now is a six of nobles, and I have a nobles deck ready to go when the Faire is back in town.  I also managed to get a complete Undeath deck (plus I’m only two cards short of a second deck, to boot), and purchased three cards on the AH to complete a Prisms deck and Chaos deck.

I’m going to use the returns from my glyph sales for the next week to purchase the other six stacks of eternal life I need to turn the rest of my snowfall inks into darkmoon cards, and then it’ll be time to see how the pre-Faire market treats me.

For now, though, I have a part-guild Alts Naxx10 run to tank.

/wave