Project Lore

It started out great. Hitting 80, jumping into dungeons, my first downing of the Black Knight and subsequent farming of ToC. Then came the daily heroics. I was slowly building up my collection of purples, and it showed as my DPS jumped from really crappy to only moderately crappy (still working on that part - hoping rounding out with more purples helps!) Yes, Locomomo's advancements in Azeroth made me giddy. What did not was the depletion of my bank from a couple thousand gold to only a couple hundred; mostly from high repair bills and buying gems to socket into my shiny new gear. Those stupid jewels, if you want the good ones, are ridiculously expensive. And I DO want the good ones, at least for the gear that I probably won't replace for a while. I haven't even started looking at enchants yet, unless it's something a guildy can help me out with. In the grand scheme of things, what I've spent so far isn't all that much gold - I'm sure I could make it back pretty quickly if I really needed to. But therein lies the problem. If I take the time each day to run the dailies I need to make back gold, I lose out on raiding time. If I raid, I get more awesome gear that needs gems to make it even more awesome. Not to mention higher repair costs. What's a girl to do!? I'm thinking it comes down to time management. I don't play as much during the week anyway, but if I can manage to pop on for a few dailies each day, then save up longer raiding sessions for the weekend, that might be the key. Finishing up my exploring may have to be put on hold. Another possible solution - finishing off leveling up my leatherworking so I can get my buffs from the profession, and maybe even making some money off what I can make. Then once I get the leatherworking up, I could drop skinning and pick up another crafting profession. But then there's the issue of leveling it up without the gathering profession - of course, that takes more money! Then again, if it's jewelcrafting I pick up, then I won't have to buy jewels anymore, just the reagents. Ack, too many decisions! Any readers out there with two crafting professions? For that matter, any with dual gathering? Do you use it more for the benefit of your own buffs, or for money making? What other methods have you found to manage gold-making and gold-spending?

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So you have finally hit level 70 on your alt, or perhaps it is your main.  As you begin to run the 5-man content while trying to get into Karazhan and doing PvP in between it dawns on you that most of your gear lacks enchantments.  Whatever shall you do? Most players will quickly look-up what materials are required for class-appropriate enchantments, only to be shocked or annoyed at how much the enchantments will cost them.  For this discussion we will focus on weapon enchants, generally the most expensive and often the most important. Being a melee class character - a Rogue to be exact - Mongoose is the best enchantment, its tooltip reads "to occasionally increase Agility by 120 and attack speed slightly."  Yum.  But here's the catch, the materials are expensive, costing:

• 6 x Void Crystal
• 10 x Large Prismatic Shard
• 8 x Greater Planar Essence
• 40 x Arcane Dust

Not to mention the fact that you have to find someone to do this for you, which may cost you a little extra. Well maybe Mongoose is a bit nuts, after all you did just hit 70 and are likely to replace your gear soon.  So how about Executioner which will allow you "to occasionally ignore 840 of your enemy's armor."  Not to shabby in this day where bear tanks easily have over 16,000 armor.  Materials for this one?  Not much different:

• 6 x Void Crystal
• 10 x Large Prismatic Shard
• 6 x Greater Planar Essence ( - 2 GPE)
• 30 x Arcane Dust (-10 AD)
• 3 x Elixir of Major Strength (+3 Elixirs)

This begs the question, to enchant or not to enchant? The benefits of such should be readily obvious, you get a boost in selected stats but at what cost?  A character in my predicament, just hit 70 with some basic Karazhan and PvP gear, will easily replace much of their gear in a the coming weeks.  So should they waste all of those mats on a high end enchant?  Probably not and the drawbacks aren't horrible. Lower stats mean lower DPS in my case, or lower healing or crappier tanking in other cases, but not matter what the reduction is by an incredibly small percentage.  Of course, we cannot forget the endless ridicule that may ensue fromguildmates or persons in your party.  Avoiding the constant teasing could make the decision for you. There is one other route, a compromise of sorts.  Instead of getting a high end enchant like Mongoose or Executioner on my Emerald Ripper - an item easily replaced - I will get a medium grade enchant.  Therefore I have SOMETHING which will help me avoid some ridicule while gaining SOME stats but not "wasting" obtuse amounts of gold on mats.  One could argue that I should just save that gold to put into the high end enchant later, but then we get into a vicious cycle and I hate those.  As for my Merciless Gladiator's Shiv?  Well, it won't be replaced nearly as quickly as the Ripper, so Executioner it is. This was my first post here at ProjectLore.com.  Was it good for you?

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