Fiftythree Hundred

edit: after writing, but before posting, this entry, I received a comment on another article that leads me to believe I'll get little sympathy from this story. :-( Please, do read on, and let me know what you think :-)

Anybody following the blog here knows that one of my favorite parts of WoW is being rich.

I started the game as a complete and total coconut. Somewhere around level 24, a newly acquired RL friend kicked me in the @ss when she saw me without any professions trained yet. What can I say? I was stuck in analysis paralysis, and couldn't decide. And I'm dumb.

That's the point where the days of dual gathering, and swimming laps in my pile of Dubloons, began and ever since the moment I plucked my first Peacebloom in Teldrassil and first Copper Ore in Darkshore, I've fully enjoyed a vast income, and always been frugal on the expenses.

Along came raiding. Some expenses, sure, but as a herbalist, not too much expense for Alchemy products, as I farmed all my stuff myself and my Guild has helpful Alchemists with all the recipes I need. I farmed my own foods, and I cook them myself. Only enchanting and gems cost me some dough, but lets face it, Hunters' really don't have any of the really brutal enchants like a Mongoose or Executioner.

Then I had to go read an article on WoW Insider saying that all the fancy folks use Leatherworking because drummers get all the chicks.

Blizzard hadn't implemented the economy crushing patch 2.4 yet, so I felt fine sitting on 10k.

Bye bye Herbalism/Mining, hello Skinning/Leatherworking.

And with it, bye bye endless income potential.

Skinning isn't too bad. Stacks of Heavy Knothide Leather and Thick Clefthoof Leather sell for a pretty penny. And while grinding Clefthooves you pick up some loose change from vendor trash. But it just feels like work.

LW has been pretty much exclusively for the Drums. I make leg armors too, but since they're BoE, I don't actually need to do it myself (lol, and i'm not exalted with HH yet, so I still have to buy my Nether Cobras). I've made a few items for guildies and friends, nice, but not like I have any rare patterns that make my crafting something special.

Mining & Herbalism just came naturally. Flying somewhere? Pick some flowers on the way. Cash in on massive profits.

Along comes Patch 2.4.3.

Haris Pilton bats her eyes at me and I fork over 3600 gold to get 6 additional bag slots. Bag space is always in short supply, so I'm a big fan.

Along comes Gruul's Lair.

I got a pair of gloves off of Gruul the other night. DPS-wise, they're sorta side-grade from my leather Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation, but they're Mail, so I caved and rolled.

I wish I hadn't. I wish I had just passed them to another hunter. But, it was gloves. My one and only piece of Leather, so I went for it.

2 other hunters in the raid. Hunter A passes. Hunter B rolls. Amava rolls higher than B and wins the gloves. Gloves bind to soul. Instant looter's remorse.

Loot distribution continues. T4 shoulders. Amava and Hunter B pass on shoulders. Hunter A rolls, but loses to a Mage.

Hunter A grumbles about having passed on the gloves in hopes of getting shoulders. Meh. You shoulda rolled on the Gloves.

Well, my conundrum continues. The only reason I'm still using the leather gloves is the lovely Blue gem slot. The meta gem all raiding hunters should be using (Relenteless Earthstorm Diamond, +12 agi and +3% crit damage) requires 2 Blue gems. Seems as though purple gems in a red slot do not count as a blue gem, even though I thought I had read somewhere that they do count as one red and one blue, regardless of what color slot they're in. appears to not be the case.

So, now its time to find another piece that's useful and contains a blue gem slot.

Enter Belt of the Black Eagle.

Very nice. Not as good as my Guardian's Chain Girdle, but why not? Blue slot, Yellow slot, nice stats.

So, to make these new gloves work for me, I needed to:
1) Get two red gems for the gloves.
2) Get 2 Primal Air, 3 Small Prismatic Shards, and 3 Arcane Dust to enchant +15 agi on the gloves
3) Get 2 Nether Vortex, 10 Primal Air, 10 Wind Scales, 4 Heavy Knothide Leather, and 2 Rune Thread for the Belt
4) Get a blue and a yellow gem for the belt.
5) Find and tip a LW for the Belt (grrrrr, made me hate LW even more that I cant even make the stuff I need myself)
6) Find and tip a JC for the jewels.

Jimminy Christmas.

In total, cost 1700 gold.


So, between the bags, the gloves, and the belt, tuesday's cash outflow was 5,300 gold, bringing my gold savings to the lowest its been since March. I can't tell if the shakiness in my hands is from the 4 hours of sleep, the associated overdose of caffeine, or the gold.

All for 6 bag slots, what might amount to an actual reduction in DPS, but a little saving face with the guild because I didn't take the gloves and never equip them.

I'm feeling Herbalism/LW in my bones. Not sure how much longer I can hold out