5.4 Release Notes

Those of you that endured the summer of discontent and got to see a long summer where there really wasn't any massive goldmaking to be had have been waiting for Tuesday.  Before I share my thoughts, a quick aside.

Back in late June, I really got into pet battling.  So much so that as of this writing I'm #25 on Illidan on Warcraft Pets.  Notice I don't collect trash pets like the majority (trash being poors to uncommons just to have them), I collect rares or those pets that are very desired by breed, thus making me a true blueblood pet breed snob from hell.  Part of the beauty of being someone with truckloads of gold across multiple servers and not giving a crap anymore is that I can shop bargains for Battle Stones and build a stable of pets that I really want!  Additionally, I love leveling them.  And thanks to Battle Pets I now have:

* 4 more 90s leveled for a total of 15 (started pet dailies at 85-87, amazing easy xp)
* Several characters on my main server with over 1000 lesser charms.  In fact, in total, I'm sitting at over 3000.
* Something fun to do between queues

The lesser charm one I thought was amusing.  I have enough charms to do Greater Charm turn-ins for 20 solid weeks.  That's 60 bonus rolls in the upcoming raids.  I stopped at over 1000 on each just because the number sounded good. 

I figured out the majority of the mechanics behind PvE, and have some very interesting information I haven't seen elsewhere with readers.  I just have to actually do it - and between my new job and doing everything I like to do when I'm not working, honestly the last thing I think about is writing anything.


So...  5.4 comes out Tuesday.  Garrosh finally goes down, and he's only been hated since every Horde player hit Nagrand over 6 years ago.  I hope he dies well.  That is, you see him explode into bits and pieces and Thrall takes a piss on his ashes and Jaina launches the rest of him into the sun with a cannon as payback for Theramore.  I would demand playback on that cinematic for a month.  I haven't really been reading patch notes, I like surprises.  But if this happens then I guess I think like a Blizz dev.

Something all of you should keep in mind:

* Littering the AH the minute the servers come up with PvE gems and enchants is probably stupid * 

No, it IS stupid.  Even dumber will be camping the AH cancel/reposting.  Just like 5.2 release, there is no LFR until week 2.  And even more similar, the LFR is staggered again over 6 weeks.  The audience in the first week will be those people who are raiding the very first tier of the new content, so unless you're trying to sell to guilds like Blood Legion or Method or Midwinter or other major progression guilds (who probably all have their own people lined up to supply them within their own guilds), there's really no target audience the first week.

LFR is huge business.  The vast, vast majority of players in game today are using LFR as their chief source of "raiding".  I don't care how you feel one way or another about the mechanic, it's here to stay because it's the best possible method for Blizzard to offer content to everyone, offer effective catchup mechanics, and make people feel like they are progressing.  Therefore, this is the target for all gold makers because they are probably only running with one 90, no JC/Enchanter, and are working on mining because they need money.

PvP will be a different matter.  Players that are still into that aspect of the game will probably be cashing in Honor the first week, so these are going to be your real focus.

I say all this, and I know everyone reading is probably mindlessly clicking Restock/Craft Next without paying attention to what the actual prices or opportunities are.  Be smart, make more.

I personally hope everyone that doesn't have 2 brain cells to rub together posts everything and sells out the first week and either breaks even or worse (while they destroy another keyboard with all the drool), the real gold is going to be made in weeks #2 and #3.  Hope you have a stockpile like me!

If anything, you should have a nice Sha Crystal stockpile set up.  Unless there's a cheese mechanic to get them for free.  And then you're screwed!

Stockpiling for 6.0

How long will 5.4 be around?  This is the last tier of this expansion, right?  Sure, they may do a minor patch in between now and next release, but the assumption right now is that we'll see the expansion announcement at Blizzcon and then within the next year we'll see the next expansion. 

What this means to you is that there's a window that we'll have to guess at as to how long to be selling and then how long to hold onto things for the next expansion.  Nobody really liked talking about Cata stockpiling, but who today would like to have purchased all the Hypnotic Dust in existence the week before MoP came out?  There are a few things to keep hold of, and we'll figure all that out in the coming months.

Unanswered Questions for 5.4

Are we at a point yet where we can make feasts profitably? 
Will 5.4 give all the cooks that opportunity?
Is anyone still using the Black Market Auction House?
Where the hell are the epic gems?
Is Caverns of Time really finished now?  I mean nobody's said anything since Cata!
Why didn't we get a Pet Battles PvP rating system or ladder?  Seriously?
Are Pet Battles the future of the most rewarding dailies?
How long before they release fused realms and will they finally put the bullet in the head of the worst invention in the history of Warcraft by removing it entirely forever - CRZ?
Why is the item level difference between Heroic and LFR practically in a different expansion tier?  I know, they're gonna "smoosh" stats sometime.
Is anyone interested in teaming up (Horde side) and knocking out previous raid tier achievements?  I was looking at my achievements on my main and got kinda sad!

Have a nice patch!