CAN DO

It's been a couple of weeks, and you probably forgot about me, so let's fix that...

via GIPHY

I've been pretty busy, and there's a few things to report but not an overwhelming amount just hitting personal milestones...

MESEEKS AND DESTROY
Things have actually gone pretty well, I've managed to get enough gold to move most of my characters to Tichondrius. At this point in fact, there are only three remaining to move. However, I'm not sure I'm going to move my Monk as frankly I've managed to get some quick levels on a newbie Monk on Tichondrius already. Either way, with the XP flowing I should be looking at a screen full of 110s on my new home server soon.

Majesticer and Majecticer...

This has been a mixed bag of an expansion for me so far, I've started raiding again, but I've also done WAY more server hopping than ever before. And for me, that's a problem. I move somewhere, I'm bringing a ton of alts. Of course, I'm not out of pocket since I can just turn my gold into tokens/balance as I've been doing. But, that's when it gets nutty. Roughly this amounts to about 550k gold for three characters. And that's just a server transfer. So, for a full set of twelve that's a little over 2 million gold...

ZEROES AND ONES
Speaking of gold, I've obviously been making some if I've managed to move so many characters around. Well, I mentioned the Chimichanga Connection previously, and it's responsible really for my ability to move around so freely.

I paid five thousand gold total for everything in this screenshot and all of it has since sold...

The TLDR is cross realm pet trading, which has been a thing for years now. Historically speaking though, it's never been seriously considered by a lot of people because of the headache of moving that gold from some backwater server you only have a level 3 Blood Elf on to your main server where you can put it to some actual use. Basically it works like this...

First you get some seed money to the new server so you can start posting auctions, admittedly this is the easiest hurdle to overcome. But then, there's the more daunting task of finding servers with a favorable markup in the first place, and of course finding the right pets to sell there. And then the tedium of moving everything where it needs to go. That last part is something that only gets worse as you diversify.

Because you have to learn it on your buy server, switch to the sell server. Find the appropriate pet, cage it and any others you're looking to sell, then begin the process of listing them. Then you have the wait to look forward to, pets like transmog and other largely cosmetic items in the game don't sell instantly. You're usually waiting for days, weeks, or even months before something sells.

Then you have to figure out how to get it back to your main where it can actually do you some good, which means basically doing what you just did... backwards. Or at least, that WAS the case until very recently. See now that we can buy battle.net balance with wow tokens, there's a while lot more we can get out of cross realming pets. The main appeal here is of course that one can easily do things like buy months worth of game time with gold. Pay for game services, pets, mounts, etc. You can even buy packs in Hearthstone, Crates in Overwatch. Or hell, even buy games you never bothered to spend real money on. And the return can be substantial as long as you're patient and willing to put the time in.

The upkeep isn't too bad really, but the initial investment can definitely be daunting, so the real question is - is it worth it? That depends on how much your time is worth and how much you want to cut your wallet away from the game. For me, it's absolutely worth it. Not only is it an interesting challenge for my gold making skills, but it's nice to know I'm not stuck on a bad server, or with a character that I don't like the looks of. Knowing I can always pick up one of those other Blizzard games that I've been meaning to try out but just couldn't talk myself into spending money on. So, for me. Yeah, totally worth it.

CZR

GREAT HAIRY BALLS OF THE GODS

It's been a couple of weeks, and I didn't think there would be a whole lot to report but man was I wrong. I've been busier than I thought...

Picture unrelated...

The trouble with having a lot to say is knowing where to start, so...

KLAATU BARADA NIKTO
Let's start with my Warlock, since he's my main and where a lot of updates should be coming from. In terms of gear, I've gotten a couple of drops bringing Czernovog up to ilevel 896, sadly though mostly the gear's been coming from Normal NH which is not ideal. Though, I DID pick up Warforged tier legs from Gul'dan on Heroic this week. Spellblade still needs to give up some damned rings, I got the Erratic Matronome from normal and a much needed upgrade to one of my relics (my relics are weaksauce). I also got my third Legendary, unfortunately it was Norgannon's Foresight. Still, I'm starting to feel like I'm doing at least competent damage.

Invite me guild...

Aside from gear, I also picked up flying and finished my rep grind with everybody in Legion. Everybody except of course, the Forces of Legionfall, which is a few thousand rep away at this point. I even lucked into a new mount from the Nightfallen paragon cache...

Majestic as a motherfucker...

I also built up a big enough war chest to move some more alts over recently, giving me my Death Knight, Demon Hunter, Druid, Hunter, Paladin, and Warlock of course. I decided to just reroll my Monk, since his main job is to fish and make food anyway, and since I don't have one already, I made him a Pandaren. But mostly, it's because I've only boosted a Monk previously, it's the only class I haven't actually levelled manually from start to finish, and I feel like I should do that at least once to get a better idea of the ins and outs of the class.

I also leveled that butter serving Paladin to 110 with a little help from the Legion Assaults. He served as a not of much needed R&D on how effective they might to mass level efficiently. And holy balls is are they ever good. If you haven't tried it yet, you get a level per Assault cleared from 100-110. With flying, that takes roughly 15 minutes. The things I learned while doing it. You're skipping a LOT of content leveling this way, which means you're not getting much in terms of gear or artifact power. That said, Dauntless Tokens DO drop during the Assaults. By the time you get 110, you'll probably have at least a couple of 850 pieces this way. Add a couple of BOEs from your main (the Nighthold Cloaks for instance are really pretty cheap and a good way to boost that item level for World Quests.

Then of course, get a Tome with your main to boost Artifact Knowledge instantly to 25, and after a quick clear of World Quests I think you'll find this new alt isn't really that far behind one leveled normally.

Currently I'm using this method to level my Hunter, Gazmik and his trusty crustacean Toecutter, the pair should be 110 later today. My Druid, Caeroil is just behind those two, with my Warrior and Rogue bringing up the rear. I'll be moving the Warrior over to Tichondrius very soon, as I'm a couple of easy auctions away from another token. Actually, after I get the Warrior moved over that will just leave me with the Rogue, Mage, Priest, and Shaman to transfer and I'll be done with the transfers.

In terms of gold, I'm doing all right actually. I'm spending it as fast as I can get it to move everyone around. But, I'm managing to move a character or two each week. So far, that's without really using the Chimichanga Connection, which is still in development. But, that's also coming along rather nicely. Slower than I'd like, but I'll take it. And considering I'll soon be moving some other characters over from another account to speed things along, I'm actually pretty optimistic about things in general. And with all of that out of the way, it's that time again. Time to go...

CZR

BIRD CULTURE

In honor of Easter, I thought it would be fitting to remember his sacrifice...

this is considered a dick move...

With that out of the way, lets get into it.

GUBBA NUB NUB DO RA KA
This week I've been doing a fair bit of work getting my Legion Flying achievements knocked out, now I'm just a couple thousand rep away. I also snagged some sweet, sweet Artifact Power from the questline in Suramar along the way. That means most of my time on the lock is being spent in Broken Shore, running from waypoint to waypoint on TomTom disrupting portals.

I guess next I need to work on getting one of those nifty mounts the Nightfallen ride around on...

I did however also spend an afternoon working my way through a riddle...

I think this will be my Shadow Priests new ride...

I also started another similar type of gopher adventure, but I'm not sure when I'll find time to finish it.

Don't mind him, he's just hungry...

Also, like anybody who's logged on this week I picked up legendary follower gear for my main and my alts. Czernovog got the Shard of Twisting Nether, while my Demon Hunter picked up Ward of Infinite Fury. My Death Knight got the worst of the lot however with Fel Imp Tooth. Also, I should note I picked up the Heroic version of Whispers from Gul'dan this week too HUZZAH. In other news...

THE CHIMICHANGA CONNECTION
Text Since I've switched servers (again) I decided I'll be leaving a guy on Arthas for gold making purposes. Additionally, I'm spreading out to other select servers to expand my reach and diversify my portfolio. But how does gold on other servers help me on Tichondrius? Well, it's actually pretty simple. Make 100k on a random server, buy a token. Make 300k on another server, buy 3 tokens. Additionally, I can buy mounts, pets, etc.

In fact, the pets are a good way to get gold from the alt servers to Tichondrius where it can fill my war chest. Right now, I'm still very much in the R&D phase of things, but so far it's actually looking pretty decent, with me making moves on Area 52, Bloodscalp, Blackhand, and of course Arthas. Additionally, I'm stocking up for a little bit of a pillage party on a couple of realms I've targeted for plunder. I'll be transferring a character fully stocked with a guild bank full of goods to sell. The result should be millions of gold per trip.


So, yeah... it looks like I've still got my mojo.

CZR

LEVEL 9 ACCESS

This week I knocked out my first Heroic run with the new guild and brought over my first alt for the team, so what else is new...

SZECHUAN SAUCE
So, for the first part... let's get caught up. Raiding with the new guild is honestly very laid back, it's the experience I was looking for. We raid twice per week, day 1 we cleared all the way to Gul'dan. Got a few attempts on him before calling it a day. Next morning, came back and knocked him and Botanist out. I really wasn't expecting much in terms of loot, but holy hell...

I'm gonna go take a shit...

Yeah, I pretty much ended up with a full set of Heroic tier from that run. I just need Legs to finish the four piece Heroic (got the Normal ones Monday), and I'm not using the Cloak or Hood. I snagged a couple of other pieces as well, like a trinket that was loads better than what I had at the time. I and a few others managed to get Ahead of the Curve from the Gul'dan kill. Which was one of my goals this time around, so I'm happy.

DAS KAPITAL
Now, on to the topic of the butter brigade... I decided to bring over my Paladin first, as I'd already started leveling him again, he was sitting at 104 with full rested experience. And with his new role in my roster, I'd rather get him over before anyone else really.

I will slaughter them like a wolf among lambs - the seas will run red with the blood of my enemies!

Tamberlain in addition to being a Mount farming alt is also my main Tailor and Leatherworker, which means while I'm tabbed out writing this for example he's mass crafting bags to list on the AH and Silkweave Bracers to either Disenchant or Obliterate as the market dictates. I've also juggled some duties and professions around a bit, consolidating further and just making the whole thing a little less convoluted.

My Death Knight for example, now known as Nerghull is my Blacksmith/Jewelcrafter, meaning he's all about the Ore. I get ore on a farmer or just randomly on an alt, I send it to him for processing. Similarly, I send Leather, Cloth, or similar crafting goods to Tamberlain. Enchanting materials and items that needs to be either Disenchanted or Obliterated go to my Demon Hunter, Bhelial. Similarly, Herbs now go directly to my main for processing as Czernovog has dropped enchanting for Alchemy.

My Hunter and my Druid are the oddballs, the Hunter is my Engineer, and is ultimately self-sufficient with mining. My Druid is just a material farmer, and sends Ore/Herbs to the appropriate characters for processing. Everybody else is making bags and disenchanting bullshit as it drops.

The Butter Brigade
1. Death Knight - Blacksmithing/Jewelcrafting
2. Demon Hunter - Enchanting/Skinning
3. Druid - Herbalism/Mining
4. Hunter - Engineering/Mining
5. Mage - Enchanting/Tailoring
6. Monk - Enchanting/Tailoring
7. Paladin - Leatherworking/Tailoring
8. Priest - Enchanting/Tailoring
9. Rogue - Enchanting/Tailoring
10. Shaman - Enchanting/Tailoring
11. Warlock - Alchemy/Inscriptions - Main
12. Warrior - Enchanting/Tailoring

Concessions had to be made with naming conventions, and I decided to switch races on a couple of characters. My Rogue is now a Goblin for example, and my Monk is a Pandaren. And my Death Knight is switching to Undead. Even my usual guild name has been taken, yeah Tichondrius is a real shake up for me. But I'm okay with it actually, I think it was really time for a change.

MY ARC
So, short term it's all about establishing myself in new markets. I'm going to keep generating gold and using that gold to move characters over, my next target will be my Death Knight, since he's already 110 with several legendaries. My Demon Hunter will be staying where he is for now, I've decided to just remake him since they start at level 100 anyway. Leveling should be a breeze now that I know the class better and I definitely have a better leveling routine down. In fact, I'll likely be boosting most of the rest of my characters using RAF (again), with the exception of my Hunter. That leaves over half my character select screen on Arthas though, so what to do there?

Most likely I'll be moving those characters to different servers over time to really push my gold ring, but we'll talk more about that later after some serious road testing. In the spirit of change and fresh starts and all that, I've also decided to change it up here a bit as well. As you'll see below, but that's it for this week. See you soon...

CZR

THE CENTRAL FINITE CURVE

Today I want to talk to you about the meaningless of existence in an indifferent universe, wait! Sorry, wrong meeting. No, today I want to talk about alts and how I use them, Cosmic Nihilism and Physics will just be here as garnish, let's get started...

NORMAL DISTRIBUTION
As I've covered before, I'm now on Arthas, Horde side. In the short time I've been there, I've been busy rebuilding my roster from the ground up...

STILL Majestic AF

I'm sticking with what I consider to be the natural approach, one of each class to fill the twelve existing character slots. Though surely I won't play all of them with any seriousness, I like having them for a variety of reasons. One, playing a character to max level gives you at least a passing understanding of how that class functions. It allows me to have a more reasonable grasp of what to expect from people in group settings. Additionally, you get access to different sides to the narrative. Legion's Order Hall Campaigns are actually very enjoyable, even if the levelling experience isn't quite up to par with that of Draenor. Hate me all you want, but we all know that was the one strength of that miserable expansion.

An army of alts also offers huge opportunities in terms of professions, gold, and resources. It does however introduce a load of redundancies and there's more than a little initial investment of time. But, the biggest problem is the logistical one, for that I find it best to focus narrowly and expand incrementally...

GAUSSIAN FUNCTION 
Whenever I start on a new server, I open up the trusty old spreadsheet and start plotting. So, I make a list of each of the characters I want to make: Name, Class, Race, and Professions. This actually is part of my choosing a new server, as I tend to value some names I use more than others, and am less likely to choose a specific server if say, the name Khaas is unavailable. For others, like my Paladin I like the name Titus, but as he's likely never going to be my main I'm happy adding squiggly lines and dots where needed to get a satisfactory approximation.

For each of my characters I then ask a single question, "What is my purpose?" For some, the answer is immediate and obvious, for Khaas he's my on again off again main. Historically he's been a tank, though he's flirted with DPS. In terms of professions, they're set: Blacksmithing and Enchanting. For my Warlock, it's similarly apparent. He's my new raiding main, specializing in Enchanting and Inscriptions, and since he can't be anything else he's ranged DPS. For those that are redundant the answer is obvious..

You pass butter...

Okay, that's not entirely fair or accurate. My Paladin, Titüs actually has a function within my roster of alts. In terms of professions, he's my Leatherworker. He also does Tailoring on the side, but then again half my alts do. His real purpose however is farming mounts/achievements. To be clear, all of my characters are perfectly capable of that, but dedicating my Paladin to the task means he has the maximum number of mounts available for the mount collecting achievements. I'm free to park him in an older area in order to keep farming for specific mounts and things, like Northrend for example. There's loads of mounts in the Argent Tournament, but it takes a LOT of dailies to get them. I'm okay with leaving the resident butter passer there to make it happen, not so with my Warlock.

Others have profession related functions, my Demon Hunter's excellent for farming transmog gear with his multiple movement gimmicks and self healing. He's also my main Alchemist and Tailor, so he ends up spending a lot of time in close proximity to the Obliterum Forge.

My Rogue, as I've covered previously is my Fence, he specializes in Jewelcrafting and getting rid of the goods on the AH. Added bonus for quick access to the Black Market, in short the perfect AH Alt. My Hunter is my Engineer/Skinner and Pet Tamer. My Druid's a dual gatherer, and everybody else is basically Enchanting/Tailoring and parked in their garrisons. They are the epitome of butter passing redundancy. So, the list basically looks like this:

1. Death Knight - Blacksmithing/Enchanting - Dungeon/Raid Alt
2. Demon Hunter - Alchemy/Tailoring - Obliterum Forge
3. Druid - Herbalism/Mining - Gatherer
4. Hunter - Engineering/Skinning - Pet Tamer
5. Mage - Enchanting/Tailoring - Butter
6. Monk - Enchanting/Tailoring - Butter
7. Paladin - Leatherworking/Tailoring - Mount Farmer
8. Priest - Enchanting/Tailoring - Butter
9. Rogue - Jewelcrafting/Mining - Trader
10. Shaman - Enchanting/Tailoring - Butter
11. Warlock - Enchanting/Inscriptions - Main
12. Warrior - Enchanting/Mining - Butter

Writing it out like this helps me visualize and organize, otherwise it's just a bunch of names and classes and it's easy to get lost in the shuffle. With the pecking order out of the way, I was free to start developing the talent...

DIVISION OF LABOR
I decided this time around to divide my roster into sets of threes, the first three would be my Warlock, Death Knight, and Demon Hunter respectively. These were the first to max, and switching back and forth allowed me to accumulate rested experience to maximize the levelling process. And these three, are frankly the most important. My DH makes bags and Obliterum. And the other two have been the ones I've been using to knock around raids and clear Legion achievements.

So, who's next? Hunter, Paladin, Rogue. Each of these three has specific goals, but they're goals that I won't be necessarily focusing on 24/7. Getting these maxed out also rounds out my profession coverage rather nicely.

Third string is led by my Druid, followed by my Monk, and Priest. Basically, that covers my healers, and gets my gatherer up to snuff. That just leaves the Mage, Shaman, and Warrior for the last to max. As I write this, I'm halfway through Draenor with several level 100s soaking up the rested experience for the next push.

But with that, I think I should leave you for now, but I imagine I'll be expanding on this a bit in the future as frankly there's some rather interesting things going on with my gold making schemes lately.

K

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

Great hairy balls of the gods, it's been a while, eh? So I thought I would take some time while the servers are down to get caught up with my new adventures on Arthas. So, kick back and have a cold one, we've got some ground to cover...

KHAAS v2.0
Originally created as an Orc, then converted to a Worgen briefly during the Cataclysm expansion, then back to Orc. Then to Human... wait, it sounds like there's been more than 2 versions...

You're right, those would be 1.0, then 1.1, reverting to 1.0, and then to 1.2 respectively. The current iteration of my much loved Death Knight is in fact on a completely different Battle.net account, started fresh on November 29th, ie just before Christmas. I managed to get to 110 just before break started, then took the break time off to spend time with my family. Once the break was over however, I started working on my gear. A month later I'd managed to build up a respectably geared Frost Death Knight as seen below.

Majestic AF

As of right now, I've gotten Khaas up to 882 ilevel, due in large part to getting my first legendary from a cache right after I started gearing up. I literally went from Green quest boots to Aggramar's Stride. Of course, I've outfitted myself with some crafted gear and BOEs, along with some lucky drops in Normal Emerald Nightmare. Better still, I got Perseverance of the Ebon Martyr
followed by Acherus Drapes over the course of a weekend, relegating my boots to my bags.

I then promptly decided to shelve the Death Knight and switch mains...

INTRODUCING, CZERNOVOG 
I know, this is crazy, but there's legitimate reasons I promise. Behold, my new main...

ALSO majestic AF...

Okay, so why? Frankly, I've never been a big fan of melee DPS. And when it comes to ranged, Warlock really appeals to me as it always has. Moreso in fact, Demonology for example has embraced a play style that I genuinely find compelling. Affliction is likewise solid, and currently looks like the spec I'm going to be rolling with on Czernovog for the time being.I burned through Draenor over a weekend and started tearing ass through the Broken Isles. It took about three days, but I got him to 110 then started the grind. Currently I'm roughly 850 ilevel and hitting up LFR and pug raids to catch up.

Since that screenshot was taken I actually got my Demon Hunter to 110 as well...

MOUNTS & STUFF
So, I ended up getting three good mounts without really trying too hard.

I've also been farming up loads of Marks of Honor for old PVP sets for Transmog, starting over from scratch means I can really use some variety in the looks department and that's a REALLY easy way to accomplish it. I even started streaming a bit of gameplay on YouTube...

I've got plenty of video content I want to put together, but I've got a list of things I need to straighten out first. So for now, it's going to be very straight forward gameplay footage. I'll be talking more in depth about that whole process as things develop. For the immediate future however, I've got some characters that need attention. Five characters that I need to push to 90 before RAF runs out. Footage to record for an upcoming video series, etc. I've got a lot of irons in the fire is what I'm trying to say. I'll try to update a little more regularly so it's not just a bukakke of information.

K

THE TOKEN POST

Recently it was discovered that Blizzard appears to be working on expanding the implementation of the WoW Token to be converted into Battle.net balance, which can then be used to buy games and services from the game store, since more than a handful have asked I thought I'd share my initial thoughts on the subject...

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Well, there's no concrete information as yet but I can give you my best estimate of how this is going to function.

Tokens cost $20 and are worth 30 days of gametime (currently) or they can be traded for gold via the auction house. Additionally, the token can be redeemed for battle.net balance.

My guess, it will deprecate to $15.

The reason: otherwise you could buy tokens and get a free month for every three tokens you get. ($20 token into balance, use $15 for subscription with $5 left over. Two more times you have $15 surplus which you can then use to purchase a fourth month. It would be "even" in terms of raw USD, but in terms of gold there would be no reason to redeem a single token for playtime anymore, you'd just shuffle tokens to balance and get extra time.

Each battle.net account is limited currently to 36 token purchases with gold every 24 months, this part is kinda important. Unless Blizzard raises that cap (which I don't see them doing), it means if you want to pay for your World of Warcraft account with gold, you're going to have twelve tokens every two years to spend on other things. That comes out to $180 of b.net balance assuming my earlier assertion is correct. So, that means we can reasonably assume $50-70 of that will be going to an expansion in a two year period, depending on if you go for the Collector's Edition or not. I'll assume worst case scenario.

That still leaves $120 for services, games, etc. If you don't have an army of alts to move around, or if you're not involved in cross realm arbitrage that should be a pleasant little surprise. And of course, waiting for holiday sales means a little extra bang for the buck of course, like getting the Overwatch: Origins edition for the price of the base game. The danger though is that these types of things add up pretty quickly, grab a collector's edition or two, add some Hearthstone packs and suddenly you're eating into your subscription time.

OTHER PROBLEMS
This is also likely to lead to a steep rise in the gold value of the tokens, currently the token value is already trending upward. The token hit 40k in late October, and stayed in that general area until this news broke. Now the token's up to 58k. From the time of Legion's launch to October, it was in the 30s. In the UK it's broken 100K, in China it's 180K. This has some potential to cause problems, but it's going to depend largely on Blizzard and how many token buyers there are on either side of the equation. For updated token values visit the link below.

https://wowtoken.info/

If you've got thoughts or questions about any of this feel free to ask below.

MY PLANS
This doesn't effect me terribly one way or the other, I'll likely maintain a Horde and an Alliance server. Though I'll be playing predominantly Horde. Alliance will be all about generating gold to feed my account. Since Blizzard almost certainly will be restricting the purchase of physical items in some way, I don't see myself getting too crazy with the Cheez Whiz. And I may cultivate a few Death Knights on other random servers, just to shop for rare pets, etc. But again, I was planning on doing that anyway...

K