Two Tales in the Spotlight

Two Tales in the Spotlight
Chaitee Wrestles with the Auction House
Keya Wreaking Havoc in Aszuna

Chaitee Wrestles with the Auction House

Chaitee is a lot worried. This week has been a bad one for the Auction House. Embersilk bags and Silkweave satchels are not selling at anywhere near normal levels. Mat costs are also rising, which further discourages crafters. The glut of unsold bags is also due to a flood of cheap frostweave bags. Compare the 22 slot embersilk bag for sale at 455g, and the 24 slot silkweave at 609g, to the 20 slot frostweave which sells at 223g, and one sees that there is a major problem. Reducing the price of the higher end bags runs into the high cost of making them, and the result is stalemate. The highest end 30 slot hexweave bags have their own built in limiter in that only a limited number of Draenor mats can be produced per day. Overall it's a mess and the weekend isn't likely to fix things.

Chaitee has seen bad times before. When she first took over the AH, she was given 215k gold to manage. She masterfully grrew that amount to 390k gold with a steady stream of purchases and sales while still providing whatever funds were needed. The guild expects the largesse to continue, but Chaitee's current goal of 400k gold in the bank by the end of the weekend is in jeopardy. As of Friday she has 396k gold. Looks like an easy goal, but Chaitee hasn't mentioned that earlier in the week that number had been 402k gold. She's losing ground, not gaining. She still has a safety net of funds should things continue to worsen, but the purse strings will tighten if the downturn gets worse. And guildies will start to feel the pinch.

Saturday morning brought an interesting change in status. The glut of cheap frostweave bags came to an end. Chaitee smiled at the empty bins where bags were piled only hours before. Chaitee took immediate action, flooding her own stack of bags while changing the price from 223g to 265g. If the Saturday crowd is as avid for frostweave bags as Friday's group, Chaitee will be off to a good start.

She is also monitoring the mat situation. Farmers haven't yet weighed in with their crafting goods. Sista has consumed everything she has and all of her crafted bags of frostweave, embersilk, silkweave, and even hexweave are all up on the AH at top pricing. Hypnotic dust, normally hard to get, is arriving on the AH in its' own small flood. Attempts to capitalize on it with high prices (40-50g each) haven't worked out well for the sellers, but have helped Chaitee with her embersilk bag crafting. Several hundred are on the market, and she'll scoop them up as soon as the price drops under 25g. As oftern happens, though, there is now a shortage of embersilk cloth. That created an opening for the silkweavers, who have been raising their mat prices and squeezing Chaitee's profits.

Chaitee should also mention cloak enchants, which was a very nice seller not too long ago, back when leylight shards were selling around 60g apiece. Chaitee needs 20 of them (total cost 1200g) to make an enchant and could sell them for around 1500g. Leylight prices rose steeply and will likely stay there because getting them requires disenchanting high level items mostly gathered from raids and dungeons. Leylights cost varies but is usually around 70 to 90g each and 1800g for the enchant, but still sell for a loss around 1200-1500g. It's an unstable market and most of the time Chaitee has to sit on the sideline.

Sunday begins the end of the weekend. There was some early good news when a seller dropped a dozen leylight shards at the bargain basement price of 60g each (usually 90g+). That will gain her at least two cloak enchants to sell at a profit. On the other hand, Chaitee is weighing a major decision on hypnotic dust, which has been unusually available for the past week. Chaitee makes a practice of buying all she can get her hands on whenever the price drops to 25g or less. Chaitee has spent several thousand gold to horde what she's bought, yet the AH is still flush with the dust at that 25g price. Should she buy up the rest of them, knowing that the influx can't last forever? Or does she wait and see if the price falls even further? Her gold stash has slipped down to 386k gold due to all of the buying. putting her 14k gold in the hole (what she needs to reach 400k gold).

Chaitee is a gambler. There is far too much hypnotic dust still sitting in the AH. The price has dipped just slightly below the 25g "buy" criteria, it's lowest point in two weeks. She has enough dust to make ten embersilk bags now, but she'd like more than that. Buy the rest of the dust on the AH at 25g each? No, Chaitee decides. She's in a gambling mood. She will wait and see if the price falls further to 20g. At that price she plans to buy it all. PS - Her ace in the hole is the fact that her mailbox is full with her sales, with 38 more posts waiting in line. Let's see if her gamble pays off.

Final Word: Chaitee breathes a great sigh of relief that the weekend is over. Her take coming into the new week took four passes through the mailbox to complete:
Starting point 384k gold -> First Pass 396k  -> Second Pass 403k (met goal) -> Third Pass 414k gold (new record haul). Chaitee earned 30k gold overall.

Keya Wreaking Havoc in Aszuna

Keya hasn't been idle. She is actively pursuing quests and world events to collect AP for her weapon and add better gear. She made small progress on her gear, raising her overall gear score from i815 to i816. She made some fine purchases from the AH on Friday, but that was blunted when she could have waited and gotten them for free as she plows through quests. She could have saved some gold if she had just waited for drops - an i825 chest, i810 boots, and an i830 belt went unused because she had paid the AH for better or equal gear. Anyway, Keya decided she'll keep the boots for her collection. She didn't earn it through fishing, but Keya wore them briefly while fishing so she can say they were used.

Keya has 3,468 APs toward her next artifact. Most of the AP came from two class hall missions. Keya wanted to take the Vial of Swirling Shadow quest offered as well, but then she learned that it leads to a raid event, another dead end for non-raiders/dungeoneers. That didn't stop Keya. She spent the day hunting those blue exclamation points on the map showing world quests. With every elite and world quest falling to her purposeful assault, she was able to raise her AP to 6,698. Still over 2,000 short of gaining a rank, but getting closer. Keya was also able to collect an i825 relic to replace her i793. When all was properly equiped, Keya raised her warblades to i811 and her overall gear level to i817.

Meanwhile, Keya says her day may be done, but she is still on the prowl tonight. She completed two missions in the evening, bringing her AP to 7,975. She needs 857 AP to reach the next rank. Her ferocity extended across the breadth of Aszuna. When she finally flew home to Dalaran she was still flying high with adrenaline.
"Nothing could stop me tonight!" She boasted. Given her success on the evening, she had a right to boast. Keya raised her arms into the air, hands gripping six pieces of gear from her gear set that now has all new, better replacements:
Two i795 Necklaces, replaced by i820 Mana Pearl Choker
i815 Shoulder, replaced by i825 Dreadleather Shouldergaurd
i815 footpads, replaced by i820 Dreadleather Footpads
Headpiece i810, replaced by i840 Purified Vison of Sargaras Helm
Cloak i825, replaced by i855 Aristocrates Winter Drape
Keya's overall gear score is now i821.

After all of that mayhem, the night could have ended on a sour note. Keya picked up a powerful quest -Soul Prism of the Illidari. The task requires collecting 80 soul fragments . . . from the final bosses in dungeons. Dungeons! Wow, nothing like rubbing it in.

Keya just laughed.