Phase 3: Profit !

As of the time of posting, it is patch day here in the US. In a few hours, patch 4.0.3 will be released, officially heralding the beginning of the end of WoW as we’ve come to know it. Phase 4 of the Elemental Invasion is underway, and various cities in both factions are being attacked every few hours by elementals. Why does this matter? Because there are new bosses.

After you defend one of your home cities (Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, Stormwind, or Ironforge), for the next half hour or so you can queue up to kill one of the four elemental bosses for this event: Crown Princess Theradras, Grand Ambassador Flamelash, Kai’ju Gahz’rilla, and Prince Sarsarun. These bosses all drop iLevel 251 loot, and they spawn in old Vanilla instances (don’t worry- you’re ported directly to the boss via the dungeon finder). Before we get down to gold, first I’d like to encourage you, Dear Reader, to head over to Wowhead to check out their guide to the elemental invasion.

http://www.wowhead.com/blog=173902 will answer your questions

The guide exceptionally well done, it will answer almost any question you have about the event, and it has full loot lists for all the bosses. Basically, it’s the best way to get all the information you need quickly, and in one place. With that said, let’s talk about how you can make some gold:

(1) The easiest way to make gold is to just chain run the bosses. The bosses are only available for the first half hour after any elemental event. The elemental events seem to be happening every 2-2.5 hours. In my experience, Princess Fattyboombalatty is the fastest of the four. Grand Ambassador Flamelash is, imho, the hardest, because you will die if you stand in the fire. If you’re a tank or a healer, you can probably just queue and re-queue for a solid half-hour. Why would you do this? Well, because the bosses drop i251 gear, all of which vendors for 7.5g each. So if you’re looking to upgrade a weak spot in your gear, go to the Wowhead guide, look and see which boss drops a piece of gear that you need, and bang away until you get it. You can disenchant/vendor any other loot you get that you don’t need, and you’ll see new content.

I can’t tell if these bosses reward Justice Points for every kill. I think they do, but I forgot to check. So please, Dear Reader, put a comment on this post and help me clear up this issue. I think you’re rewarded w/Justice Points, but I’d like to be sure. If so, that’s more reason to chain-run the bosses.

(2) This is, imho, the biggest money-maker for these bosses. Dust off your enchanter and hit the AH hard with enchant scrolls. Everyone on your realm is going to have new gear that they need enchanted with endgame enchants. This is probably the last time that we’ll see a push, across the board, for the high-end WotLK endgame enchants, so take advantage of it. Clean out any enchant mats that you’re worried about, sell all your old scrolls, etc. Almost every slot in the game is going to need to be enchanted by almost everyone, so sell, sell, sell! Here’s the big point: this isn’t glyphmas, but it’s the closest thing to it that enchanters will see for a while.

(3) Finally, there is one easy way to make money, but it only works if you’re a tank or a healer (and a tank works best). It’s very simple, and it’s an old method that people forget about: go mercenary. That’s right, go into /1 in the city that you’re planning to defend, or /2 across all cities, and offer an instant queue for a price of 10g. Or 20g. Or 50g. Charge whatever you like, and whatever people will pay. You’ll probably have to guarantee that you’ll stick around for the entire half hour, and you’ll also probably make some people think you’re a jerk. But if you can guarantee DPS an instant queue, they’ll pay for it. It’s valuable to them, and if you can get 10g from everyone in a 5-man group, you’ll bump up your ROI for tactic (1) significantly.

So, when the servers come back up today, get on your enchanter and start making enchant scrolls. By prime-time tonight, the various cities on your faction will be full of people defending elemental attacks, gearing up, and buying those scrolls off of the AH.

One last note: I’ll answer the question that I’m sure you, Dear Reader, have been wondering all along. No, unfortunately when you queue up to fight Kai’ju Gahz’rilla, you cannot summon Gahz’rilla as well by hitting the gong.

The gong does not work. Boo!

I tried last night, channeling my Godzilla vs. Mothra dorkiness, hoping for an epic battle of Gahz’rilla vs. Kai’ju Gahz’rilla. But alas, it was not meant to be. This would have been amazing, and maybe Blizz will read this post and answer my monster-battle prayers. Please Blizz, make it so! Until then, we’ll all have to just be content with killing bosses and a demand spike in the Enchanting market.

GL! /bow

-Jimm

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