Ok so although we’ve talked about Pristine Black Diamonds here, here and here already it continues to be one one of the trickier components of the insane grind for people to figure out.

Emage submitted some of his tips on getting diamonds recently. I was impressed at the simple and easy breakdown so I thought it was probably worth sharing :) Click the link below to see the full post, enjoy!

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Here’s the summary of the best user submitted tips for the Ravenholdt Grind! Got any more tips to add? Let’s hear them then!

• Eyetotem told us about a macro he used to delete the junkbox quest reward knives to make the process faster. You’ll have to click through to the guide to see the comments since it was a little long for here. I would also recommend using a vendor mount or engineering jeeves to sell the knives without having to move.
• Lucidshadow wasnt sure if the quest giver would accept opened junkboxes. Unlocked/opened junkboxes are definitely ok to use! You just need to make sure you leave a single item in the junkbox so it doesn’t disappear.
• Azurexia got a lot of heavy junkboxes in Scholomance while farming for Skin of Shadows. Handy to know if you’re doing the title as a rogue!
• Irinixx used the [LootFilter] addon. This addon lets you add certain items to a blacklist so they get deleted automatically. This allows you to pick-pocket with autoloot on and not have to worry about your inventory filling up.
• Sanibel levelled up a rogue for the junkboxes and learnt a great trick. You can use the LFG system to do a BRD prison run, then when the run is finished stay in the instance after everyone leaves. You can then let yourself into the Garrison and Ring of Law areas for pick pocket goodness. Oh and the best part? When your bags are full you can use the ‘teleport out of instance’ option to get straight to a mailbox!
• Ketch, Muted, Tax and Tyranis among others recommended LBRS for junkbox farming. Muted was kind enough to put together this video of the route:

That’s it for today! Next week…Steamwheedle!

Here’s the second round of ‘best of’ guide tips. This week’s round focuses on the Darkmoon Faire and the best way to get together your card decks.

Again this is a great chance for everyone to post feedback and updates on how they feel things have changed over the year for this particular grind. Have a read from what I’ve put together and correct or add anything you think might help fill the gaps.

• Hollock found that [Dense Stone] was an extremely cheap way to get to 2000 friendly by making [Dense Grinding Stones]
• Tickingbomb bought as many herbs as possible from classic through to wotlk (except silverleaf, peacebloom and earthroot). He also bought lots of [Eternal Life] and [Primal Life]. He found that it was often difficult to get these at reasonable prices so saved enough gold to buy in bulk whenever cheap lots came up.
• Deenmark suggested only turning in level 80 decks and then reselling the trinkets to recoup the gold. This method takes longer but helps you save.
• Muted used the gold earned from selling random Dire Maul drops to finance a lot of the grind.
• Pentudo commented that Talonsworn Forest-Ragers can be herbed for the best BC herbs and 2-5 motes of life each. There are 4 per reset, he parked his herbalist alt there and did a circuit every 20 mins or so.
• Irinixx found the most satisfying part of the grind was making heaps of gold selling the trinkets received after turning in the decks.
• Aliana provided the following advice on her AH/herbing technique – “When deciding upon herbs to farm, check the AH and see what cards people tend to post. If lvl 70 cards prevail, farm trees in Skettis. If there’s an abundance of lvl 60 cards, farm Winterspring. There’s no guarantee of even distribution of cards you will create, so you’ll want to complete your decks through the AH anyway, and it can be a pain if you choose the wrong type.”
• Shiny noticed that the Classic Vanilla decks have no “extra mat” (mote of life/eternal life) so might be a bit faster to make.
• Healthstone spent a lot of time herbing in Sholazar. “You get a lot of Eternal Lifes and Frost Lotus (which you can sell). Sure some of the herbs like Goldclover, Tiger Lily, and Deadnettle don’t mill into as many Icy Pigments, but I was able to farm about 50 stacks in 2 hours. Most of those stacks being Adder’s Tongue (which has same mill chance as Icethorn and Lichbloom).

Next week – Ravenholdt!

Given that the current insane reputation guides are now approaching their first birthdays I thought it might be relevant to go through each one and post a summary of the best user submitted comments.

This is also a great chance for everyone to post feedback and updates on how they feel things have changed in the last year. A great example for the Shen’dralar is the price and availability of [Pristine Black Diamonds] .

Here are my picks from all the user submitted tips:

• Hellmatador reminded us that there’s a prequest to being able to turn in the librams. This prequest is called [Elven Legends].
• Azurexia pointed out that people with the [Argent Pony Bridle] (150 Seals in Icecrown) can summon their Argent Squire and access their bank, vendor or mailbox for 3 minutes once every 4 hours. This is very handy for libram turnins!
• Apiecost pointed out that everyone except Death Knights can also turn in their class-specific quest book for a one off 500 reputation.
• Disreputable carried the libram quest items (minus the libram) on her when farming in Dire Maul. That way whenever she had a unique libram drop she could turn it in straight away without having to run to the nearest mailbox.
• Insane parked an alt outside on a second account. Whenever his bags got filled with materials he could zone out and trade the items over to his alt to free up bag space.
• Manmana took up skinning while doing Dire Maul runs and acquired a large amount of Rugged Leather. The profit from this helped offset the cost of the other reputations.
• While running Dire Maul, Darolyn grouped his character with a friends 225 enchanting paladin alt. Even though the alt wasnt with him or even online this allowed him to select ‘disenchant’ when items came up.
• Trytobuyme commented that farming low level herbs for Darkmoon Cards is a waste. It’s best to farm high level herbs or anything else more valuable and sell it to buy the low level herbs.
• Ronahan emphasized the importance of advertising for [Pristine Black Diamonds] in trade and making COD deals with people. He got a lot of his diamonds at a good price doing this.

So – what has everyone got to add? A year ago people commented and complained that [Pristine Black Diamond] prices on their servers were 50-100g. Now we’re looking at 300g and upwards! Would love to hear your questions, comments and feedback :)

Hey folks, Zevia here. Most people have become pretty impatient when it comes to heroic farming at this point, and if you’re the tank, you may find yourself feeling constantly pressured to pick up the pace.

For your viewing pleasure, I’ve included an example of how to chain pull through a heroic with some on-the-fly commentary. It does assume you know the basics of tanking and mostly just touches on a few tips to keep in mind to help you move from one group to the next at a pace that’s good for the group.

The group in this video is simply a random PuG, not guildmates or anybody I knew beforehand, so rest assured that your average group should be capable of moving through most heroics at this pace if you push them to. Let me know what you think!

This was a fun one to write! Looking back over the last few months I think I’ve always been headed in this direction. One of the things I enjoy the most about making gold is trying to understand and predict human behavior.

I’ve always seemed to be able to achieve positive outcomes when it comes to interacting with people. Not just in-game but also in real life social situations as well as with employees in work situations. I thought I might start sharing the approach and methods I use in interacting with people here.

Let me know what you think, there’s plenty more to come if you like it!

I often see threads in the official wow forums or questions in the comment section of my Shen’dralar Exalted guide about Pristine Black Diamonds.

Aspiring insane in the membrane folks buy all of their librams in advance and sometimes completely forget they need the diamonds to go with each libram hand-in and end up being stuck with paying 300g/diamond because they have no other choice.

I thought it might be cool for us to all share our tips, tricks and techniques for acquiring these rarities and in doing so create a good reference link to share with people.

My tips are:

• Plan ahead! Even if you’re not working on Shen’dralar just yet keep checking the auction house every single day for diamonds. Let your guildmates and friends know you’re after them too.
• Make an Alliance/Horde alt to check the opposing factions auction house and snap up their cheap diamonds when you see them.
• Find out who else is working on Insane in the Membrane and make friends with them. Anyone who decides to abandon the grind halfway through is a possible good source for diamonds.

What else do you guys have to add?