the Darkmoon Amulet

[Ynir]

Let's compare the properties of the following items:

Eye of Hakkar
+1 %crit
40 AP

Myrimidon's Signet
+10 str
+7 agi
+17 sta

Darkmoon Faire Amulet
+10 str
+19 agi
+10 sta

All of these baubles look very tasty. Spangles will not confront Hakkar for quite a while, however. The Signet is a world drop, 0.3% from Spectral Tutors in Scholo, among other places. I last saw it at AH for 800g, triple what it is worth. The Darkmoon Faire equivalent is looking really good.

The Darkmoon Faire is described here:

http://www.goblinworkshop.com/darkmoon-faire.html

although some of this may be out of date.

After scratching around in the forums and on Thott, it is apparent that the first increment of Darkmoon Faire rep is obtained most easily by farming Vibrant Plumes from Screeching Harpies in the mid-southern sector of 1000 Needles. The drop rate is about 13%, and the harpies spawn very quickly.

Of 1200 tickets required to get the amulet, it seems that a maximum of 276 (for non-humans) can be obtained by turning in plumes:

276 tickets / 12 tickets per turn-in = 23 turn-ins
23 turn-ins * 5 plumes per turn-in = 115 plumes

This is an afternoon's work, in the best level 30 farming zone that I have ever seen. Plumes, 50s greens, and iron veins in abundance. Spangles has accumulated 40 plumes so far, mostly by agreeing to go away while someone else levels there, and receiving plumes in the mail.

Viable turn-in options for the remaining 930 tickets are dense grinding stones, rugged armor kits, or thorium widgets. The logistics of handing off 1500 dense stone or rugged leather to someone else for processing are overwhelming, however.

Spangles could farm bat eyes in EP and look for Blood of Heroes at the same time. But she won't. That's that.

Owewa, level 35 lock and 315 engineer, makes thorium widgets for Spangles' activities in DM and EP. We need to make widgets sufficient for 930 tickets:

930 tickets / 20 tickets per turn-in = 47 turn-ins
47 turn-ins * 6 widgets per turn-in = 282 widgets

1 widget = 3 thorium bar + 1 runecloth

282 widgets = 846 thorium bars / 20 per stack = 43 stacks thorium bars
= 282 runecloth / 20 per stack = 15 stacks runecloth

Spangles is a major runecloth supplier to the IF AH, and has plenty on her auctioneer alt. Ynir, the miner/herbist druid, is too young at level 26 to help. So the price of the amulet is the price of 43 stacks of thorium bars. We value the amulet at 200g max, so that equates to 3g to 5g per stack.

Owewa, like all engineers, has absolutely no space to store anything. The postage required to shuffle mats and widgets around is the hidden cost in this enterprise.

I read, but don't know for sure, that vibrant plumes sell for 50s apiece. Widgets are often materials cost, or less, when someone dumps a bag of skillups. I wonder if those prices spike during the Faire, however. The price of dense stone was skewed upwards, last I looked.

PS. This project pales in comparison with obtaining revered faction with the Thorium Brotherhood to get the Mighty Intellect (+22 int to Weapon) enchant:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Thorium_Brotherhood

Assuming Spangles can farm 1200 gold to buy 2400 dark iron ore, how will she barge them to Lokhtos Darkbargainer in the Grim Guzzler Tavern?