CRAFTING FOR PROFIT

The Gnomish Cloaking Device

Ravenholdt Manor, Alterac Mountains / Engineering 200 / a slow seller with a wide margin / alone

Ravenholdt Manor stands in the hills of the Alterac Mountains, a long ride up from Hillsbrad Foothills. I take the wrong path the first time, so I ride most of it twice. The house is full of guards and assassins, and I keep my hands where they can see them. The one I've come for is Zan Shivsproket, an engineer who sells a single schematic. I buy it, ride back down and find that my Engineering is forty points short of it.

Why it pays

The Schematic: Gnomish Cloaking Device costs 24 silver at Zan Shivsproket, who holds it as limited stock, and otherwise drops in two kills out of a hundred from Mekgineer Thermaplugg in Gnomeregan. The travellers say the device makes you invisible for a short while and that only an engineer can use it, which our data can't check. They also say few engineers bother with the climb, and that the buyers are engineers who want it for PvP and won't fetch the schematic themselves. At the 7-day medians the Gnomish Cloaking Device sold for about three times its parts on the normal realms and for more on the PvP realms. Today it fetches price unknown.

What you need

Engineering 200 for the device and 170 for its four Gyrochronatom, each made from an Iron Bar and a Gold Power Core. Then two Jade, two Lesser Moonstone, two Citrine and one Fused Wiring. The wiring only drops, and below the cap mostly from the elite machines in Gnomeregan, so most engineers buy it.

Where

Zan Shivsproket stands at 86, 80 in the Alterac Mountains, at the far northeast corner of the Hillsbrad Foothills map. The nearest flight points are Tarren Mill for the Horde and Southshore for the Alliance.

How

1. Reach Engineering 200 before you go. The schematic is no use to you earlier.
2. Fly to Tarren Mill or Southshore and ride up to the manor. If the schematic isn't in the list, come back later.
3. Make the four Gyrochronatoms and buy the gems and the wiring.
4. Make two or three devices and post one at a time. A vendor pays 50 silver for one, so its deposit is not small; the page on how long to list says how to choose the hours.
5. Undercut by a little or not at all. On the beta most markets sold a few a day, Horde PvP the most.

What can go wrong

It sells slowly. When I finally had the forty points and made one, it sat on the auction house for two days, and every auction that runs out costs its deposit. The Citrine swings hard, and on the normal beta realms its 30-day high was several times its 7-day median, so buy the gems on a quiet day. If the device really needs Engineering to use, the buyers are only engineers, and there are never many of those.

BASTIAN'S VERDICT Worth the climb for an engineer at 200 who doesn't need the gold this week. Post one at a time and keep the rest in the bank.