Sunday, May 23, 2010

Priceless investment




With Cata coming around soon and materials about to drop in price in the inevitable pre expansion release fallout, now is the time for the wise AH player to think long term and invest some of their gold. There's a good number of things that anybody can do that might take several thousand gold to do, but will be dramatically worth it. By that I mean there's a few things that you can buy that I would consider to have no true "value" so to speak in that I would pay damned near any amount of gold to get them. So for those of you wanting to go into cataclysm with the AH mail rolling in with that ever so wonderful ca-ching sound, here's my recommendations of things you need to pick up NOW and I would personally pay any price for no matter how much or how little gold I had.


Glyphs.
Yes inscription is a monster. Yes it takes a ton of start up money. Yes the stokpiling requirements are maddening at times and can take up a full banker's inventory, bank, and a full bank tab at it's height. That being said, inscription is still the most consistently profitable profession. When cata comes out every skill is being changed and thus every glyph will be updated accordingly along with numerous others being added in. There will be a lot of cosmetic and flavor glyphs as well so many people will be buying them to have fun with while leveling or just to mess around with.

Remember when dual spec came out? Remember the first thing you did after buying it and setting your talents? That's right, you bought the glyphs for your second spec. You and the other X-thousand people on your sever did the exact same thing on the same day. So when cata comes out it's all going to happen again, but this time it'll be twice over. Everybody will need new glyphs for BOTH of their specs and some even buy them for a third or even a fourth. People have shown themselves making as far as 50k in a matter of hours the day dual spec came out.

For those that already had every glyph open to them probably made triple that in the first week from nothing else but selling glyphs for 10g a piece. Now imagine that when there's even more glyphs to sell, even more people needing them and even more specs to consider. And of course there's the fact that nobody will know what the 'expected' ones are so everyone will take their best guess, try some out, replace them with different ones. I bet if you play it right you can make 100k in the first few days easily.

The investment here is a small bit of gold and the time between now and then doing the daily research to learn every glyph you can. If I didn't have a scribe I'd pay any price to max them out and buy all the glyph books and be prepared to spend even more. Hell when glyph books first came out I saw people in trade OFFERING 200g for a glyph of life tap or divine plea. And as we know, buying in trade is highly discounted so imagine what they were making on the AH!


Spell power, healing power, crusader, greater stats, agility.
Those are just a few of the enchants that go onto BoA gear. With millions of new worgen or goblins leveling by the thousands of people with 80s and plenty of heirloom gear, they'll all want their new babies looking pretty. The recipes themselves are BoE and can usually be found on AH for up to 5,000 gold. Crusader and fiery personally I'd just farm as they drop often and are always marked up too much. I know several people who regularly sell those enchants on a scroll for 1,000 several times a week. So that means only 5 people with loose change to make your money back. If you don't have these recipes on your enchanter, I'd spend almost any kind of money to get them. Hell I'd go as high as 8k probably and buy without flinching. Any higher though and I'd of course try to barter some, but if they say 10k or go away... they're getting my 10k.

Lastly if you don't have an enchanter, I'd also pay any price to power level one at least up to 300 or whatever the required skill level is for the MC recipes. It could cost something like 2k just to get to 300 skill, but with enchanting shaping up to be a massive money maker in cata I'd definitely finish the job and get to 450. I'd go as high as 20k to max out this profession because I know that the money I spend skilling up will be made back the instant people start hitting 85. If you don't have an enchanter, get one.


Nether weave, frost weave, and profession bags
These things I swear to you will never sit on the AH for more than an hour even if you list them 20 at a time. Currently I list those bags in sets of 8 and always sell them all off well before I check my mail in the evening. Now imagine the slew of alts being rolled that need new bags. Yeah, the AH will be picked clean of both bags and mats. At some points I could have my entire bank filled with crafted nether weave bags and sell them all off in no more than three days. This is something that I'd easily triple my normal buying price for the materials just to have a few billion bags ready to ship along with cata.

The tailoring skill required isn't that high and can definitely be done cheaply. As a wise spender I paid about 2.5k I think to level tailoring to make frost bags and if you don't have a tailor but have an open profession spot, get one. The profession bags from WotLK made by leather working will also sell very fast. Even right now it's hard to keep a supply of them and sell for over 50g profit per bag. Once again, the million babies leveling with gathering professions are going to want one. Get a tailor/LW or get one to make you a few hundred. Being able to have access to this constantly any time you want in the first month of release is truly priceless.


Gems? JC gear?

If you remember leveling in out lands you'll remember that a ton of quests gave you greens with several gem sockets in them. Even if you threw a crappy TBC common gem in there they'll still be the best thing you can get outside of a level 70 instance. But if you're doing instances you'll get even more gear with gem spots. So this depends on if the quests from cata also give gear with gem spots fairly early on like in TBC or if the instances are easy enough on normal mode to do with below average gear and likely skill on a lot of peoples part. No matter how good you are if you start playing a toon you've never played before you're not going to be a rock star. If you hand me an 80 lock in heroic t10 gear I'll be amazed if I can do more dps than a tank. But I digress. If we're able to get some good info on the quest rewards and ease of doing regular instances and rewards from them, selling common gems for 5g a piece would be insanely good money.

The same does not apply to JC leveling gear though as hundreds of JC's will be already crafting this stuff and listing it on AH at dumping prices usually. But depending on just how vast of a gear difference we'll actually see will depend on the profit you can make from crafting or if they should just get DE'd. Pointing out that Blizz has said that even ICC 25 gear will be replaced almost immediately. If you played wow from vanilla to TBC you'll remember the "epic greens" that were 50 times better than almost any t3 loot you could get. But going from TBC > WotLK your t6 gear lasted you through 25 naxx, malygos, and sarth. That's not going to happen this time around. So long story short keep a very close eye out and you can make crazy good money and can even get to try your hand at flipping, either the gear or just the DE mats, for a good amount of coin as well.



So for those wanting to plan ahead and invest, here's your check list:
-Get an enchanter
-Grind all the rep and buy the BoE twink enchant recipes
-Get a scribe
-Stokpile a billion glyphs and inks
-Learn every glyph open in WotLK
-Keep a close eye out for any level 80-81 gear from cata that has gem sockets
-Craft 20 billion bags
-Fill out another 500 bank tabs with bolts of associated cloth and heavy borean leather


Thanks for stopping by!

9 comments:

  1. Great post, thanks for the tips. I already have an enchanter, scribe and tailor. I'm not looking to make millions, just a few thousands would do :)

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  2. Interesting. My assumption that virtually all of the existing glyphs, gems, enchants, and gear will be nearly worthless as everyone wants the new cata glyphs.

    I was assuming leveling mats and bags were the only things that wont drop to near vendor prices.

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  3. Good post, but let's look at some things first. This is the first expansion that hasn't offered 10 full levels.

    It's been hinted at by Blizz that bags may not get an upgrade in this expansion and that the 3k bags will be the largest you can get. One can imagine the possibilities here.

    Gem sockets will not be offered in gear until 85. Blizz essentially removed sockets from the game from 70-79 to let people concentrate on leveling as opposed to hunting down gems. They made Wrath green cuts > TBC Epics. I'm betting they will do the same thing so dumping everything you have will be smart. JC will be one of those professions that will be awesome to have at level cap but terrible during leveling.

    Enchanting, no disagreement there. This will vary from server to server, but I’m betting 95% will want to get their mains to 85 first since there is no new class, so the people rolling new characters are going to be an exclusive market. Your audience is entirely rerolls. Add to this there is the distinct possibility that all BOA gear will be deactivated and new gear at 85 will take it’s place. Why? There will also be feats of strength achievements for the new race/class combos and this will be used as a stopgap to keep it fair and competitive. It’s already guaranteed the gear will not work past 80.

    Glyphs - total agreement, begin stocking up on IotS now. My goal is 2 Gbank tabs of IotS by the end of the summer. I only purchase herbs at certain thresholds (I shop herbs daily) so everything I stockpile is going to be stupid cheap in the end. I will then proceed to control the ceiling price when 4.0 drops, and I look forward to the river of hate mail and tells.

    So yeah, Enchanting and Inscription are the two must have professions.

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  4. Great post, thanks.

    I was wondering if someone has a good guide somwhere on the BoA enchants. Excactly how they work, how to acquire them etc. I did some googling and found mostly bad forum posts and contradictory info.

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  5. Easily Done Anon (Wowhead for the mob names):
    Weapon Enchants:
    15 Agility (1H), 25 Agility (2H) - Timbermaw Rep
    15 Strength - Thorium Brotherhood Rep
    Crusader - 2% drop rate off specific mobs in Northern WPL
    Spellpower - 1% drop rate off MC bosses
    Healing Power - 1% drop rate off MC bosses
    Fiery - 25% drop rate off specific boss in BRD
    Unholy - Uncommon drop from Stratholme mobs
    Lifestealing - Rare drop off specific mobs in early Scholomance
    Mighty Intellect - Thorium Brotherhood rep
    Icy Chill - Typically a gift from the Winter Veil event

    Armor Enchants:
    Greater Stats (+4 Stats) - Extremely Rare world drop, can be mobs in Azeroth and Outlands.

    Prices for the rare enchants, as mentioned, are usually extremely pricey. I paid 2300 for my Spellpower and only 400g for the chest, but I farmed up all the others. This is hands down the best investment in the game.

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  6. @ Anon
    Existing NR enchants will be worth very little. But the enchants for BoA gear will still be selling as release gets closer as people get ready to power level their goblin or worgen. Gems depend on if the early Cata gear has sockets or not which is why I said that is something to keep an eye on. But glyphs will always be profitable.

    @ Zero
    Again JC is something that needs to be watched as it can be an initial money sink like usual or there could be some potential. I don't know if blizz will make the same "whoops" like they did letting us DE started rings and such for easy money. Also people may replace their NR epic gems with commons. Even with flooding anything new is expensive.

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  7. Hey Stokpile!

    Nice post. I think I'll start stockpiling a little too. Anyway, here's my question: Spellpower will be going away in Cataclysm. Do you think they will remove the BoA spellpower enchants on weapons? If so, the only good Vanilla weapon enchant for casters will be Mighty Intellect right?

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  8. Honestly that JC/DE thing was a fluke IMO. It was very similar to the Blacksmithing BOP recipes that had to be adjusted later because they were like free mats. A friend of mine made upwards of 50k in the dust market back then just by keeping his ear to the ground. He was also one of the first Blacksmiths to 80 on the server so he had almost a corner on the market for a month.

    Just reviewing it, but, best DE recipes for mats:
    Vanilla - Runecloth Headbands, Wizardweave Turbans
    TBC - Netherweave Belt/Bracers
    Wrath - JC 70 rings, Cobalt BOP recipes (release)

    Betting money they let tailoring return to the best profession for mat making. Wrath didn't offer near the amount of cloth availability as previous releases and I'm betting they adjust it back.

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  9. Yeah, I doubt that there will be a lot of items with sockets in early cata.
    http://www.wowhead.com/items=4?filter=maxle=171;cr=131:80;crs=1:5;crv=0:0;gb=0

    Wrath had very few items with sockets while leveling, and the majority of those only had one. Blizz didn't want to 'require' people to buy gems for leveling gear.

    But again, just need to keep our eyes open for cat info, and can start stokpiling if we hear otherwise.

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