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!