What's New in 5.4.8 and How to Make Gold

     Welcome to Patch 5.4.8, everybody! So, what's new? Honestly, there aren't a whole lot of changes as you can tell by the number of decimal points, but there are enough to influence us for a little bit and to talk about them. So let's do that, shall we?

Intro

     If any of you played back in Lich King, or have run Icecrown Citadel in a while, you'll notice a huge buff when you enter that instance: Strength of Wrynn if you're Alliance or Hellscream's Warsong if you're Horde. ICC was released on December 8th, 2009, and by patch Patch 3.3.2 when the entire instance was open a majority of the players were still banging their heads against it ("[2] DKillerz - "LFM Gearscore 8000+ required!" ...shoot me now), so Blizzard decided to buff it. They did something similar, yet opposite, in Dragon Soul with a raidwide nerf, the Power of the Aspects.

5.4.8: Get buffed enough to solo Xuen...maybe...probably not...unless you're a Blood DK

News

     Now, one of the goals of the Blizzard is to get everyone playing regardless of whether they raid or not, so they're trying something new this time. Instead of nerfing raid bosses or buffing raiders, they're instead allowing all players to double upgrade their gear again. So, rather than being able to upgrade an epic 2/2, you'll be able to upgrade it 4/4. Also, Heirloom BoA Gear from Garrosh is buffed 8 ilvls higher. In short, everyone will be able to be quite a bit stronger if you farm up some valor and do your daily quests or heroic scenarios. If you don't like doing dailies how can you get all that valor though?
     

     To see the second big change, take a trip on out to the Timeless Isle. Chances are, it's more packed with PVP-killing action and rare farming than you've seen it in the past couple months. (If you haven't read my article on Sha-crystal farming on the Timeless Isle, go do that now, it'll be important in a second) You can now trade in 3000 Timeless Coins for 100 Valor at Mistweaver Ai by purchasing Deeds of Valor. These stack with the Valor of the Ancients buff, although the Heart of the Valorous buff didn't seem to make it to live.

     So, we've got people back out in the Timeless Isle farming their hearts out for Deeds of Valor, and we've got buffed up raiders killing and disenchanting more gear than ever before. What does that mean for you and your goldmaking opportunities right now and in the future? Well...

Maelstrom Crystal History

     1. Sha Crystals are at the highest they're ever going to be...ever again. People are going to be farming up Sha Crystals on the Timeless Isle, and with better gear more people are going to be disenchanting gear in from Siege of Orgrimmar. Since, the demand for Sha Crystals has gone down, we can expect that prices will fall. (Note: gearing and enchanting insta-90s may initially offset/stabilize this drop in demand, but I personally wouldn't bet on it). So absolutely sell any Sha Crystals you have right now before prices plummet uncontrollably. Or you could convert them into Mysterious Essences, except

Greater Celestial Essence History

     2. Mysterious Essences are also the highest they're ever going to be...ever again. With a new expansion comes a dramatic fall in demand for the secondary resources for last xpac's enchants. Greater Celestial Essences dropped from 60g to 20g, and not only that but they hardly ever sell. Unload your Mysterious Essences.

Hypnotic Dust History

     3. Spirit Dust will boom. Blizzard has designed Patch 5.4.8 so that the entire player base is buffed up, out and about, and killing things. With that comes greens to disenchant. As a major leveling component, Spirit Dust, which currently sells for under 1g each, is likely to be pushed a smidge lower. However, if Cataclysm, and MoP are any examples, then we can expect that once people stop farming dust, but people still need it to level professions and get a few basic Enchants here and there, that the price of Spirit Dust will go from it's current price to somewhere in the range of 5g-15g each and the supply falls lower than demand.

BUT

Here's the monkey wrench, and hopefully some of you Enchanters spotted it already. If Sha Crystals Drop to 15 gold in the first week or two of the expansion, and Spirit Dust jumps up to 15 gold in the same time frame, what's the obvious answer? Well, there's two that pop up immediately.

Next Expansion's Annoying Enchanting Requirements:
MoP Full Breakdown
     So, Spirit Dust is trying to be as expensive as Sha Crystals and will sell the fastest on almost every realm (highest relative demand out of the enchanting mats).  Then, if you're farming old Pandaria dungeons, rather than just disenchanting your BoP boss drops and BoE Blues, you will "have to" completely shatter them down into dust. While this seems silly it adds that extra "ugh" hassle to farming old content. However, it may not be necessary at all because of the future-

MoP Shatter Check
      This expansion is the first we've had with a full conversion, and right now, Enchanting mat prices are kept in line with the Shatter, where you destroy a Crystal or Ethereal Shard to break it down and sell it into the occasionally more valuable and definitely more in-demand Mysterious Essence. In WoD though, we should keep our eyes out for huge discrepancies between Crystals, Shards, Essences, and the then more valuable Spirit Dust, especially in the first couple months before and after WoD is released. The Invisible Hand should drive Sha Crystal prices up to the point where they match the value of Spirit Dust, whevever it ends up at. So, if Spirit Dust gets to 15g each like Hypnotic is, then someone would be willing to pay 270 gold per Sha Crystal, since each crystal yields 18 dust. A more reasonable 5g value would give you 90 gold crystals, 45 gold shards, and 15 gold essences: about what we're at now. Depending on your stock, and how things go, Sha Crystals may rise in value and it could be very smart to invest heavily in Sha Crystals.

Conclusion
      Ok, so it may have sounded like I went back and forth or lied to you here. There was a method, I promise. I started with the premise "There will be a small permanent increase in the supply of Sha Crystals from Patch 5.4.8" and then used a few different available models to try and figure out what will happen now and into the next expansion, Warlords of Draenor. Funny thing is, that some models say sell all your Sha Crystals now, because they'll all be worthless, while others say that since Spirit Dust will go up in value 500%, so will Sha Crystals.  As we approach the next expansion, this is the type of thing you'll be reading on forums from people trying their best to make sense out of everything going on with the coming expansion. It was an in-depth look at a very simple example showing how varied your answers can be. Essentially, the point of this article is "there are lots of correct and contradicting right answers when it comes to WoD speculation. Make money now how you know you can, and learn about WoD, but don't stress about any one blogger's method." We'll give you our best insights but only gameday will know for sure.
     So, how am I going to profit from this? What are my actual personal recommendations? I think Crystal, Shard, and Essence prices will fall, Essences less so, but I can still profit by selling my current stock right now, since I don't have a huge supply, and then just stay out of the enchanting material market until it bottoms out and enter again around patch day. On WoD release, I think everything will plummet like we've seen before, but since we have the first full conversion/arbitrage system in place for enchanting, there will be a demand for goods. I'll buy anything above dust right after launch and hide it away somewhere for a month. After a month, when everything evens out and those are worth double or triple I sell and make some cash. Alternatively, I might be off the mark and Mysterious Essences will be the old world mat of choice, and be the driving force, but luckily the same basic rules apply since it's a full conversion. But that's just me and my speculation.
     Either way, I'm betting 100g that they remove one of the Shatters from the game.

Thanks for reading my little WoW blog! You can follow me on Twitter here and Google+ Here. Visit my YouTube channel or just I recommend that all goldmakers download the TSM Suite and the UndermineJournalGE addon for all goldmakers. You can read my setup guide if you'd like. And remember that the key to making gold in WoW is just to 

Search. Craft. Post.

Every Day.

<Prev: Should We Sell Glyps in Warlords of Draenor?

Countdown Wrapup: How To Prepare for and Make Gold in Patch 5.4

For the past two weeks, we've been doing a series about preparing for Patch 5.4. If you've read everything, then thanks for following along, and I applaud you; it's been a lot of information.

/clap

With Patch 5.4 at our doorstep, it's time for an abridged recap of everything you need to know to make gold with the auction house, crafting, and with no professions, 1) in case you missed a few posts, 2) to correct any changes Blizzard has made on the PTR or any accidental reporting errors on my part, and 3) to provide a link you can bookmark and easily come back to in the next few weeks, since many of these tips will be valid goldmaking strategies for Patch 5.4 for the first month or two.

The Build Up

Step 1: Sell off 522s and Spirits
     Unload any crafted 522 armor you have, Haunted Steel Headguards, Quillen Hide Helm, etc. While TheUndermineJournal.com states the median price in the 25k range, the moving price for both helms and boots has dropped to about 18,000 so post in that range if you want them to sell (my recommendation, servers vary and of course yours may be different).
     Sell your Haunting Spirits if you have any. Their prices are mirroring Blood spirits trend so they should plummet to 1000g in the second week, 600g in the first month, and bottom out to 300g in month two. Don't get caught holding the bag. There's still a week left to make gold with spirits before the opportunity is gone.

Step 2: Build up an inventory of crafting mats
     The new daily cooldowns for tailoring, blacksmithing, and leatherworking require a lot of basic materials: 1 Trillium bar, 10 Bolts, and 2 Hides. In addition, the new ilvl 476 crafted PVP gear will need about 50% more mats to make than the old ilvl 458 stuff. So, stock up now on cloth, ghost iron, trillium, or hides before prices jump up. Trillium's increase will influence Living Steel's price, but since no crafted gear requires it, expect Living Steel's demand to drop until about October 10th, when the first Engineers are able to craft the Sky Golem/Sky Claw mount, and the price will rise some. The new mount requires 30 Living Steel and 30 Stabilized Lightning Source, the new Engineer daily cooldown.

Step 3: Get enhancement professions ready
     Generally, this refers to Jewelcrafting, but Enchanting and Inscription as well. Glyphs are getting a rework so that'll be covered later in the guide, but include those mentally here too. If you're prepared, you could potentially make 20,000 gold an hour from jewelcrafting as a few people did in patch 5.2. Here's why. Many of the classes' spells are changing, and because of this, lots of players will need to reforge, regem, and re-enchant when they log in after 5.4 drops. In addition, with everyone running Siege of Orgrimmar on Normal and Flex immediately,  they'll be getting replacement gear en masse, which needs optimization.
     Prospect a large stockpile of gems, cut a stack or two of each of the solid-color pure-stat cuts, and then look at your server's history, read my rundown of spell changes, and determine if my list of recommended mixed cuts (crit/agi, haste/agi, haste/int, spirit/int, and mastery/str, along with block and parry cuts) makes sense to you. If not, head on over to Stormspire.net and see if any other seasoned JCs have other input. You can make a ridiculous amount of money here in the first two or three days.
     Other professions should follow the same general advice and build up an inventory of materials, have basic sure fire sellers precrafted, and study your market for any specialty items.

Step 4: Noodle Cart Prep Work
     Patch 5.4 is introducing an easier way to buff up: Noodle Carts. In short, they let one person become a vendor (Blizz keeps the gold, whamp whamp) and people buy multiple max level food buffs from them, rather than just the one use that the raid feasts have. They're more efficient than feasts, but still requires a royal ton of materials. Moreover, everyone will be doing the same quest chain to get these mats all at once, so you can load up on them beforehand (since the materials will probably sell out) and mark em up to 500-1000% the normal price. No one wants to spend 20 minutes flying around just to farm out 5 Wildfowl Breasts. The quest chain is pretty long so I expect most people to take a break after the "Noodle Cart Kit" but I put together a Google Document outlining all the mats for each kit so you can farm all the mats for everything if you choose to own the entire Noodle Industry.

Google Doc Preview

Noodle Cart Kit
(Materials) - (Cart Kit Requirements)

5 Tiger Steak - 5 Charbroiled Tiger Steak

10 Juicycrunch Carrots - 5 Sauteed Carrots

5 Jade Lungfish - 5 Swirling Mist Soup

5 Giant Mantis Shrimp - 5 Shrimp Dumplings

5 Wildfowl Breast - 5 Wildfowl Roast

5 Ginseng - 5 Ginseng Tea

PATCH 5.4 RELEASES - GARROSH MESSES $@&% UP

The Post-Release Hustle

Step 1: Jewelcrafting Sellof
     If you're a JC, get everything posted up. Depending on how crazy the AH is, this could be a small time commitment, or it could be a full-time thing. We'll see, although honestly I don't think it will be quite as ridiculous as the 5.2 rush was. Follow TheUndermineJournal.com, WoWuction.com, or Stormspire.net for news from your server and others on what price trends are going on and what demand for different gems is looking like. If you use TSM 2.0, make sure you have your Cancel scans set up; you will be undercut often.

Step 2: Profiting from Battle Pets and LFR
    Four new tradeable battle pets drop from LFR and Flex that will sell very well on the Auction House: Droplet of Y'Shaarj, Gooey Sha-ling, Blackfuse Bombling, and Kovok (baby Garalon, Eeeeee!) Additionally, any boss drops that you don't need can be disenchanted for Spirits of War, the new version of Haunting Spirits. These will start off very expensive (10k+) and then slowly become more reasonably priced, so sell them as soon as possible. Make sure to run Flex, Normal, and LFR Siege of Orgrimmar as soon as you can on as many toons as you can in the first week or two. LFR part four won't come out for a while, but keep running these for your chances. They're adorable and good pets that you'll be able to sell for a bundle, especially if you take 45 minutes and level up to 25 before you AH them.

Step 3: Grinding New Glyph Patterns (Corrections)
     42 new glyphs have been added,  but these aren't learned on a daily cooldown for once!  These recipes are learned from killing mobs, similar to Jewelcrafting meta recipes. Some of the glyphs are Bind on Pickup from Pandaria mobs and some are Bind on Equip from Timeless isle kills. El from ElsAnglin put together a great comment on which glyphs drop where. If you can get your glyph toon geared above ilvl 500, go to the Timeless isle and grind there. If you can't, grind your favorite 90 pandaria spot, then switch to your main, and grind Timeless Isle on that toon. On my original post, I made a big deal about bind on pickup, but it looks like you can mail patterns from Timeless Isle between toons.

Step 4: Noodle Cart Quests
     So, you posted up all the mats for noodle carts before the patch was released, now it's time to actually learn the recipe for the cart itself and sell those, because they'll be overpriced themselves. The quest chain starts northeast of the lake in Timeless Isle. Here's a guide I put together about how to get the noodle cart.

The short version is run Temple of the Jade Serpent, kill the bonus boss, go to Halfhill, catch sacks in the Imperial Granary, and run Stormstout Brewery. But watch the video, cause you might have to redo a step or two otherwise, cause there are a few tricky parts. When you get the +300 kits, but a few on the Auction house and you should make a very decent profit for the first couple weeks as all the lazy people procrastinate on doing the full quest chain.

Step 5: Timeless Isle Pets
     There are going to be 12 great (read: profitable) pets dropping from rares and elites on the Isle in Patch 5.4 (couldn't get the filter to show only the 12, but you'll get the idea). You'll also be able to purchase some new pets with Timeless Coins, which drop off NPCs (x10-40) and Bloody Coins, obtained from killing players (x1). Oh, and of course, Blingtron 4000 is finally dropping a pet. Hazaa!

Lil Bling Bling

If you need a map of all the rares, Wowhead has a great guide here. As you can see, they're all on the perimeter, so rare farming is just a nice Un'goro-style route around the outside, rather than zig zagging around like in Isle of Giants. 

     Clarification: The Celestial Tournament reward pets, the Celestialets, are NOT cageable, so you will not be able to sell them, as I alluded to in the first version of my pet post, before I was kindly corrected.

And that's it. Each of these step should be able to, by themselves, be able to earn 50k at least in the first week if you spend just a little bit of time working on them. If you call in sick to work all week (I'm sure your boss will understand) then the sky is the limit. Good luck, everyone. Remember to subscribe to this lil ole WoW blog, follow me on Twitter, and until next time remember to 

Search. Craft. Post.

Every Day.

P.S. I also wanted to say, sincerely, thank you for all the comments, tweets, and general support from you all. WTBGold has been growing recently because of y'all spreading the word and I really appreciate it. I look forward to helping more people start and continue their goldmaking journey.