Countdown to Patch 5.4 - 12 Days: Build Up Your Inventory!

     Welcome to part two of the countdown! Only 12 days left until the Alliance and the Horde set aside our differences and beat the heck out of an empowered Warleader with the help of an orphaned dragon-man, whom we also set aside our difference in order to kill his father (...and his mommy Onyxia before that...twice...three times if you count the 60 and 80 raid seperately). Looking over at MMO-Champion, things seem to be coming to a close for Patch 5.4. On the latest PTR Build, there were only 4 ability changes, which pretty much means they have everything ironed out, until the next PvP season starts and people start complaining about how overpowered Shamans are (I'm calling it). But as it stands, we goldmakers have some hustling to do in order to prepare ourselves if we want to buy out and farm up things that will be in demand in the near future.

That poor little butterfly...

     In my previous post, I mentioned profession changes. Nev did a great write up on all the 5.4 crafting changes if you'd like to read it. In short though, things are gonna take a ton of mats, and rather than using raid essences to craft epics, we'll use normal materials like trillium, hides, and cloth, and a LOT of them. The amount of materials needed to craft PVP gear has been increased, and I expect the AH prices to increase accordingly.

The PVP Rundown

Blacksmithing:

Wrist: Was-8 Bars  Now-12 Bars

Chest/Head/Legs: Was-15 Bars  Now-20 Bars

Gloves/Belt/Shoulders/Boots: Was-10 Bars  Now-15 Bars

Leatherworking

Wrist: Was-1 Hide  Now-2 Hides

Chest/Head/Legs: Was-2 Hides  Now-3 Hides

Gloves/Belt/Shoulders/Boots: Was-1 Hide  Now-2 Hides

Tailoring

Wrist/Back: Was-4 Bolts  Now-6 Bolts

Chest/Head/Legs: Was-6 Bolts  Now-8 Bolts

Gloves/Belt/Shoulders/Boots: Was-5 Bolts  Now-7 Bolts

      So, looking over those numbers, there's about a 50% increase in the materials cost, which should mean about a 35% or so increase in mat prices if Blizzard doesn't mess with node spawn rates (it's not a 50% increase because Demand doesn't increase Price 1:1, since Supply and Demand are curved lines). Remember that on top of all this, everyone has their new daily cooldowns to learn all these new PVP recipes that each require 1 trillium bar, or 10 bolts, or 2 hides, just to keep the markets moving a little more. 

     These will have trickle down effects on Living Steel but I'd be hesitant to go whole hog on trying to control that market at the moment. Although, the Sky Golem mount is one of the coolest things you've ever seen.

I want to Flag PVP, sit in Twilight Highlands starting zone, and wait.

These are a new toy Engineers get to play with, and Blizzard was nice enough to let them sell them to other players so that it can finally be a profitable profession somewhere near the end of the expansion. The Sky Golem recipe requires 30 Living Steel and 30 Stabilized Lightning Source, the new Engineering daily cooldown, so Mid October would probably be the best time to unload your LS.

SUMMARY: 

     You'll need about 50% more of the basic stuff for everything craftable in 5.4, so it'll be more expensive. Buy it cheap now and either flip it later if you want, or just use it and sell the results. You'll profit either way. 

Hope this post was helpful. If it was, hey, share it with your guildies and I'll see y'all for Part Three. Until next time remember to

Search. Craft. Post.

Every Day.

<PREVIOUS Part One: Sell-Off Preparation                                NEXT Part Three: Jewelcrafting Guide to 25k Per Hour>

THIS IS MADNESS!

THIS IS MADNESS!

THIS. IS. MY. MARKET.

Alright, so maybe I'm going a little overboard, but this is a follow up on the blacksmith shenanigans from earlier. Here's the situation in case you missed it. One person had no idea what they were doing and posted every craft at zero profit. No goals competative meta goals in mind, just trying to make any gold they could, erroneously thinking that endercutting by 400g meant things would sell faster (Hint: it doesn't; a 1c undercut is the same as a 400g). Her presence had 2 of my BS guildies and 2-3 other competitors posting under 100g for current items that should be worth over 400-500g. Then, it spread. 

She had an alt.

I looked at leatherworking and the same was happening there. Then the presence of leather prices drove down cloth prices and then the whole AH started dropping. Not a lot mind you- 5%, maybe 10%. There's a lot going on in the marketplace, and I'm not sure if it was this girl's fault, but I'm personally vested and wasn't willing to take the chance. I also have a lot of inventory at stake. So, I took a big risk and made a play.

I reset the PvP market. All of it. It was awesome. Literally went through and bought/reposted at 150% global median price every single item on the AH that started with the word "Crafted." 500 pieces in total. But because prices were so ridiculously low, I was able to do this for only about 65k. Granted, that's a lot, and way more than I'm willing to afford right now. But luckily, even if they don't all sell, they're all good looking transmog stuff that will sell for more than 90g later.

Temporary results:

Two blacksmiths have dropped: the main undercutter, and one other that I didn't keep track of

One of my guildies stopped undercutting by as much. Not sure why. I should talk to him though, because he's killing his profit.


Now, I don't normally do talking points but let's throw this one out there:
Do you guys think this was a good idea or a bad one?
What else good could happen?
How could it backfire?