Now, everyone and is mother is trying to dump their WotLK goodies before Cataclysm hits... wait!
I know lots of people already talked about it! You surely have read already a lot of advices, like buying [Saronite Ore] (under 62.5 silver a piece you can smelt it and sell the [Saronite Bar] to a vendor for profit, so saronite stockpiling can be totally risk-free, depending on the prices on your server) or [Abyss Crystal] (it's the best way to stock enchanting mats, since you can break it... and in some server it's getting cheaper than [Greater Cosmic Essence]).
These are useful advices, but depending on the economy of your server they could not work... For instance, a stack of [Saronite Ore] still goes for 23-26 gold on my server (there as been a beautiful week in which they went for 12.50 gold a stack, but then someone has started to drain the market stockpiling for Cataclysm...).
The problem is, when a "niche" is found and posted on a blog, there is probably some other player in you real that will start to do his/her best (or worse) to follow the advice, making things difficult for you.
Some times the solution is simple: you should read the advice, ask yourself "how did this blogger managed to find this trick?" and start to apply the same reasoning yourself, to find other ways of doing gold... Blaming the competition isn't an excuse: there are so many different things that can be done in farming the AH, that no competition could cover them all.
So, how much will today's mats be worth come Cataclysm?
There is an easy way to get an idea: look for the prices of the corresponding BC mats (i.e. check the price of primals when deciding if you should buy eternals). I'm seeing that some of the WotLK in my server are dropping in price and are now cheaper than the corresponding mats from BC. If you consider also the inflation that we will see in Cataclysm, anything cheaper than his BC counterpart will be more valuable some months after Cataclysm... Obviously, try to run [Golden Draenite] and similar exceptions out of the equation.
This is actually just a rule of the thumb, that doesn't take into account lots of things, but for the most common mats it will work. If you want it's still a good thing to check wowhead to better understand why the item is worth (I hope you should already have at least an idea of this, if you're considering buying it... Never buy an item you don't know!)
This is actually just a rule of the thumb, that doesn't take into account lots of things, but for the most common mats it will work. If you want it's still a good thing to check wowhead to better understand why the item is worth (I hope you should already have at least an idea of this, if you're considering buying it... Never buy an item you don't know!)
Even if you don't do extensive researches, if you will, as you should always, diversify, you'll gain a lot more than what you'll loose. Buy different mats for every crafting professions! If people are willing to buy something from BC for 10 gold now, they'll surely pay more for the same kind of thing when Cataclysm comes! Remember, there will be 3 major reason for BC and WotLK mats price increase:
- Inflation
- Remotion of portals from Dalaran and Shattrath (until 4.0.3 farming BC materials was easier than how it will be farming BC and WotLK materials from now on)
- Flying in Azeroth: more people will farm mats in Azeroth than in the Outlands and Northrend... Surely a larger percentage than now, since the possibility to fly will make it a lot easier, and the zones will be closer to where the characters are than in the last two expansions.
So, try not to stop at Saronite... Everyone is buying these. Continue to buy it if it's at the right price, but stockpile different things... The more you diversify the better! You can be nearly sure of avoiding losses, and you'll be ready to gain from every fluctuation in your server's market.
One good thing to help diversify is to look at the percentage cost of the item (Auctioneer Addon is what I use), normally if its under 30% normal price I will snatch it up. Of course, this is risky and you want to be knowledgeable about the item so you don't end up grabbing things that will have little to no use come cata.
ReplyDeleteReviewing popular profession leveling guides is also a great way to feel out certain items for stockpiling.
great post :)
Just don't focus too much on the price of TBC mats (e.g. primals). The supply for the WOTLK equivalent is often somewhat harder to predict and also different, because there are other ways to obtain them (Frozen Orb would be only one example here).
ReplyDeleteAs a rule of thumb, you an safely invest in almost anything that is not going to be absolutely useless in Cataclysm (wowhead search will do the trick) without losing anything but bag space. The inflation will be insane and take care of small fluctuations and the supply for most TBC and WOTLK materials will be rather small anyway.
Well, I'm actually putting myself in some middle-ground between your two advices, Cindia and Vayaz: the method I describe is a little slower and more precise than looking for the percentage of the normal price (you should really be careful with that: certain items that are dropping in price now won't regain value), but it's easier and less precise than checking for every item on wowhead.
ReplyDeleteActually, I'm doing the following: I'm checking for the items that cost less than their BC counterparts *and then* checking wowhead to see if those items will still be useful to level some profession (when I don't know it already).
[I always check wowhead before buying something of which I don't know enough]
I suppose everyone should find his place between this buying strategies.
As with Frozen Orbs, I suppose their prices will rise up more than the eternals, since less people will be making WotLK heroics... And for the same reason, they shouldn't impact greatly on the price of the eternals. The main difference from BC will be, IMHO, that Forzen Orbs will be a great way to stockpile Eternals.