WoW Auction House: Patch 3.1 – New Life
Mar 17th, 2009 by tyson
This will be a dual part article. First the bad news. As some of you have noticed in the rare weapons/armor and epic market, business has slowed way down. For each of my AH alts, the epics that I would actually invest in are few and far between. Many a login later and I’m still in roughly the same spot, albeit one of my characters had a rash of good fortune. Just a rash though.
The reason is three-fold. 1: the more unusual non-crafted epic armor and weapons aren’t typically being farmed enough. 2: The non-crafted stuff that is farmed is now way too prevalent with too much competition undercutting. And 3: there aren’t enough unique BoE epic items in Lich King leading to seeing the same stuff, even if it is world-dropped, all too commonly. The standard deviation is also way off the map. That’s basically how accurate any average price is you might see on Allakhazam. The higher the standard deviation, the more fluctuated the prices are.
For example, Je’Tze’s Bell (offhand I think that’s what it’s called), considered by some to be one of the best current trinkets in the game and tradeable, has a median at a whopping 9k on Allakhazam, with the average slightly higher. However, on one server I’ve seen that thing at 6000-7000g on the horde side for a couple weeks without selling (I think it just did for 6k), and on the Alliance server for my podcast character, I’m seeing it way above average – but again not selling. To me, that basically means I wouldn’t take a chance on it unless it was about 5k, then I’d make likely at least 1k of profit.
Epic item prices are falling across the board. That is a warning to those considering buying and reselling them at this moment in time. Now post 3.1 there might be some new BoE items in the new dungeon and that will help tremendously especially in the first bit after the patch. If you see one of them for what you think is a decent price, by all means snatch it up – as when things are beginning is the absolute best time to make the biggest profits – since many are less astute than yourself and willingly pay the “rarity” premium.
There is some good news post Patch 3.1 – which launches soon. Though I’m not certain whether they are BoE or not, many new epic recipes are being introduced – meaning keep a sharp lookout for new Leatherworking, Blacksmithing, and Tailoring recipes. Sorry Alchemy and Enchanting, you got snubbed. The second bit of good news is that with new items and a new dungeon, some of the older items will likely stabilize in price a bit, since less of them out there mean more demand. Finally, keep an eye out for any new BoE armor and weapons, whether rare or epic.
For you trade item AH’ers there are likely deals to be had as well, and please do comment to let others know what to look out for. Good luck!
Nice post! Firsties lame!
Today’s not patch day.
I stand corrected –
[edited for accuracy]
There will be a lot going on in 3.1 that will affect the economy. To note one example: the developers are changing the level requirements for a lot of old world enchants and substantially increasing the drop rate on BOP recipes that drop for all professions in Azeroth/Outlands’ instances. Should have largely negative effects on the market for twink enchants.
Two things:
1) where’s the second part?
2) I’ve pretty much dropped out of the speculation market for the time being. I’ve picked up a few glyphs here and there, but I’m making small but decent amounts of money selling food recipes cross-faction and poaching cheap Saronite ore for prospecting/DE
The prospect/DE market is actually going quite well even now. I’m finding Saronite Ore regularly for 15-18g per stack. People are still buying enchanting mats pretty regularly, so I have no trouble selling what stock I have. I’m holding onto the raw blue gems until 3.1 to cut and sell as new gear arrives. Using this strat, the enchanting mats are paying for the ore I buy (oftentimes still making me a profit), so the gems are pure profit when they get sold.
I plan to watch for some world drop cuts to pick up on my relatively new JC, but they are all hovering around 1200-1800g or so for the decent gems, right now, and I can’t see making my money back from those prices yet. I also need to focus on getting my reps up for more cuts (most notably Wyrmrest and Ebon Hold).
I’ve only recently gotten into gear trading (bad timing on my part, I guess) and am by no means a large sums auctioneer, but I’ve definitely caught the day-trader bug (sitting at level 70-71 for over a month). I find the quickest gear sales for the best profit margins (2-10X markup) are in the level 40-55 twink gear (ie: Flurry Axe; Skullflame Shield; Hurricane). That being said, I make most of my consistent gold in trade mats. The individual sales aren’t much (20-80g each, usually) but turn that into 20+ consistent sales per week and it’s a nice steady income (not to mention you can usually snatch the mats for 25% of their market value to turn a quick profit).
As for high-end epics, anything level 60-75 is a dry hole in my experience and the only 80 epics I can afford to grab tend to be crafted items so the price typically drops the weekend after I get a hold of them
[...] MMO Auctioneer talks mostly about items they see as dropping in price come patch 3.1. I’d be interested to read a follow up post with more predictions based on their theories. [...]
What do you think about the materials needed for the new BS, LW and T recipes? Titansteel bars, Arctic Fur etc.. I’ve had a feeling the prices will soar after the patch so I’ve stocked up on a couple of materials, but afraid to invest too much gold incase it doesn’t pan out.
Logically prices should rise with the increased demand, question is if the increase is enough to justify blowing 70-90% of my hard-earned cash on materials I normally never touch.