I have seen a trend with the majority of players who contact me via email or on the forums I frequent in which their question usually starts with “So I’m trying to stock up on gold for cataclysm…”
Gold still has meaning currently, as there is still a lot to purchase, and with the release of the next raid, Ruby Sanctum, coming out shortly there is no doubt that new BoE items will be up for grabs.
The one great thing about having gold is that it suffers the least from depreciation than any other thing in WoW through expansions. Items used in gems, enchants, glyphs, and all other WOTLK professions will experience a drop because Cataclysm will bring with it new raw materials to make even better enhancements to our items. I have a list of these new items but I’m waiting on the NDA to be lifted before I report everything here, hopefully I can find a way into Beta so I can report back information to you guys and get my research started..
Preparing for Cataclysm
Are you doing anything different to prepare for cataclysm? I believe it is too far to do much as there is still a healthy economy going on and the big drop in prices won’t happen till later in the year. With the summer coming and people downing the lich king we may experience a lull in activity, Ruby Sanctum will keep some around but it is inevitable that some players will take a break and just wait for Cataclysm.
Why Stockpile Gold?
We all hate to grind, but love to have a “head start” when the next big thing comes around. Imagine when WOTLK came out you could be the first person with the new mammoth running around (and back then people would be amazed at it, now it’s an everyday thing) or you could have picked up your Darkmoon Card: Greatness the first month it hit the shelves.
Powerleveling Cataclysm Professions
This will be my biggest motivation, I want to try to get as many professions to maximum as fast as possible and see how many realm firsts I can achieve. The problem is that all these materials will need to be mined/skinned/gathered and I’ll be paying no doubt 5x the cost instead of just waiting a few weeks for the market to saturate. However you can be sure that you’ll have a nice monopoly on your hands for a few weeks in your market if you are one of the first with any given profession.
Inscription made way more profit at the beginning, this may be because QA3 wasn’t well known and information wasn’t out yet as to how profitable the glyph market was, Greedy Goblin probably was one of the first to spill the beans on this one. But this time around I’ll be looking during the beta and the early days of Cataclysm to find those gold mine markets so you can exploit them right away.
Hitting the Gold Cap Before Cataclysm
With more of the game content being “completed” by players they are looking for new challenges to tide them over in the meantime. Hitting the gold cap can be a rewarding experience as it seems like a very concrete goal and unlike achievements you can actually use the reward to benefit you in the future. Most people who hit the gold cap don’t have to grind for gold for an entire expansion (but I guarantee you most get addicted to making gold had going below 100,000g again so they’re never “poor”)
What are your motivations for stock piling gold?
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Crafting. I want to have the gold to buy up the overpriced mats so that i can make the overpriced enchants and glyphs.
Assuming level 80 will be enough to max out crafting skills, I have the same motivation as you. More specifically, to max out my transmute masters as those were insane gold mines at launch. Having 4-5 of them on an account means ~10 transmute successes a day.
A lack of info on how glyphs will work in the expansion is worrysome. It’s not like they are adding 100 new skills, maybe 30 total. I have all the other ones, so how exactly will that work moving forward as progression? The rest of the skills should follow the existing models, where enchanting and JC lead the pack for profits for some time as people continually upgrade their gear.
going to max out enchanting as soon as cataclysm hits. stacking up gold now, but i’m not sure if i’ll make the gold cap by then because i’m not on that much of a raiding server
I’m not going to hit the cap anytime soon unless I pull all my gold from both acounts and both factions together. That being said – I have spent a ton of gold stocking up on just about everything you can think of. Most of it I’m buying to help level my profs and that of my friends new toons come expansion. Some of it to try and flip with the expansion. I don’t go for realm first since I don’t have the time to play. I do however, like to buy new mounts, pets and toys ASAP. I was one of only a handful of people on my server to have the tundra mount the first month of Lich King.
This is interesting that you say “The one great thing about having gold is that it suffers the least from depreciation than any other thing in WoW through expansions”, because I’ve read (and thought) the complete opposite.
When an expansion hits, gold suffers the most from deprecation compared to gems/cloth/other raw mats. This is because there will be a surge of low/mid/high material needs to level professions on their new characters.
So a sample case study:
Today, a stack of mithril bars sells on the AH for 20g.
After the expansion, a stack of mithril bars will sell for 40g (speculation I know) because there is a high demand for it.
From this you can derive two points:
1. You could potentially double your money if you stockpile mithril bars instead of gold.
2. Your gold could potentially be worth half of what is used to, due to price inflation.
Now of course there’s rumors that the profession leveling will change in the expac so it’s not as much of a grind (Kraklin you can cough once if this is true
but I highly doubt that the price of these mats will go *down*…they never have before.
So the question is…is it better to stockpile gold, or at a minimum diversify your greed portfolio and invest in some raw materials?
@shirtfight
Yes, you are right. For example, Infinite Dust goes for around 1g each on my server. After Cata comes out the price of the dust will go up. (As per every other expansion)
So it would be better to have 1000 Infinite Dust in the bank rather than 1000 gold.
I currently am filling my 5 guild banks with mats I know will still be useful.
My biggest question is if Ink of the Sea will still be used? Because I was planning on having a supply of around 10,000 to save time milling when I could be doing other more fun things.
My feeling is even if Ink of the Sea is not used for new glyphs, it should be for the older ones, and odds are you are still going to want your 10,000 inks!
There hasn’t been much chatter about Inscription, but with the class, and stat changes it means that a good portion of the glyphs will be changed. I think almost everyone is going to re-glyph their characters at least 1 or 2 slots.
Unless the “new” herbs make IotS as well, the inks will only be used for leveling up professions – and that would require that Jessica Sellers NOT be available for a long period of time.
You would be better off with the base herbs as an investment. Any “mid-step” item in raising a crafting skill is a very risky investment (tubes, cured hides, etc…). Less competition but also less sold.
I think they mentioned they were not changing any major glyphs till after the expansion.
It looks like the new herbs will be mainly be for the new greatness cards and off hands etc.
That would mean there will be another Jessica Sellers to turn the new herbs into IOTS and lower level herbs.
The mats for the current glyphs will prob not change.
My major concern is the supply of northrend herbs will drop off, increasing the cost to make IOTS.
How come mats prices will rise once the new patch comes out? I play WoW since this expansion, but I don’t see why people would need old mats? Most of them have their profession at 450 now anyway right?
3 Reasons.
1) People might want to switch professions when Cata comes out.
2) People might make an alt their new main because they like the class changes, and need to level a profession on that character.
3) The most likely reason. There are WOTLK patterns that are still orange even at 450 that people will use to get as many “cheap” level ups off of. Example:
Enchant X is orange at 450 and uses WOTLK dust. It goes green at 465.
Enchant Y is orange at 450 and uses Cata dust. It goes green at 475.
From the release, Cata dust will be way more expensive than WOTLK dust, so people will buy WOTLK dust to get enchanting as high as possible before using their more expensive Cata dust.
Most people will roll a worgen/goblin, that’s a huge influx of new toons.
I’m very anxious to find out what I should be holding onto with my current mats for Cataclysm for some immediate sales.
I was very well prepared for Lich King and so I love getting these tidbits of information that trickle down about Cataclysm. Hopefully I’ll be in good shape with mats and gold when it comes:)
.-= Cathy´s last blog ..Cataclysm – 5-mans =-.