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 =-.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?