OK, short post today because I have to get cracking offline. When 3.1 hits, you have a large opportunity to make money. All the new gear that starts to drop from Ulduar as well as the changes to all the trade skills are going to mean economic shifts. If you’re on the right side of those shifts, you can ride the economy to profit!
Also, please, for the love of all that’s holy, don’t make any ferengi jokes here.
Some of the shifts I forsee and how you can take advantage:
When guilds have new content to progress through, they upgrade more gear.
- Demand for enchanting mats will go up
- Demand for other permanent item enhancement mats (like arctic fur for the various legging kits) will go up
- Demand for gems will go up
- Demand for Naxx era crafted epics will disappear (except maybe the darkmoon card: greatness which can hold its own against some of the crappier ulduar drops)
Most of the crafting tradeskills have new epic recipes available that are level appropriate for Ulduar content.
- Demand for raw mats will go up (eternal elementals, herbs, ore, cloth, skins)
- Specifically, many new weapons that take titansteel are being introduced so the demand for titansteel will go up
Herbing will be faster and yield more herbs per hour, also Northrend flasks now last one hour but only cost half the materials to make.
- Supply for herbs will skyrocket in the long term, however in the short term, it’s unlikely that this change will be able to offset the increased demand that 3.1 will bring
- In the long run, as people get more time to herb, anything with herbs in it will get cheaper. Flasks, glyphs, darkmoon cards, vellums, etc.
Take note here folks- I’m not talking about prices. I’m talking about supply and demand. If your server economy has some craft market manipulator who has been hoarding all this stuff since he first hear about ulduar, you might find yourself priced out of the market.
The readers digest version of my advice is not to carry large quantities of herbs or herb based products (like northrend cards) into 3.1. You’ll be able to unload this stuff during the first week of 3.1, but you’ll lose money after that. If your server’s prices on titansteel, arctic fur, saronite ore, and elementals are low, then spend some of your money on it now to sell when 3.1 comes out.
Lastly, if this doesn’t work out for you, don’t blame me. My advice is worth what you pay for it ;)
“Lastly, if this doesn’t work out for you, don’t blame me. My advice is worth what you pay for it ;)””
I am totally blaming you =P. Good post and cool blog. I will be back.
Thanks!
Note that the Darkmoon Card: Death is getting a bit (2.5X) buff on the damage it procs in 3.1. RIght now, the individual Undeath cards are going for about 20 gp on my server, we’re slurping ’em up for my guild.
I looked into some of the non-nobles decks, but there’s not much of an opportunity for money making there. So many more non-nobles decks were built than will ever be needed that the prices are pretty much on a straight downward trend. The inventory in the market might eventually regulate when more PvE drop trinkets start outpacing the nobles deck in performance, but right now, even with the 25 man hard mode trinkets available from ulduar, the greatness card still holds its value quite well. As long as people want nobles decks, however, there will be many more other decks produced than there are places for.