Gold and Legion Preparation Pt.1

[Allybeboba]

This is a preparation guide to make gold in the upcoming expansion.

Choosing Professions

Before I get into anything, I want to say one thing. We will only be talking about PRIMARY PROFESSIONS and how they will do during the BEGINNING of the expansion. Any and every end game character can have max Archaeology, Cooking, First Aid and Fishing. The only choice required by these is whether or not you want to learn them.

There is one very important thing to take note of, because many professions require it to make most of the better crafts. The new crafting material, http://legion.wowhead.com/item=124124/blood-of-sargeras , is BoP.

Needed to craft almost 200 different items so far, http://legion.wowhead.com/item=124124/blood-of-sargeras is going to be in high demand during Legion.

Early Expansion Gold Rush
It is very beneficial to plan out which professions to have on the first few characters that you level. This choice will set the pace of your ability to make gold at the single most profitable time of any expansion, the beginning.

I should mention why this is. There are two big reasons.

The first is that these items are going to be new. The first person to put something on the Auction House is going to do it very quickly and the price is going to be insanely high. And people will buy them, because supply for these items is going to be insanely low. People will be leveling professions, they will need these items. And so they will pay these prices.

The second reason has to do with raiding guilds. Many of the top end raiding guilds start selling clears of the raid once they have finished gearing up through it. Using a current example, there are a few guilds who are selling a full clear of Hellfire Citadel on Mythic for one million gold. These guilds will have plenty of gold to spend. And they will spend it on anything that will give them an edge on clearing the new raid first.

These two points will work together to keep prices very high for a while. This will last until the general population of the server starts supplying these items at an increased rate. It’s a perfect example of supply and demand causing prices to change over a period of time.

Joining The Gold Rush
Now, I have a simple question that I ask people that come to me asking for WoW gold advice.

Q:Who got rich during the California gold rush?
A:The people that sold the miners their supplies. (Shovels)

Yes, some people did find gold and end up very, very rich. But that is a risk. You need to decide which part of the gold rush you want to be part of.

Do you want to gather herbs, leather and ore and sell them at a high price on the AH? Do you want to sell the shovels?

Or do you want to buy the herbs and ore and try to sell the crafts that you can make from them? Do you want to buy the shovel and try for a bigger payoff?

You could even do both. The choice is yours.

 

[Allybeboba]

Gathering Professions (The Shovels)
Herbalism

Right now it is being reported that there are just not enough herb nodes throughout the Broken Isles. Herbs will be very time consuming to come by if this is not changed. We will not have initially have flying either, which will make gathering herbs take even more time.

The change to the nodes is an interesting one. You no longer have to compete with others to get to the herb first. You are able to gather something even if someone else already has. And how it plays out depends on whether Blizzard changes the number of nodes that are actually in the game. Too many nodes, gathered by too many herbalists, will flood the market. Proceed with caution when posting.

Many people like to focus on Alchemy and Inscription at the beginning of a new expansion. Raiders, preparing for the release of the first tier, will be stocking up on everything that they need. Potions and Flasks will be in very high demand and trinkets created by the new Darkmoon Cards sell at a very high price. This will fuel the demand for a large supply of herbs.

Mining

Similar to herbalism, it is said that there are not enough ore nodes in the Broken Isles. Ore will be very time consuming to come by if this is not changed. We will not have initially have flying either, which will make gathering ore take even more time.

The change to the nodes is an interesting one. You no longer have to compete with others to get to the ore first. You are able to gather something even if someone else already has. And how it plays out depends on whether Blizzard changes the number of nodes that are actually in the game. Too many nodes, gathered by too many miners, will flood the market. Proceed with caution when posting.

The new ore and bars will be used in many different crafting recipes, mostly Blacksmithing and Engineering. The return of prospecting will really increase the demand for the raw ore as well.

The biggest change that will help the price of ore is the removal of the limit on crafted gear. Raiders will be able to outfit their entire character in crafted gear. This will increase the demand in items created by Blacksmithing and, as a result, increase the demand in ore and bars.

Skinning

Skinning is currently the best known method for farming http://legion.wowhead.com/item=124124/blood-of-sargeras. Because of this it is very likely that many, many people will choose Skinning as a profession while they level up through the Broken Isles.

Skinning will be the best option if you want to level ASAP but also gather some things to sell or use along the way. Herb and Mining nodes may be off the path and out of your way but it takes almost no extra time to simply skin whatever you kill in the course of questing.

Inevitably, someone will create a guide showing the absolute best places to farm at. The initial lack of flying, combined with a fast respawn time location, will make skinning a very appealing profession for farmers.

The biggest change that will help the price of leather is the removal of the limit on crafted gear. Raiders will be able to outfit their entire character in crafted gear. This will increase the demand in items created by Leatherworking and, as a result, increase the demand in items gathered by Skinning.

 

[Allybeboba]

Crafting Professions (The Gold)
Alchemy

Making any kind of profit from Alchemy depends very heavily on the price of herbs. At the beginning of an expansion, when the price of herbs are still extremely high, the price of anything created with those herbs will also be high. The new potions and flasks introduced in Legion will be the most common sales once people start preparing for the first raid tier.

The supply of herbs will increase more as players reach level cap and begin focusing on professions. This will drive down the price of herbs significantly. Alchemy will quickly start to lose it’s value once this happens. It should still be possible to profit from Alchemy once this begins but it will not be as significant as it once was.

The transmutations coming in Legion are very interesting. We will be able to transmute crafting materials into other crafting materials, all of which share a cooldown period of one day. There is also a recipe to be able to create http://legion.wowhead.com/item=124124/blood-of-sargeras. These transmutations may prove to be quite valuable, helping to fill in the supply gaps for items that a given server is just not producing.

Blacksmithing

Armor. That’s the focus here. Raiding guilds, aiming for world first or server first, will be buying everything they can can which could provide an advantage. Being able to buy BiS gear is a huge advantage over running dungeons repeatedly and hoping for the best.

Interestingly, armor created with Blacksmithing requires much more than just ore and bars. Each of the “armor” professions will require materials from the other two, depending on the specific piece of gear being crafted. Some require leather, some require cloth, some require dust and some require gems. It seems that Blizzard is trying to make professions integrated and relying on others like they used to.

The loss of crafted weapons is a bit of a blow for Blacksmithing. There is simply no need for it now that we will have these artifact weapons. They are, however, able to craft some relics and a handful of useful items. And Blacksmithing is also getting a craftable mount, I expect that it will be unbelievably expensive at first.

Engineering

Ah, Engineering. The good old stand by. There are a few items that may be popular with raiders. But here is nothing that really stands out as a great source of income that can compare to the other professions. I like Engineering and it’s a great profession but it just doesn’t have much potential for making gold.

Leatherworking

Armor. That’s the focus here. Raiding guilds, aiming for world first or server first, will be buying everything they can can which could provide an advantage. Being able to buy BiS gear is a huge advantage over running dungeons repeatedly and hoping for the best.

Interestingly, armor created with Leatherworking requires much more than just leather. Each of the “armor” professions will require materials from the other two, depending on the specific piece of gear being crafted. Some require ore, some require cloth, some require dust and some require gems. It seems that Blizzard is trying to make professions integrated and relying on others like they used to.

The biggest difference between Leatherworking and the other “armor” professions is the Demon Hunter. This new class should make Leather the most common armor type in the game. Any new class will bring many people to it and one that wears leather armor will increase the demand for leather armor.

Tailoring

Armor. That’s the focus here. Raiding guilds, aiming for world first or server first, will be buying everything they can can which could provide an advantage. Being able to buy BiS gear is a huge advantage over running dungeons repeatedly and hoping for the best.

Interestingly, armor created with Tailoring requires much more than just cloth. Each of the “armor” professions will require materials from the other two, depending on the specific piece of gear being crafted. Some require leather, some require herbs, some require ore, some require gems and some require dust. It seems that Blizzard is trying to make professions integrated and relying on others like they used to.

Reports from the beta say that it is insanely difficult to find the main cloth needed to craft much of anything. http://legion.wowhead.com/item=124437/shaldorei-silk has an abysmal drop rate. If this is not changed before Legion is released there is no doubt at all that gear crafted that uses this cloth will have a very large price tag attached to it.

 

[Allybeboba]

Mixed Professions (Shovels and Gold)
Enchanting

Disenchanting is both a blessing and a curse. All gear of uncommon rarity or higher can be disenchanted into materials that can then be used for enchanting. This means that it is very possible to level enchanting without having to take another profession and without having to purchase any materials.

This also means that the initial supply of the enchanting mats will be very, very low. Most of the initial stock will come from players disenchanting their unneeded quest rewards, and quest rewards are limited. Many players will be trying to level enchanting with their own materials rather than buying the expensive ones on the Auction House.

The most interesting thing are the shoulder and glove enchants. These should both sell very well in the first few days of the expansion. The other enchantments will pick up a little later, once people start finalizing their gear for the raid.

Inscription

I’m putting Inscription in this section because of milling. Mass milling has made it much less of a tedious process for people to create their own pigment but there are still people who will not want to do it. It is very easy to buy or gather herbs and simply sell the pigment on the Auction House.

The trinkets created from the Darkmoon Cards will sell very well at the beginning, I have no doubt. Many players are planning to level a scribe solely because of this. The changes to glyphs are interesting, as far as I can tell they are all purely cosmetic. The new items should also be very easy to sell, especially the ones that allow players to change talents.

Jewelcrafting

Legion will bring with it the return of Prospecting. Not just that, it will also be introducing Mass Prospecting. This is certainly a welcome change from Warlords of Draenor. Unfortunately it seems that most gear will not have a guaranteed slot for a gem, with one exception: epic jewelry crafted by Jewelcrafters have a guaranteed prismatic gem slot.

I find this very interesting. Raiders will certainly be buying every piece of gear that they can find that qualifies as BiS and any piece of gear which can hold a gem, guaranteed, will have a great chance of selling. And those same gems are also created through Jewelcrafting.

I see this as something of a compromise, and something that should improve the state of Jewelcrafting. Blizzard does not seem to want to return gems to the status that they once held, multiple slots in almost every piece of gear. But they also seem to understand that the profession was hit very hard with the complete removal of guaranteed gem slots.

In the upcoming days the other topics I will bring up will be mounts and bags.