9.1.5 is rapidly approaching, and with it we will likely see a small revitalization of retail WoW. Shadowlands is not in the most popular space right now, but some of the changes in 9.1.5 will bring some players back at least. Let’s look at the most relevant changes from a goldmaking perspective.
The important changes
There are a couple of very important changes coming in 9.1.5, three in particular stand out.
- Soul Cinders is uncapped
- Free covenant swaps
- Increased material drop rates
Together these three changes will have some very significant effects on the legendary market. Ultimately the effects break down into either affecting the supply of legendaries or the demand.
Increased material drop rates
The screenshot above shows all the relevant drop rate increases in 9.1.5. This covers all the major material that constitute the majority of costs for legendaries.
Overall I expect this to decrease prices subtstantially, and by a larger factor than 20%. Now, this is not going to be absolutely instant, as there are some demand effects as we will see, but long term materials will be a lot cheaper than they are right now.
Rank 6 galore
The two other changes have one common effect. They will let players get much easier access to their offspecs, as well as the necessary soul cinders to craft legendaries for them. What does that mean? Well, I would expect there to be a huge short term burst in rank 6 legendary demand.
You can now farm one in much fewer torghast runs, and you are not limited by the weekly reset.
Patch week
Patch week might get very crazy. I expect the sale rate for rank 6 legendaries to be extremely high as players finish off any offspecs they are interested in testing, or even just dust off an alt. Some servers might run out of Korthite Crystals, as the drop rate for these is not changing, and that will likely be a huge bottle neck on patch day.
Long term
Longer term I expect the value of all legendaries to fall. Cheaper materials means cheaper legendaries. Another factor will be that demand is no longer tied to the weekly reset, so auction houses will no longer run out on Wednesdays. This will make resets more risky and probably drive down your average sale price a little bit. I also think that demand for rank 4 will collapse. These have sold really well throughout 9.1, but with easy access to soul cinders more players will prefer to go straight into rank 6.
Preparations?
If you want to prepare, the safest bet is to stock up on korthite crystals. I would also suggest scaling down inventory levels for any legendaries that are not rank 6, even not restocking and letting them go to zero until a little after the patch might be quite good.
If you want to make a risky play then stocking up a decent amount of rank 6 legendaries, particularly in non shard of domination slots is the play. I’ve had youtube commenters talk about going up to 30 of each, a more modest approach is 5, either way you are taking on some risk as you need to sell these within the first week, since material prices will fall.
What are you doing?
I’ll probably get up to about 5-10 of each for the most in-demand legendary slots. What are your plans? Will you prepare, or just go with the flow?