We are rapidly approaching Shadowlands and now is the time to take stock of which BfA items are likely to retain value into Shadowlands. These are recipes you should get, and items you should stock up on during the last months of BfA when material prices get lower and lower.
What retains value?
Cosmetic items and utility items are usually the only types of items that retain significant value after an expansion. Most of the power-increasing items get eclipsed by items from the new expansion and fall by the wayside. Although there are some exceptions, Mark of the Hidden Satyr enchants from legion for instance, this is the general rule that holds true. For cosmetic items the usual trend is that mount holds by far the most value. Transmog will too, but it sells slower, and the same is the case for battle pets. For utility items you have things like talent reset tomes, bags and items like goblin glider kits. All of these will usually be cheaper than the equivalents from the new expansion for a while, and are worthwhile to stock up.
Crafting professions
For crafting professions we will only really focus on mounts and utility items. Most of the crafted gear will retain some value as transmog, but it is fairly low and should not be a focus. The main items to focus on will be the two crafted mounts from engineering and blacksmithing, Deep sea bags, Tomes of the Quiet Mind and glyphs.
For all of these I would start stocking up now, keeping most of it in the bank. Build up a stockpile that you can slowly sell off throughout Shadowlands. The only one I would not stock massively is the mecha-mogul. Farming the BoP materials will likely be faster in Shadowlands than now, so I would only stock up on the tradeable materials so you are ready to go.
Farmed items
There will also be a ton of BoE drops that are relevant here. If you have the capital it can be well worth it to buy some of the 2×4 farmed mounts, or items that drop from Island Expeditions. These are likely to have reduced supply eventually in Shadowlands. This can be more risky as some of these farms may be efficient enough at level 60 that they will be easier to farm in the future, so don’t invest more than you feel comfortable with.
How much should you invest
This depends on how much gold you have. You should probably have at least 1 million before you even consider investing heavily. All of the items I listed in this post are items that will at best see a fairly slow increase in value. There will be other players stocking up on these items and it will usually take some time before the stockpiles deplete. For materials I would suggest buying during the pre-patch. At this point players start just clearing out their bags completely in preparation for Shadowlands and materials will likely hit bottom.
Personally I would invest somewhere between 10-40% of your gold, with a higher percentage if you have less gold. Somewhere in the 200k-2 million is reasonable, with the top only being attainable if you stock up on a lot of the mounts which is more risky than materials and crafted goods.
What are your thoughts? let me know below!