With the last minute changes to patch 9.0 the optimal time to exit the BfA markets has changed, so let’s take a look at what a good timing can be.
Market types
We’ll look at a couple of different markets with different characteristics, as different items and uses have very different market mechanics.
- Cosmetics
- Consumables
- Gear
- Gear enhancements
Cosmetics
For BfA cosmetics you should obviously not exit the market. For many items there price will be the cheapest in a long time right now and you may want to invest. This includes BfA World drop mounts, crafted mounts, Island expedition transmog and others.
For all these items you should not be looking to exit, but to pick up cheap stock to sell throughout Shadowlands and beyond.
Consumables
Consumables are mostly bought for their power increasing effects. Since the effects are temporary these are only used in actual end-game dungeons. Most players will have finished their goals for BfA, so they are not willing to pay too much for consumables, but as long as BfA is live there is nothing else to do than actually play the game. I expect the price will trend downwards but that they will sell all the way until SL launch. You also get a nice potential bump from players looking to level with flasks to speed it up.
Gear
Gear is doing extremely well at the moment. Catch up gear is fantastic as players take advantage of the revamped leveling to level alts. This is one of the best markets right now. As the power gained is permanent this will help players in Shadowlands leveling as well so I expect gear sales will be strong all the way up to SL launch. Unlike consumables it will quickly fall of a cliff though until the items eventually gain some value back as transmog.
Gear enhancements
Gear enhancements like gems and enchants are in a very similar boat as gear when it comes to usefulness right now. The main difference is that these items usually do not retain value. They have no cosmetic effects. in some cases they have turned out to be useful in specific scaling scenarios, and that may happen again, but nothing is certain. Overall I would mostly be looking to exit these items as they are the least interesting, even if you can likely make gold for a couple more weeks.
A phase out plan
When it comes to phasing out these markets I would suggest sticking with all of them as long as there’s no release date for SL. All of the items mentioned here should sell well at least until the last week, and most likely the last couple of days. You will want to scale back your crafting the last week or two to make sure you don’t end up with too much wasted stock going into SL. Many players exit too early and you can take advantage of this to make some very nice last minute gold.