9.2 is adding new Crafter’s marks. The market for Crafter’s marks has been incredibly nice to me in 9.1, and it is a great beginner market for many reasons, so let’s start looking ahead to 9.2s variants!
Crafter’s mark basics
Crafter’s marks are optional reagents you can utilize when crafting the rare quality crafted armor in Shadowlands. The effect is to increase the item level to a higher level. This makes it quite useful as catch up gear for new characters freshly dinging level 60.
Crafter’s mark IV and Crafter’s mark of the First Ones
In 9.2 we are getting two new crafter’s mark, Mark 4 and Mark of the first Ones. CM4 sets an item to item level 233 and has no limitiations. This means that it will primarily be useful for completely new characters that hit level 60 in 9.2. Mark of the First Ones is unique-equipped, so you can just have one piece at this item level, but the item level is 262. This means it will be an upgrade for most mythic raid geared characters going into 9.2, and demand will be very strong.
Lessons from 9.1
The structure of the two recipes is very similar to 9.1. They fill a similar item level niche this time as it did the last time. What happened in 9.1 was that the Crafter’s mark of the Chained Isle, which represented an upgrade even to mythic raiders had absolutely incredible demand when players unlocked it. Rings and necklaces are particularly popular as you can get perfect secondaries and a guaranteed socket. They were selling for 35 000 gold with a crafting cost around 5000.
Get the recipe fast
Whatever the source of the recipe for Crafter’s mark of the First ones, you will want to farm it as fast as possible. The recipe will likely have incredible demand when it is available and you can make a ton of gold crafting these items. This time around it does use materials from the new zone, which will likely make it quite expensive.
Will alchemy reign supreme again?
Down the line people realized that the alchemy Chained Isle recipe was significantly cheaper than anything else, and they could undercut the price so anyone with alchemy was priced out. With the addition of the new zone materials I don’t expect to see this happen too soon. The new materials will likely represent a huge portion of the cost, particularly the Progenitor Essentia, which is also used in rank 7 legendaries. Eventually we might see something similar, but it’s very hard to predict the price of the various new materials. If you have the opportunity to be flexible then prepping four crafters so all of them can have the perfect secondary profession might make sense, but for the first couple of weeks it is very unlikely to matter.
Good luck!