We are getting very close to Battle for Azeroth now, with the pre-patch coming just around the corner. I will discontinue my Goblin Mindset series until further notice and focus completely on the new expansion, preparations and tips!

Today I will dive a bit more into what my focus will be on early in the expansion and why! I mentioned this in my BfA prep post, but today I will go deeper.

What characterizes the early phases of an expansion

In my post on the major phases of an expansion I dubbed the first phase “The Launch”. I’m just going to quote from that article:

“Just after launch gold making is at it’s most dynamic. Markets have not established themselves at all. The majority of players will be focusing on leveling and gearing up as well as unlocking recipes. Materials are typically very expensive as the supply is way lower than demand.

This phase is characterized by a lot of niches being discovered and utilized. If you find a good niche and hit it hard you can make hundreds of thousands in a day. This is the most exciting part of an expansion by far as you get to enjoy finding new markets and making them work.

Crafted gear will typically be red hot as players look to gear up quickly. Getting the right recipes early will get you a ton of gold.”

Some important trends

Below I will cover some of the most important trends you need to be aware of.

Players are gearing up

This is perhaps the most important thing to note in the early expansion times. Players will be working hard at gearing up. Contrary to what some players may believe there is a massive market for crafted gear, even if it is worse than mythic dungeon gear.

The first part of an expansion is the absolute best time to craft gear. Good stat combinations will often heavily outperform slightly higher Ilvl gear. Nowhere is this more evident than for the item slots that do not have a primary stat. Crafted rings will likely be a massive market in the early days of BfA.

If you have armor crafting professions I would be really happy. Work hard at unlocking the higher ranks and craft your heart away!

Players are leveling professions

Materials are extremely high in demand both for leveling professions and for crafting stuff. Material prices will never be higher, so gathering is certainly a possibility. I much prefer crafting however as crafting competition will never be lower, and demand never higher.

Leveling professions is capital intensive, and not everyone can afford to. Getting new recipes early mean you will be in a very low competition setting and you can crank out crafts at exorbitant profit margins, and stuff will still sell really quickly.

For this reason I absolutely suggest focusing on crafting professions. I tried gathering in Legion, but I honestly didn’t like it much. What little you gather while running around is not going to move the needle much. In my opinion you will only get value from gathering if you play focused farming sessions. If you like that it is a great option, but I don’t think it’s optimal unless you have a lot of time available for farming.

New niches will be discovered

There will be niches that are hard to see before launch. Some of these will be extreme gold rushes where you can get a million gold or more profit in a day if you hit it hard. Others will be longer term markets you can make out like a bandit in. The bracers for the obliterum forge in Legion was one such market.

To get the most out of this you want to have as many professions as possible available. Having an extra alt early can mean a TON of extra gold from these niche discoveries. You also want to have enough gold on hand to effectively invest. Gold prices on everything will be inflated and gold making will be quite capital intensive.

Don’t spend all your gold on slow to move transmog now!

Summing it up

Based on the trends above my main suggestions are:

• Focus on leveling first
• Level alts if you can
• Focus on crafting professions
• Armor professions will be great
• Be ready to pounce when opportunities show themselves
• Keep gold on hand
• Don’t go for gathering professions unless you plan on doing dedicated farming

Good luck!

If you want to level up your gold making consider supporting my Patreon.