We are now two weeks out from patch 8.1 and it is about time to take a dive into the upcoming profession changes. There’s now a lot more details out on the specific changes that are coming so we can take a look at it.

Overview of the changes

First let’s take a quick look at the headline changes of the patch. I will only be mentioning the changes that are relevant for gold making opportunities.

The two major changes that impact gold making is of course the addition of a second warfront with separate contributions and the batch of new profession recipes we get. I covered parts of the warfront changes in the podcast yesterday, so today we will focus on the profession changes.

For a more detailed overview of all the new stuff I suggest heading to WoWheads coverage.

Top level profession changes

The biggest change that’s coming in 8.1 is the addition of new recipes for crafted item level 340 gear. All of this gear follows the Combatant naming convention and it will be in all the slots that the Honorable Combatant gear currently fills.

In addition to this there are several recipes getting their crafting cost changed, particularly for consumables.

We will go through the professions and the changes below and highlight how they may impact the economy in 8.1.

All of the information is sourced from Wowhead’s patch coverage and PTR datamining.

Alchemy

The major change for alchemy is the reduction in crafting cost across the board. Most notably a reduction in Anchor weed cost for flasks from 5 to 3 for ranks 2 and 3. This will heavily decrease the crafting cost, and should also bring down the price of Anchor weed and the flasks themselves. Getting your inventory as low as possible as we get close to 8.1 is definitely the best way to go about this change. Don’t stock up on tons of flasks just before 8.1 goes live. In addition there are some new BoP trinkets and reductions in herb costs for most of the potions. Overall this means that prices should fall for all the herbs and all the potions.

Blacksmithing

Blacksmithing is getting a nice set of new recipes for item level 340 gear.

The gear is completely analogous to the honorable combatant gear and fills the same slots. Contrary to the honorable combatant gear the sinister combatant gear requires expulsom across all recipe ranks.

The new items are quite a bit more expensive to craft. They generally have the same cost in storm silver, but they also require Platinum ore and expulsom. The expulsom cost is lower at higher recipe ranks so getting rank 3 recipes will be a major factor. The only way to get the recipes is to do PvP for marks of honor, so hopefully you have them saved up.

Blacksmiths don’t currently use platinum ore, so demand for platinum ore should rise when 8.1 launches and everyone rushes to make the new items.

Enchanting

Enchanting is getting a new item level 340 crafted wand as well as some reductions to the less popular weapon enchants. They are also getting recipes that allow you to turn sanguicells and Breath of Bwonsamdi into Expulsom. This last one could be very useful for expulsom shuffling if you have a large stockpile of sanguicell. The new weapon will likely sell to some degree, but it shares slots with several other weapons and will likely not be a massive profit maker. There’s no major material changes so I don’t expect anything major to change at all.

Engineering

The crafting costs for the grenades is getting reduced in 8.1 and Engineers are getting access to new item level 340 crafted weapons with a mace and a gun. The crafting costs for the new 340 weapons are slightly higher than the old 300/310 weapons in terms of platinum ore and will have a slight effect on the platinum demand. Engineers also get access to new BoP goggles, but these are much less relevant from a gold making point of view.

Inscription

Inscription is getting contracts for the Honorbound and the 7th Legion, a new Vantus rune for Dazar’alor and a new 340 off-hand. Overall these changes are very minor. The new 340 off-hand will likely sell at a decent clip, as I have found the current off’hands do. A major advantage is that the new off-han requries Ultramarine inks and viridescent inks, which means that we finally get a meaningful way to at least dump some ultramarines. Darkmoon decks should be unchanged and will likely still be profitable when 8.1 hits. Dazar’alor may change things here though.

Jewelcrafting

The only meaningful change to jewelcrafting is the addition of an item level 340 crafted caster staff. The crafting cost is so close to the cost for the current 300/310 staves that I don’t see this impacting the wider economy at all.

Leatherworking

Leatherworkers are getting the largest batch of new recipes out of all of the professions. New leather and mail recipes and a new bow all at item level 340. The new recipes require more Tempest Hides than the current ones, but outside of that the crafting costs are identical. The price on tempest hides may go up, and if demand for the new gear is higher than demand for the 300/310 gear we may see the price for calcified bones and mistscales change as well.

Tailoring

Tailoring is getting a set of new item level 340 armor. The armor requires Embroidered Deep Sea Satin in addition to deep sea satin. This means that these crafts will require more Tidespray Linen than the current batch. Couple this with the increase in expulsom costs due to the blacksmithing gear now requiring expulsom and I think tidespray linen will be hotly demanded when 8.1 rolls around. The new gear will likely sell, just like the current gear does.

Cooking

There are two major changes to cooking in 8.1. The first is a material cost reduction for feasts, with fewer midnight salmons required for the feasts at all recipe ranks. In addition to this there is a new stronger feast available. This one requires sanguicells, so you will have to run raids to be able to craft it. It gives 100 main stat and will probably be in demand. It does not require Midnight Salmons, so I expect demand for these will fall.

Overall summary

I think most of the new recipes will sell well. Some materials have very obvious changes in demand. I expect Tidespray Linen, Platinum Ore and Tempest Hides to be more valuable than they are now. Herbs will likely go down in price as they are used in much smaller quantities. The new gear will have crafting costs in the 1-5k range and will most likely be very popular at price levels below 10k, depending on your realm.

Go farm marks of honor if you can as getting a high recipe rank will be key in most of these markets, as the difference is quite big. Expulsom demand will also most likely go up which means that Blood-Stained bones, Coarse Leather, Shimmerscale and Tidespray Linen will all be popular.

Preparation tips

My main tip is to do PvP to get as many marks of honor as you can. Rank 3 recipes will help your profitability a lot. Outside of that I will get a decent stockpile of platinum ore and Tidespray Linen, as those are the only markets I dabble in and these materials can always be processed into either gems or expulsom to be efficiently moved. I will try to get rid of all my flasks and avoid sitting on herbs before 8.1 hits.

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