Today we will take a look at what is coming in later phases in TBC and how you can prepare now to be in position to take advantage of it.

Everything is known

One important caveat before going into anything in terms of preparation is that we know everything that is coming. That means everyone will be able to come to the same conclusions I cover here. This has in many cases lead to situations where a lot of people invest for the next phase and the price spikes up when the next phase is announced, not when it is actually released.

TBC doesnt change much

One important thing to note about TBC is that patches do not add too much in terms of new items or new demand. Every raid does have new epic crafted recipes, so the items used in some of those will see a spike when the new phase opens up, but the same is true for a lot of items already in the game like gems, potions and flasks which will see higher demand when a new phase rolls around and increases the activity levels.

Primals

Primals are used in pretty much every crafted epic item throughout TBC. Primal Fire and Primal Air are particularly good. Obviously they have already had tremendous value in phase 1. The demand from new recipes is also on the more limited side, so I think the potential for investing in primals for later phases is limited, but not zero.

Fuel the influx

Big releases including new phases always brings an influx of old and new players. In addition players are always rerolling. This means that entry level gearing crafts usually remain good throughout an expansion. This is particularly true for the cheaper crafts. Many players will think nothing of just dropping a couple of hundred gold on their character as soon as they hit level 70. Most pre-bis crafted items that had value in phase 1 will retain value in later phases, with the added bonus that many crafters will focus on other markets.

Epic gems

Phase 3 adds epic gems. They can’t be prospected which usually means that the profit for cutting gems is quite low. Having a jewelcrafter ready will be nice, but getting the recipes will require you to farm the raids, so unless it is your main or you have time to play multiple characters the potential is on the limited side. That being said the price of the actual gems will likely be very high initially, so if you are a jewelcrafter you want to be ready.

Phase 3 and 5 cooldown cloth

In Phase 3 and 5 the new tailoring recipes use cooldown cloth. This is particularly interesting for Phase 5 as the new epics from the Sunwell require a LOT of cooldown cloth. For phase 3 the quantities are much lower, and the profit potential is smaller. You can prepare both by having some tailor alts or just by saving your cloth when approaching these phases. You can also consider investing in some cloth, but that does entail more risk obviously.