I’m writing this post fairly early. The information isn’t all here yet, but we will look at what we do know, and speculate based on the previous BfA patches to get to a better idea about what we need to do.
New content means more players
8.2 will ad new content in the form of a raid, several new zones and a new dungeon. Obviously we also get a new set of quests to continue the war campaign as well. The raid will obviously lead to an increase in demand for consumables. There is obviously room for prices to fall between now and then though, and it is always uncertain whether we get a price bump. The raid won’t open until some weeks after the patch either, so I would hold off on stocking flasks for a while.
Flying
Pathfinder part 2 and flying will be available in 8.2. This is by far the most significant change. This will make farming for materials faster than it is currently and will thus likely increase supply. I suggest checking out your realm on the undermine journal to see how Legion flying affected material prices on your realm. Either way you may want to avoid stocking up too much on materials like herbs and ores. Cloth and leather is less impacted by travel time as these are generally stationary farms.
Mount equipment
The various buff items will be turned into mount equipment slots that can get you the same buffs. Replacing your equipment will destroy it so the value here will depend on whether swapping is worth it or if something is always going to be best (like water-walking). Either way stocking up on materials required for the mount equipment crafts can be worth it. This will also diminish the value of the Sky Golem as it does not have an equipment slot, but we don’t know if there is an equipment that replaces that effect.
Professions
We get a ton of new crafts in 8.2. The most important ones are new potions and flasks, new Notorious combatant armor, new weapon enchants, new gems and new inscription trinkets. All of these will replace the old variants as they are significantly better than the old ones.
Alchemy
The new flasks will require the new Zinanthid herb from Nazjatar alongside Anchor weed and various BfA herbs. They will require less of the regular herbs, but the same amount of Anchor weed. This will likely lead to decreases in the herb prices as the volume needed decreases. This is the same for the new potions that also require Zinanthid and much fewer of the current BfA herbs, so I think herb prices will be going down significantly.
Blacksmithing
The new Notorious combatant gear will require the new Osmenite Ore and Storm Silver ore as well as the familiar Expulsom. The major change is of course no Platinum ore which will contribute to the value of Platinum decreasing. Crafting up Expulsom ahead of time as well as farming marks of honor to get the higher rank recipes on patch day is where you can generate value here.
Enchanting
Enchanting will get both new weapon enchants and ring enchants. The new ring enchants are both better and cheaper and will be displacing the current ones, so do not stock up on enchants. With the decreased cost as well we can expect material prices to go down. Stocking up some materials is still likely optimal to be able to craft a lot of new enchants on day 1 though, as the AH may temporarily run dry. The new weapon enchants on the other hand require more Veiled crystals than the current ones. Veiled Crystals are likely the bottle neck on patch day, but it will pass and return to a similar or lower equilibrium.
Inscription
Inscription gets a new set of tokens. The crafting cost is the new maroon ink, which is likely obtained from Zinanthid as well as expulsom and some of the old BfA inks. The crafting costs look like a placeholder. The trinkets are item level 400 and are likely to be highly in demand. Until we know more it’s hard to say what sort of preparation makes sense here.
Jewelcrafting
Jewelcrafters get a new ore to prospect and a full set of new gems. With the new gems being better than the current crop I expect the value of platinum ore to go disappear completely. It’s no longer used for blacksmithing either, so you want to get out of that. Your gems will likely be quite worthless as well. It looks like the new ore will be mass prospectable so time to get ready for some AFK crafting. The new gems will include a Leviathan’s eye that replaces Kraken’s eyes as well so none of them will keep value.
Leatherworking
Leatherworkers get a new set of Notorious combatant pieces. The leather pieces will use the new Dredged Leather, Tempest Hides and Blood-stained bones. The tempest hides volumes are still low, so don’t expect the price to increase. Expulsom and Marks of honor will be the way to prepare. The Mail pieces will use the new Cragscale, Mistscale and Blood-stained Bones. This means that Calcified bones are now completely worthless, maybe they get removed as they literally do not serve a purpose anymore.
Tailoring
Tailors also get Notorious combatant gear. They require the new Cloth material, Gilded Seawave, and deep sea satin alongside the Expulsom. The volume for Deep Sea Satin is once again fairly low so expect the price to go down here as well. Preparations are mostly going to be expulsom and marks of honor, but keeping a small stockpile of deep sea satin will ensure you can craft throughout the first week as the AH may run temporarily dry.
Materials that could increase in value
There aren’t that many as most of the new crafts will be heavily limited by the new materials. The only old material that could see an increase in demand is Tidespray Linen as Expulsom crafting takes off for all the new items. I don’t think it will increase much though as it is already very abundant and easy to farm.
Best preparations
My best tips is to stock up on expulsom and marks of honor if you have an armor profession. The Sinister combatant gear was amazing for the first weeks of 8.1 and history will likely repeat. You should also stock up a little bit on the old BFA material needed to ensure you can craft throughout the first week. 1-3000 should be enough, but it depends a little bit on the market.
Hello there! Just a quick question about BoE / Material flipping: Would you stop buying new BoE’s / Materials for flipping now that 8.2 is ahead of us? It seems like both of them will lose a lot of value with next patch because higher item lvl / less of the old materials needed for crafting.
Ill be buying boes a little while longer, and I think you can do materials until 2 weeks out. Some materials are safer tha n others. Platinum I would ditch early, but I would keep flipping tidespray.
That sounds reasonable! Do you think it’s a good time to get started now with BoE / Material flipping though? I’m really just trying to learn the basics and I imagine it’d be kinda frustrating to blow all my gold right at the beginning. My frea is basically that my BoE’s / Material won’t sell fast enough and then I’ll sit on them and lost a good amount of gold since they’re probaly losing on value with the next patch.
Now is a terrible time to start BoE flipping. Material flipping can work for Tidespray Linen, Coarse Leather, Shimmerscale, Blood-stained Bones, Meaty Haunch and Stringy loins. Most others will likely lose a lot of value with 8.2
That helps a lot. Thank you for your help and keep up the amazing work! 🙂
Hello I was curious of your thoughts on anchor weed. With new flasks but the same amount of anchor weed I feel that while its 30g now (no one wants or needs it for flasks cause content is dead) is a good time to stock up for when the new flasks call for anchor weed and people go to craft them. I get that flying will lower prices but id imagine a rep gated flying achieve usually takes a few weeks.. but then again the raid might open that same time. Worst case craft flasks to break even i think.
Anchor weed is a good candidate for investment, depends how quickly people get the new rank 3 recipes and how much flask demand there is, but it wont fall at least.