We keep getting news from the PTR, this time the crafting cost at the runecarver for a rank 7 legendary is up, and this has some important ramifications.
What is Cosmic Flux?
Cosmic flux is the new currency introduced in 9.2. It is used for among others upgrading legendaries to rank 7, and purchasing the new double covenant legendary from the Enlightened Reputation. The acquisition rate of this currency, as well as what you can use this for will obviously have some important ramifications, so let’s look at the current status.
Acquisition
Acquisition is going to work similarly to Echoes of Nyalotha from 8.3. You will get Flux from most activities, including the new weekly quest, as well as potentially from world quests, dailies and other activities. We don’t know the full story, but as of right now there does not seem to be a weekly cap on these, meaning you can farm however many you want as fast as possible. If this means you can upgrade legendaries on day one that will obviously have a huge impact, but legendary crafting may be limited by the recipe availability or locked behind quest progression.
Rank 7 upgrades
Rank 7 upgrades will cost you 2000 Cosmic Flux. Since we don’t know the acquisition rate, this number does not tell us much in isolation, but we can compare it to other things you can use Flux for, primarily the new covenant legendary belt and the legendary power unity you can use to craft the same effect on another legendary if you want to.
The covenant legendary
As of the current build the covenant belt legendary is item level 265 and will cost you 2500 Cosmic Flux. Presumably you will have to pay another 2000 flux to upgrade it to item level 291. The runecarving power on the other hand clocks in at just 500. Assuming you have to pay the flux upgrade, you will end up paying 2000 more Cosmic Flux if you choose the belt. This may or may not be a big deal. It depends on how much work it is to grind Flux.
What if flux is the time gate
If Flux is time consuming to farm, or time-gated in some fashion, then we will likely see players prefering to craft a new Unity legendary. That would make Cosmic Flux the most hard to get resource, and it will be much better to craft a new unity legendary from scratch. That would potentially mean high rank 6 demand just after the players reach the necessary reputation level, or players go straight to rank 7 if they have the flux.
What if it isnt?
If flux is not a time gate or bottle neck, then we might expect more players to prioritize the belt. Assuming players will have enough flux for a straight rank 7 upgrade by then, it is uncertain if this will save them any gold though, as they will still likely need a rank 7 base item to get the highest ilvl possible.
Rank 7 belts could be good
If the belt legendary has to be upgraded, then belts might actually become a very sought after slot, but only for rank 7 legendaries. Everyone who got the belt from the enlightened will need a rank 7 legendary, which might be a large portion of the player base.
Still PTR Though
This is all still on the PTR; so we won’t know for certain for a while. Either way the moment players get access to Enlightened reputation at the level where the new memory unlocks we will see some very significant rank 7 legendary demand, so prepare accordingly!