On twitter the other day JdotB of the Golden Guardians MDi team tweeted that he thinks Blizzard should nerf the cost of rank 5 and 6 legendaries. Let’s discuss if they should!
R4s at launch
R4 legendaries were very expensive when they were first available. Particularly leatherworking legendaries were incredibly expensive, but Blizzard did not do anything then. Prices above 200k where not unheard of, with Heavy Callous Hides selling for 1000 gold or more. Many players were up in arms about the cost of leatherworking legendaries at the time and expected and wanted Blizzard to change the cost.
R5 and 6 costs is 90% korthite Crystals
The cost for R5 and R6 is 90% the cost for the required 40 Korthite Crystals. The rest of the materials represent a comparably much smaller amount of gold, and are not particularly impactful on the overall cost. Korthite crystals are obtained by anyone doing Korthia. I expect most players who have done Korthia a lot since launch will by now have obtained enough korthite crystals for one rank 5 or 6 legendary. As such the real cost is not actually that high. Players can sell the korthite they get from doing korthia and use that to fund a legendary. Since the major cost of crafting the item is something you have to buy from other players the actual outlay should not be too high.
Korthite will fall
Right now players will have enough Soul Cinders to craft their first rank 6 legendary. I expect many players will leave it at that and not craft a second one right now, as they are so expensive. I expect demand to start falling off, and supply for korthite crystals will continue increasing relative to the demand. I expect that over the next month or so prices will start decreasing and naturally hit a more reasonable level.
Should Blizzard intervene?
I’m obviously biased as I’m making huge stacks of gold from these items. I don’t think it’s necessary for Blizzard to nerf the cost, but I can see the case. With korthite representing the majority of the cost and that being something that players can relatively easily obtain to fund their legendaries I don’t really see it as necessary.