Friday, December 2, 2011

Patch 4.3 First Week Experiences

My Auctions Window looked a lot like this the entire first three days. 
 
Patch 4.3 dropped on Tuesday this week and I must say I've had quite a bit more enjoyment this time around versus 4.2 where I was left with too small a supply to sale anything and the content did not fit my play style. Here in list form are some of my initial experiences and observations on the new patch. 
 
  •  Some of the best improvements for myself were small quality of life changes that weren't even in the patch notes.  
Cataclysm gems are autostacking correctly when crafted, transmutes like Inferno Rubies are a 1.5 second cast, and enchantment scrolls now fit into Enchanting bags. There are probably more I haven't even discovered yet! These quality of life improvements prove to me Blizzard does devote some of its man hours thinking about us customers and not just focusing on cranking textures out for that new sword you got.
  • Epic gems so far aren't practical for gold makers yet on my server. 
They are slowly filtering into trade chat and the auction house between 4-10k depending on color but to this point at least there seems to be little demand for paying thousands of gold for one. Some gems have been sitting on the AH since the night of the patch and buyers privately and in trade are expressing a need for the price to drop to stir any demand. I'm largely staying out of this and waiting for gems to pile up and eventually sharply undercut each other to force a sale and that is already happening even with "good" colors like purple.
  • Material markets are largely unchanged by the patch here. 
Volatiles have proven poor stockpile choices this entire expansion it seems and 4.3 is no different. Chaos orbs as most people suspected have dropped to sub-100g prices rather quickly as people liquidate them. It may be worth the gamble to pick up the cheapest ones and hope they level out in the coming weeks a bit higher and I think this might happen because Chaos orbs remain as a requirement on high-end pieces. Herbs proved a good choice to stock up on especially Heartblossom as it was skirting close to 20g a stack up to last minute before the patch and instantly went to 10-15g per herb post patch as JCers cleared them out raising the bottom price for Inferno Ruby production. Lastly, uncommon gems not named Carnelian remained high at 10-20g per depending on color as people madly bought them up to shuffle into Enchanting mats.
  • Epics from the new 5-mans flooding in, but maintaining price better than Troll epics did.
I attribute the pricing to the fact these are 278 which is still the best ilevel gear some people can access while the Troll dungeon stuff was almost outdated by the time it was released. A few pieces have been posted very low and I've taken the risk of collecting a few for resale in just a little bit predicting that they will level out higher. I'll let you all know :p
  • Mogging so far hasn't garnered too much interest though pieces are moving that wouldn't have before.
I have sold the Blade of Wizardry that sat rotting for months on the AH, and an eye patch or two, but overall I don't see anyone really trying yet on my server and definitely don't see the love stories with mogging I've read on Twitter either from a buyer or seller point of view. Perhaps this is a ripe opportunity for someone to find the right pieces to flip and take over that market like when I started listing wrath rare gems by myself earlier in the expansion. 

  • Jewelcrafting always delivers for me and this patch I was more prepared to take in the opportunity.
I had been slowly preparing for awhile for the eventual patch by saving back extra Carnelians or when I found cheap ones. This paid off on game day because I had stock to keep gems flowing on the AH for at least the first three busy days. Prices of select gems had inflated but overall it was volume sold and not increased per gem profits that really made the money. My only regret is I didn't predict the same level of success with Ember Topaz cuts and was left out on those after just one night.

My story for the day is from patch night itself where I really could only play from ~9:30 PM to 12:30 AM. Around 10:30-11 I noticed all of my Bold Inferno Rubies were starting to be bought the second I listed them. I looked and another "AH player" on my server that usually stays to material and enchanting markets was buying them all up. He had cleared the AH of Bold cuts and was posting his at outrageous prices which prompted my TSM to list mine at fallback - a full 200g less than he was trying for but still more than Bolds go for normally. I decided to liquidate several stacks of rubies into him. After over 5 stacks of Bold Infernos I decided to test him out and up my fallback.  He noticed quickly and began assaulting me with angry whispers including "Just so you know I've sold a stack of bolds at my price you are just cheating yourself out of money" and degenerating into threats about how he has 3 million gold and could own me, etc etc. He also stops buying my bolds. Since my server dies around midnight I log off for the night knowing I wouldn't get many sales afterward. I notice when I get up the next morning at 8 AM bolds were already down well below what he was buying them from me at. I can't help but wonder if he was able to sale half a dozen stacks of gems in the middle of the night on a dead server.... :P

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I will be testing the waters on this blog thing for a bit and would appreciate any feedback from those that reach the page. You can reach me here in the comments, on Twitter @formerruling, and on my YouTube channel FormerRuling

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