This post was written by Eluniar for our guild forums and I thought it was relevant to pass along.
Just as a heads up, the current Ebonsteel Belt Buckle is available at 525 blacksmithing and can be used on anything ilvl 500 or lower. The Ebonsteel Belt Buckle will be changed to only affect items 375 or lower. This change could be implemented as soon as 5.0.
What does this mean?
If you get a belt from:
- Hour of Twilight
- Firelands (Normal/Heroic)
- Dragonsoul (Normal/Heroic)
- Firelands Vendors
- JP+VP Vendors
- Any other belt > 375 iLevel
. . . you will not be able to socket it with an additional socket until you get a Panda belt buckle Living Steel Belt Buckle. This belt buckle currently has no ilvl requirement, requires a Blacksmith at 600 skill who is honored with Klaxxi reputation and picked up the plans, and has living steel. Living steel is only made once per day through alchemy, or multiple extra times ignoring the cooldown via farming a ton of spirits of harmony.
What this ultimately means: if you have the option of getting a belt upgrade now, get it now and you can put a socket it in. Any belts over 375 (which basically means 378+ belts) will not be socketable until a bit into MOP.
As for what this means for a gold making perspective . . . liquidate any belt buckle stock you have now! There's no guarantee when this change will take place but after some discussion Eluniar and I both imagine it will likely happen on Tuesday. Better safe than sorry, if you have any precrafted belt buckles try and get them sold this week.
Why would you want to liquidate current stock now?
ReplyDeleteWhy not sell them to leveling characters and twinks in the higher brackets after the change /expansion start?
Item level requirements for enchants, gems, buckles etc are good for keeping a demand for the older items. I don't see how this is a bad thing or why you are recommending to liquidate.
Even the Eternal Belt Buckle still sells because of the item level restrictions of the Ebonsteel Buckle.
It'll depend on the server and how much stock people are talking, of course. Given a server like mine (20g belt buckles of any type with an incoming nosedive in demand and a nearly nonexistent twink population) I think it's best to get what you can out of the buckles while you can.
DeleteThe item level certainly could keep demand up . . . but the problem is it keeps demand up in a niche market. Well, some will call it a problem, some will consider it a bonus. In a situation like mine and many others the demand that their server will see for such a niche item may never allow one to profit given crafting costs. Good hell, the average Alliance price for your Eternals mentioned is 35g and I can't imagine holding onto some belt buckles for years just for a 35g sale.
I've already been doing what I can to liquidate anything based around Cata end-game gear, so those are already on the chopping block for me.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm more interested in is the new belt buckles. I think the fact that they're both gated behind reputation and require Living Steel should keep the prices much higher than otherwise. This actually works out very well for me, because I was planning on giving my main blacksmithing because of the bonuses for raiding, as well as having a stable of alchemists. So basically, good news all around for me.
I think it's both a blessing and a curse the new belt buckles are gated so behind rep. I certainly didn't need much further motivation to grind up the rep to get the pattern (the flying disk mount is just so cool!), but over time this will ensure other people looking for a niche market will move in anyway and considering the effort required to get the pattern, people will be probably more stubborn about holding market share.
ReplyDeleteThe Cata buckles are crashing hard on my server now, going for barely above mats cost and generally are not even worth the time to craft and sell. Indeed, I'm liquidating as well just to clear stock, although this week with the patch, I expect a small(ish) burst as people gear for one last time to test out the new talents pre-mop.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete