Making Gold on the Dragon Soul Nerf

Posted by Aleithia at 8:00 AM

Back in September, I wrote an article about how to make gold with the nerf to the Firelands raid. If you'll recall, the premise was that Blizzard wanted more guilds to experience the raid content, so they they made a substantial nerf to the difficulty of the raid.

Now, they are at it again, this time with the Dragon Soul raid. You should go back and re-read the Firelands article because much of it applies to this new nerf. The big difference this time is that there are actually three levels of difficulty for Dragon Soul: Looking For Raid (LFR), Normal and Heroic. Rather than a substantial nerf all at once, the devs are also returning to the Icecrown Citadel style, with a progressive 5% nerf over time (as opposed to a 5% character power increase in ICC).

Smoothing Out the Curve
Prior to the Firelands nerf, sales were lagging across most industries. I remember Inferno Rubies sitting around 90g for the cut variety, then going up to 140g after the nerfs, but working their way back down within a few weeks. Sales were on a steady decline, but the nerf brought a large spike, then a relatively quick return to the steady decline. The spike was the abnormality.

But now we have the LFR difficulty. As a casual raider, this has been wonderful. I've been able to upgrade gear in ways I've never been able to before. At best, my upgrades were limited to Valor Point items after exhausting the current-tier dungeons. Now, however, VP gear is the consolation price and LFR is providing my gear upgrades. Some weeks I don't get any, but some weeks I get multiple upgrades. Across three characters participating in LFR, I get about 4-5 upgrades each week.

More importantly, I've learned encounters in a way I was never able to do in the past. Already this tier, I've done more Dragon Soul Raiding than I did in all but the final month of Firelands. Now I can understand the fights and adjust from the LFR starting point and do more Normal mode raiding. This has netted additional upgrades to my gear as well.

Trending Up

The result of 3 tiers of difficulty for raiding has been a smoother progression path for characters. Tiers and their gear iLevels:

• Hour of Twilight Heroics (378)
• Dragon Soul LFR (384)
• Dragon Soul Normal / Valor Gear (397)
• Dragon Soul Heroic (410)

This smoother progression path has propped up sales far longer than previous patches. Consider Brilliant Inferno Rubies, a leading, high-end commodity in gear upgrades. Currently, the US average for Brilliants according to AHSpy.com is 291g (Alliance) and 284g (Horde). After a strong initial surge with the release of patch 4.3 to as high as 400-450g/Brilliant on many realms, prices settled to a range of 260-280g. Now, nearly 2 months since the release, prices have remained steady because of increased demand overall.

I suspect that many more people are experiencing content across all levels. LFR has been wildly successful. I suspect it's also boosted participation in Normal modes and to some extent Heroic. This translates into more players getting more upgrades more regularly, which results in steady or even increased demand. Now, at the end of January, we start getting progressive nerfs, almost like mini-patches, that will allow more people to move farther through Normal modes and into Heroic. With each nerf, you'll see an increase in sales. Unlike previous patches, instead of prices trending downward throughout the lifecycle of the patch, they seem to be holding steady and even trending up.

This is good for auctioneers. So what to expect? Some quick-hit thoughts:

• Increased enhancement markets (gems, enchants, leg armors)
• Increased raw material prices (ores, leather and enchanting mats especially)
• Decreased Essence of Destruction prices
• Decreased Epic gem prices
• Decreased Pattern prices

 What are you expecting from the nerfs? How are you planning to capitalize on them?