Preparing for WotLK

With the Wrath of the Lich King expansion only 2 months away from release I am lifting my self-imposed NDA on WotLK information. The talents are solidifying, 3.0.2 is on the PTR and the pre-wotlk content patch can't be far away either. So now is the time to take up that wayward shared topic from BlogAzeroth and see what we need to do to prepare for Wrath.

... but what to take? What to stockpile? What is still worth anything come wrath?


A few quick checks on various sites and item databases and we can already see this:

1. Inscription will be available. A new profession pretty much reliant on herbalism meaning that the prices of plants of any shape and form will rise and stay on the rise for quite a while.
2. WotLK will reset the Arena points as soon as you level past 70 meaning farming arena is purely for the purpose of getting levelling gear atm.
3. Honor/Marks will not reset and could be farmed.
4. According to various WotLK crafting recipes primals are still alive and kicking but all the other tradeskills will get a new tier of resources (i.e new cloths, leathers, plants, etc.). Primal prices will be somewhat unpredictable for a while.
5. Speed enhancing items such as the carrot on the stick will no longer work and you won't be able to pick up flight again until lvl 77 with cold weather flying. Speed enhancers from talents stay the same (i.e. still functional).
6. Talents have changed massively, stat distribution on items likewise. Spirit and strength are becoming more interesting stats for casters / melee respectively and a lot of stats have been rolled into one (+healing +spell damage go to spellpower etc.).
7. Death Knights will be introduced and start at lvl 55. This means there will be a greater demand for various tradeskill materials (DK's powerlevelling professions) and an unhealthy demand for level 55+ quality items.


So what does all this mean?

Looking at the various crafting skills we see that very little will change. Demand for resources with the notable exception of herbs will stay more or less steady but there will be a slight decline of available Outland resources as people level past outland (followed by a bit of a price hike). The only reasonable thing to stockpile here is herbs and maybe maintaining a small stockpile of other materials for people that are powerlevelling their Death Knights.

Current enchanting materials as well as high end products such as shadowcloth, mooncloth etc. should probably be ditched as quickly as possible as they will incur a heavy price drop. In the off-chance that things like the new cloths will take older cloths you can always go back and farm the materials a lot easier at lvl 80 than it was at lvl 70. Standard material prices with the exception of enchanting materials (cloths, ores, leathers) will stay in steady demand as is now with the market probably fluctuating for a while on the outland mats.

Recipes with the possible exception of engineering recipes (which are always quite popular) should also be sold soon, odds are they all will be replaced by the time you hit lvl 77. The recipes won't be considered rare until well into the expansion after which they may become worth something again. In the meantime expect at least a 50% price drop.

Gear-wise it's probably wise to hold on to a levelling set and whatever vanity items you may have. The rest will unfortunately become rather worthless, hold on to them to see if they become good in wotlk but be prepared to vendor or DE them.

Stockpiling gold is pointless, while it's worth having a chunk of it around when wotlk hits it is more than reasonable to assume that questing at level 80 will produce significantly more gold than you could do now via dailies.

Last but not least it will probably be handy to keep a small supply of what are currently crucial materials for specific enchants. WotLK will have new enchants yes but it will also take a little bit before these enchants become publicly available.


All in all there could be some motivation to farm some honor but there seems to be no specific need to stockpile anything other than herbs, patience and low expectations.

I for one will clear-cut my bank, make space for the future and focus on levelling alts so I can have something to do other than a death knight.