Item focus:The prospects of Titanium Ore and patch 3.2, 6 preparations you can make way ahead of 11 million people

Update, I just realised warcraftecon has also made a post about this, so for an alternative viewpoint, you might want to click here!



The Blue Post in question

From that particular blue post we can see the sources for the new epic gems, and it doesn't take rocket science for us to see that the ways to obtain them are almost identical and parallel to the current means of obtaining rare gems.

Well, what kind of epic gems will they be? The answer is that they have already been in the game files for quite a while and have appropriately epic sounding names, a list of which you can find in this wowhead link here



Some e.g. of the new gems include King's Amber (the yellow equivalent) or Flawless Ametrine (the orange equivalent) or Majestic Zircon (for blue) or Eye of Zul (for green) or cardinal ruby(red) or dreadstone (purple). Pretty spiffy names I should think!

In general, each epic gems has about 4 more stats than its previous, for example a runed cardinal ruby has 23, 4 more than the 19 of a runed scarlet ruby.

They share the same stats as the current stormjewels as well as having more variety (a greater choice of stats and including mixed color gems), but have the benefit of not having the unique-socketed attribute meaning they can be placed inside every single socket that you have replacing all the rare gems.

Whether you are a Jewelcrafter or not, I would think you might be interested in what this change might entail for you and also what preparations you should start making for it.

1)The easiest effect that you'll see as a result of this will be a devaluation of stormjewels, simply because they have the exact same stats, and that stormjewels have a unique-equipped restriction. I predict stormjewels will slowly start to drop from their 400 to slightly over 1000 gold position into a few dozen gold less than the prices of epic gems in 3.2 Following which people will purchase stormjewels as a cheaper alternative to fill up a slot, with stormjewels still remaining slightly more expensive than rare quality gems.

2)The next up would be its immediate effect on existing blue gems. Once again, it won't take a rocket scientist to say that blue gem prices will definitely drop. Personally, I see a rather small decrease in the range of 10-25% throughout the whole assortment. I base this using the previous time such a change happened in burning crusade, especially when the Sunwell Patch came out. To be fair however, gems appear to be much easier to obtain this time round, and Blizzard will very likely include some bottlenecks to stop a flood of epic gems into the market.

3)Similarly, this would also affect the market for Saronite ore, which will also dip slightly.

For all of the above items, I would advise you not to rush in liquidating them, but to start keeping an eye out and sell them when you see it can go for a good price. Their markets should remain relatively stable such that you can continue your current course of profit, but for stormjewels you would probably wish to rid yourself of them as soon as possible.



4)The core of the epic gems origins however, will lie in this very important ore:
Titanium ore, which takes the place of saronite ore in that you can now prospect it for all the new epic gems under a similar random number generation system. I've seen prices gradually increasing, but instead of asking you to buy buy buy, I would urge you to take caution. This is because I feel that the current methods of obtaining epic gems feels far too easy, and I suspect blizzard might spice up things a little. As a result, I would advise you to keep an eye out for titanium ore, and carefully purchase them when they hit below market equilibrium as they are wont to do on weekends and goldfarmer periods.

Similarly, if Titanium ore are to rise in prices, the joint commodities of Titansteel bars and Titanium bars would also similarly rise. Once again, exercise caution, and try to limit purchases to when they are severely underpriced.

As I see it however, Titanium ore have reached a new peak, rising from 100 plus gold to 180 as I am writing this. Let's see if the Gold Farmers will catch up with this development. It is clear however, that there is a prospective opportunity in prospecting titanium ores.

5)For Jewelcrafters, you might want to take note of this particular section.
In 3.2, Jewelcrafting Tokens will be the means by which you'll purchase Epic Gem Cuts, which means that you should start stocking up on all your JC tokens now, and it is probably expected that there will be a rotation between hyperinflation and hyperdeflation as Jewelcrafters fight for market share. A sizable number or raiders will be switching away from the Jewelcrafting professions however, so take that as you may. Also, while less important, dragon's eye would likely appear less on the AH, so you might want to stock up on a few of those right now.

6)For everyone else, you'll probably want to save your EoH instead of spending them on rare gems now, since they look to be an alternative form of currency to buy raw epic gems. The same goes for people looking to convert honor into gems, you might want to save your honor points as battleground tokens instead.

Bonus:
For the cunning ones in the crowd, you've probably noticed the heaploads of BoE ulduar epics, that also happens to have lots of sockets. While this is really for the long term, you'll probably want to keep in mind when choosing gear that the Best in Slot rankings will also be upset when epic gems are officially introduced.

However, take care to handle all of these with a generous grain of salt, as the PTR has not even been out yet, and as the GM says, everything he wrote is still as yet subject to change, even up till Live.