The effect of changing drop rates

I'm going to harp on again about why there is never any certainty in WoW when it comes to gold making opportunities.

I touched on this recently in this post:

We cannot ever be 100% sure of anything. Blizzard could change the game forever in some way or another which would result in a change to the face of the WoW economy forever. And we have many examples of these, made with the flick of some code, that has done this in WotLK:

• Removing the cooldown on Titanium Bar transmutes
• Allowing the purchase of Eternals with Frozen Orbs
• Allowing the purchase of Arctic Fur with Heavy Borean Leather
• Increasing the drop rate of Frost Lotus (and then allowing the purchase using Frozen Orbs)
• Epic Gems - transmute, prospecting, honor
• The repeated changes to ink costs for glyphs
• Need/Greed/DE option for loot and the knock on affect to enchanting mat prices

This is just a small sample of changes that have had a huge impact on the price of items and have changed the economy significantly. In fact every alteration affects the price of something or other, somewhere in the game. And riding these changes is what makes the knowledgeable gold and the uninformed lose money

So nothing, and I mean nothing, is guaranteed. Take yesterday's news about the "Insane in the Membrane" achievement. That's the second announcement in a matter of a fortnight, and both have had very significant (but different) impact on the price of specific items. So even when you can prepare for change (with patch notes etc.) there can always be something from left field that is completely unpredictable.

And boy did 4.0.3a prove this all to be true.

There were no patchnotes to let us know that the Recipe: Savory Deviate Delight was going to have its drop rate increased massively. Recipe: Elixir of Giant Growth suffered the same fate. But a decent goblin who knows their markets would have quickly caught onto the fact that something was weird and would have profitted madly from the changes.

Sometimes its about gut instinct. Take the Savory Deviate recipe. I saw 8 on the horde side for under 100g. It was rare to see one, so to see more than 10 with 8 at low prices, the alarm bells went off. I checked alliance, and found one at its normal price of 1500g+. I checked wowhead, and there was a comment that drop rate had increased.

It's at this point when you either decide to take a punt or you miss the opportunity. I purchased the 8 recipes, and rather than waiting until after work I immediately transfered across the Neutral AH and posted one of the recipes for 800g. It sold within the first hour. I listed another (remote AH FTW). Then another when it sold.

So I'd cleared three recipes before anyone else had worked out what was happening. Then you enter the undercut game, which is bloody annoying, and doesnt work. Listing for 500g, and being undercut by 1c is a PITA, but it wasnt worth cancelling and reposting. The 500g sells right after the 499.99.99 ones does anyway.

The key to this flip is not to post more than one at a time. If you flood the market, people see several on auctioneer and question it. So you have to drip feed them to maximise profit.

Also don't get greedy. Market price may have been 1500+g, but the trick is to flag the item on a resale auctioneer search. 800g was a good place to start, not only grabbing attention, but also covering your initial outlay when purchasing the 8 recipes horde side. The rest was pure profit.

With a few hours of the 8th recipe selling prices on Alliance were down to 300g where they have remained. You can grab them horde side for 50g, but with 20+ recipes up on alliance, you are in the undercut game and I can't be bothered with it.

Gut instinct really is important - and that comes from experience. If you aren't aware of you entire market, then you wont 'sense' when there is a ripple in the waters. And its those ripples that can signify something more interesting that a single badly posted item on the AH. Trust yourself to make decisions and don't hesitate.

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But as some drop rates increase, others decrease. These are harder to spot because supply just dries up and the price slowly creeps up as people post their stockpiles. Even with Beta testing, there are items that just aren't noticed as toons focus on the new content.

The key to profiting here is have a broad area of interests. I have noticed a few significant changes to drop rates, but I am delaying their announcement for a later post - firstly because I want to be sure and secondly because I want to snatch up what remaining supplies are out there before letting the other goblins on Cael in on it. But I can say that of the items I am thinking off, all have been mentioned in their comments on Wowhead that drop rates have decreased, or mobs have been removed. Do your research and you will see what items I am talking about.

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So once gain I will say it (because some of you are not listening) - don't think anything is 100% sure. How many of you made a fortune from the "surefire" netherweave bags? Or are your prices still sat at 6-8g because of the literally 1000s of bags ready to be dumped on the market?