On the topic of farmers...
by Elizabeth Harper 
Jul 26th 2006 at 3:00PM
My priest has been, for some time now, looking for a pattern for the Truefaith Vestments - the epic crafted priest robes. While I would occasionally see a Robe of the Archmage or a Robe of the Void pattern, I've not seen any of my own. However, over the past couple of weeks, I've seen more and more Robe of the Archmage patterns - as seen above. The cost has dropped dramatically, as well - what once sold for a hundred gold and up is now, as you see, more often selling for 30 to 40, when they sell at all.
This has started to puzzle me, as the pattern drops off of Pyromancers in lower Blackrock Spire, of which there are few, and difficult to get to. I've gone with a number of groups that refuses to attempt the pull with the Pyromancers, simply because it's large and difficult. So where then, do these patterns come from? Several commenters on Thottbot claim that you can solo your way to the right area with the use of stealth or invisibility potions, and one poster goes into some detail about two rogues taking the group down with timely use of sap, vanish, and evasion.
But even if the pattern can be acquired with the efforts of one or two players, this doesn't explain the sudden appearance of so many in the marketplace. It's possible that the drop rate has been increased, but it seems unlikely that the drop rate of one of the epic robe patterns would go up while the other two remain the same. In my past experience with the game, a sudden flood of rare items on the market has been an indication of a new farming technique or hack, allowing farmers to now easily acquire something that was usually difficult. (For an example of similar circumstances in the past, see this old Dire Maul hack.) However, at present, there's no evidence one way or the other - so this remains simply an oddity...
Filed under: Items, Odds and ends, Economy
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Coanunn Jul 26th 2006 3:59PM
Not sure what to say on this, except that the pattern I picked up for robe of the void has failed to sell for over 3 months, none of the people in my guild need it and I've tried to sell it for as low as 40 gold. I'm just wondering if perhaps you are over estimating the value on these items, in all reality for this to be useful the player must not only be a tailor but the appropriate class as the item created is bind on creation.
v Jul 26th 2006 4:44PM
It's possible that someone has found a new way to "dupe" items. In that case you would only need one.
elizabeth Jul 26th 2006 5:15PM
Hmm... I'm not sure about overvaluing these robes. All of the craftable class robes are probably the nicest things you're going to find outside Blackwing Lair/Ahn'Qiraj/Naxxramas (depending, of course, on the specific stats you're looking for - these are very good spell damage robes, though their stats are limited), and a lot of players find them worth dropping a profession for.
The mage robes have quite similar stats to the warlock robes, and the pattern for the robe of the void sells for in the 100-120g range on my server. I could explain the price disparity by the numbers of each seen on the auction house, but that just goes back to the initial question - why are there so many robe of the archmage patterns up for sale recently?
Keith Jul 26th 2006 5:58PM
That's interesting, because on my server (Malorne) there have been a lot of Robe of the Void patterns up for auction recently (at similarly low prices to the ones you show for Robe of the Archmage), just a few Truefaith Vestments patterns at >100g each, and zero Robe of the Archmage patterns.
cheezedog420 Jul 27th 2006 2:37AM
It looks like a last ditch attempt to sell the goods before the price drops through the floor. But on the other side of the coin, getting rid of a bad farmer/investor that offen makes the trip up to Pyromancers in lower Blackrock Spire area might free up the drop for others to catch it and sell it at a more reasonable price.
I would watch the price of it for a another week before picking it off the AH. It could go for less in that week, or the price could be inflated again at a moments notice.
And on the off chance you should find out that this is the work of a hack farmer, then don't pick it up no matter what the price is. Hack farming is never cool, and rewarding such activity by actually buying there goods is like hack farming yourself... So don't support hack farming!
Ty M. Jul 27th 2006 3:32PM
It's far more likely that these were players that simply could have just been stockpiling some and chose now to flood, and therefore control, the market for them. I think that's similar to the plot of Goldfinger, or something.