Time is Money: Down with the cooldown
by Amanda Miller 
Nov 16th 2009 at 2:00PM
Among the goodies that patch 3.3 will bring is a very welcome change. Transmute: Titanium will no longer be subject to a cooldown! This means that you can turn all of the saronite bars you can get your hands on into titanium bars; and saronite is so easy to obtain. Check out our previous guide to mining saronite.
So how will this change how you will go about making your money? Pass through the break to find out.
Predictions:
Right now, saronite bars and ore are extremely cheap. Saronite is notoriously easy to acquire, and with the influx of miners searching for titanium, it tends to get picked up en masse. This supply is much too high for the current demand, which consists of players leveling their professions, and Enchanters using Blacksmithing alts to create saronite gear to disenchant.
The majority of Alchemists out there are busy transmuting epic gems, and the primary source for those, as we all know, is from prospecting titanium ore. This new cooldown removal is going to send this whole system into upheaval.
No one knows the exact changes for sure, of course. They'll vary over time, factions, and servers. Still, approximations can be useful. Here's what Heartbourne over at Project Lore is predicting:
Before Patch 3.3:Saronite Ore: +30%
Saronite Bar: +40%
Titanium Bar: -50%
Titanium Ore: -20%
Epic gems: -10%
Infinite Dust: +10%
Cosmic Essence: +10%
Titanium-based products: -30-40%
Start selling your titanium bars now. If you can, smelt your ore and sell them as bars. On my server, at least, the bars are going for about 10-15 gold more than the equivalent ore (2 ore per bar).
As an example, I purchased 20 titanium ore for 300 gold. This was a bit of a steal; other days, that amount might go for about 380 gold.
After smelting, I had 10 titanium bars, which I sold for 490 gold. That is a profit of 190 gold, or roughly 38%!
In addition, you might want to start saving your saronite bars and ore, unless you want to continue turning them into gear to disenchant.
After Patch 3.3:
Even if the above predictions are off by a few per cent, the price of titanium in both forms is likely to fall, while the price of saronite will probably rise back up.
This is why I'm urging you to sell your titanium before the patch. Alternatively, you could have it prospected and transmuted into as many epic gems as possible, although this would only be wise if your guild intends to push through the new raid dungeon soon after patch day. The price of gems may temporarily go up as scores of players begin rapidly updating their gear, and if you intend to be one of them, preparing for that ahead of time will save you some money.
If this isn't the case, and you're not a Jewelcrafter, then avoid the gem market. You'll probably make more profit by hoarding saronite to sell post-patch and liquidating your titanium assets pre-patch.
Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.Filed under: Mining, Making money, Features, Jewelcrafting, Economy, Tips, Analysis / Opinion, Patches, Alchemy, Time Is Money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Malend Nov 16th 2009 2:03PM
Can you get a proc from this so as to end up w/ more then 1 Titanium Bar?
Fish Nov 16th 2009 2:12PM
Yes, you can. My achly is transmute spec and I've gotten 2 for 1 before
BioHazard Nov 16th 2009 2:11PM
Yep, I've had up to 5 proc before.
Malend Nov 16th 2009 2:44PM
Yes, but, I mean after the patch will it still proc?
MazokuRanma Nov 16th 2009 4:41PM
I don't know it for a fact, but I would think so.
Remember in BC that Transmute: Primal Might originally had a cooldown, but even after they removed it, it could still proc provided you were a Transmute Master.
catharsis80 Nov 16th 2009 2:07PM
OK, for a while I've been confused about articles here that have phrases like "So how will this change how you will go about making your money? Pass through the break to find out." I never have to wait. The information is always right there, right when it's posted. Is the break that's always referred only like 30 seconds or something? Or is it some inside joke that I never get?
Murdock Nov 16th 2009 2:11PM
The break, is the break in the flow of the article, that you have to click the link to read it all. What you see before "after the break" is on the summary on the front page of wow.com Once you click the "Read More -->" or the title link, you are effectively after the break.
catharsis80 Nov 16th 2009 2:13PM
I thought that might be the case, but it's just that it's ALWAYS worded like an old TV show talking about what might happen after the commercial break. "Will Bob survive the fall from the Empire State building??!?! Tune in and find out after the break!!!"
zerokiwi Nov 17th 2009 7:34AM
If you're looking at the story on the front page, it doesn't post the whole story, on the first few paragraphs. then it "breaks". So if you want to read the rest of the story you have to click on the link/title to continue.
That's the break
John Nov 16th 2009 8:20PM
you are probably reading the articles directly on wow.com
I read it via a blog reader (Google/reader). Roughly every day there are 15-20 wow.com articles - I only read the summary part, and ONLY expand the articles that are of interest to me via clicking the link back to wow.com website.
Short version is great as a summary. I don't read all 20 articles daily...
The long version brings me to wow.com to read the entire article, comment with fellow readers (such as this), and they get the ad revenue.
I'm even more selective if I go on a weekend trip and return with 60 unread articles... then I only read the summary based on the subject that are of interest to me, and mark all other remaining as 'read'.
catharsis80 Nov 16th 2009 2:09PM
As for the article itself...
I guess it's time we start selling more of our titansteel bars we have saved up before this happens.
ZMES_Matt Nov 16th 2009 2:40PM
Well, keep in mind that there will almost assuredly be epic blacksmithing patterns dropping from ICC, so make sure you keep some in reserve for any of your toons that might want something made.
Titansteel will probably drop in price, but I doubt it'll drop by much, and it might drop at first but eventually go right back up to what it was after a week or two. The fact is, Titansteel itself is still on CD and used for the highest level of crafting, so it will always be highly valuable. The only way this change will lower its cost is that all miners that are too lazy/don't have enough time to farm up the titanium needed for their cooldown, will now have a different way of getting the mats for it IF they have an alchemist friend. If not, the alchemists will still surely charge them, so I can't see Titansteel dropping by very much, if at all.
catharsis80 Nov 16th 2009 5:52PM
Hmm, good point. Also, if titanium itself drops in price, then it will be easier to get profits on Titansteel in the future by simply buying T.Bars (if you count time as a resource, which I do).
Andrew R. Nov 16th 2009 2:11PM
The break is a link that gives you the rest of the article. If WoW.com posted every article in full we would have a tiny scroll bar. It's more or less to make the main page clean looking.
Slaytanic Nov 16th 2009 2:15PM
On a similar note, it may be profitable to stock up on Saronite for post-3.3 sales. The cost of saronite ore on my server has collapsed so badly (under 12g, even under 11g a stack) that it has actually become more profitable to simply buy the cheap ore, smelt it into bars, and then just straight vendor it for 25g a stack.
Tim Nov 16th 2009 2:23PM
Samesies. Saronite used to be my money maker, now not so much. It is easy to get and the ore only costs around 2g less than the bars. But it makes sense that prices would fall, oh-well time to find a new way to make money.
outdps Nov 16th 2009 2:23PM
I must disagree :)
Saronite's market is so much larger than titanium that the only price change I see happening is going to be to titanium. In effect, the price of titanium will drop to exactly the price of 16 saronite ore, and the price of saronite ore will not move in the long run. How much does the ping pong paddle slow down when it hits the ping-pong ball? Sure, it will spike a little higher after the patch because of last minute speculators, but it's entirely too easy to farm saronite for that effect to last long. In the end, the amount of titanium that is needed for crafting (not for making epic gems) is too small to register on the saronite scale.
This goes for the leather -> arctic fur conversion too.
Daniel Nov 16th 2009 2:44PM
I agree entirely. I don't think there is going to any long term price increase for any of the items. There will be the normal patch day spike but in the long run (a few weeks) all the prices will fall unless there is some aspect to this situation we have not been told about.
Dazaras Nov 16th 2009 2:51PM
You have to take into consideration that there is still a lot more saronite available, so even a small increase in price will have large consequences. I'm not so sure that 30-40% is accurate, but it will definitely be substantial.
outdps Nov 16th 2009 2:58PM
@Dazaras What I mean is that the price increase will be so small that it won't be noticeable beside the normal market swings. In the long run.