Another week into the Feature Pack announcements and we now know a ton more information on what content we can expect come September 9th. There were some pretty interesting features announced but today I will focus on just one of them.
The official post on the 27th was about the addition of new crafting rewards to go in line with that of normal leveling. These new rewards will accumulate whilst you are leveling up a particular crafting discipline by awarding you with unique backpack skins and, according to the post, "come with a bit more combat flexibility than many players might have seen". This suggests that not only will these new back pieces be unique in visuals, but also possibly in stats. With all of this in mind, there is no doubt that players will want to obtain these new back pieces - however, unlike new character progression leveling rewards announced yesterday, it is unclear if these back pieces will be awarded retroactively or not. This is very important, because the large amount of the player-base will already have many, if not all crafting disciplines maxed out(or at least leveled to 400). However, going in line with other parts of the feature pack and being the speculator, I am inclined to take a risk and invest in some crafting materials in anticipation of a large surge in crafting.
Which materials should you invest in? First and foremost we should cover materials which are used in multiple crafting disciplines. That's almost all of them then right! Most materials are used in 2 or 3 crafting disciplines, however some are used in almost all of them! The materials I am talking about are of course fine crafting materials like Bones and Vials of Blood that are used for inscriptions and insignias for crafting weapons and armor. Also worthy of note is Copper Ore and Jute Scraps, both of which have huge potential to rise in price following the patch. My top picks would have to be tier 2 crafting materials - these include all fine tier 2 such as Small Claw and Small Venom Sac, and some basic tier 2 such as Thin Leather Section. I have routed out these materials in particular because in comparison with other tiers, despite the demand likely to be relatively even, they have the most potential to grow and also a fairly volatile supply level. This, combined with the large amount of demand coming from up to 6 different crafting disciplines at once, is likely to skyrocket the price of these and other crafting materials. It should be noted that as is always the case with fine crafting materials, they will usually rise in price together, as they are all used to level crafting at an even rate and no crafting material gives an advantage over another - so as such naturally players will always go for the cheapest option, pushing up all prices equally.
Stay tuned on my blog for further information regarding the Feature Pack as more information will be released next week!
Interesting. How about the impact of the changes they are making to the droprate, meaning more profession appropriate drops? Personally, I kind of expect the fabric supply to drop (globally, due to the many players playing warrior or guardian), resulting in higher prices - particularly seeing as cloth is used in all armor crafting professions.
ReplyDeleteYes what you say is very possible indeed. In this post https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-the-first-year/ a year ago ArenaNet detailed that Warrior and Guardian make up 28% of the player population. The most however was medium classes coming in at 37%. I'd say those figures largely remain intact today, perhaps with 1-2% here and there. Though it is highly unlikely for Mithril to increase in price, unless over a very long period of time because of these changes, and my guess would be that while fabric may be affected, the rise will be negligible and not worth the long term.
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