Why frozen orbs aren’t a good investment
Recent [development notes] have announced that in an upcoming patch an NPC named [Frozo the Renowned] will be added to the game. This npc, an item vendor, will trade items for your [Frozen Orb] which up until now people have been either vendoring or auctioning for not much more than vendor price.
Players will be able to trade 6 orbs in for a [Crusader Orb], 4 orbs in for a [Runed Orb] or a single orb in for a [Frost Lotus], [Eternal Air], [Eternal Earth], [Eternal Fire], [Eternal Life], [Eternal Shadow] or [Eternal Water].
A lot of people have read this and had the obvious light bulb go off in their head. I know on my server people are already spamming trade chat with ‘WTB Frozen Orb – 15g/each’. In the auction house the orbs have already normalized at around 20g/each. They’re all wrong if they think this is going to turn out to be a money maker though.
Why? There’s a number of reasons, here are two big ones. First and foremost is that it’s a very obvious one-step change which means everybody is immediately aware of the ramifications and participation in stockpiling frozen orbs will be widespread. This will immediately mean nobody is getting their orbs for 6g off the auction house anymore, there’s increased demand for the orbs which is why the prices are already up.
Secondly the reason for this change is to address the already massive oversupply of frozen orbs in the system. Lots of players were ALREADY sitting on a lot of orbs from the recent random heroics change. Oversupply on such a large scale is going to damage prices and the extra consideration of lost AH deposit costs (due to being undercut) is going to also impact profit margins.
My conservative estimate is that around patch time we’ll see frozen orbs selling for around 17g and the eternals and frost lotus selling for not more than 5g above this. It’s not worth even looking at the Crusader and Runed orbs as I expect their value will be lower than the cost of the frozen orbs needed to pay for them.
What are your thoughts? Leave a comment below and let me know how you think prices will turn out.
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That’s God Damn Right.
I think exactly the same, there will be a mad rush to clear these things out and everyone will dump lotus etc. on the auction house. I didn’t buy up frozen orbs, however I do expect to buy up cheap supplies the first few days from the undercutting war before things stabilise.
My guild is obsessed with Flask prices currently, and they believe this Frozen Orb frenzy will crash the marketprice for Lotus and Flasks. With the increased droprate of the Lotus, Flasks have dropped from 50g to about 30g. Before the Lotus change, Flasks sold anywhere from 35-50g yet the Lotus were about 50g and up. I found it odd I could sell my Lotus, make a tiny profit, and still get Flasks without having to make them myself.
My guildmates believe the Flask market will drop as low as 5g a pop and are desperately hoping for this. I honestly don’t think Flasks will drop below 25g each, as they’re in demand for raids and they’re much more affordable than before, so people will be using them more often. Even though the Lotus price is falling, the price of the other Herbs to make the Flasks is still constant. I believe Icethorn and Lichbloom are still around 20-30g a stack depending on the day.
Disreputable, you must be on some kind of super server. Flasks on my server has is between 25-30g, lotuses is around 35-45g and Icethorn/Lichbloom is about 2-4g a stack. These prices is normal for me, since they have been like that for.. forever. Your prices just seem like a dream, lol.
About the blogpost I totally agree. Im sitting on ~30 of them myself (that i have acquired and saved) that I probably will use for my own needs, not turning in and selling. I bet many many people will have lost quite alot of gold doing this.
They also announced that they are changing the mats for maybe ulduar/toc boe craftables, so they are probably expecting that more crusader/runed orbs will be bought because of this.
Good point, Missus (and oh hai btw!) but you’d want to hope that “have had their material requirements significantly reduced” doesnt ALSO mean the number of orbs too.
Additionally, the 6:1 and 4:1 respective ratios for turning frozen orbs into crusader and runed orbs is going to ensure frozen orb prices don’t get dragged up.
I just got another character to 80, and I wanted to get some frosthide leg armor for my tanking leg enchant. I went to check the AH and saw them up for 300g minimum and was like, “Fuck that, I’ll just find a leatherworker and buy the raw mats.”
Then I saw frozen orbs at 30g a pop and was like, “Fuck that!”
@Davi: I double checked the Herb prices after writing my post and I was wrong about Icethorn and Lichbloom (they’re going for 15-20g a stack now). But the Lotus and Flasks are the same. It’s still weird that the Lotus are selling for more than the Flasks right now, but it’s nowhere near as bad as a few months ago (I sold a stack of Lotus for 1,ooo g).
This is exactly what I though as well, and it was actually kind of interesting, because the other day I met a druid in BRD while running it rhrough with one of my alts. He said that he had already made 10000g on just selling Frozen Orbs and that he hadn’t even sold all of the, and by that time he had sold about 1000 out of the 2000 he had.
Just curious… I have actually stocked up on a few of these to make into Eternal Life for Darkmoon Decks- but how do you anticipate these changes will affect people grinding Darkmoon Faire?