9.1 Goldmaking: Making gold with the new Crafter's marks! (Patreon)

With 9.1 we get two new crafter's marks, the crafter's mark 3 and the crafter's mark of the chained isle. Crafter's mark 2 has been a staple of goldmaking in 9.0 and I expect big things from the new marks.

Crafter's mark basics

the ilvl 168 Crafter's mark 2 gear was a staple of goldmaking for all of 9.0. I made more than 5 million gold selling these items, just using blacksmithing and mail items. I am obviously very excited for the market in 9.1 as I expect a strong volume again.

Crafter's mark 3

Crafter's mark 3 is the same as CM 2. It increases the item level of the item it is used with, and it can only be used on armor. It sets the item level at 200 which is the new catch up level. This is slightly better than heroic loot this time around, in stead of slightly worse, which puts it in an even better spot than it used to be. Overall I expect many players will use these to gear up.

Obtaining the recipe

You get the recipe from Honored with the Death's advance, the new reputation in Korthia. Getting this one early will be a huge boon, even if most mains will be past the point where this gear is relevant to them, there are always players gearing alts. I will be getting these and putting gear out onto the AH as soon as possible.

Optimal combinations

The table below shows the material costs and crafting costs using current region market values for EU for all of the marks. The marks for alchemy, engineering and inscription exist, but since none of those professions have any recipes that can use the marks they are largely wasted.

As we see right now the two cheapest according to the region value is Jewelcrafting and Alchemy, followed by Blacksmithing. The balance will likely change again rapidly as prices on materials are affected by legendaries. I'm sure many of you will be on realms with very different prices right now as well. It's impossible to say if it will be worth swapping professions around, but if you have legendary recipes it is unlikely to be worth it. We'll just have to see how prices shake out as we head into 9.1.

Crafter's mark of the Chained Isle

Crafter's mark of the chained isle is a new crafters mark. This one will take the gear all the way up to ilvl 230, but at the cost of making it unique-equipped so you can just have one of these pieces. This will obviously be very useful and I expect demand will be strong. That being said the slot selection will be more focused as players will probably want to put this where they get the most bang for the buck. Due to domination sockets many slots will be less desireable. As with legendaries you should focus on the slots with no sockets and the top stats. Leggings is the standout option, but you can likely get sales across a variety of slots. Experimentation will be key, so test it out.

Orboreal Shards

Chained Isle marks are quite expensive, as they require a lot of materials, as well as 15 orboreal Shards. That means that having the reputation for maximum discounts will be very important. If you are not revered or exalted (or horde with a 48+ Goblin) it's time to go farm some!

Cost balance

Right now we can see that most of the marks are very close to each other in costs based on the EU region price. The one that standous is tailoring with a much more expensive mark, and alchemy with a much cheaper one. I expect very few people have paired alchemy with any actual professions, but if you have you can take advantage of it. Outside of that they have actually done a pretty good job with the latest costs.

I expect we can sell these items for as much as 50k each, so the profitability should be there in a big way!

Obtaining the recipe.

You get the recipe from the Archivists' Codex. You need to be tier 4 to get it, and it will cost you 2500 Cataloged Research. It's possible they make this reputation shared down the line like Ven'ari, but it is not currently shared. The rate is also quite slow, so be prepared for a real grind!

Good luck and happy goldmaking!