Fill in the Gaps

When you’re busy leveling your toon, there’s a lot more to pay attention to than just questing. I’ve already written at length about how everything sells and to try and AH everything that isn’t grey so I won’t be covering that today. Instead I wanted to cover something that’s mentioned every now and then but never in depth. I refer to the concept of niche markets which we’re all aware of to some degree.

A niche market is just what you would expect, a small specialized market. More often than not it is used in reference to a certain type of customer base, primarily collectors and vanity items. However there is another niche market that I have only seen talked about in great detail by the epic penny pouch, great wow blog found over yonder, and that is specific level ranges. In every mmo there are different items that are more easily acquired at certain level ranges such as rings or necklaces.

The same thing goes for specific stats such as hit and spell power or that game’s equivalent. Sometimes you might not find a new weapon until you’re ready to move onto a different zone only to find an upgrade 2 levels later and not another one until 10 more. This is where the money is at.

When you’re leveling up pay attention to when you finally find an important stat like hit. In rift I didn’t see any on quest gear until I was 48 and that was a single neck piece. That single fact alone says a few important things about what to craft and what you may want to avoid. First that means that there isn’t any hit gear at all until you reach that range so anything that has it before is going to be very valuable. Since hit is always one of the most important stats it’s worth spending a little extra on a boe piece since you won’t replace it for a <span style=”font-weight:bold;”>long </span>time.

The other fact that this tells you is that there are very good neck items in the high 40′s range which means a lot of people at 50 will have them for a while as well. That also means that hit based neck items that aren’t -really- good for level 40+ won’t sell too well. If you already have an item with hit you won’t pay to replace it so quickly since you’re about to be grinding dungeons anyway. Regardless of that though they do sell, just not nearly as fast as anything else in that range.

However when you notice that the only neck pieces you get from quests -ever- are in the 20′s and 40′s range you can safely assume that any blues for that slot are going to sell period. Anything that’s going to last you 20 levels is worth spending a lot on to just about anybody. These are the sort of things that catch the eye of an accomplished AH player. And once again this is not a what, it’s a why which means it is far from limited to a single game.

Any time there is a large gap between upgrades for a certain item slot is where you’ll be able to do the most business. All of this can be boiled down to the essential AH axiom of “sell what is in demand.” The only way you’ll know what’s in demand is if you go on and look. But when you’re leveling and questing you’re already looking, you just need to know what it is you are looking at. Like I always say, some things aren’t obvious until they’re pointed out to you and the gaps in quest rewards are right in front of your eyes every time you level up. So pay attention eh?

Thanks for stopping by!