What 5.1 Brings to (and takes away from) the Table

5.1 brought some changes as a patch, noted in the Patch Notes, but has also brought around some stealth changes that were not anticipated.  I'm going to go over some of the ones that I think are important to us as gold makers, feel free to chime in if you think I missed one or want to add!

SoH + Node Nerfs
In the official Patch Notes, they noted that 1 SoH will only get you 2 Golden Lotus now (as opposed to 3).  Also, you can now purchase SoH for 600 Conquest Points if you're a PvPer.  Now this significantly decreases the value of your SoH, consider growing some of the higher value plants on your farm instead of Motes!  Check out my previous post here for more info on determining what your SoH is worth.

Also, Blizzard announced that all nodes in Pandaria have gotten a 50% nerf.  This is pretty big, as they're trying to make the ore/herbs more valuable (see the post).  This is good for us as both crafters and farmers.  Assuming that we make the same percentage return regardless, having the mats cost more means that for each thing we craft we're getting more gold.  For farmers they're getting more for their work, for crafters they have to do less work to make the same profit.  It's a win win situation for all of us!

Pet Battle Changes
There are a few major pet battle changes that I think (sort of) impact the gold making community, one is that for completing the full chain (EK + Kalimdor, Outland, Northrend, and Pandaria) you are rewarded with 3k.  For me this is nice because I enjoyed the pet battles to begin with and it gives me an excuse to go finish the quest line!  Also, a reward from the bags for completing these quest now includes the Flawless Battle-Stone which can be sold on the AH.  This item will automatically upgrade your pet to rare, which is a helpful thing for players with pets that are only uncommon (learned from items), or for the ones in the wild they're too lazy to hunt for.

Mr. Bigglesworth (image from Wowhead)

It's also useful to note that a few pets have been added to the game, I'm not going to go too in depth into these, but a lot of raid pets have been added, the reward for getting them all being the much coveted companion, Mr. Bigglesworth, from Naxxramas!  If you want to read more about these pets check out Wowhead's article here  I think this will encourage some players to get into the new pets as this is one awesome vanity pet that's hard for anyone to pass up!  Another nice addition for Tailors is that they can now craft 2 new pets, the Imperial Silkworm and Imperial Moth, which can both be created by using your Imperial Silk Cooldown.  A potential extra profit/reason for tailors to burn their CDs every day!

Darkmoon Trinkets Upgradable
Another nice feature they added in 5.1 is the ability to upgrade epic items with valor points.  Previous to this Darkmoon Trinkets were BiS, and now they are upgradable as well, helping ensure their value for at least a few more DMFs!

The one last thing that may be of value is that we can now enter old raids by ourselves, and some solo friendly changes have been made to some bosses.  This could be useful if you farm raids, but was not essential, just makes your life (slightly) easier.  So, what is your favorite or least favorite part of the new patch?

Cheers,

Phat Lewts

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