It is also about money.
Potentially quite a lot of money.
Datamining has revealed nine Bind-on-Equip items connected to Midnight Season 2's new raid, The Venomous Abyss. There are two pieces for each armor type plus a necklace, and the items roll with random secondary stats when looted.
If they behave like recent raid BoEs, some of the first desirable stat combinations to reach the Auction House could carry extremely aggressive prices.
New raid week has arrived.
So has Azerothian property speculation, except the property is a pair of poisonous boots.
There Are Nine Venomous Abyss BoEs
The current datamined list contains the following items:
- Venom Rite Mantle, Cloth Shoulders
- Slippers of the Hissing Cult, Cloth Feet
- Temple Delver's Mystic Helm, Leather Helm
- Slitherscale Girdle, Leather Waist
- Crushing Coiler Coif, Mail Helm
- Greaves of the Noxious Depths, Mail Feet
- Pauldrons of the Forgotten Sacrifice, Plate Shoulders
- Fanged Brute's Greatbelt, Plate Waist
- Bound Serpent's Jade Eye, Necklace
The necklace is naturally the most flexible item because every armor class can use it, but the armor pieces could become equally interesting when the right secondary-stat combinations appear.
And those stats are random.
That means two copies of the same item may have dramatically different desirability depending on which secondary stats they roll.
A bad combination may be merely expensive.
A perfect combination during launch week may require a small meeting with your accountant.
Named Lieutenants Are Expected to Drop Them
The items are expected to come from special named enemies called lieutenants found between raid bosses.
Based on raid testing, Wowhead currently lists seven possible Venomous Abyss lieutenants:
- Venomweaver Vexhiss
- Frightmaw
- Noxiss Venomcrest
- Shriekcoil
- Thunderous Amazard
- Venomous Skyfiend
- Gorefang the Reaver
That list remains theoretical until the live raid confirms the final setup, but recent raids have used exactly this sort of named trash enemy as a source of BoE armor.
Which means the trash between bosses suddenly has a second mechanic:
Do not stand in poison.
Also check whether the corpse contains your next mortgage payment.
Lower-Difficulty Versions Can Be Sold
The important economic detail is that the datamined items are Bind-on-Equip on lower raid difficulties.
That means they can be traded to another player, sold through the Auction House or moved to another character through the Warband Bank.
For players entering Season 2 with several alts, that Warband flexibility alone can make a lucky drop useful even if the character looting it has no interest in wearing it.
For gold-makers, the Auction House is where things become considerably more entertaining.
Early raid BoEs have several things working in their favor:
- Very limited supply during the opening days.
- Players aggressively trying to increase item level for progression.
- Demand from multiple characters and armor classes.
- Random secondary stats creating particularly desirable versions.
And Season 2 gives that item-level pressure extra teeth.
As we covered in our breakdown of the huge Season 2 item-level jump, equivalent Season 2 rewards arrive 46 item levels above Season 1. The strongest rewards eventually reach item level 344.
Players are going to want upgrades quickly.
Some of them have gold.
This relationship has historically produced excellent Auction House comedy.
We Still Do Not Know Their Final Item Levels
There is one important reason not to start calculating profits quite yet.
The item levels of these BoEs are currently unknown.
We know they are raid BoEs.
We know their slots.
We know the secondary stats are randomized.
We do not yet know exactly where each difficulty version will land on Season 2's upgrade tracks.
That distinction matters enormously when assigning value.
A beautifully itemized BoE that immediately gives a meaningful progression boost will command very different prices from one players can easily replace through another gearing route.
And Patch 12.1 already contains several alternatives.
For example, two Venom-Cursed Fragments can produce a guaranteed Champion 1/6 item, while refreshed Renown quests offer additional Veteran-track catch-up pieces.
Raid BoEs therefore need to be good enough to justify paying someone else's preferred number of zeroes.
Mythic BoEs Are Expected to Be Locked During Race to World First
There is another important restriction at the top end.
Wowhead expects the Mythic versions to remain Bind-on-Pickup until at least the end of the Race to World First, following the system Blizzard has used around recent raid launches.
That wording matters.
It is currently an expectation based on the known system, not a final confirmation of exactly how every Mythic BoE will behave on live servers.
But if it works that way, do not expect the first Mythic raiding guild to immediately dump its strongest trash drops onto the Auction House while Ula'tek is still alive.
The tradeable market should initially be concentrated around the lower difficulties.
That also prevents the Race to World First from becoming quite so directly connected to whoever possesses the largest gold reserve.
Quite so directly.
Random Stats Could Create Jackpot Versions
The randomized secondary stats may ultimately be what creates the biggest price differences.
Players rarely want an item merely because the item level is higher.
They want the higher item level with the correct stats.
That becomes particularly important once players begin simming Season 2 characters against tuned tier sets, trinkets and new raid gear.
We have already seen how quickly those numbers are moving in our look at the latest Season 2 trinket tuning. Several new raid and dungeon trinkets have already been substantially adjusted before the season has properly begun.
The same mentality will apply to BoEs.
One Venom Rite Mantle may be decent.
Another may roll the exact stat combination a highly competitive player wants.
The tooltip difference could be small.
The Auction House difference may resemble the GDP of a minor goblin principality.
Do Not Confuse These With Yesterday's Loot Table Changes
The timing makes this easy to mix up with another Venomous Abyss story.
We just covered Blizzard's last-minute changes to Venomous Abyss loot eligibility, where all tank specializations gained Need access to Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique and Survival Hunters gained access to Agility two-handed axes and swords.
That affects boss loot and future Bonus Roll pools.
These BoEs are different.
They are tradeable raid drops expected from named lieutenants between bosses.
So Season 2 raiders now have two reasons to examine loot tables carefully.
Bosses may contain something valuable for your character.
Trash may contain something valuable for your bank account.
Season 2 Bonus Rolls Make Boss Loot More Targetable
BoEs also exist inside a Season 2 gearing environment where players have more control over boss loot than before.
Raid Bonus Rolls cost only one Nebulous Voidcore in Season 2, which we covered in our guide to the reduced Season 2 Bonus Roll cost.
That makes targeted boss farming easier.
It does not help you target a perfect random-stat BoE from trash.
The Auction House may therefore become the most reliable targeting system for these particular pieces.
The boss loot system says:
Earn Voidcores and roll intelligently.
The BoE system says:
Have gold.
The Great Vault Changes the Value Equation Too
Players should also resist paying enormous launch-week prices without considering what the rest of their gearing week can produce.
Our guide to the first Season 2 Great Vault explains that early Vault rewards already provide another route into meaningful Season 2 equipment.
After that, the calculus becomes even stranger because Nebulous Voidcores may sometimes be more strategically valuable than the gear offered inside the Great Vault.
That means a BoE purchase should not be evaluated in isolation.
Ask what slot it fixes.
Ask how long you are likely to keep it.
Ask what your raid, Mythic+ and Vault options can replace it with.
Then look at the Auction House price.
Then lie down for a moment.
The First Few Days Could Be Wild
There is no guarantee every Venomous Abyss BoE will be worth a fortune.
Supply matters.
Drop rates matter.
Final item levels matter.
Secondary-stat combinations matter.
And the value of Mythic-track gear has changed as Blizzard has made high-level equipment accessible through more routes. Even Wowhead's own discussion around the datamined items includes players noting that recent Mythic BoEs have sometimes lost value faster than they did in older seasons.
But launch week is launch week.
Supply is at its lowest.
Demand is at its most irrational.
Competitive players want every advantage.
And nine new tradeable raid pieces are entering the economy.
If one drops, do not vendor it.
Do not casually equip it because it has a green arrow.
Do not immediately accept the first whispered offer from a player named something like Bankaltseven.
Check the stats.
Check the market.
Check whether your guild has rules covering raid BoEs.
Then decide whether you just received an upgrade.
Or a small pile of somebody else's gold.
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