Following on from the badge discussion on page 20, a new tier of badges has been (perhaps accidentally) announced for Tier 8 content by Kalgan in this post: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Arena Matchmaking System FAQ

The new badges are named Emblem of Conquest. How this affects the current badges is still unknown but I believe it's not dangerous to assume that these will drop from 25 man Ulduar and any other heroic tier 8 content, as Kalgan compares them to Emblems of Valor which drop from heroic tier 7 content.

This reaffirms my belief that the time to cash in on your current 25 man badges is now because there is a very high probability that they will soon be superseded.

Shall we start thinking about 3.1.0 Changes

I am thinking about the removing of arrows wich was planned even in 3.0.8 with the adition of the new icons for bullets and arrows. So we can safely asume it will happen.
This means a huge number of people that might want to buy 1 extra bag. And given that i am a hunter and am used to have the best bags (3x22 slots atm) i just wonder how much the market will be affected by this demand for bags (Probably Glacials will not be afected at all due to their price) but ...
Would Frostweave Bag will increase in demand? Or even double the price for a week?

While Hunters make up a significant portion of the game population, I don't believe there are enough of them such that you would see a significant or lasting spike in bag prices. Many will simply go to their guild tailors or pull a bag out of the bank.

That is correct. Dragonfin Angelfish is the source for the only raid-level STR and AGI food.

Interestingly, it is also the source for the best tanking food in the game. +STR is now the premier threat buff, and +AGI the best avoidance food buff.

I have been able to set up supply agreements with raiding tanks for 1-2 stacks of each every week. Not only does this provide a regular customer base, but it also avoids the Auction House fees.

Actually what it really means is the final nail in the coffin for Engineering. I kept one alt as an engineer as I was rolling good money off of arrows and bullets. They were not only good for gaining skill they also paid me back. Combine with the dearth of Saronite now and I have one extra outlet for my miners. The only determination left for engineering profitability is how well the eternal market sticks. Currently I can make a decent amount on fire and water. In my setup my profitable skills were Inscription, Jewel crafting, Engineering, and then leather crafting (and that only for flipping borean leather into heavy or nerubian chain leggings). This change will probably push Engineering off the chart unless I can find a cheap DE item.

The only thing holding me back now is the possibility that you can buy uncut epic gems with valor badges. Maybe I just need to stop being hopeful and cash out now.

I think it's very unlikely that epic gems will come in with the 3.1 patch. If you look at TBC, T4 and T5 used blue gems, while T6 and Sunwell used epic. That suggests that Naxx/Ulduar will use blue gems, while unknown/Icecrown will use epic gems. Bringing out epic gems this early in the expansion's lifecycle would be very shortsighted.

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I doubt we will see epic gems until later in the game as well. The biggest problem with epic gems it that it changes the value of items with sockets vs. items without sockets. The better the gems, the harder it is to balance socketed vs. non socketed items. If they introduce epic gems early enough we might see older tier gear be more valuable than existing tier gear simply because of the number of gem slots.

I disagree with this in theory but know it's likely to be the case, there is enough content available at the moment to constitute t4 and t5 worth of raiding and there are indeed two tiers of t7 - also inferring that once epic gems are in there can be no further improvement forgets that ilvl for epics is virtually limitless and that there could be a new tier of gems for 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3. So I'm not saying it's a sure thing but I wouldn't rule it out completely unless I had a contract signed by the few main devs who get the final call on that because I'm guessing it's not exactly set in stone yet either.

Still, if Blizzard wanted to introduce slightly better gems without turing them into epic ones they could just expand the "perfect" prefix from Gem Perfection - Spell - World of Warcraft to cover the blue quality gems too. Sure, it's a game of chance when cutting one if you get the perfect one or not but still it would be a imaginable path to go for gems.

Sort of disappointing if true as the rare gem market -- at least on my server -- is pretty dismal right now. Even frozen orbs have gone back up to around 100-120 gold making Icy Prisms arguably not worth crafting.

If they don't have plans to introduce epic gems in 3.1 they shouldn't have put gems on badge vendors in 3.08.

It is extremely unlikely, because the equivalent Horde faction (Taunka) does not have a daily quest for it. No idea why, or ho they are going to fix this in the long term if they want to use those factions.

I must admit that I've thought (with fear) more than once that Blizzard could pull an Aerie Peak / Wildhammer reputation removal on me. Let's just say I'd be sorely sorely disappointed.

I'm hoping that if Ulduar 10 will be using Emblems of Valor that they will add the 10 man tier gear on the vendor, along with other epics, whilst Ulduar 10 gear will be around the same ilevel as Naxx 25 I'm guessing they will be better itemised so still an upgrade.

Something doesn't sit right with me, if they start putting the T8.10 gear on the vendor for emblems that can be obtained currently. The only way I could see it working well is if they are VERY expensive, and that Ulduar 10 man drops more badges than we currently see. Otherwise people kitting themselves out in T8 before even going into the instance seems like something they'd probably want to avoid.

The rest of your comment is very true, but could be easily worked around by a Isle style unlocking event of said vendor. Timed to be unlocked at least after a minimum timeframe, after guilds have already been in Ulduar for a while to start acquiring the gear already.

Doubtful, unless they are planning on keeping the set bonuses the same for every tier through Icecrown. Otherwise it starts to invalidate the 10-man progression path, which Blizzard has maintained they wish to be a fully supported way of progressing through the game. Changing the colour of your gear with just a higher number on each stat is not a very compelling progression path. It's much more likely that new T8.10 sets will be added with shared models and set bonuses with the T8.25 gear.

The vendor implementation is pretty much purely speculation at this point though. They could very well just remove the T7.25 pieces from the vendor and replace them with their T8.10 equivalents. Keep in mind, it is just as possible to obtain T7.10 gear without stepping foot in the raids that drop them (through heroics). I really don't see it being much of an issue to allow 25-man raiders access to the 2-set bonus from T8 with a sidegrade in stats.

Unless the T8.10 Paladin gear is Valorous <X> and the T8.25 gear is Conqueror's <X>.

That's probably a very safe assumption. I imagine there will be two sets for each class (T7.25 and T8.10) with the Valorous prefix.

From a money-making standpoint, if Valor badges don't get implemented fully with Uldaur (either through epic gems or from buying 10-man Uldaur equivalent whatever), you can always use your badges to spend on the 60-badge bracers. Currently, they're all BoE, and you can make a hefty profit from them.

For example, I used 60 badges to purchase the plate dps bracers and sold them for about 5k. Not bad for dumping your valor badges, I'd say.

This is correct (aside from possibly the names they wind up picking). T8.10 will be different from T7.25.

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Emblem of Conquest - T7.25 in 10 man Ulduar?

This is most likely to me.

The new Ulduar-10 badge vendor likely will not come out until the instance has been released for a few weeks, similar to the Isle or how the Season Five PvP came out.