Viscous Horrors -- Will it drop in price?

[Milkywind]

Right now I'm seeing Viscous Horrors priced around the 120k range, making it one of the most expensive pets out there.

It's not even a TCG pet and it is something attainable in game.

I'm speculating, when the expansion hits, this pet will drop in price.

I mean, our item level will go up. It will be much easier to run old raids -- Perhaps even solo them depending on your class/gear.

Or if you can't solo, it wouldn't be hard to get 2-3 friends to do an old raid.

When the raid for Kovok/Blackfuse Bombling came out, their prices were absurd. After a few months now, their prices has dropped to around 4k average.

I don't see any reason paying this price for a VH when it will become easier to farm later. (Unless you must really need this pet now!)

Any thoughts?

[Shinii]

Even though i am trying to trade one for current value i do believe they will eventually drop some in price but not by alot. maybe 50-80

[Index]

Hmmm, would be nice to think the price will drop, but the law of supply and demand will likely make the prices go up.

Yes, it will be easier to run the older heroics, but a lot less people will be doing it, meaning the supply will likely dry up faster than you might expect.

I guess only time will tell...


P.s. I got mine for the cost of a jeweled panther, fairly soon after it came out. A total bargain at the time!

[Mydoc]

I have looked for this pet for a long time and have only seen it for around 100k. I believe it will be much easier and priced better once the WoD come out. It will still be rare since the drop rate sucks but people will go back and do the dungeons for gear and achievements. I think the rare drop pets from the isle will be pretty hard to come buy in the future.

[Dakaf]

Keep in mind, it is the 8th boss in. Even soloing isnt going to be easy (or fun) after getting nothing for several weeks in a row.

[Ishildur]

It will almost certainly go down once WoD comes out. Not immediately, but based on how I've seen people do old content there's two phases here. First is when the WoD patch (not the expansion) comes out. This may make things a bit easier with mechanics and class changes so people who were not quite up to raiding that content return to it in their SoO flex/LFR gear as things wind down for the actual expansion release. Those people do this for achievements and titles mostly. Some will do it for mounts and pets so while there might be a few more pets it won't be a huge number.

The second phase hits about 2-3 months into a new expansion as people have done the leveling up bit, everyone's getting kind of sick of chain running the heroic dungeons and whatever the current raid tier is is starting to frustrate the more casual crowd. At this point some will realize that hey, we could have a fun 'old stuff' night where we clear some of those old raids since now even the casual people are max leveled. After that start the mog runs, 'chieve runs, mount runs. The pet won't ever be common, but there will be more people capable of clearing the place who currently can't. From that point on prices should start to drop. This is a pattern I've seen repeated a lot for things that drop in old raid content and I've no reason to suspect it won't hold for pets. Just don't expect it to happen immediately after WoD and don't expect huge drops in price unless someone figures out how to dupe the things.

[Kpb321]

It's really hard to say because you can't really predict what changes the new expansion will bring. For example which of the new difficulties will the VH drop in? How hard will the raid actually be at lvl 100? Will it be added to the BMAH?

If I had to guess I'd say ishildur is probably right. Initially it will probably stay about the same or possibly go up a little bit as people are more interested in leveling and new content than farming an old raid for a rare pet drop. When the second phase starts to hit will depend on how quickly or slowly blizzard introduces the raid content patches but then I expect a slow drop on most servers and maybe some availability where it wasn't otherwise available. You might see a quicker drop off on those high pop servers known for being good pet servers like illidan horde but otherwise I think it will be slow to drop.

Even with that said I'm still saving up and trying to be a VH now as one of the 4 remaining tradable pets I need as I'm hoping to get them all before WoD comes out and I'm not expecting a rapid price drop anytime soon unless someone figures out a way to dupe it.

[Waynebrady]

I thought the same thing, the prices have got to go down. But let's be realistic, not only is Primordius the 8th boss in, but the drop rate is insanely low. I do Primordius a lot and have never seen one drop. Not to mention Tot will probably not be soloable in WoD so you'll still need a group to kill 8 bosses to even have a very small chance at it.

The prices may go down a little, but not much.

[Badpathing]

I thought the same thing, the prices have got to go down. But let's be realistic, not only is Primordius the 8th boss in, but the drop rate is insanely low. I do Primordius a lot and have never seen one drop. Not to mention Tot will probably not be soloable in WoD so you'll still need a group to kill 8 bosses to even have a very small chance at it.

The prices may go down a little, but not much.

The prices will go down, significantly.

There will be less demand over time as more collectors get it. Everyone keeps saying solo, but think of all the raiding for meta achieves and groups of 2-3 who will be doing it. Throw in the fact that Blizz is expanding the raid finder tool to allow for old content, thus making it far more accessible. And yes, there will be people who solo it barring any mechanics that prevent it (which Blizz has made a point of removing mechanics like this).

There is just no way the price will not drop by quite a bit. It will most likely always fetch a decent amount of gold due to it's drop rate, but the days of 120k+ are going to be far gone.

[Waynebrady]

Agree to disagree. I think the price will drop, but not by any significant means. I'm thinking it will stay in the 75k-90k range, at least. The pet is going to still be very hard to obtain, and no amount of new grouping methods, etc, is going to change that. Sure, more people will be able to do it, but will they? Are they going to take time to clear ToT to the 8th boss every week? Will it be worth it for the non-collector? Meta achivements only need to be done once, and can all typically be done in a single run, especially on old content. Those people won't be running it more than once, or twice. I don't think we'll be seeing a huge rise in the amount of people doing ToT each week. Sure, the numbers of people doing it will probably increase a little bit, but not to the point where we have 5-10 horror's on the AH, driving the price down significantly.

Unless we see some duping, the price is not going to drop significantly.

[Badpathing]

Agree to disagree. I think the price will drop, but not by any significant means. I'm thinking it will stay in the 75k-90k range, at least. The pet is going to still be very hard to obtain, and no amount of new grouping methods, etc, is going to change that. Sure, more people will be able to do it, but will they? Are they going to take time to clear ToT to the 8th boss every week? Will it be worth it for the non-collector? Meta achivements only need to be done once, and can all typically be done in a single run, especially on old content. Those people won't be running it more than once, or twice. I don't think we'll be seeing a huge rise in the amount of people doing ToT each week. Sure, the numbers of people doing it will probably increase a little bit, but not to the point where we have 5-10 horror's on the AH, driving the price down significantly.

Unless we see some duping, the price is not going to drop significantly.

But you are leaving out the fact that less and less people will need it. I also think you underestimate the number of people that run old content. If it were trivial, Blizz would not be retooling the game to enable it.

[Waynebrady]

Over time more and more people will get it, but that number will still remain relatively small as the drop chance is still really low. If you look at the number of people who have it currently (on Warcraftpets.com) it's 1.2%. That's a really small percentage of people, so the demand for it is really high. Even with the changes coming down the pipeline we aren't gong to see Viscous Horrors everywhere, like we do with the higher drop rate pets from raids. Will there be more on the market over time, of course, but unless they're increasing the drop rate we won't suddenly see an large influx of them, enough so to drop the price significantly.

I think in a year or so that number will probably be closer to 6-8%, but even at that number the demand for it will be still be high. Rocket Chicken for example is a relatively rare TCG pet, and the number of people who have it is small (4.6%), even though the chance to get a card has increased (via the the new TCG set), and it being available now on the BMAH. Although they have introduced new ways to get it, the price has remained quite constant (I would say 50-75k per). I know Rocket Chicken is not the best example as you can't run a dungeon every week for a chance to get it, I'm just trying to say that even as they introduce new ways (or easier ways) to get a rare item, it will still be rare for you to get it. The price of Rocket Chicken has hovered in the 50-100k range for a long time, despite it being more available, because the chance to get one is still low.

Look at mounts from Heroic ICC, or Ony, you can easily solo those dungeons every week but the chance of a drop is so small that very few people have it. Caged pets are certainly different than mounts in that you can trade them, I just don't think there will be a lot of Viscous Horrors floating around suddenly because its easy to run, although because of time there will certainly be more available, just not enough to drop the price by 50k.

[Badpathing]

Over time more and more people will get it, but that number will still remain relatively small as the drop chance is still really low. If you look at the number of people who have it currently (on Warcraftpets.com) it's 1.2%. That's a really small percentage of people, so the demand for it is really high. Even with the changes coming down the pipeline we aren't gong to see Viscous Horrors everywhere, like we do with the higher drop rate pets from raids. Will there be more on the market over time, of course, but unless they're increasing the drop rate we won't suddenly see an large influx of them, enough so to drop the price significantly.

I think in a year or so that number will probably be closer to 6-8%, but even at that number the demand for it will be still be high. Rocket Chicken for example is a relatively rare TCG pet, and the number of people who have it is small (4.6%), even though the chance to get a card has increased (via the the new TCG set), and it being available now on the BMAH. I know Rocket Chicken is not the best example as you can't run a dungeon every week for a chance to get it, I'm just trying to say that even as they introduce new ways (or easier ways) to get a rare item, it will still be rare for you to get it. The price of Rocket Chicken has hovered in the 50-100k range for a long time, despite it being more available, because the chance to get one is still low.

Look at mounts from Heroic ICC, or Ony, you can easily solo those dungeons every week but the chance of a drop is so small that very few people have it. Caged pets are certainly different than mounts in that you can trade them, I just don't think there will be a lot of Viscous Horrors floating around suddenly because its easy to run, although because of time there will certainly be more available, just not enough to drop the price by 50k.

I am not saying it will have no value; I did say it will still fetch decent gold. No reason to continue arguing, since time will tell, but I do not think using the Rocket Chicken as an example is useful. It just simply is not the same.

I for one would not have bought my VH if I could solo/easily run ToT. Why? Because I do not mind running things for small chance drops (See my warrior who has ran MC for over 3 years now and has yet to get the Eye ).

Two undeniable facts:

As time goes on, the demand for the pet will go down.
As time goes on, the content will become easier and easier.

Aside from the drop rarity, the entire reason for the pets price inflation was simply that no one was running ToT normal/heroic anymore; that is going to change.

[Waynebrady]

I'm not trying to argue, if you know me I'm just not that way. I find it interested to debate stuff like this. Hopefully you don't take my walls of text(s) wrong, it certainly isn't meant to be argumentative.

I guess I view it differently. The drop % is not going to go up because more people are running it, it will still be very very low drop chance (1.2%). With such a low drop %, the amount of them on the market will continue to be limited, even though more people will be running ToT. I'm sure the price may go down a little bit, but there will always be loads of people wanting to buy it, which will keep the price high.

[Badpathing]

but there will always be loads of people wanting to buy it, which will keep the price high.

This is exactly where our opinions differ. I simply think that over time, there is no way that demand can persist. But, due to the rarity, you will always be able to charge a premium.

I would expect to see them in the 20k range.

As to argumentation, I am right there with you and no offense is taken, or offered. I used the word argue in the heart of the first definition, though it seems most people assume the second.

1. give reasons or cite evidence in support of an idea, action, or theory, typically with the aim of persuading others to share one's view.
2. exchange or express diverging or opposite views, typically in a heated or angry way.

[Waynebrady]

I'm glad most pet collectors on here have the best intentions in mind. As you stated before, only time will tell.

[Badpathing]

I'm glad most pet collectors on here have the best intentions in mind. As you stated before, only time will tell.

I find myself to be almost territorial about these forums. I react pretty poorly to people being trollish or rude, and have trouble not 'speaking' up. I value the community as you do.

[Kpb321]

In the end I think it really depends on how elastic or inelastic the demand is for the pet. If the demand is elastic and the decreasing price and increasing availability of the pet on more servers increases the demand then that will help keep the price from dropping quickly. If on the other hand most people just aren't interested in getting it or have given up on being able to get it then the price could drop pretty far as the supply exceeds the demand.

As the heavy pet collectors I'm not sure we are really objective judges of how much other people are interested in the pet or what type of price it would need to drop to for them to be interested. Based on some of the complaints in the celestial tourney threads it seems like at least some of the casual pet battlers seem to be unwilling to spend even a couple k on a pet so that may mean the demand ends up being relatively inelastic as it would have to drop quite a ways for the more casual collectors to be interested.

[Badpathing]

In the end I think it really depends on how elastic or inelastic the demand is for the pet. If the demand is elastic and the decreasing price and increasing availability of the pet on more servers increases the demand then that will help keep the price from dropping quickly. If on the other hand most people just aren't interested in getting it or have given up on being able to get it then the price could drop pretty far as the supply exceeds the demand.

As the heavy pet collectors I'm not sure we are really objective judges of how much other people are interested in the pet or what type of price it would need to drop to for them to be interested. Based on some of the complaints in the celestial tourney threads it seems like at least some of the casual pet battlers seem to be unwilling to spend even a couple k on a pet so that may mean the demand ends up being relatively inelastic as it would have to drop quite a ways for the more casual collectors to be interested.

Well, if demand is inelastic, it is a temporary condition; there is certainly a finite pool of players willing to pay 120k+.

As for elastic demand, I would guess (with my limited economics background) that it would evolve into something like this if not already, and it would be a fairly gradual decline in price. I do not expect it to DROP, but I do expect it to gradually decline to around 20k or so, which, seems to be around the price I see for current content raid pets that are rare.

Again, the primary barrier being that no one is running ToT now.