D2R Ladder trading predictions

What do you guys think will be some trends in the marketplace behaviour when Ladder season 1 launches in a few days?

Here's my predictions:

• I think that lower-demand uniques and exceptional set items like
  Guillaume's Face will be a lot easier to sell in general as people level up. This is regardless of specific synergies with new 2.4 mechanics (bows for new Insight or Mist for example), for which prices would be high.
• People will be very confused about pricing and there will be a lot of contention in trade listings until ladder trade data starts being populated and consensus is reached. Many will feel like they're getting ripped off when really its just a case of demand being higher than supply.
• Stone of Jordan will probably be super valuable early on for the early speedrunners wanting to find a perfect
  Annihilus for 10% XP gained modifier.
  Annihilus will then slope to pretty low in relation to pre-2.4 given how easy it is these days to camp/farm and then kill
  Diablo Clone later in the season.
• Hellfire Torch will probably see the greatest volume of trade just like it did in Non-Ladder 2.3 and 2.4, at least once it becomes accessible to most players, closely followed by
  Tal's armor and true/trusted sellers like
  Harlequin Crest and
  Skin of the Vipermagi (see top sellers and other stats here btw.
• I reckon there will be higher than usual activity on the marketplace in general, but it will only really last about 2-3 weeks before people drop off again, or trading turns into the 'GG rares only' swamp that has dominated recently (with no-one needing most items in the game). I don't think that it will surpass trade activity at launch.
• We've polled people for Ladder and Non-Ladder preference a few times in the recent weeks and found that it is an even 50/50 split between how many will be in each camp. This can be quite misleading though considering the hardcore audience here/vocal minority vs silent majority.

What are your predictions/thoughts guys?

Torches are always a hot ticket item and good way to make a killing early season.

The "critical farmer stuff" that becomes dirt cheap later on is still pricy starting out (

Tal armor/neck,

Shako, ...).

As for

Annihilus, I'd expect the first ladder walks to take a while as farmers get their stuff set up. After that, if you can get your hands on a 10xp anni, that should go for a hefty sum as it'll be one of the biggest boosts to ladder racers.

We spoke about this on the side and I plan on giving it some airtime in tomorrow's live discussion...but the alienation between the Ladder vs. NL economies is going to be fascinating. As you astutely called out from the survey, it is a legitimate 50/50 split.

Now that set's can be up'd and they made some adjustments to full set's like Naj's Ancient Vestige which are pretty OG early on, I do think it will be a wild card. Especially with builds like Throw Barbs - finding a

Gimmershred you may have tossed early on, but they are now extremely viable for

Frenzy+Throw and passive stack benefits etc.

100% that the impulse/blitz at launch ladder will drive significant marketplace activity, but your multi-filtering becomes even more quality of life friendly now as we will have two major economies split.

Lacerator,

Warshrike,

Gimmershred, Demon’s Arch and

The Scalper will all be “hot” items for Barb players eager to roll a Throw Barb. So I expect those weapons to fetch a high price early on until things calm down in the market