I miss Frozen Orbs. I miss them a lot. The Frozen Orb was one of the most interesting item drops for the dungeon runner in WoW and an essential part of the economy game for high level crafters. Blizzard made them even more interesting with the introduction of Frozo the Renowned. Frozo allowed you to trade orbs for other high end Mats like Eternal Fire or Shadow. This made the game of crafting and gathering and purchasing a bit more interesting. However, all the while, it still came back to the Frozen orb and its usefulness in the game. I think one of the reasons it became a sought after item was the fact that every player had access to rolling on them as they were not soul bound items. They simply existed, you rolled, you collected you sold or used them to craft gear or weapons.
When I first heard about the Chaos Orb, I assumed that it would be Cataclysm’s version of the frozen orb. I figured later we’d see RAID oriented orbs as well, like the Crusader and Runed Orbs of the Wrath era. True to my guess, the Chaos Orb is very much like the Frozen Orb, except with one big change. They are bind on pick up.
WTF?!?
This means that once you get em, you can only use them to craft. You cannot sell them on the AH. This seems a little strange, and this has created another interesting result. The Crafter who has an epic recipe HAS to run a Dungeon to get the MATS. They have no choice. They cannot go to the AH and purchase them. It has also driven up the rarity of the epic crafted items and thus their cost. I for one think the BOP restriction of the Chaos Orb is unnecessary, and I am firmly crossing my fingers in hope that Blizzard will change this requirement and go back to a system that quite frankly worked well.