Dazar’alor has been out for a little over a week now and the new BoEs are now in full circulation. With the opening of Mythic and the first wing of LFR we are closing on the point where the prices have stabilized and BoE flipping is now ripe.
A look at the items
There are 9 BoEs that can drop from Dazar’alor. The slots covered are belt, boots and a cloak. In Uldir the BoEs that dropped covered bracers and gauntlets.
As we can see there is some overlap with any of the old BoEs. We already havd boots and belts dropping from the world and these old items are likely to lose a lot of value unless they roll extremely high item levels. High item level versions of the old BoEs will still be valuable for players gearing up new alts.
Which item levels should you flip
On a high level it makes sense to break BoEs into three broad categories based on the item level. High, medium and low. Lower item level items will sell significantly slower and will typically be flooded making them extremely competitive. Mid range items will have a better price, lower competition and represent good value to a large group of players making them the overall best value to flip. High-end items can bring in huge hauls, but the sale rate is lower as you are only selling to a very small group of players.
These categories need to be broken down into concrete terms to be helpful, so that’s what I will turn my attention to.
Defining the low range
In terms of BoE flipping the low item level range is anything that can easily be obtained from other sources. If we look at the base item level from different content types it’s obvious that this would include gear from world quests, LFR, mythic+ up to a certain level and possibly normal Dazar’alor. These items can sell, but they are typically extremely plentiful as tons of players run this content. The other issue is that players that want to spend gold on gear will typically want to spend more to get better gear, as the value per item level is quite low.
This range goes up to the base level of normal Dazar’alor items at item level 385.
Defining the mid range
The mid range goes from the top of the low range at item level 380 up to the bottom of the high-end. Based on my experience with BoE flipping in 8.0 I would say the cut-off where you head into the high-end is at item level 405 which is 5 item levels above the base item level for heroic gear. The lower end of this range has a lot of item and will typically rarely have good deals, but the higher end will have deals more frequently.
The high-end
The high end is where fortunes can be made and lost. Making a wrong move cna cost you. These are the items that can make sense even for quite hardcore raiders to fill a gap during progression or to quickly gear an alt if needed.
The item level will generally be above the mythic base item level. The market is limited, but the items are so rare and so useful that prices are high. Unless you have 1 million gold I would stay away from this range.
The high-end in 8.1 is any items item level 400 or above, and items with sockets are of course always at a premium.
Tertiary stats and sockets
Generally speaking most tertiary stats do not matter much, the one exception is of course sockets. Sockets represent a massive increase in the secondary stats of an item that is equivalent to roughly XX item levels.
This is most important in the high-end category and for low level items it will generally not matter as the base item is not good enough for the socket to compensate enough.
Prioritizing the right range
Generally you should stay completely away from the low level range unless you are sniping. The mid range is where you will find the largest amount of deals, even though most of them will likely not be giving you crazy profit margins.
The high-end range is not really accessible until you have a lot of gold as the deals are expensive and the items sell slowly, which means you may end up tying down all your gold in a single item, which is really bad.
Stick to items between item levels 385 and 405 for the most part when starting out and you will minimize your risk. Long term you want to focus on the higher item level versions as these are significantly more valuable and rarer, making them much less competitive.
Your blog is awesome, I was wondering what you thought about the effect of these new BoEs on the Uldir BoE market, I’m imagining the low level of Dezal’Alor BoEs would be crashing the market for some of the higher level Uldir Items, except they don’t match the slots they fill right?
For example I just found a 370 ilvl Uldir BoE priced at 15k when the marketavg is around 50k US and 70k realm. I am trying to flip it but expect it to take longer than before…
Does it make sense to underplay the Uldir market price by a lot since the new raid BoEs will become the new traded commodity? Or do you think that they will still have a slice of the market based on them being different slots/ ran and purchased by a different market??
I think the market for BoEs below item level 385iush will be very small. There isnt any overlap between Uldir and BoD BoEs though, so higher item level rolls from Uldir will still be valuable. 370 is probably too low to sustain a high price, and I expect the price will take a week or two more before it stabilizes at the new level.
The problem with 370 ilvl, is that people will get better from spamming low key m+, Emisarry boxes and low rated Arena rather quickly.
The only reason I’d even consider buying a 370 is to get an alt ready for LFR asap.