Theorycrafting BoE flipping in Shadowlands

Flipping epic Bind on Equip gear has been one of the most profitable goldmaking methods in Legion and BfA. So let’s see how this market might work in Shadowlands.

No more warforging

One of the most impactful changes to gear in Shadowlands is the removal of randomness in item level upgrades. With no warforging all versions of the same item are mostly identical in power. The main reason I have been able to find value in the past is because there were a huge number of different ilvl and other bonus roll combinations and it was very hard to accurately price your gear.

In Shadowlands the only random effects on gear come from tertiary stats and sockets. This will most likely make it much harder to find under-priced items, but it should still be possible.

Epic gear in Shadowlands

There are two main types of epic BoE gear in Shadowlands: World rops and raid drops. For items that drop in Nathria the item level depends on which difficulty you ran Castle Nathria on. The BoEs scale from 187 for LFR to 226 for Mythic. World drops come in two varieties, one set of items with ilvl 190, and one set with item level 207. The ilvl 190 set contains all of the BoE weapons in Shadowlands, which makes it very interesting. With the slow down of gear acquisition from raids and M+ many players will likely supplement with BoEs, so sales should be strong for a long while.

Weapons are king

In BfA I made a lot of gold flipping the various world drop weapons in patch 8.0. This was the only source of easy weapon upgrades, and this is the case in SL as well. These items should have very strong sale rates, much higher than their ilvl might indicate.

For armor, ilvl is king

For all the other drops item level will be a huge factor. I doubt that normal or below raid gear will be rare enough that you can find significant flipping opportunities. I would personally stick to the ilvl 207 world drops and heroic and mythic Nathria gear.

Tertiary stats and sockets

The main way players will undervalue their items will be if it has a socket or tertiary stat that is sought after. They might post it at the same price as the base item, where players will be willing to pay more for the right set of extra value. Sockets are usually the biggest factor, and if it has both a socked and a tertiary you may hit the jackpot.

The screenshot below shows the massive price difference between a heroic BoE with and without a socket, with the 160k one having a socket.

Buying BoEs

To effectively buy BoEs I would suggest two different search strings. One to focus on the weapons and one for the higher ilvl gear. /Epic/i189/i191 will return all the ilvl 190 gear on the AH. You want to look for items where the cheapest auction is significantly below the others, and hopefully where it is below either the market value or region market value on your realm.

The claymore below has some potential, even if the margin is likely a bit too thin to be worth it.

For armor you follow the exact same approach, except you use /Epic/i207/ to look for gear.

Posting BoEs

If you are doing small volume sit can make sense to just use the base UI to post. If you are active on many realms you will want to use an auctioning operation however. I included a sample group with an operation below, but the group only contains one item as I do not use the group to search for deals. Add items to the group as you buy them and you will be good to go!

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