When To Buy Equipment From Vendors

As a general rule, buying equipment from vendors is a waste of money.

But, as with any general rule, there are exceptions to the rule, and those exceptions can be used to make money or save time by help your lowbie toon advance more quickly at very low levels, getting to where you can hit instances or blow past your level 10 class quest.

Exception #1 - Vendor Equipment That Makes You Money

There are a few pieces of equipment that vendors around the World of Warcraft sell which can be bought and resold in the Auction House for more than their vendor price, or used as a way to get your own toon some cheap “green” gear.

For example, in Ratchet (a town both Horde and Alliance can enter), there’s a vendor who sells a small variety of equipment in the mid-to-high-teens level range which are both Limited Sell and Uncommon/Green in rarity.

In The Sepulcher, a Horde village that the Undead/Forsaken are sent to around level 10-12, there is a vendor who sells a couple of pairs of Uncommon/Green boots which are also Limited Sell and in the mid-teens range. One of these boots has pretty decent agility on it for its level and tends to sell quite well.

So, watch the vendors, even though you don’t buy equipment from them very often for your own use - there’s money to be made from the things they sell!

Exception #2 - Vendor Equipment Strategies To Save You Time

Another exception to the rule comes into play when you decide you’d like to have a “family” of toons instead of just working on one and only one to advance through the levels.

White equipment is normally low quality with no stats on it (ie: no +int, +agi, +sta) and very little armor, and it’s available in Cloth, Leather, Mail and Plate varieties if you look around on the game long enough. Its main benefit, however, is that it does not soulbound, and can thus be shared between all of your toons or even shared with friends.

Why would you want to share White equipment amongst your toons or friends?

Well, because you’d enchant the heck out of the White equipment pieces and use the equipment set on your different toons to zoom them from 1 to about 12 or 15 before they have to consider getting better equipment again.

Stick a +100 health on a chestpiece below level 5, and a couple of +int or +agi or +sta enchants on other pieces and tell me your newbie isn’t going to crank through everything in their newbie area without a problem…

And you can keep the equipment, tucking it away for the next lowbie that you start up!

Any Other Suggestions I’ve Missed?

Hey, if you’re reading this and thinking “wait, you missed THIS great thing/reason”, then please feel free to leave me a note!

(Originally written by WoWGrrl)