Use your favourite features in-game with our Desktop AppYour bags fill up quickly in WoW Forever. Between equipment, crafting materials, food and quest items, it can be difficult to know what is useful and what is just taking up space.
You don’t need to check the Auction House for every single drop. A few simple habits will help you clear your bags, keep what you need and avoid selling something another player might pay more for.
Item | What to do |
|---|---|
Equipment that improves your character | Keep and equip it |
Items needed for an active quest | Keep until you finish the quest |
Materials for your next planned crafts | Keep the amount you need |
Food, drinks and useful consumables | Keep a practical supply |
Ordinary grey junk | Sell to a vendor |
Replaced soulbound equipment | Vendor it, or disenchant it if worthwhile |
Spare crafting materials | Check the Auction House |
Unbound green, blue or purple equipment | Check its usefulness and auction price |
Tradeable recipes you don’t need | Check the Auction House |
Unfamiliar items | Check their use before selling |
Keep equipment that improves your character, but look beyond the colour of the item’s name. A rarer item isn’t automatically better for your class or the way you play.
Compare its stats, weapon damage where relevant, and any useful effects with your current equipment. If you regularly switch roles, keeping a few pieces for your other role can also make sense.
Before storing something for later, ask yourself whether you have a clear reason to use it. Keeping every possible upgrade is an easy way to run out of space.
Keep anything required for quests you are working on. Check your quest log before clearing out items marked as quest items.
Ordinary materials can also be needed for a hand-in. If you recognise something from a quest objective, keep enough to complete it.
My recommendation is to keep materials for a specific goal: your next equipment craft, a batch of consumables or a profession skill target.
Check your recipes and put aside the amount you actually need. You can then decide whether to sell the extras.
Keeping everything because you “might need it eventually” can leave you with full storage and very little gold to spend.
Keep enough supplies for your next session. Think about what you are doing: questing, exploring or heading into a dungeon.
Check level requirements and how much a consumable restores. If you have outgrown a supply, decide whether to use it up or sell it instead of carrying it indefinitely.
Also keep any reagents your current abilities require.
Ordinary grey drops are usually the first things to clear out. Individually they may not look valuable, but selling a bag full gives you a useful amount of money.
Don’t apply the same rule to white items. Cloth, leather, herbs, ore and meat can have crafting uses, so inspect them before selling.
When you replace a piece of equipment, check whether you still need it for another role.
Items marked Soulbound cannot be sold on the Auction House. If you no longer need one, sell it to a vendor or consider disenchanting it if you have the profession and the item is eligible.
Before disenchanting, compare the possible material value with the guaranteed vendor payment.
Sometimes a vendor sale is the most practical choice, even when an item can be auctioned.
If the expected auction return is only slightly higher, consider whether it is worth the time spent listing it and waiting. An item that repeatedly comes back unsold deserves another look.
You don’t have to squeeze every last copper out of every drop.
Check spare materials before selling them to a vendor. Another player may need them even when you don’t.
Cloth, herbs, ore and leather are good categories to inspect. Meat, fish, gems and other ingredients also deserve a check when they have a crafting use.
Treat them as items to investigate, rather than guaranteed big sellers. Keep what you need and compare the value of the rest.
Check unbound equipment, particularly pieces with useful stats or an interesting effect.
Binds when equipped means equipping an item can make it bound. If you might sell it, check its current binding status and avoid equipping it just to try it out.
Green equipment is worth inspecting, but its colour alone doesn’t make it valuable. The same applies to blue and purple items: somebody still needs a reason to buy them.
Tradeable recipes you already know, or cannot use, are worth checking.
Before learning one, decide whether you actually want it for your profession. Before selling one, make sure you won’t need it for a craft you have planned.
If you want to craft items for sale, test a small batch first.
Compare the value of the ingredients with your expected return after auction fees. Materials you gathered yourself still have a value. You could have sold them instead.
For example, if the materials would sell for more than the finished item, crafting it may help your profession progress, but it isn’t necessarily making you money.
Search for the exact item and look at several listings. When comparing materials, make sure you understand whether the price shown is for one item or a whole stack.
An expensive listing is an asking price, not proof that somebody will pay it.
If your item keeps returning unsold, reconsider its price or whether it is worth auctioning at all.
Compare the vendor payment with what you expect to receive after auction fees.
Check the deposit before posting. Repeated unsuccessful auctions can reduce the benefit of trying to get a higher price.
Here’s a hypothetical example:
Option | Expected money received |
|---|---|
Sell to a vendor | 20 silver |
Auction after fees | 21 silver |
Auction after fees at a stronger price | 60 silver |
For the extra one silver, I would usually take the quick vendor sale. For an expected return of 60 silver, checking the market becomes much more worthwhile.
These are example figures, not current item prices.
Check how the current auction interface handles matching prices, compare similar listings and choose a price you are happy to accept.
Start with a manageable amount of stock. Selling a small batch gives you more useful information than filling the Auction House with items you haven’t tested.
Whenever I return to town, this is the order I would use:
The habit I would recommend most is reading the tooltip before selling. Item colour gives you a starting point, but its use, binding status and realistic sale value help you make the decision.
You don’t need to become an Auction House expert. A few sensible choices each time you clear your bags can help you earn more from the loot you already collect.
