If you haven’t noticed already, the market for trade goods has already collapsed. I wrote yesterday about how to make gold with subtle essences as their auction house value gets closer and closer to their vendor value. The vendor value of Subtle Essence is 14 gold, Shimmering Essence is 30 gold. Magic items, on the other hand, have somewhat inflated vendor prices considering the low material prices.

In order to explain why you should vendor your magic gear instead of salvaging it, here is an example:

These gloves are from Nightmare and will sell to the vendor for 293 gold. If you salvage them you will get 1 Shimmering Essence and 0.15 Lizard Eye. Shimmering Essence sell for between 30-35 gold and Lizard Eyes sell for 120-130 gold on the auction house. The ‘average’ value of salvaging a typical magic item is then 35+18=50 gold minus a 15% auction house fee for selling them. The total then is only 45 or so gold. Does the 293 gold look better?

You’ll notice as you play that the vendor values of equipment like this are usually this high, this isn’t an abnormality.

This is just one example of the oddities going on on the auction house right now. People are doing some stupid shit like salvaging magic items all over the place. Don’t salvage your magic items, sell them directly to the vendor or sell them on the auction house. Remember though, you can only make 10 posts at a time. Also, it takes a lot of effort to go through items and sell them, you have to look up comparable items to determine what the appropriate price is. But hell, if you think someone is going to buy your gear it’s probably worth doing.

Important: Many of the strategies and tips I share here were originally inspired by the people at the Diablo 3 Gold Secrets Forum. If you're serious about making the big bucks in Diablo 3, or just being the best players, you need to signup ASAP.