A extremely difficult thing to do in Diablo 3 is to learn the market, aka Auction House.

The game of Diablo 3 is so new that most prices have not stabilized yet, hence, the market is fluctuating and constantly dropping for mediocre or mid/low level legendary gear. (6-5-12 is the date of this posting

In this article I will tell you a few tips on how to tell if a piece of gear is any good! I am still not a pro at the market, but when I see an item I usually can tell after 5 seconds of looking at it if it’s going to be used, sold(vendored), or thrown on the Auction House.

Nerd Tip # 1 – Don’t try to learn the entire market! Learn your class and the gear you are using, this will naturally allow you to learn the market of the gear set you use, and as you browse the auction house at level 60, you will see, and learn, what the max stats are for the stats you need on certain pieces of gear.  This will then roll over into other gear sets because it all uses the same formulas.

Nerd Tip # 2 – Wasted stats! Does the item you want to sell have wasted stats? What are wasted stats you ask? Let me give you an example.  If you find a level 60 belt, and it has, 150 strength, 100 vitality, +88 life on hit, a socket, and + 120 dex.  First thing to see is that it would be best for a barbarian, a monk or demon hunter could use it, but the wasted stat would be the +120 dex because it doesn’t benefit the barb as well as another stat.  So for this item I would rate it 8/10, if it had a better stat, say +5% life instead of dex, it would be 9/10.  This is just an example but you see where I am going.  People who are paying millions of gold are looking for improvements on their gear, and while this is a good belt, it isn’t worth dropping millions on, because it has the unwanted stat of dex, and will soon be replaced again by the buyer.

Nerd Tip # 3 – Weapons! Weapons are slightly different, but not really.  Weapon’s main stat is obviously the DPS(damage per second), but always take into account that IAS(increased attack speed), an open socket, or similar stats increase DPS too!So while say a Demon Hunter bow that has 1000 dmg and +20 ias with an open socket seems inferior to an 1100 bow with not as much IAS and no socket, you may actually LOSE DPS with the 1100 because of the stats.

Here an example price range, to demonstrate how at the higher level, a few stats mean the difference from 1 million and 15 million on the auction house.

500-700 blue bow – Average price 20-50k

700-800 rare bow – 650-1 million

800-1000 rare bow – 1 million to 2 million

1000-1050 rare bow –  2-5 million

1050-1200 rare / blue bow – 2.5 – 25 million (WOAH bro!)

It can go higher than this, but that is just an example of how much it jumps at the higher levels when people are trying to maximize their damage output.  A wasted stat on a 1200 dps bow could mean the difference from 2 million to 25 million.

Nerd Tip # 4 – Legendary rolls and how to price them!  Legendary items can be tricky to price, but if you study the item for about 5 minutes you can understand how much it’s worth.  I’ll give you an example.

String of Ears– This is one of the best barb belts, and I recently purchased one , but spent 45 minutes studying the auction house pages (40+ page of them) and after I learned what made the belt expensive, I knew what I was looking for.  As a barb I wanted strength, vitality, good+ life on hit, and 18-20% dmg reduction(20 being perfect).  I saw that the near perfect ones were 25 million, but low end ones were 1 million.   I had a price range of 3 million.   I looked at over 150 different belts, comparing stats, but i would just mouse over them looking for 1 thing that was the deal breaker that I didn’t , or did want that belt to have, DMG reduction, if it was 17% or less, i moved on, if it didn’t have strength and vitality, I moved on.  Finally I found one with 60 strength 30 vitality and 18% dmg reduction for 2 million.  I remembered what page it was on, doubled checked a few more belts, and decided on it.  I am glad I did, but the research I did was totally worth it because if not I would just want to upgrade it later on, and would have a hard time trying to sell a crappy rolled one that i “settled on”.  I can now flip this belt for maybe 3 million, and then use that to upgrade and do the same process for a slight upgrade.

The same wall of text explanation I just gave you above can relate to any other legendary that you are trying to sell, or buy.  I hope this was all atleast semi-helpful, to the new players atleast, because almost every day a friend or two asks me if this is worth something, so I figured their were others out there that could use a Price Guide 101 read!

Be easy my fellow nerds ! EZ PZ! –  Your Nerd Brother, Boot Danger