Do Suffixes Matter When Selling Flipping Items?

As I discussed on Episode 067 of the podcast I've been thinking about optimizing my flipping item auctions in order to help cut down my posting fees.

Today I'm going to be analyzing my own sales based on the item suffixes (...of the Invoker, ...of the Eagle, etc.) in order to see if I can eliminate any suffixes that are particular bad sellers. Read on past the jump for our research and analysis.

The Methodology

In order to find out what has been selling in the game I will be analyzing sales I've made in the last 30 days.

This will help make my analysis be much more up-to-date and allow me to include level 87-88 items (which I only started selling recently).

I'll be analyzing sales in my three flipping main categories: 77-80 Cataclysm items, 83-84 Mists of Pandaria items and 87-88 Mists of Pandaria items.

(If you'd like to learn more about flipping these items see The Big List of 77-79 & 83-84 Item Flipping Information.)

I will be gathering sales data by searching for the suffixes in my recorded sales data stored in TradeSkillMaster_Accounting (similar to how I did it in my 87-88 MoP Item Sales Analysis & Adjustment and Level 83-84 MoP Armor Sales Data and Analysis posts).

I'll be adding up all the sales of the various suffixes and comparing them to see if there are any particularly bad sellers I can avoid in order to cut down on reposting (and therefore reposing fees).

I will be recording both Horde and Alliance sales data on my main server.

A Note On Stats

When I refer to an item as a "2-stat" or "3-stat" item I am referring to how many unique stats a suffix has.

For example an item "...of the Eagle" has Intellect and Stamina on it. That is a "2-stat" item since it has two unique statistics on it.

Suffixes can have 2, 3 or 4 unique statistics. In general the higher the number statistics the less of each stat the item will have.

In other words an item with Int and Stam only will have more Int than an item that has Int, Crit and Stam.

Items of the same "item level" (also know as "iLevel") will have roughly the same "power" even though they have different numbers of unique stats.

Just because an item has more unique stats doesn't mean each will be more powerful than one with less.

The Suffixes

Knowing what stats are contained on what suffixes may give us some information on which stats players may be looking for and which ones are less desirable.

The following is a list of all the suffixes (also know as "random enchants") and the stats they contain.

	Item Suffix	Stats		Item Suffix	Stats
	Intellect			Strength
	Eagle	Int Stam		Bear	Str Stam
	Invoker	Int Haste		Mercenary	Str Haste Stam
	Elder	Int Spirit Stam		Soldier	Str Crit Stam
	Sorcerer	Int Haste Stam		Champion	Str Dodge Stam
	Seer	Int Crit Stam		Landslide	Str Hit Exper Stam
	Feverflare	Int Haste Mast Stam		Faultline	Str Haste Mast Stam
	Fireflash	Int Crit Haste Stam		Mountainbed	Str Mast Exper Stam
	Flameblaze	Int Mast Hit Stam		Earthfall	Str Crit Haste Stam
	Wavecrest	Int Mast Spirit Stam		Earthbreaker	Str Crit Mast Stam
	Wildfire	Int Hit Crit Stam		Earthshaker	Str Crit Hit Stam
	Undertow	Int Haste Spirit Stam		Bouldercrag	Str Dodge Parry Stam
				Rockslab	Str Dodge Mast Stam
	Agility			Bedrock	Str Mast Parry Stam
	Monkey	Agi Stam
	Tiger	Agi Hit		No Main Stats
	Bandit	Agi Crit Stam		Beast	Hit Crit Stam
	Marksman	Agi Hit Stam		Whale	Spirit Stam
	Stormblast	Agi Crit Hit Stam
	Windflurry	Agi Crit Haste Stam
	Windstorm	Agi Crit Mast Stam
	Zephyr	Agi Haste Mast Stam

Outliers

It should be noted that while I will be analyzing the suffixes as a whole there are some special cases that I won't really be addressing in this particular analysis.

The analysis of Plate items that have Intellect are going to be mixed in with Cloth, Leather and Mail items that have Intellect.

This won't really give us a clear indication if we should consider stopping sales if Plate gear that has Intellect.

Perhaps we will do an even further analysis at some point to dig into these cases of "outlier" gear.

Multiple Armor Types

I'll also be keeping in mind that some suffixes are contained on multiple types of armor. "... of the Wavecrest" for example is on all 4 armor types as compared to "...of the Bouldercrag " which is only found on Plate items.

Also included in the sales are weapons and Jewelery. I don't think it will affect the analysis too much one way or the other.

In the case where a suffix is on just one or two armor types I'll be taking that into consideration when comparing its item sales.

For example if I see a suffix with Strength selling less than a suffix with Intellect I'll know that Strength suffixes mainly only occur on Plate items whereas Intellect suffixes can occur on all four armor types.

Additional Considerations

There is also a good chance that I may just be randomly getting items that are of a certain Stat type and therefore selling more of those items.

While that is certainly possible, I'm hoping to counteract that by pulling sales data from both Horde and Alliance.

It could be that World of Warcraft itself drops more of a certain type of suffix than others. While that may be true we have no way of knowing that and can only work with the data we have on-hand.

We don't actively purchase suffixes with no main stats namely "...of the Beast" and "...of the Whale". Any sales of these were from drops or accidental purchases.

Because I've been buying and selling these items for so long I can also tell when items are particularly rare (such as certain Plate tanking items, etc). In those cases I'll keep that in mind when analyzing the sales data.

I also sell Plate items for between 100g-150g more than all other armor types. Why? Because they are more rare and people will pay more.

The lower amount of items with the stat may affect Strength sales numbers.

The Data

Below is our sales data for 77-80 Cataclysm, 83-84 Mists of Pandaria and 87-88 Mists of Pandaria flipping items sold in the last 30 days.

	Item Suffix	Alliance	Horde	Total	Stats
	Intellect
	Eagle	3	2	5	Int Stam
	Invoker	5	4	9	Int Haste
	Elder	5	5	10	Int Spirit Stam
	Sorcerer	8	4	12	Int Haste Stam
	Seer	2	3	5	Int Crit Stam
	Feverflare	9	6	15	Int Haste Mast Stam
	Fireflash	6	3	9	Int Crit Haste Stam
	Flameblaze	3	4	7	Int Mast Hit Stam
	Wavecrest	3	13	16	Int Mast Spirit Stam
	Wildfire	8	6	14	Int Hit Crit Stam
	Undertow	10	9	19	Int Haste Spirit Stam
	Total	62	59	121
	Agility
	Monkey	20	11	31	Agi Stam
	Tiger	1	4	5	Agi Hit
	Bandit	16	12	28	Agi Crit Stam
	Marksman	7	17	24	Agi Hit Stam
	Stormblast	5	3	8	Agi Crit Hit Stam
	Windflurry	4	6	10	Agi Crit Haste Stam
	Windstorm	4	6	10	Agi Crit Mast Stam
	Zephyr	7	5	12	Agi Haste Mast Stam
	Total	64	64	128
	Strength
	Bear	4	7	11	Str Stam
	Mercenary	8	10	18	Str Haste Stam
	Soldier	9	5	14	Str Crit Stam
	Champion	1	2	3	Str Dodge Stam
	Landslide	3	2	5	Str Hit Exper Stam
	Faultline	-	3	3	Str Haste Mast Stam
	Mountainbed	-	-	-	Str Mast Exper Stam
	Earthfall	1	5	6	Str Crit Haste Stam
	Earthbreaker	2	8	10	Str Crit Mast Stam
	Earthshaker	2	2	4	Str Crit Hit Stam
	Bouldercrag	1	-	1	Str Dodge Parry Stam
	Rockslab	-	1	1	Str Dodge Mast Stam
	Bedrock	-	2	2	Str Mast Parry Stam
	Total	31	47	78
	No Main Stats
	Beast	3	2	5	Hit Crit Stam
	Whale	2	1	3	Spirit Stam
	Total	5	3	8

Analysis

Now that we have the numbers what can we learn from them?

Our initial impressions are that we sell much less Strength items than Agility or Intellect items. This makes sense since for armor Strength is only found on Plate items.

We can now start to analyze secondary stats since that is what is the main differentiating factor for all these suffixes.

Intellect Items

For Intellect the lowest three sellers are Eagle (Int Stam) with 5 items, Seer (Int Crit Stam) with 5 items and Flameblaze (Int Hit Mast Stam) with 7 items.

The three highest sellers are Undertow (Int Haste Spirit Stam) with 19 items, Wavecrest (Int Mast Spirit Stam) with 16 items and Feverflare (Int Haste Mast Stam) with 15 items.

It is very interesting that the top two sellers are items that include Spirit. It seems that gear for healers are a relatively good sellers.

It should also be noted that the three top sellers are all 4-stat items.

It seems that players aren't very interested in items that include fewer stats. As far as Flameblaze items, I'm not sure why they don't sell.

Also note wothy is the fact that Eagle and Seer they aren't present on Mail and Leather items, only Plate, Cloth, Weapons and Jewelry.

As for changes I will make? I think I may stop buying and selling Eagle and Seer items. They don't seem to be very popular.

Agility Items

For Agility items the three lowest sellers are Tiger (Agi Hit) with 5 items, Stormblast (Agi Crit Hit Stam) with 8 items and third is a tie between Windflurry (Agi Crit Haste Stam) and Windstorm (Agi Crit Mast Stam) with 10 items each.

Tiger sure is unpopular. It may be that it is a less common suffix. If not players don't seem to buy them that often.

(Interestingly it doesn't seem to be due to having only two stats as Monkey (Agi Stam) is a great seller. Perhaps players don't like items without Stam, at least Leather and Mail wearers.)

The top three sellers in the Agility were Monkey (Agi Stam) with 31 items, Bandit (Agi Crit Stam) 28 items and Marksman (Agi Hit Stam) with 24 items.

For whatever reason it seems that players looking for Agility items favor three-stat items. This is in contrast to Intellect items where 4-stat items seem to be popular.

For Agility items I'll likely stop buying and selling Tiger items as well as looking at reevaluating 4-stat Agility items. More research on 4-stat agility items is likely in order.

Strength Items

For Strength items I have to reiterate that in my experience Plate (which most Strength items are) seems to be much less common than all the other armor classes.

Due to this I will be evaluating the Strength items a bit differently.

In most cases if I'm not selling a Plate item it is simply because I don't have it to sell.

This is in contrast to all the other armor classes which I seem to find plenty of items available on the auction house at my buy prices.

(Also Strength items don't include any Plate items that have Intellect.)

By the numbers alone the three lowest sellers for Strength items are Mountainbed (Str Mast Exper Stam) with 0 items, tied for second are Bouldercrag (Str Dodge Parry Stam) and Rockslab (Str Dodge Mast Stam) with 1 item each and Bedrock (Str Mast Parry Stam) with 2 items.

(It should be noted that not all of these items are Plate. It is possible to have Jewelry and cloaks with these suffixes.)

You'd assume that I should stop selling the above items due to poor sales. However, like I stated earlier, Plate items are much more rare and therefore not something I'll likely stop selling.

I almost never have Plate item overstock.

The three best selling Strength suffixes are Mercenary (Str Haste Stam) with 18 items, Soldier (Str Crit Stam) with 14 items and Bear (Str Stam) with 11 items.

Interestingly our top sellers for Plate are 2 and 3-stat items. This is a very similar result as the Agility item sales.

It could be that more 2 and 3-stat items drop than 4-stat items. I have no way of knowing this though.

(Earthbreaker (Str Crit Mast Stam) nearly made the top three items with 10 item sales even thought it is a 4-stat item.)

What will I change about my plate item buying and selling? I'm not sure I'll change anything.

While it is good to know what types of items are selling I just don't get that many Strength items of the auction house. I will generally try to sell all I can get.

Conclusion

So what have I learned by taking the time to crunch the numbers on my 77-80 Cataclysm, 83-84 Mists of Pandaria and 87-88 Mists of Pandaria items?

(More importantly what have I learned that I can use to reevaluate my posting in order to save on posting fees?)

While my analysis above was a bit rough there are some patterns that I am going to definitely keep in mind as I decide what items to stop buying and selling.

For Intellect items it seems buyers like 4-stat items and spirit seems to be a important stat. I'm stopping selling Eagle and Seer for sure.

For Agility items is seems that 3-stat items are popular, 2-stat items are split (Monkey good, Tiger bad) and 4-stat items are in the middle.

For Strength items is seems that, like Agility, players lean toward 3-stat items. That said, in my experience Plate items are fairly rare so I'll likely keep selling all of them.

One of the most important things that this research has done is get me more familiar with the different suffixes and number of unique stats.

Anytime you learn more about something, really look into it, the knowledge you gain is bound to help you in the future (even if just to make you a bit more cognizant of things you may have ignored before).

Time to go dig in and see if I can reduce my posting and relisting fees by eliminating items that just aren't selling.

And so the cleansing begins...

---

Like this post? Get even more Power Word: Gold - Purchase our 75-Page Mists of Pandaria Gold Guide, subscribe via RSS, subscribe to the Podcast via iTunes or RSS, watch our Livestreams, follow us on Twitter, Circle us on Google+, Like us on Facebook, subscribe via Youtube and join us on reddit.

---