Wowhead: vendor prices changed at the weekly reset, Iron Grenade shuffle reported dead
· ForeverDB
Wowhead reports that with this week's reset many items had their vendor prices changed on WoW Forever, likely to shut down vendor shuffles, and that the Iron Grenade shuffle no longer works. There is no post from Blizzard about it, and the client files we have can't confirm which prices moved.
What's being reported
On November 10 Wowhead reported that with the weekly reset a lot of items had their vendor prices changed on WoW Forever, and that the change looks aimed at vendor shuffles. It says one of the best-known shuffles, the Iron Grenade shuffle, no longer works.
Site report, not a Blizzard change or statement. We've found no post from Blizzard about this, so treat the "targeting shuffles" and "shuffle dead" parts as Wowhead's reading, not a confirmed fact.
What a vendor shuffle is
A vendor shuffle takes cheap materials, turns them into something a vendor pays more for, and sells the result back for a profit. Do it in bulk and the gold adds up, because every run quietly mints new gold into the economy. That's why these get patched quickly when they turn up.
The Iron Grenade shuffle
The Iron Grenade shuffle is an old Classic trick. You craft Iron Grenade from Iron Bar, Heavy Blasting Powder and Silk Cloth, then sell the grenades to a vendor. In Classic Era, when the materials were cheap enough, a few silver of goods became grenades worth more than you paid, so you came out ahead each run.
The client files we have still show Iron Grenade Iron Grenade selling to a vendor for 7 silver 50 copper, with Iron Bar at 2 silver, Heavy Blasting Powder at 1 silver 50 copper and Silk Cloth at 1 silver 50 copper. On those numbers the shuffle still looks profitable, so either the files we have pre-date this week's reset, or the change was to what the vendor charges for the materials rather than what it pays for the grenades. We can't tell from the data which prices moved.
Speculation. Why these prices changed, and whether it was meant to kill shuffles, is Wowhead's read on it. The game decides vendor buy and sell prices on the server and in the item data, so until Blizzard posts a note or the changed values show up in the files, we can't confirm the reason or the exact amounts.