Hi there,

A little thread for awareness on an age old AH trick that made millions for some of the early merches and still makes millions for some nowadays.
I'll use a little of bit of maths and a little bit of common sense to explain the trick and justify how it is profitable.

Of course for starters, the trick itself:
Unbind your useless yet slightly mainstream 5* item, say, something trendy like a Winter Grave.
You've spent 4k CE which roughly amounts to 360k cr, if you're smart with buying your CE.
List it on AH at 450k cr starting bid, 650k cr buyout.
Wait.
Sold!

Wait what?
So you might think at this point it's very unlikely the item will sell. It's clearly overpriced for what it is (650k cr being almost 8k CE for an item only worth at the very most 4.5k CE). The profit is good, we're looking at about +30-40%.

So how does it sell?

There's a few explanations for that. First of all, in this example, Winter Grave CANNOT be obtained from Supply Depot. Therefore eliminating any risk of there being a cheaper supply chain. You won't see anyone ever shouting about selling a vanilla Winter Grave, it just never happens.
Second, and that is true even for items available on Supply Depot, most players won't think at purchasing with Energy, simply because converting CR to CE can be tedious and just discouraging; seeing 600k cr turn into a mere 7k CE just doesn't feel right.
Third and most surprising many people don't think of Supply Depot as a place to buy weapons and armory, either because they don't have the rank that gives them access to the goods or more often simply because they don't know about it. Try and ask around, players never think of Supply Depot first to obtain their equipment.

But Hippo are you even sure it sells how do you know lolnub
I can tell it works from experience (having done it myself); besides at any time of the week you will see these items on Auction House, if this wasn't profitable or just wasn't working, there would be none.

So when you're about to sell all your 5* equipment for 4.2k CE per piece or when you're about to buy one from the Auction House, know that somewhere down or up the line, someone is getting a very solid profit.
Making your own 5* equipment will always be cheaper; if you're not finding time but still have funds, and if Supply Depot has it, buy it there! If any of these two fail, find a seller in person (in-game of course) rather than through the Auction House. Your wallet will thank you for this!

If there's any questions, ask away.