Guild Wars 2

Bought a set of armor for my friend and put runes in it only to find that I cannot mail them to him, or sell them on the tradepost. But they don’t say “soulbound,” like my other soulbound items. It still says “Soulbound on use” and I didn’t equip them.

So what’s up with that?

Putting any sort of upgrade components (including runes, jewels, marks, talismans etc.) onto an item instantly soulbinds it to your character. The armor/runes you bought are unfortunately wasted, although you could still salvage out the runes.

I guess that makes sense, it should say “Soulbound” when you make any changes then, cause it still says “Soulbound on use,” a minor fix. I’m sure ANet has more important things to worry about right now.

Yeah, it’s probably so you can’t just put a rune on a piece of armor that happens to sell at a high price when it has that rune installed but is cheap otherwise (it happens).

Didn’t you see the warning saying it would be soulbound when you upgraded the armor ?

Jabberwock.9014:

Yeah, it’s probably so you can’t just put a rune on a piece of armor that happens to sell at a high price when it has that rune installed but is cheap otherwise (it happens).

Actually, it’s due to a limitation of the trading post. If an item can be traded, then the trading post needs to have a listing for it that will show up in search. If items didn’t become soulbound when you upgrade them, then the trading post would need multiple listings for every weapon/armor/trinket: One listing for every single upgrade that can be put on the item. Including all the stupid ones.

With bind on upgrade, they only need to list entries for the upgrades the item comes with on creation. So if the item only ever comes with one upgrade (or never comes with any), then there is only one listing.

Makes perfect sense! I was too distraught to think that. Now I feel like such a fool.