How does Vendor inventory work?
 

So I've gotten the concept of 'fishing' a vendor for items by buying off junk and moving it to a new vendor. However, it is not enough to buy an item unless it clears that item off the list, or so it seems? I.e. if vendor has 4 short beers buying 1 and then closing/opening will not move around his stock, yes?

Let's say I'm looking for giant rat ears. I will sell one of my giant rat ears as a 'marker' so that after fishing through the vendor if I come across '1' giant rat ear I will know it is mine and he had no others. Or is there a better way to do this? I'm skeptical if this even works because there have been times that I have bought off all 6 of say... 'cloth caps' and later on more will appear.

Is there a trick to fishing for a specific item that you want? Meats, components, etc. ?

If it's an item the vendor normally stocks I don't think you can clear out his inventory of that item. AFIK, you can however buy limited stock items and cause a re-shuffle when you open/close.

I suppose the trick is knowing what the vendor normally stocks. I don't partake in too much of this so I could be "fishing" myself.....

Of course. Only limited stock items can be shuffled. I was just wondering if there was a specific method of finding the item you want. I thought maybe selling 1 of the item after buying out something else but before closing/opening... but it seems completely random as to whether or not 450 wolf meats, 223 Bone Chips or whatever other desirable you may be looking for pops up.

Killing the vendor isn't clearing inventory?

It should, but causing the vendor to lose all his stock defeats the purpose of fishing?

If you want to dive into an inventory, yeah.

But you could kill high traffic vendors every day or other day ( lavastorm/wc druid rings, etc) to sort through a more limited inventory.

Good idea... I don't want to take that faction hit though. Damn! All the more reason to level up my evil Necromancer scum. At the very least it's a good idea for when you get priced out and can't buy stuff off it anymore.

If you are looking for bone chips, place a bone chip on the vendor before his inventory fills up (or kill him then place a bone chip).

If you are lucky, and chosen your vendor well, next time you come back it might be full of bone chips!

If you really want you can fill the vendor's 'visible' slots with cheap crap and hide your bone chip so it will be lees likely for someone else to take them


bone chips are used for the sake of example.

what the heck can you buy off a merchant that makes buying it off a merchant worth it?

Traditionally? puppet strings (before they complete the recharge process)