Soulbound

Soulbound is the property of an item that prevents it from being traded or mailed to another character or sold in the Auction House.

Items usually become soulbound one of five ways:

• Items given as quest rewards are usually soulbound.
• Looting an item or accepting an item from a quest that is identified as "Bind on Pickup". You should get a warning alert that this item will bind to you.
• Equipping an item that is identified as "Bind on Equip". You should get a warning alert that this item will bind to you. Most of the better equippable items bind on equip.
• Using an item that is identified as "Bind on Use".
• Using certain soulbound enchants on a non-bound item.

Soulbinding is a game mechanism to prevent too much twinking from occurring. Higher-level characters cannot give their older equipment as hand-me-downs to their friends and guild mates.

Note that you can have soulbound items modified by other characters by putting the item in the bottom ("Will Not Be Traded") spot of the trade window. You can have a blacksmith attach spurs to a soulbound boot, or an enchanter apply an enchantment to a soulbound item this way. The only way to dispose of them is to either sell to vendor, destroy or Disenchant.

See also

• Bind on Pickup (BoP) or Bind on Acquire (BoA)
• Bind on Equip (BoE)
• Bind on Use (BoU)
• Bind to Account (BtA)