WoW Forever Bank Alt Guide

A bank alt is the cheapest upgrade your account can get in WoW Forever. It is a second character that never leaves a capital city: it stands between the bank, the mailbox and the Auction House, keeps the materials your main has no room for, sells your loot while you quest and disenchants the greens you send it. Forever makes it more useful than it was in Classic. The bank is twice as big, mail between your own characters arrives instantly, and on the beta even a level 1 enchanter could disenchant any item.

This guide is based on the beta builds up to October 15. Below you will find which city to park your bank alt in, the race and class worth picking, how to set up its bags, how mail, BoE items and gold move between characters without tripping the new economy hold, what a one-character guild bank costs, and how the bank alt can earn Legacy Points for the whole account.

Why You Need a Bank Alt

Your main runs out of space fast in Forever. Gear can carry situational effects that only work in one zone or against one type of enemy, so players keep several sets, and professions bring more materials and camp items than in Classic. Blizzard doubled the default bank to 48 slots and raised the number of bank bag slots from 6 to 8, but that bank still belongs to one character. There is no account-wide bank in Forever, so the only way to add storage for the whole account is another character.

A bank alt gives you that storage, and each character brings several kinds of it. The table shows where the space comes from and what it costs on the beta.

Storage is only half of the job. A bank alt also does the work your main would otherwise stop questing for.

• It sells on the Auction House while your main stays out in the world. You mail loot to it and post everything in one sitting.
• It disenchants every green and blue you do not need, so nothing goes to a vendor for a few silver.
• It collects materials from all your characters for one crafter.
• It earns Legacy Points with its own crafting professions.
• It builds rested XP while it waits, in case you decide to level it later.

Create the Bank Alt in the Same Ruleset and Faction

Forever has no realms. You pick a ruleset instead: Normal, PvP or Roleplaying at launch, with Hardcore coming later. Characters cannot move between rulesets, so the bank alt has to be created in the same ruleset as your main. On the PvP ruleset you can only create characters of one faction, which makes that choice for you. On Normal and Roleplaying both factions are open, but Horde and Alliance stay separate, so make the bank alt the same faction as the characters it serves.

We compare all four rulesets in our WoW Forever Normal vs PvP ruleset guide.

Where to Park It

The best spot for a bank alt has four things close together: the bank, a mailbox, the Auction House and, if the character disenchants, an Enchanting trainer. It should also be a rest area, so logging out is instant and the character builds rested XP. Population matters a little too. A quieter city means fewer people crowding the mailbox in launch week.

The Auction House is the same in every capital, so the city you choose changes the walk, not the prices. Several cities also got new mailboxes next to the Auction House in Forever. The table compares the main options.

For most players the answer is Stormwind City on the Alliance side and Thunder Bluff or Orgrimmar for the Horde. The three maps below show where the bank, the Auction House and the Enchanting trainer stand in each of them.

Stormwind Bank and Auction House

In Stormwind City the bank stands at the Valley of Heroes end of the Trade District, with Olivia Burnside and the other Burnside bankers inside. Auctioneer Jaxon and the Auction House are in the middle of the Trade District, with a mailbox right at the building. Betty Quin teaches Enchanting a short walk west, near the Stockades.

Orgrimmar Bank and Auction House

In Orgrimmar the bank and the Auction House are both in the Valley of Strength, a few steps apart. Karus is one of the bankers, and Auctioneer Thathung runs the auctions. Jhag, the Enchanting trainer, is in The Drag to the north.

Thunder Bluff Bank and Auction House

Thunder Bluff keeps everything on the central mesa. Chesmu and the bank are near the middle, Auctioneer Gullem and the Auction House on the west side, and Mot Dawnstrider teaches Enchanting on the upper level to the north. It is usually quieter than Orgrimmar, which is the main reason many players pick it.

Ratchet and the Arcane Salvager

Some enchanters park their bank alt in Ratchet, in The Barrens, instead of a capital. Ratchet has an outdoor bank, and outside the capitals you can set up a camp right next to it. That matters for one camp item, the Arcane Salvager. Placed by a campfire, it gives a buff that adds a chance for a second disenchanting result. One tester who disenchanted about 80 items next to it saw the bonus on roughly 10 to 20% of them.

The catch is the skill. The Salvager needs Enchanting 140, its recipe Blueprint: Arcane Salvager is a drop, and crafting it needs a Runed Truesilver Rod as a tool, plus two Vision Dust and a Lesser Nether Essence. Testers also reported that the bonus only appeared at 225 skill, which needs Expert Enchanting and character level 20. This is a plan for a bank alt you are willing to level, not for a level 1 character. Ratchet also has no Auction House, per beta reports, so you still fly to a capital to sell.

Best Race and Class for a Bank Alt

Race barely matters. Every race reaches its capital in roughly four to six minutes, and you only make that walk once. Tauren get there about a minute faster thanks to Plainsrunning, which builds up to 30% movement speed while you keep moving. Since the October 15 build it also adds 3% mounted speed.

Class only matters if you plan to level the bank alt later, for example to push its professions past 150. Then speed between the bank, the mailbox and the Auction House adds up:

• Shaman: Ghost Wolf gives 40% movement speed and is instant on the beta.
• Druid: Travel Form outdoors and Cat Form inside the cities.
• Hunter: Aspect of the Cheetah for the runs across town.
• Rogue: Sprint, plus Pick Lock to open the lockboxes your other characters loot.
• Mage: Blink later on, and Frost Armor at level 1 slows any mob that hits you on the walk to the city.

Bag Setup

A bank alt needs bags in two places: on its back and in its 8 bank bag slots. The first bank bag slot costs 10 silver on the beta, and the next ones cost more, as in Classic. Fill the slots with cheap bags first and upgrade later, because at the start the slot is worth far more than the bag in it.

Three cheap sources are enough for a new bank alt.

1. The starting zone quest bag. Every race has a quest that rewards a 6-slot bag by around level 7, such as Book Return for the Book Bag in Elwynn Forest, Carry Your Weight for the Handmade Leather Bag in Durotar or Grace of An'she and Mu'sha for the Scorched Leather Pouch in Mulgore. These bags bind on pickup, so the bank alt has to do the quest itself before it walks to the city.
2. Pouches from your main. The Small Blue Pouch and the Small Brown Pouch drop from early mobs and do not bind, so your main can mail the spares.
3. Tailoring. A bank alt with Tailoring turns the cloth your main sends into bags. The Linen Bag is an Apprentice recipe that a level 1 character can make from Linen Cloth. The Woolen Bag from Wool Cloth and the 10-slot Small Silk Pack need Journeyman Tailoring, which requires level 10. In Forever every bag recipe makes two bags per craft.

A crafter bank alt can also use reagent bags such as the Linen Reagent Bag. They only hold crafting materials, which is exactly what a bank alt stores most of.

We list every bag in the game, with drop chances, quests and recipes, in our WoW Forever bag guide.

Moving Gold, Mail and BoE Between Characters

Mail is how everything reaches the bank alt. Forever keeps the Classic mailbox but changes two things that matter here: mail between characters on your own account arrives instantly, and the Auction House runs on the modern system. The table sums up the mail rules seen on the beta.

Using the Mailbox as Free Storage

Mail you do not open stays in the inbox for 30 days. When it expires, or when you return it, it goes back to the sender and waits there for another 30 days. That turns the mailbox into up to 60 days of free storage for anything you do not need right now, at 30 copper per item.

BoE Items and Greens

Bind on Equip items stay tradable until someone equips them, so mail every BoE your main will not wear to the bank alt. There it can post the item on the Auction House, disenchant it or sell it to a vendor. An add-on such as Auctionator, which works in Forever, shows you the Auction House price, so the choice takes a second. Selling a BoE to a vendor also unlocks its appearance for your transmog collection, so the look is not lost either way.

How the Forever Auction House Works

The Auction House works like the retail one. Stackable goods such as ore, herbs and cloth are commodities: a buyer enters a quantity and gets the cheapest supply automatically. When several sellers ask the same price, the newest listing sells first. Undercutting by one copper only loses you money. Match the lowest price and your stack moves to the front of the line.

Gear is still listed one auction per item, and the buyer can pick any of them. Since the October 15 build the Auction House also shows the level needed to equip each item and the real stats of random-suffix gear such as "of the Monkey".

Sending Gold Without an Economy Hold

Forever has a new system against gold buying, the Temporary Economy Hold. If Blizzard suspects an account of buying or selling gold, it restricts trade, mail, guild banks and the Auction House on that account while the case is checked. Blizzard says players who just play normally are unlikely to ever see it. The system is new, though, and false positives happened on the beta: one tester lost access to mail and the Auction House after mailing gold to their own alt and got it back about an hour after reporting it.

A few habits keep a bank alt safe.

• Keep the bank alt on the same Battle.net account as your main.
• Move gold between your own characters, not through a friend's account.
• Never buy gold. The hold hits the account that receives it too.
• If a hold appears after a normal transfer, report it and wait instead of moving more gold around.

One-Character Guild Bank

Once the bank alt has gold to spare, a guild of its own adds a guild bank on top of its personal bank. Buy a Guild Charter from the guild master in a capital for 10 silver, collect the signatures it asks for and turn it in to found the guild. Classic needed nine signatures from players without a guild. Every capital bank has a guild vault where the guild bank opens.

The first guild bank tab cost 100 gold on the beta. That is a lot at launch, so treat it as a goal for your first weeks at 60. Until then a second bank alt is the cheaper way to add another 48 slots.

Bank Alt and Legacy Points

Crafting professions are one of the easiest sources of Legacy Points. Each of the six crafts pays a point the first time any character on your account reaches 150, 225 and 300 skill. A bank alt with two crafts your main does not have can collect those points by itself, and every character on the account then gets to spend them.

Character level is the limit. A level 1 character can only learn Apprentice professions, which stop at 75 skill. Each higher rank needs a higher level, as the table shows for Enchanting.

Getting the bank alt to level 10 takes a short evening and opens the first point in each of its two crafts. Tailoring works the same way, starting with Journeyman Tailor at 150.

Best Professions for a Bank Alt

The right crafts depend on your main. Enchanting is the default, because a bank alt that disenchants needs it anyway, and on the beta even skill 1 was enough to Disenchant any green, blue or purple item. Tailoring is the classic partner: it turns your cloth into bags, and its greens feed the disenchanting. If your main already has both, give the bank alt two other crafts, such as Alchemy or Leatherworking. A second Tailor earns nothing, since every milestone pays only once per account.

Do not count on the old wand flip. Enchanting costs 10 copper to learn at level 1, and the Novice's Practice Wand takes one Simple Wood and one Mote of Magic for two wands, using a Runed Copper Rod made from a Copper Rod. On the beta some players sold them on the Auction House for about 1 silver, which left roughly 50 copper per wand. Since the October 1 build every crafted common and uncommon wand sells to vendors for 1 copper, and the practice wand for 5 copper, so the Auction House is the only buyer left.

Our WoW Forever Enchanting guide covers the cheapest route from 1 to 300 and every trainer.

Which Legacy Perks to Give the Bank Alt

Every character spends the account's Legacy Points on its own perks, so the bank alt can run a crafter setup while your main keeps its leveling perks.

• Working Overtime. Each rank adds 2% to your chance of a skill-up, 10% at 5/5. The best perk for a bank alt that levels crafts.
• Dedicated Study. Raises your lowest tradeskill by 1 once every 23 hours, with a 25-second cast. A parked character can use it every time you log in.
• Well Rested. Rested XP builds faster while the bank alt waits in the city, if you plan to level it.

Every perk and every way to earn the points is in our WoW Forever Legacy Points guide. If you build a whole roster around Legacy Points, our WoW Forever alt leveling guide shows how to split professions between characters and keep them resting.

If you would rather skip the crafting grind, our WoW Forever professions boost takes a profession to 300 with its recipes unlocked.

Bank Alt Setup in Seven Steps

If you only want the short version, this is the order to set up a bank alt at launch.

1. Create the character in the same ruleset and faction as your main.
2. Do the starting zone bag quest, then walk to your capital and log out inside the city.
3. Train Enchanting and Tailoring.
4. Buy the first bank bag slots and fill them with cheap bags.
5. Mail cloth, greens, BoE items and materials from your main as you level.
6. Post auctions in one sitting and disenchant what does not sell.
7. Level the bank alt to 10 when you want its first Legacy Points, and save 100 gold for a guild bank.

WoW Forever Bank Alt FAQ

These are the questions players ask most often about banks, mail and bank alts in Forever.

More WoW Forever Guides

These guides cover the systems a bank alt works with in more depth.