How can one tell whether to keep, salvage, or merch equipment?

1st Official Post

    I've been playing this game for years, off and on. I've accumulated tons of weapons, shields, foci(focuses?), and mods, but I don't really understand what has value and what doesn't.

    I imagine the majority of them aren't worth using either due to a high requirement or mismatched mods or inherent stats (e.g. Celestial Scepter with 12 Earth Magic requirement, with inherent +4 Energy below 50% and HSR of Smiting Prayers).

    Then there's weapons that wouldn't likely ever see the light of day for regular use, but have mods that seem to be valued for that weapon type (e.g. Insightful Zodiac Staff of Fortitude, the 13 Smiting Prayers requirement and HCT for Curses seem useless, but the Insightful Staff Head and Wrapping of Fortitude might have value themselves).

    Of course, there's also some weapons with "Measure for Measure" that might be worth salvaging for materials, but the weapon skin or other mods might possibly be more valuable (e.g. Supreme Bludgeoner of Warding with a 10 Hammer Mastery requirement, would the Hammer Haft of Warding be potentially more valuable than the amount of Wood/Iron/Steel from salvaging?)

    I've tried searching for answers from price guides, profession guides, even the Kamadan trade chat thing. While some are informative, they all tend to either have a fairly specific focus, be a number of years old, or just difficult to utilize.

    -----

    I guess I've got 3 specific questions in mind that I keep asking myself with each weapon, but I can't seem to reliably figure out the answers for any of them.

    1. Is the weapon itself of value? (Including and/or excluding its mods)

    • Is a Scepter of the Forgotten with perfect 'of Quickening' and "Aptitude not Attitude" mods valuable if it has a 13 Spawning Power requirement?
    • Would a Saurian Scythe or Storm Bow be valuable regardless of its requirement or mods?


    2. Are the mods of value? (Perfect vs non-Perfect, usefulness for the weapon type and/or profession)

    • Is something like +29 Fortitude or +14 "Seize the Day" ever worth keeping or trying to sell to another player?
    • Would a Sword/Axe Grip of Enchanting or Fiery Spear Head have a higher value or desire for different professions?


    3. Should the weapon be traded as-is, salvaged for parts or materials, or just sold to a merchant?

    • Would an Adept Jeweled Staff of Valor with "Measure for Measure" be more valuable if salvaged for its Adept Staff Head, the materials, or sold to a merchant for the 220g?
    • Is a Perfect Cane of Memory with "Seize the Day" and 9 Domination requirement best as-is or salvaged for its mods?
    • Does an Insightful(+5) Forgotten Staff of Fortitude(+30) with 9 Domination requirement have value if it has an inherent HCT(19%) of Water Magic?


    Any advice on how to answer these kinds of questions would be greatly appreciated.

    Edited once, last by LeviticusLo (May 9, 2017 at 10:58 AM).

    Got some free time so I figured id have a stab at giving you some info, first things first im on my phone so forgive autocorrect and general bad grammar.

    To be quite frank... you are almost there, you are asking some of the right questions but dont really know where to begin.

    When trying to decide if something is of value to a player try something like this:

    My first question would be. Insc or os? Simple enough

    INSC:

    Skin: is the skin rare? Now to answer this your best tool is to check gw wiki seeing where something drops will give you an idea of how hard it is to obtain. For instance a BDS is far harder to obtain than a holy branch. If the skin is not rare continue to next section and dont read any further. If skin is rare now its time to check kamadan trade log to see if it is in demand, if a skin is high demand the req may not always be an issue for instance take the BDS a q13 bds will go for far more money than a q13 chrysocola technically both are rare but BDS is more in demand. If it is in demand you will have a price showing on trade chat if not now is time to post in the pc forum or ask around for a price if im honest if it doesnt appear in trade chat and is insc it is probably not worth much.

    Mods - ok so with the exception of pre nerf mods (which you can read about in max's sticky post) you only need to look at the mods if the skin is not up to scratch. Mods are purely as valuable as their usefulness here is a quick run down on what imo is worth trying to sell ONLY WHEN MAX UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED)

    Staff (insightful,adept,enchanting,fortitude,hale)
    Wand (memory)
    Focus (aptitude)
    Shield (foritude)
    Spear (zealous,furious,fortitude, sundering, enchanting, dazed)
    Sword (zealous, furious, sundering ,fortitude, enchanting)
    Axe (see sword)
    Hammer (furious, sundering, fortitude)
    Scythe (zealous,enchanting, fortitude)
    Bow (Sundering, enchanting, deathbanr, fortitude)

    Inscriptions (+10vsXX, 15^50, -2wE, +5wE, +5^50, -5/20)
    Measure for measure sells for a small gold value my recommendation on this one would to be use to get more of a type of mat u are looking for (eg iron)

    Insc that will sell when not max (apt not attitude, forget me not)

    Req - if the skin rare and sort after the req is not an issue, if it is a common and unsort after skin req must be q9 to bother selling

    OLDSCHOOL Shields

    Now oldschools are massively different than inscribables due to it being a much more "picky" marketplace, take it from a collector, why would I want a r9 +9vsearth +29 when I can have +10vsEarth +30.

    Skin : in the oldschool market this will account for pretty much everything you get, if the skin isnt in demand you wont sell it easily. With oldschools it must have something going for it. Mods or skin or both. To check if the skin is sort after use the tools at your disposal the same way you did with the insc stuff, check kama, check wiki for rarity, check whats being sold and whether it is in anyones collections in the collectors thread) providing this checks out your part way to having a winner.

    Mods : here is where it gets complex im gonna split this into 2 sections make this easier.

    Bad skin + good skin

    Bad skin : with a bad skin you are already fighting an uphill battle if the mods aint great may aswell merch as you will spend until gw goes offline trying to sell it. To gauge whether mods are good or bad ask yourself two things "are they coupled?" And "does it look like a collector item?" This is where you use your own judgement on a bad skin unless the mods are so well sort after you would really need 2 max mods ( when they are sort after enough for instance +10vsDemons +28 it is still possible to sell however the mods need to be coupled and well admired).
    If the mods are not coupled you look to see if it is a collector piece, now to do this there must be what I call a collectors mod on the shield these are (+30, -2wE, +45wE) this means you have an in, collectors of these shield will buy for instance dazed 20% +30/-2wE/+45wE as it looks cool they will not however buy -2wS +45wE on a bad skin as it is too mixed.

    Good skin : wooohooo you have won majority of the battle, this is the territory you wont to be in in this territory a lot of the time you can afford to have 1 max mod when they are coupled and you have more chance of selling collector pieces, use the same two questions you did for bad skined os's however the rules have changed.

    If mods are valuable both can now be non max at your own discretion (eg. +9vsDemons +29 plagueborn will probs still sell)

    If is a collectors item you may get away with 1 non max mod (eg. weakness 20% +29 bladed)

    OS WEPS

    This is all about the inherant if the inherant is wanted its sellable so for instance dual vamp, +5e, 20/20, etc if the skin is good you can get away with close to max mods however if skin is bad mods really need to be maxed and q9 to be worth selling.

    Shield Reqs : this is more for appearance than anything, q11 takes far longer to sell than q9 providing it has something going for it it may be worth selling the higher reqs if is bad skin (see section for bad skin to decide if the shield is any good) if high end skin providing the shield meets the criteria above in some way is always worth getting a pc/ trying to sell

    Wep reqs - good skin good mods = any req sellable
    Good skin bad mods - q7/8 only. Really
    Bad skin+ bad inherant = value is that of the normal mods/merch
    Bad skin +good inherant = sellable when q9/q10 no higher

    PC's - when dealing with OS items if is q7/8 and max damage Always get a pc. When you have decided an items is good enough to attempt to sell always get a pc, try posting in the pc forum or asking one of the well known traders for a hand if they dont know they will be able to put you in touch with someone who does.

    Q7/Q8 - if this is max and GOLD it is always worth getting an PC

    Hope this helps any questions drop me a pm

    Chronic


    “They make it look so easy, connecting with another human being, it’s like no one told them it’s the hardest thing in the world.” -Dexter

    Edited once, last by Chronic Visions (May 13, 2017 at 8:58 AM).

    I gotta say there is no general rule about what to keep and what to merch / throw away. It really depends on how much time your willing to invest and how much u can enjoy selling stuff in kama or on forums. I for once can only say about my self that I only could accumulate so much money untill today because I hardly ever throw anything away and just try to sell it no matter what it is. I can basically turn shit into gold. Saying one mans trash is another mans treasure. But this only works for me because I like selling stuff and Im really good at it. Also I have put a lot of work into it over the years. Standing in Kamadan for hours/days/weeks/years :p (my account has 17k+ hours played and a lot of that time was only kamadan time^^). Additionally, I spent a lot of time creating tons of inventory lists for my 12 accs as well as posting way to long sale lists on forums such as this one :D So if your not such a trade addict as I am you should probably stick to what Chronic posted :p What Im saying is only you decide where to draw the line. Some people nowadays dont even bother selling upgrades and inscriptions even if u can get 1-4e /ea. That's where they draw the line. The few ectos arent worth the time for them. So its basically up to u, do u wanna invest the time or not. Potentially you can sell almost anything if u put in the extra time. Btw even tho I have hundreds of arms and thousands of ectos I still sell all my upgrades, cuz I just like selling shit xD

    Thank you for the responses. I've been searching for these kinds of answers for far too long, haha.

    I'm especially excited for that list of mods. A lot of my weapons' skins aren't rare (with a few potential exceptions), so having a list to refer to will be incredibly helpful.

    I did notice that Vampiric wasn't listed (aside from OS/pre-nerf weapons with double inherent Vampiric mods). Might I ask why that's the case?

    He listed only the mods most sought after. that doesnt mean u cant sell any vamp mod for 1-2e if someone is lookin for it. ppl often want vamp for axe, sometimes for sword/dagger/bow/hammer as well, scythe and spear mods are more rare in general since they drop less, so here u can keep vamp as well even tho its not often needed, but if someone needs it youll probably be the only one who has it :p It also depends on how much storage room u got, I have more than one acc so I can store plenty, but if u get a lot of gold weapons the storage situation can get quickly out of hands with to many mods laying around :p

    Exactly as handler put it. Vamp mods are very "niche" and take a long time to shift in kamadan in comparison to the other mods listed therefore imo it isnt worth me keeping due to storage restrictions (despite having multiple accounts).

    My advice to you would be if you only have limited account space is to stick with mods that are easy to shift as there isnt a large profit in most in comparison to other things. You can be selling in the mean time.

    If you want to include any of the "niche" mods in your list heres a few.

    Sword (vamp)
    Axe (vamp)
    Scythe (vamp)
    Spear (vamp)
    Bow (vamp, zealous)
    Staff (swift)
    Wand (quickening)
    Offhand ,(10/10)

    Insc (10/10)


    “They make it look so easy, connecting with another human being, it’s like no one told them it’s the hardest thing in the world.” -Dexter