Is salvaging really worth it?

[jokke.6239]

So I've been salvaging items for a long time

But recently since I came back to the game, I've started noticing I seem to get less value, sometimes a lot less, from salvaging

I had a stack of unidentified rares (don't remember ammount, something like 50-70 i think) that sold for 7,5 gold or so. I salvaged it and got about 2.5 gold worth

I just tried the same with an almost full stack of unidentified blues

Selling would give me 2 g and 42 silver

I salvaged it and with materials + selling the rares I got a bit over 2 gold worth

I salvaged the rares and the about 80 silver it would sell for ended up being only 40-50 silver

Is this just unlucky tries?

 

Edit: I opened all the unidentified before salvaging

Edited September 9, 2023 by jokke.6239

[Lucy.3728]

Selling has always been better than salvaging for me. I've done the math about 4 times in the last 3 years, always with a stack. I've always been disappointed with the results. Salvage is more effort, but I get less. I use the mystic tool and haven't even calculated that one
I would have always been better off selling the unid gear.

Applies to any color. For blue and green you get luck for your account if that is something you want.

[Gorani.7205]

- The higher the current value of Ectos is, the better you run with salvaging rare bundles (with a Mystic Kit)
- Opening blue & green bundles, depending on your Magic Find have a higher chance of giving you a "better tier" item, that will result in better mats (or even a rare/exotic for a change to get an Ecto)
- Salvaging "green items" with a Runecrafter Kit, has greatly increased the chance for Symbols, which you might want to get for Legendary Sigils/Runes; buying those will get costly

Materials fluctuate in price over the year. Getting Iron and Platinum is great at the moment, like T4 Wood and Leather + T6 Leather.

[Jijimuge.4675]

There's some number-crunching of this kind of thing at  https://fast.farming-community.eu/salvaging/unid-gear

A lot hinges (for blue and green unided items at least) on whether or not you have a Runecrafter's salvage kit and also on whether or not you have an Endless Upgrade Extractor....but that's very expensive, and manually removing upgrades would be tiresome in most cases unless the upgrade is worth a decent sum.

f you don't then you're strongly incentivised to sell the unided greens on the TP and probably less strongly incentivised to sell the blue unided items (but still probably better to sell on the TP)

A runecrafter's kit isn't relevant to rare unided items (one should always use master's/mystic/silver-fed), but this is pretty marginal too, but there's a slight profit to opening and salvaging if one has an endless upgrade extractor in comparison with selling the unided rare on the TP.  If one doesn't, then the numbers are marginally in favour of just selling the unided rare on the TP

You may want the luck resulting from the salvaging; in which case,  it looks like opening unided blues is the most cost-efficient way to acquire luck, though I can't see the effective cost of luck gained from salvaging rare unided items on their site.

To correct the post above, magic find no longer affects the rarity of the item you get from opening unided items (though it used to at one time).  It affects the rarity of the unided items themselves that drop from enemies, however.  Makes sense, really, as, otherwise, the magic find stat would be "double dipping"

[Ashantara.8731]

My 2,500 globs of ectoplasm in my bank storage tell me that salvaging with reason is indeed a good thing. 😄

[Luthan.5236]

Personally I do never identify - just too much of a hassle. Using special salvage kits only if I have too much (with that chest with a random BLC item from the old login rewards not available anymore I will now save me remaining 8 black lion salvage kits :D) or if there is an expensive upgrade that I want to sell. Often too lazy to check the rune price and only checking the price of an exotic itself.

Salvaging ... I guess luck maxed I'd not do it anymore. But I still slowly work towards maxing the luck. Somewhere between 230 and 240 now I think. Ectos I only have 1750. Could not yet get myself to buy more storage expanders since I feel I have enough atm. Wanting to spend less money. (+ they often increase the cap ... if I got 1-2 now I'd still might have to buy the same amount to reach the cap - in the future if they increase by 1 or 2 again lol)

In general I find it nice to max my storage though - enjoy also to use the other stuff that gathers from salvaging. I noticed a lot of inprofitable stuff though ... just recently I checked the prismatic ingots - where you get a ton from just mining the home instance ... of the source materiyl (prismaticite). And refining + selling is not worth cause the TP price is lower than the mats needed (refining needs ectos and stuff).

If you want to to stuffing a bigger style and have no other use than selling vs salvaging here (not interested in the luck essences anymore) it can be worth to compare things.

[Manasa Devi.7958]

I salvage everything because I use most of the materials. It would be a waste of time, and a needlessly roundabout way to sell unids and then buy the materials.

Edited September 9, 2023 by Manasa Devi.7958

[ugrakarma.9416]

1 hour ago, Manasa Devi.7958 said:

I salvage everything because I use most of the materials. It would be a waste of time, and a needlessly roundabout way to sell unids and then buy the materials.

yeah, i have 2k gold atm in materials, and endless mytril.

remember that research notes can be acquired with mithril jewelry + some gemstones.

[Cuks.8241]

There are also some low chance items that increase value alot. 1 stack is really not representative.

[Dayra.7405]

Would you buy unidentified gear for a price higher than salvaging it?

[Hsanrb.1570]

1 minute ago, Dayra.7405 said:

Would you buy unidentified gear for a price higher than salvaging it?

Only if I think my chance of getting a charm or symbol is worth the risk... I'd pass on a rare because I only win if I flip the octo, but the others I usually identify and salvage on the chance they give me one.

[Lucy.3728]

19 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

Getting Iron and Platinum is great at the moment

Been great for the past 1,5 years and not just at the moment.

19 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

The higher the current value of Ectos is, the better you run with salvaging rare bundles

With price raise of ectos everything that drops ectos raises too.

[Lucy.3728]

1 hour ago, Cuks.8241 said:

There are also some low chance items that increase value alot. 1 stack is really not representative.

But that's then like the lottery when you play daily and net the results after 10 years.

Reliable results are more useful.

From 4-5 rare stacks there wasn't anything justifying salvage. Not even a single item for an achievement collection which says can be dropped from salvaging or buyable from tp. No such luck.

Edited September 10, 2023 by Lucy.3728

[Irastira.8643]

From a certain perspective, Yes.  But only if you have infinite salvaging tools.  So, you get a decent variety of materials though Salvaging.  For starters, On Blue and Green gear, you are sort of rolling the dice.  I can see where you're coming from, but I must disagree.

So, If you have professions, and you do Daily Crafting, Which will cost you 50 Mithril Bars (150 Mithril Ore.) 50 Cured Thick Leather Squares (200 Thick Leather.) or 50 bolts of Silk (400 Silk Scraps)  or 1 Silver 25 Copper for Elder Wood Logs. X3 to turn them into planks (3 Silver 75 Copper. You can refine those into Ascended Crafting Materials, then the Ascended Crafting Materials into stuff that is Sellable on the Tradepost.  Doing it this way, You can get an 7 gold each day assuming you don't buy off the TP to get all of this done.  Mithril typically sits around 15 Copper per ore or 50 per Bar.  If it takes 3 Ore to make one Bar.  15X3=45.  45X50=2250 or 22 Silver 50 Copper.   Several Gold each day just for having professions.  If you're not salvaging, you're throwing gold away.  You could also potentially check the price of Ascended crafting materials as well as what they turn into through crafting, and see if its more profitable to store materials over several days and make a Deldrimor Plated Dowel (Or something.)  Which sells for an average of 18-ish gold. 

However, that is only half the story.  You also have a chance of Salvaging a bunch of other stuff like Globs of Ecto (Which hover around 16 Silver each.) 16X250=40 Gold. You can also get Orichalcum, Ancient Wood Logs, Gossimer Scraps, and Hardened Leather.  All of which is a nice pay day.  Especially if you get a high roll while salvaging and get several Globas of Ectoplasm, Orichalcum, Hardened Leather, or Gossimer Scraps.  Which you could sell as is, or refine it into Orichalcum Bars, Cured Hardened leather.  If you wait for the Gold Value of the Globs of Extoplasm to appreciate, You could be looking at 75 Gold per stack or more.

You could also be refining the Globs of Exto into Pearl weapons which combined with 5 Orichalcum Dowels, and 5 Pile of Crystaline Dust, as well as an inscription, and 5 Globs of Ectoplasm, You can make a few gold off of that.  The most profitable seems to be the Berserker Stat pearl weapons. (at over 5 Gold.)

Masterwork gear and Higher has a chance of Dropping a Sigil, which on its own usually covers the cost of the item and then some, If you manage to get other stuff along with the refinement, That is just a bonus.  If you don't want to vendor the sigils, Salvage the Sigils and see about cranking out Sigils in higher demand like Superior Sigil of Impact, or Superior Sigil of Force.

One last thing.  There is a small chance you could loot a precurser from the Unidentified Gear.  While Rare, those typically go for between 200-300 Gold on average.

What makes it hard to justify salvaging is if you have to constantly buy another Salvaging tool.  That 16+ Silver adds up over time, and often, you end up losing gold rather then making it.

So, I just logged in and checked the TP, Yeah, a lot of the stuff I just mentioned like Globs of Ectoplasm are worth over 23 Silver. That is nearly 60 Gold a stack. 

Edited September 11, 2023 by Irastira.8643

[Nabbut.7480]

Salvaging also rewards Agent of Entropy achievement which adds some easy AP if you salvage everything.

[Dayra.7405]

15 minutes ago, SpiderZ.9146 said:

Salvaging also rewards Agent of Entropy achievement which adds some easy AP if you salvage everything.

But unfortunately only for 125 repetitions of 200 salvages, I am at the 1641 repetition now 🙂

But it gives a nice counter 🙂 I did 1640*200+90 = 328'090 salvages so far

Edited September 13, 2023 by Dayra.7405

[jason.1083]

On 9/13/2023 at 12:47 PM, Dayra.7405 said:

But unfortunately only for 125 repetitions of 200 salvages, I am at the 1641 repetition now 🙂

But it gives a nice counter 🙂 I did 1640*200+90 = 328'090 salvages so far

Most people who have been playing for a while have gone way past the 125 mark, I've been on these game for 5,5 years and I have repeated agent of entropy 3200+ times, and most of that is Unidentified Gear, and that made me think that I really should have been recording my results for the drop research in the wiki, 600.000+ entries are a considerable amount.

[mercury ranique.2170]

I've been  salvaging almost everything to max out my luck. Now that is done, I sell most of the stuff. The only exception is yellow and above. This I check the price on TP and if that is less then the price of an ecto I'll take the gamble. 

[Dayra.7405]

1 hour ago, mercury ranique.2170 said:

The only exception is yellow and above. This I check the price on TP and if that is less then the price of an ecto I'll take the gamble. 

According to the wiki, it's an average of 0.9 ectos per rare (with  Master's and Mystic Salvage Kits or Silver salvage o matic), so you make a gain, if the price of the rare (+salvaging costs) is < than 0.9 * price of the ecto.

Another thing is of course: Do you need ectos, if yes you save another 15% TP-tax, if you scrap your rares to ectos, instead of first selling rare's and then buy ectos.

Btw.: Don't buy ectos at the moment, it's currently much cheaper to buy rares and salvage them.

Btw 2: If you have time and no gold: Check it (don't forget the selling tax, so only buy it if you pay less than 75% (0.9-salvage ration*0.85-return after tax) of the ecto price you really get), but I guess you can currently make money by buy rare's, scrap them and sell the ecto's.

PS: Don't rely on the offer-price, just this statement may produce a lot ecto's being  sold 😉 

Edited September 14, 2023 by Dayra.7405