Infinite salvage kits: How do you weigh convenience VS value with them?

[Sarm.5923]

I've been struggling with this decision since I see that they're on sale again. I constantly hear praise for the copper-fed one especially, that even though you'll never offset the gold cost in gems, people consider it worth the cost for its utility in the shared slot bar.

But if that's the case, isn't it even more convenient (as well as more cost effective) to simply TP all of your stacks of unidentified gear? I know the infinites can't be easily offset or else they'd become a pay-to-win item, but it sounds like the only alternative is them being an idiot trap for those who only value a lesser convenience when auctioning unIDs is both moreso and a functionally free option on top of that.

[Flowersunshine.7385]

If you care about min-maxing when it comes to loot, you'll have to ask someone else, cause that's not my jam and I don't know anything about it. XD

I personally prefer seeing what I can do with my loot rather than what I can get for it. I craft legendaries, I don't buy them. When I farm, I farm mats, not gold. Terribly inefficient, but more fun for me. So I say: get the copper-fed. Once you've used it for a month or so, you'll never understand how you ever managed without it.

[Dibit.6259]

Some materials you gain from salvaging are account bound e.g. darkmatter from exotics to craft ascended. It mainly depends on what you value most: gd, materials and/or qol.

If gd then selling gear on tp is more worth while, if the other 2 then infinite salvaging kit is.

[Danikat.8537]

Yes the quickest way to deal with unidentified gear is just to sell it without opening it, but that also gives you the worst value from it (why do you think people buy it? They're making a profit by salvaging it). There's no single right choice for everyone, it depends on your priorities, finding the right balance between what's quick and easy and what gives the most profit and/or most useful items. If your sole priority is clearing your inventory as fast as possible then selling it is the best choice.

I think salvaging unidentified gear and selling the materials is generally more profitable than just selling it, but it's even more profitable to open it first because there's a chance it will get upgraded to a higher rarity, including having a small chance to drop valuable exotics. Even if you still salvage it and sell the materials the fact that you could get rares (and therefore ectoplasm) from the blue and green ones bumps up their value. Of course you can do that with normal salvage kits, but if you're salvaging a lot it gets annoying to keep buying kits. Although unidentified gear makes that a bit easier because you could keep it until you're in town then open and salvage while standing next to a merchant to buy kits.

There's a lot of options though. I somehow have a lot of Mystic Forge Stones I've gotten free so my compromise of quick and easy vs. profitable was to use Mystic Salvage Kits for everything - they have 250 uses so they last a lot longer than the normal ones and have the same chance at rare materials as a Master Kit. When I felt like I was running low on Mystic Forge Stones I got a Runecrafters Kit when it was discounted and now I use that for greens and the Mystic kit for everything else.

I think (although this might be out of date) the most profitable method is to use the copper-fed/basic kit for whites and blues, runecrafter's for green, Mystic/masters/silver-fed for rares and exotics and black lion kits for exotics with valuable upgrades. But when they were login rewards I could go for months without getting a black lion kit (they're not worth buying) and don't want to have to carry and use 4 different kits, so I compromised.

[RoseofGilead.8907]

On 2/27/2024 at 12:41 PM, Sarm.5923 said:

But if that's the case, isn't it even more convenient (as well as more cost effective) to simply TP all of your stacks of unidentified gear?

You'll get better materials/more value (and the chance for rare and even exotic gear) by identifying them and then salvaging them than you will by selling them on the TP or by salvaging the unidentified gear.

Just my personal feelings on the copper-fed: the convenience alone makes it worth getting.

Edited February 29 by RoseofGilead.8907

[Jianyu.7065]

You'd have to present the math before the usefulness of the infinite copper salvage kit can be described with an insult. 

 

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Just selling the stacks of unidentified gear is more convenient and is the best solution if you just want gold.

But salvaging unidentified blue and green gear is a good source of luck and then infinite salvage tools come in especially handy.

Also, you get a lot of not-unidentified random white, blue and green drops that are most convenient if salvaged with infinite salvage kits. It saves time and that is worth a lot to me.

[Cyninja.2954]

On 2/27/2024 at 7:41 PM, Sarm.5923 said:

I've been struggling with this decision since I see that they're on sale again. I constantly hear praise for the copper-fed one especially, that even though you'll never offset the gold cost in gems, people consider it worth the cost for its utility in the shared slot bar.

But if that's the case, isn't it even more convenient (as well as more cost effective) to simply TP all of your stacks of unidentified gear? I know the infinites can't be easily offset or else they'd become a pay-to-win item, but it sounds like the only alternative is them being an idiot trap for those who only value a lesser convenience when auctioning unIDs is both moreso and a functionally free option on top of that.

The calculation for the Copper-Feds ROI is usually based on the 0.52 copper saved (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Salvage_kit) per salvage, which will never return your investment. It does not usually account for the value increase in opening unidentified gear versus selling it immediately, which can be done with Normal Salvage kits, but now costs you a tremendous extra amount of time and inventory space.

That said, fast farming gives clear advice on what is more return: always open unid gear. (https://fast.farming-community.eu/salvaging/unid-gear)

So in essence you are left with:

1. sell unid gear immediately, which results in a lower reward which will add up with the hundreds/thousands of unid gear one gets. Assuming no player will purchase unid gear at a loss, you are immediately taking a 15% hit due to TP tax

2. use normal salvage kits to salvage gear after opening it, which is a HUGE hassle, will cost time and bag space

3. use the Copper-Fed

The Copper-Fed costs around 640 gold at current discount. If we just take the expected loss from blues and greens (blue: 96/99 -> 81,6/84,15 and green:2s19c/2x81c - > 1s86c/2x38c) and use the 15% loss as value (blue: aprox. 15c, green: aprox. 40c), then assume 1 stack per day, we are losing (250x15)+(250x40)= 13750c = 1g,37s5c of loss per day.

That means at these values, it would take around 465 days (640/1.375) for the Copper-Fed to pay for itself versus immediately selling. This is sped up with more stacks per day, and slowed with less.

This ROI becomes near infinite (at only 0.52c per salvage saved. It then becomes 12,307,692 salvages, which is just shy of 50,000 stacks) when comparing using a Copper-Fed versus Regular Salvage kits, but again, any player who every transitioned to using the Copper-Fed will tell you: do it yesterday!

Edited February 29 by Cyninja.2954

[LSD.4673]

Copper fed hasn't been worth it for a few years. You used to get a fair bit more income from salvage than from direct selling, but since the material sinks got stale and everyone finished with aspects of the game and nothing new replaced them, materials plummeted in value.

The only way to make a paltry return is to open all and rune salvage kit the ones with runes...which is even more costly and time consuming.

It's easier, quicker and more cost effective to just sell stacks of unID now, and has been for a very long time. Which makes the copper fed no longer worth bothering with.

Current profit if you waste gems on rune salvager + waste time individually salvaging each green with a rune = 2.76s.

Current profit if you directly sell on TP: 1.81s.

Current profit if you salvage opened greens: 1.77s.

You're quite literally wasting 4 copper per salvage, as well as the 800 gems for the copper fed and a shared slot. Hilarious.

 

Edited February 29 by LSD.4673