You're wasting money putting those costly upgrades on your WTS stuff.

Na I wouldn't call it lucky if you know what mods to put on things, its also all about how you sell it

People will pay that extra for convenience(saved time)

When buying an item with upgrades such as fort or a damage mod I will pay for them respectively. Lets say +30hp is selling for 40k and i'm buying a req10 something for 100k I would add 40k onto the buying price and thats all. Though I rarely buy items that are already upgraded with perfect mods seeing as they're not always the ones I want.

If you're buying an expensive weapon and dont understand that skin, req, and inherent mods are what determines the true value of the item then you shouldn't even be purchasing the weapon anyway. That is my opp.

It's mostly about right place right time. Regardless of your sell strategy IG, 95% of your potential buyers will be timewasters.


And to those who complain that a +30 is gone in one hit, the +30 was added to the bottom of your health, not the top

/off topic


And yes, 20/20 is nice for spiking, but I fail to see how it's retained it's supposed Leet status. Next to other components, it pales significantly.

+30 however, is teh sex.

Um, you do realize that if Sundering is crap, Furious is super crap?

As for the OP, I'm not so sure that these upgrades are a waste. Sure, on a purely logical level, purchasing and adding mods shouldn't effect the value of item beyond the cost of the mods themselves - after all, the buyer could just as easily purchase his or her own mods for the weapon. But marketing isn't always logical.

Adding expensive mods to a rare skin may help attract more attention to the item - it may bump that item up from say, 90k with no mods, to 180k with mods. And this may happen even if the mods themselves aren't worth the difference, because more attention generally means more bids, and more bids often means a higher sale price.

One other reason might be convenience. If the buyer was planning to upgrade this skin with expensive mods anyway, he or she might be willing to pay a little bit extra for the luxury of not having to spend time finding the mods.

I'm not saying this is always true. In fact, it might never be true - I don't know. But the OP provided no argument to convince me that it isn't true. The fact that almost every high end weapon for sale - on trade forums, auction sites, or in-game spam - has a perfect 20/20 sundering mod and a perfect +30 fortitude mod provides some evidence that investing in expensive mods does increase the value of a rare skin beyond the cost of the mods themselves.

No it's not.

...shows that a large portion of sellers and buyers are idiots who want epeen-boosting weapons. But then again I suppose that's not all too uncommon nowadays, especially with eBayers. Thankfully not all of the market is composed of these people.

How does it show that sellers are idiots? If buyers are willing to pay more for a pre-modded skin than it costs to buy an un-modded skin and the two mods, wouldn't it be idiotic for sellers not to pre-mod their rare skin items before sale?

Again, there is evidence that nearly all sales of rare skin, high end weapons (100k+) come with expensive max mods. This may be evidence that all sellers except for the enlightened few in this thread are idiots, but isn't it more likely that these sellers know something about the market that we may not know?

Consumers are not always rational. Sellers are irrational if they ignore this fact and refuse to take advantage of irrational consumer preferences.

There is evidence that people are selling 20/20 +30 weapons for obscene prices, but evidence of them sold for those prices is lacking. Show some proof that weapons with perfect mods are consistently sold for more than the weapons and mods sold separately.

The burden of proof isn't on me. I said earlier in this thread that the OP may be right - but he or she provided no evidence either way.

My observation is that nearly all sale offers of high end, rare skin weapons include 20/20 and +30 mods. Is it possible that this observation only applies to the sale offers, but not the actual sales? Sure. But I have no reason to believe this to be the case. If these sale offers for "obscene prices" don't actually result in successful sales, I would expect to see far fewer unreasonable offers. Why would so many sellers bother to waste time and money modding if it didn't actually make them money?

I'm not going to do a scholarly, econometric analysis to prove this point. I think the observation is reasonable enough, and certainly more substantial than any evidence provided in this thread to support the opposite conclusion.

Um what?
+30 still only gives u 30 more health , even with 10% morale boost.

I don't really get what you meant when you said this. . . .

Mynghul might have incorrectly assumed that the morale bonus applies after the effects of runes and weapon upgrades. It doesn't. Moral (and Death Penalty) are applied before the effects of runes and weapon upgrades.

Here's a rather crude way to judge whether the 20/20 +30 mods actually do anything. Go to the guru auctions, search on high-end auctions that have closed and see what prices people are paying for them (this is of course assuming the transaction actually happened). It's no where near representative, but it's some data to work with. Just based on my observations, high-end items usually go for higher on guru auction than if they were sold in-game, since the buyer has the opportunity to bargain, whereas in auctions, the price can only go up.

Translation: I don't care what anyone can prove, I'm just going to state something and it's right no matter what. Glad you feel that way, but it makes for crappy discussion.

Now to contribute something actually worthwhile to the thread: Let's take a look at 15^50 Mursaat Hammers sold (or at least didn't have any new offers or bumps) in the High End forum or in Auctions over the past few weeks.
(@Calypso: I was running searches for a few hours before you suggested this; pain in the ass is all I can say.)

req 8, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 100k+65e
req 8, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 100k+60e
req 8, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 100k+60e
req 8, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 400k (~100k+43e)
req 8, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 600k (~100k+63e)
req 8, 10% furious, +30 health = 390k (~100k+42e)
req 8, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 620k (~100k+75e)
req 9, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 550k (100k+65e)

req 9, zealous, +29 health = 100k+30e
req 9, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 100k+25e
req 9, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 100k+38e
req 9, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 250k (~100k+22e)
req 9, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 260k (~100k+23e)
req 9, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 349k (~100k+36e)

req 10, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 100k+10e
req 10, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 210k (~100k+16e)

req 11, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 100k+6e
req 11, 20/20 sundering, +29 health = 100k+7e
req 11, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 100k+11e
req 11, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 260k (~100k+23e)

req 12, 20/20 sundering, +30 health = 180k (~100k+12e)


Things of note:
People often remove the b/o price when someone takes the b/o. That eliminated a good portion of threads. Damn you Sell forum people.

The few times that "nonperfect" weapons were sold, they received comparable offers to other "perfect" weapons. Powertraders (such as the OP) are probably seeing this trend too, though that's hard to back up with solid evidence.

Also, I found b/o's for non-15^50 weapons with perfect mods to be 1. really high (sometimes even higher than comparable 15^50 weapons), and 2. not getting any offers. So at the very least, stop sticking good mods on crappy weapons.

I'd look for more data, but I'm having difficulty finding a good weapon skin that is costly and has abundant threads/auctions here.

I'll add mine: req 9 +15^50 29hp 10% furious (that's how it dropped): sold for 100+20 ectos (could have been easily more, but I wanted to sell fast and refused offers over buyout cause im a good trader )

Not at all. Spend as much time as I have in Ventari's Sell and buying and selling in game and you'll realise how false that statement truely is.

Weapons with 20/20 and +30 almost never go over the estimated value of the base item iteslf and the components included.

Example: Would a Weapon trader Blue Katana from Kaineng with a 20/20 +30 on it be worth 125k?

It doesn't work that way. Most buyers will want to customize the weapon to suit thier own needs anyway, so would be unwilling to pay the full combined value.

The only time it's ever even nearly worth putting a 20/20 +30 on an item for sale is if it's an ultra rare skin. ie: Dwarven Axe, Serpent Axe, Crystaline as it looks more impressive with the most amount of money invested in it, will attract the maximum amount of potential buyers (Including those who are only turned on by the 20/20 +30 combination) and when you're speaking about millions, 120k is insignificant.

Of course, the fact that there are people in this thread who claim 20/20 and +30 compnents retain their full value once attached is evidence that these transactions do happen, but these people are only ripping themselves off. But if they want to pay 420k for my 20/20 +30 Fellblade I won't complain.

There are also people out there who think greens are better/more valuable than golds. Guild wars is full of misinformed/ignorant players.



You're right, it's no where near representative.

Ok for those people who think there must be a science behind my statement...I repeat once more: The value of a weapon is based on SKIN, REQ and INHERENT MODS. It's not something I found out, I'm just a messenger. It is the way amongst price checkers and people who regurarly, if not daily spend time on the price check forums and who know the value of weapons and have a lot of xp in the weapon market. If those people are wrong, then you shouldn't use their price guides too, but you do don't cha. And if you don't, you have no idea what I or they are talking about. If that's the case you shouldn't post your wishful thinking that mods increase the value of a weapon. That doesn't mean you can't always try to oversell your weapon.

We already know that most sales occur with 20/20 +30s attached. And we already know that a lot of people consider these items truely 'perfect' and so they'll probably sell more often when customized in this way. Also, an item with the maximum amount of platinum invested in it will seem to most buyers as the best deal. That is what we're discussing. The discussion is: Do 20/20 +30 retain their values once attached? Hammers are a very bad example. With hammers, these mods only cost 25k at most for both while the base skin can be worth up to 500k by itself, so what are we learning here?

Also, 90% of mursaat hammers will have a 20/20 +30 attached as they are so cheap and it covers all bases when searching for potential buyers.

Also, the Auction site is a very inaccurate source of reference. With fake bids, self bumps and ego bids rife, a b/o bid there can not be used as meaningful evidence. The hi-end auction is much easier to moniter for such abuses.

When you can provided the same evidence with swords where the combined value of the mods equates to almost half of the base items value, then you'll be making a valid point.

I just threw it out there because I'd already ran a search on it, couldn't find anything else significant, and didn't feel like deleting what I had. It doesn't really prove anything on the topic at hand, though I did notice a few things about sellers that I wouldn't have seen just glancing through (and closing threads ). If 20/20 +30 is the norm, how do you go about proving that those mods increase the price above nonexistant non-perfectly modded weapons?

(And if all these weapons have 20/20 and +30 mods, why the hell are those mods still worth anything? It seems like they're as common as white items nowadays. But I digress...)

This topic only really applies to standard rare skin weapons (By standard I mean items around 200-500k) as hi end rares can go into the millions and then 120k for two perfect components doesn't really mean a great deal.

If we take the Baseline Pricing on Rare Skinned Weapons as an example, and look on the list for the estimated values of Fellblades, you'll notice that they're bracketed. Now at first glance it appears the prices here correlate with the idea that 20/20s and +30s retain their full value once attached.

A req8 15^50 for instance is estimated at 200-300k. (The bracket is there for a reason, and it has such a wide range as there are many different versions of the same itm out there, and obviously some versions are considered more valuable than others. So the components do count for something.)

Example: a perfectly clean req8 15^50 fell will most likely sit toward the lower end of the bracket, while a 20/20 +30 will sit toward the higher end. So in theory, you if you can purchase both components for 100k, you'll make your money back ..

The risk here is that you'll only ever break even. But the truth is, clean items mostly sell for somewhere in the middle of the estimated values, so 90% of the time, you'll loose at least half of the money you've invested if you add a 20/20 and a +30.

--

Ergo: Components do add value to clean skins, there's no question in that, but the increase is minimal when compared to the amount you've invested in the components themselves.

Benefits for making your item 'perfect' (20/20 +30):
-Will attract more attention, so you're more likely to make a faster sale.
-you're more likely to get the full estimated value for your skin this way.

Cons:
-You'll most likely lose at least 50% of the money you've invested in components.

Benefits for selling the base item and 'perfect' (20/20, +30) components seperately:
-You may maxmimise the potential sale value of each item.
-The components will be an easier sell this way.

Cons:
-The base item will attract less interest, and it will be a harder sale.

--

This information is based off my own experience buying and selling and Price Checking and is in no way definitive, but I do think it's a good estimate of the way the market is working when considering 20/20 and +30 components.

Wow, well....

If say a Req 8 Longsword 15>50 is worth 40k ish. Then the person is like, "OMG if I mod this it will be worth hundreds of thousands of gold." So he adds a +30 Hp and 20/20 Sundering upgrades onto it. Lets say they cost 50k each so the sword is worth 40k and the upgrades are worth 100k. However, I truely doubt that the person will get 140k for it.

At the end of the day you will only reduce the amount of potential customers. Some people may want Vamp upgrades, others Elemental, some Furious. Not everyone wants Fortitude upgrades either, some may want Slaying, others Armor and maybe +1 20% upgrades.

I have never and will never mod a weapon purely for selling it. Sometimes when some really rare item appears ill pay for it whether it is modded or not. Modding weapons with certain perfect mods is only going to get people who want those exact mods purchasing them. Who wants to pay more for that 20/20 Sunder when you want to use an Ebony upgrade.

Just to clarify a few points from above, in case of any misunderstandings ..

Agreed. See my point about the katana a few posts up.

Not quite. You'll reduce the amount of potential customers willing to pay the combined values of the base item and it's components.

Say you're offering a Fellblade req8 15^50 20/20 +30 at a fair price (one that would be accepted with or without the 20/20+30) then your sword will have more chance of a faster sale. If most were offered the choice of a fellblade with a 20/20 and a +30 against a fell with a zealous and a +5 armor for the same cost, I'm pretty sure they'd take the more expensive version.

You're also more likely tp hit the top of the item's estimated value as someone looking for a 20/20 +30 sword will be willing to pay the combined values. Note that this trade (unless you're very lucky) will take quite a while to happen.

Remember, this isn't about what's the sensible thing to do, it's about how the sales actually happen with a lot of people assuming only 20/20 +30 is perfect.

O yeah, I should read stuff better. The amount of sundering I see these days is shocking.

This thread is 100% opinion based on prior experience.

Okay Mr. Bigshot, how about backing your statement with proof(this was regarding the 20/20 not being good for spiking).

Not adding any insight, but somebody tried to sell me a 5-20 req 10 Choas Axe with a +30 mod for 40k.


MMMM don't think so.

Please don't be an ass. I have repeatedly made it clear that my intuition may very well be wrong; all I have claimed is that this thread has, prior to your post, provided no evidence that costly upgrades are a waste of money.

One minor criticism of your chosen sample: PvE players generally prefer swords and axes over hammers. This might bias the results in favor of an item that - compared to swords and axes - appeals more to PvP players. Since PvP players are more likely than PvE players to recognize that Sundering is not that important and that the difference between +29 and +30 health is negligible, they are also more likely to pay for just the skin and not care as much about the mods. (Not to mention the fact that hammer mods are generally cheaper than the same mods for swords and axes).

Savio is a big shot on these forums and in game.

More on topic, the way I understand it sundering only triggers on the the base damage of the weapon (ie the 15-22 on a sword, etc), not on the attack skill's damage. So, you are getting around 3-5 extra damage once every 5 attacks (it may even be attack skills I'm not 100% certain).
Vampiric = 3 extra damage per attack. Do research.

Thus, sundering = noobish.

I assure you the sundering adds more than 3-5 damage. There is no doubt the Vamp. is more constant than a sundering, and better with certain weapons(a bow for instance), but with a sword or an axe I would prefer the sundering mod for a spike.

I believe vamp was found to deal more damage over the same number of attacks than sundering, on all armor levels up to and including 100AL, on all weapons. And since you're going to have to spike a multiple number of times, and you imply that the damage from the weapon mod will significantly help you, overall vamp gives you stronger, more consistant spikes.

Doo bee doo bee....

Lets bring the proof in to the pudding.

Axes have a damage range of 6-28
customized and the 15%^50 it brings the max damage to 31 (wild blow)
Sundering +20% increases the damage of a critical hit to 44 vs a 100 AL target
Thats a REALLY high number. But...is it really that useful? Lets try and find out!

Heres the attributes:

Heres the axes:


Now heres the data.

Sundering Axe with no IAS, vs a 100 AL target, heres the damage play by play:
16
20
22
10
12
23
11
13
21
14
20
11
7
8
13
21
6
12
44
18
12
7
15
19
11
11
9
7
31
31
19

after 31 swings (i chose 31 cause thats the critical hit amount ;P) the total damage vs 100 AL is: 494

Average damage = 15.93

Now for 3/1 Vamp, no IAS vs 100 AL target:
13
14
8
14
11
8
20
19
31
17
8
13
17
10
12
17
22
21
13
31
20
6
7
5
31
9
20
14
6
14
5

= 457

now add the 3 armor ignoring damage per swing (3 x 31 =93)

Total damage = 550

Average damage: 17.74

--------------------

Ok so thats with just no IAS, and no attack skills.

Lets bring Wild Blow into the picture.

Wild Blow does 31 damage. When the sundering kicks in you do 44 damage. With vamp, it does a constant 34 damage.

44 Thats an additional 13 damage. But at the same time, its 1 out of every 5.

So we do 5 critical strikes. Chance says we should get at least +13 on one of them. We divide 13 into 5, to spread across all 5 strikes. thats 2.6 additional per critical strike

and IF we get 1 crit + penetration in there. Theres also a chance that all 5 swings will be 44 (remember this is percentages).

Meanwhile Vamp is consistently +3

If you are willing to gamble on that type of reliability, then go ahead. But i'd rather pick consistently higher DPS, higher consistent spike damage.

^.^

The thing you fail to realize is that a spike is meant to kill a target. You want have the chance to maximize the damage of your spike, in which case the sundering would be better for something such as an axe or a sword because the vamp. is only 3/1 and you are generally chaining only 2-3 attack skills for your spike. A hammer on the other hand it would probably be better to use a vamp. because of the high ratio, 5/1, and you generally chain 3-4 skills together with it.

At least this is the way I see it. I would like to maximize the damage of a single spike if possible.

Heres how i see it. Everything has a price.

Sundering gives you a higher chance of damage....but your price is inconsistency.

Vamp gives you consistent higher damage...but your price is degen.

Choose which price youd like to pay.

well i saw alot of ppl mentioning that furious is crap in lots and lots of diff treads, but somehow i never can get the answer on the simple question - why is it so crappy? i mean lets say i dont want to use zealous and i'm not into sundering, and i dont want any elem damage mods for some reasons (say rangers/eles around) whats left? vamp and furious. now if the build is adren-based, isnt it logical to use furious just for the hell of it? what makes it so crappy?

and i absolutely agree that sellers should stop adding expencive upgrades to random weapons and then ask crazy prices for them cos imho if smbdy wants to buy gold weapon, not the perfect and (quite often) cheaper green item, they want to mod their weapons the way they see fit. f/ex i had HUGE problems equipping my monky - i wanted 3 weapons with +5e, so i can mod them with +ho and +armor and +to ench mods. 3rd was easy to get - totem axe ftw, it looks great 2. but then i spend quite a few hrs just trying to find any +5e swords/axes w/o the 20/20 +30hp mods, cos i alrdy had +30hp and +5armor mods in storage, why should i pay for the mod that i'm not going to keep or got alrdy? finally i found smbdy who sold me unmodded +5e sword and +5 axe - i wanted smth nice-looking, not the usual katana/cleaver skins.
moral of the story - seller of unmodded weapons saved his/her time and sold items fast and got the price he/she wanted, while 20/20 +30hp fans r still there, asking for 100k and 15ecto..........................

Bad example on two fronts. First, you've effectively eliminated most of the other mods from the decision. If you don't have a choice, your only option is to pick the one left. Doesn't mean that option is any good when you do have a choice. Second, you're comparing vamp and furious - if you're going for damage, why would you pick furious over vamp?

i'm just asking, cos i'm a little bit confused. i wasnt able to find any math proving that furious is really that bad compare to another mods, and if smbdy did the math alrdy its easier to ask than to do it all over again right... so - do u think that i should choose vamp even if i'm going to spam low-cost adren skills like quivering blade and such? another thing that i'm not so sure about is elem mod. certain monters and whats more important - bosses in pve r sensitive to cold or fire damage, and it's a good idea to use icy weapon if we have a necro with spinal shivers in our team, also it looks like elem dam is supposed to do more damage to war after the shield nerf. but are elem mods really better than vamp or furious or even sundering mods? my war's using same +30hp -5/20 shield and i havent noticed that much of a diff, not sure why, mb thats where sentinels armor helps...

this debate will never be settled so why bother?

i say...play your way and let others play their way, looking into the mathematical equations is just taking it too far imo it is just a game after all

It's all about proving you're right and the other guy is wrong.

Ppl blasting out mathematical equations for something that in truth is petty at best is stupid.

The dmg difference is too insignificant it hardly worth the bother

The difference between the price, however, is significant. Sundering axe hafts are 30k+ more than vampiric hafts in the current market. -1 regen is a problem? That's like Parasitic Bond posing a threat

Besides, you're stealing 3hp per hit so you gain more than what is lost while you attack.

i was (quite literally) the person who invented this strategy on a mass scale...i made millions doing it, however, this was a long time ago, people have wisened up, and its now rather difficult to do.
in general modding a weapon with a +30 will not add additional value to the weapon. if the weapons is a good skin with a perfect damage mod and a decent requirement (ie a weapon worth keeping) the modification should retain its market value. on a crap weapon, the mod can often be individually worth more than the entire weapon, since noone is going to want a 13>50 r13 10-21 dmg sword...they'd rather have its perfect +30 hp mod.
what, then, is the advantage of adding on a perfect modification these days?
A: in general, it will sell faster, not for more money...but faster.
the downside si that if you cant sell it, you can lose money spent on the mods. as for what cosntitutes a perfect mod; about the dumbest thing you can do to a weapon in the 100-300k range is leave it with a 2:1 vampiric and +5 vs elemental mods...non-max stat mods kill decent weapons, most of the time. extremely rare weapons will sell regardless of the addon mods as the people who buy them are rich enough to not care...and crap weapons dont sell to anyone except people who couldnt afford the mods to begin with...but for middle-ground stuff, throw a max mod on it...a zealous, a +5 defensive, a +30hp...anything...so long as its not a totally useless mod. yes, some people prefer a "base" weapon, as unmodded as can be...but most, do not.
and anyone can argue with me as much as they want, but i can guarantee you noone here has done more weapon remodeling than i have for the purpose of reselling, i speak out of personal experiences incurred in hundreds, if not thousands of item trades. but the fact remains; once upon a time you could buy a "clean" weapon for 100-200k, 2 perfect mods for 80-100k each, mod the weapon and sellt he whole package for 10-30% more than what you paid. why? because perfect mods and weapons were such uncommon drops that people would be willing to pay extra for the whole thing pre-modded rather than waiting in trade channels to buy each piece seperatly over the period of a week. this is why a year ago i REGULARLY had 50+ perfect mods on me of varying different types for varying different weapons; along with numerous "base" weapons on stock, ready to make a "customized" (whatever mods they wanted) weapon for whoever wanted one. nowadays, you cant really make a profit form this anymore, but it DOES help you sell your items much faster...and time is money.

nice essay AKH and a certain amount of modesty as always

adding mods to tell faster is one thing but i found selling below current market value by 10-20% was alot faster some ppl just dont realise just because everyone else sells for 150k means you have to..i'd sell for 120-130 then move on to the next sell..the guys selling for 150k were still spamming hours later, i would have sold everything by that time and still be well within a 50% profit margin.

the goold old days *memories*