Salvaging Questions

So I'm still kinda new to most of GW; other then the "run around and kill" parts of it, and its Quests.

I decided to try out this Salvage thing. I looted a blue name Weapon, that listed itself as Highly Salvageable. I liked some of the stats it had but it was fairly weak damage, would have been cheap merchant loot.

But, there was one particular stat that I wanted to try to salvage and maybe apply to a better weapon in the future.

So I went and spent the gold on an Expert Salvage Kit, the best and most expensive that I could find.

I then tried to salvage this, Highly Salvageable weapon...

...and ended up with 11 bits of wood; which seem, pretty useless to me.

Of course the weapon was destroyed in the process but oh well, as I said it would have been cheap merchant loot anyway.

But now I guess I should better educate myself on this whole Salvage think.

For starters, I have a junk Truncheon that I looted. White Name, so junk loot. It's got some decent Dark Damage on it though, not great but decent and thats all it has.

So; would it be possible to salvage different stats from other salvageable weapons, and apply them to this Truncheon? Say, if I had another salvageable weapon with Dark Damage on it, would it be possible to salvage that Dark Damage stat, and add it to the Truncheon to increase its existing Damage?

Also, would I be able to Salvage other stats... say from another Salvageable weapon with an Energy modifier on it, salvage that Energy stat, and add it to the Truncheon as well; basically build a custom weapon with 3 or 4 different salvaged stat mods?

Would I have to have a better Salvage Kit to get these stat mods out of these salvageable weapons, or did my first attempt with this Expert Kit, just result in bad beginners luck?

How does it work exactly, if it is successful, does it break the weapons components down into a list and give you the opportunity to select which Mod you want to salvage from it? Then assuming it is successful, how do you add this to an existing weapon that you want to modify or improve; and how many different Mods can you add to one?

Thanks in advance for any replies...

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Salvage

You can put mods on a white weapon, when you do, it will become blue.

I believe it doesn't gain an inscription slot though, making the process somwehat pointless.

When you salvage a weapon or item you have a certain chance to get certain materials, as pointed out in the link above.

I could salvage a 'Highly Salvagable' Sword and get either a bunch of Iron Ingots (common, but needed, material) or a couple of Steel Ingots (rare material), it's down to luck.

Nyarlathotep, what's your profession? I think I have a spare weapon or two lying around.

The amount of crafting materials that you end up with are relative to the value of the item. If you salvage an 11gp blue sword, you won't get as much out of it as a 88gp blue sword. Likewise, any item that is highly salvageable will generate more materials than an item that is not.

Personally, I don't salvage anything worth less than 30 or 40 gp. (And I *always* ID everything that is req3 or above! It usually increases the value by 20% to 30% at the merchant!)

Basically just sounds like, bad beginners luck for this first attempt... and seems I'm also likely better off still selling my cheap salvageable loot off to the merchants.

As for my profession, for those asking...

My primary, is a Nec/Elm for my current Post character whose just finishing up all the Ascalon quests and moving up into Yak's Bend. I've got a decent Purple Accursed Staff that I acquired from Pre, while doing a North of the Wall mission and killing Char... I also have a Nec/War in Pre, and a straight War also in Pre...

But at the moment it is my Nec/Elm that I'm focusing on; with a build focusing heavily on Blood Magic and either Water or Fire Magic depending on the run or mission that I do... but I have a lot of points also invested in Curses because my current Staff requires points there to get its max damage out of it which is 7 - 11... but I'd rather take those Curse points and apply them to the Elementalist side of my build.

I solo a lot and seem to be getting to the point; and have been through some areas; where I've wished I had something a little better... I'm hoping to try going 1 handed with this particular character, which is why I mentioned the Truncheon; as I like the way that one looks, and maybe use an additional Cesta of some type, in the off hand. But, if I can't find a decent 1 handed weapon, well 2 handed works just as well and still gets the job done!

So thats why I was getting curious about the Salvaging stuff. Figured I could turn a junk Truncheon into a pretty decent weapon, knowing of course that I wouldn't end up with the perfect weapon but probably something a little better then what I have that will last me until I'm able to get to the point where I'm looting better stuff.

well since it's a pretty low dmg / low requirement item, you won't get much, however, if you say, salvage a max (armor + 16) great conch that has "highly salvageable" on it, you'll end up getting 100-300 piles of glittering dust! :O

Long answer/reads:

Differences between Salvage kits.
Things you can get from salvaging.

Short answers:

No you can not salvage the "Dark" dmg and there is nothing you can do to increase the base dmg of a weapon.

Yes, you can salvage the +energy mods off one-handed wands but not from Prophecies drops. They must be from NF or EoTN(and a few other elite zones or the Z-chest). Nor can you add those particular +energy mods to wands from other then those places.

Almost all drops are salvageable. Highly salvageable just means an increased chance of more materials or rare materials. Assuming there were no other mods on the weapon you salvaged, getting only 11 wood sounds about right. If there were other mods there, you would get a preview window listing what you can get.

Personally, I wouldn't do anything drastic yet. Getting max damage/low req items is very easy nowadays, and there is no point in spending money on something you will just throw to junk. Have fun with the game then buy a few greens... Salvage ANYTHING that has the highly salvagable ( also identify anything you get (assuming ur in proph. LA+))

My recommendation for anything that has 'highly salvageable' is to only ever use your normal salvage kit. They basically don't give you anything but a huge number of common crafting materials. I never use expert salvage unless it specifically has the stat on it that I want. Highly Salvageable is really only good for getting large amounts of common.

Well I disagree with Pamelf almost completely. In pre and Ascalon, where it sounds like you have spent most of your time, do not expert salvage anything for its crafting materials. However, do use a regular salvage kit on just about every white drop that you receive rather than selling them to the merchant (unless you need enough money to buy another salvage kit). The reason is for almost every case, the crafting materials are worth more than the drops themselves.

(ex. a req 3 gladius 4-6 dmg would sell for 5g + Salvage Cost of (100g / 25 uses ) 4g, but the iron ingot you get from salvage is worth currently 15g (15g-9g = 6g profit after salvage)

Once you reach LA (Lion's Arch), the white drops become more valuable, and the rules change. Now you should identify everything and watch for the identified value of an item that is much higher than the others. Those items that have inordinately high values have a much better chance of dropping Rare Materials and those should be salvaged with an Expert or Superior (although expert is cheaper per use) salvage kit.

Every "highly salvageable" item found after LA, with the exception of those items that become wood, should be expert salvaged because they also have a much higher chance of dropping rare materials.

Finally, salvaging item upgrades (mods) from blue or purple drops to sell to other players is rarely profitable, with the exception of bowstrings which are still very hard to sell in trade window.

*However, merchants pay 25g for a mod. If the blue or purple with a salvageable mod is worth less than 9g {25g - (cost of expert salvage 16g)} then it pays to salvage the mod and sell it to the merchant rather than the item itself.