to sell as-is or to salvage for upgrade comps and sell upgrade comps?

alright, i just recieved my first gold item. "swift dolyak prod staff of water magic"

halves skill recharge of spells (chance: 20%)
energy +10
lightning dmg: 11-22 (requires 12 air magic)
Halves casting time of spells (chance: 10%)
water magic +1 (20% chance while using skills)
inscription: "have faith"
energy +5 (while enchanted)

forgive me if this has already been posted, ive looked in the forums with no luck.

my question is not only for this item but also for any items (purple, green, or gold) that can be salvaged for upgrade components (as a rule-of-thumb for my future decisions on other similar situations)

2 questions:
1.
the vendor will buy it for 312g and i read in the PC forums that it has a market value of 2k and up but should i sell it as-is with the upgrade components still attached or salvage it for upgrade components first and then sell the upgrade components and then lastly sell the item if it was not destroyed?

salvage upgrade components are:
swift staff head
staff wrapping of water magic
inscription: "have faith"
crafting mats

in other words, which is the most valuable piece? (also i have less than 1k gold to my name, so i must be frugal.)

2.
and what is the best method to research and compare the market prices on items and upgrades? (i have sortof asked this question in the forums before but any and additional feedback helps!)

I just keep max mods anything else i just merch. I would just merch this item and move on, selling mods is like pulling teeth.

1. You should always watch out for the perfect and usable mods only.. Some wierd and useless mods are usually not worth salvaging.. You should try and do some research on what mods are usable and wanted amongst the community. Even so if the item has that mod and has a req9/10 and an inscription slot AND also gold, i'd advise you to use a perfect salvage kit for removing the mods because you can sell the item afterwards. But that too also depends of the items skin and rarity. So you've gotta pay close attention to the trade channels and learn as much as possible about which skins are wanted and easy to sell and those very common and hard to sell and then make your own judgments .. I would salvage with an expert salvage kit only the Swift Staff head.. The other upgrades are rather useless in this case... And the skin is rather nice, but i'm not really sure how it would sell at the moment..
2. Researching and getting the hang of the GuildWars market is not an easy thing to do for a beginner or those who were away for a couple of months. I'd say try to go through the Ventaris' "Sell" and "Buy" subforums as well as Price checks. Also pay attention when in bigger cities as Kamadan, Lions' Arch, Kaineng center for the trade channel and in time you'll come to know to price any of your items with ease and sell them for according prices

Question: Do you want to stand around a trade center for hours trying to sell the mods?

If your answer is yes then salvage away.
If your answer is no than merch it.

the staff can be sold for 1-2k for characters that want a staff just to give them energy (usually permasins). the mods are pretty much junk.

heres a quick list of mods to keep if you don't mind sitting in kamadan for a few hrs (it can really suck as posted above). they must all be perfect and are all worth 1-2k unless otherwise noted

sundering (any weapon)
+30hp (any item, shield 30hp is 3-5k)
"I have the power!"
"Hale and Hearty"
"Seize the Day"
+20% enchants staff 2-3k
+20% enchants for all weapons except bow (varies 1-5k)
furious spear head
"Strength and Honor"
"Aptitude not Attitude" 3k
halves casting time 20% or halves skill recharge 20% (any item, note forget me not)
"Forget Me Not" Halves skill recharge of spells of item's attribute (Chance: 15...20%)
****THIS ONE IS WORTH 20k!!!! cause its so hard to get****

"Not the face!" Armor +5...10 (vs. Blunt damage)
"Leaf on the Wind" (vs. Cold damage)
"Like a Rolling Stone" (vs. Earth damage)
"Riders on the Storm" (vs. Lightning damage)
"Sleep Now in the Fire" (vs. Fire damage)
"Through Thick and Thin" (vs. Piercing damage)
"The Riddle of Steel" (vs. Slashing damage)
"Luck of the Draw" 5k
"I Can See Clearly Now" Reduces Blind duration on you by 20%
"Swift as the Wind" Reduces Crippled duration on you by 20%
"Live for Today" Energy +10...15 Energy regeneration -1

so, if its a low value mod, the best thing to do would be to vend for just a few gold?

@dbulger:
where do you get information or lists like that, a full and comprehensive list i could refer to before vending mods and items and making a dumb mistake?

For weapons if they don't have great mods I'll merch them, or pull our any Highly salvageable inscriptions then sell them. I put the Highly salvageable inscriptions on items that have nice rare salvage chances (jeweled Items Ruby items ect.)

For armour I check the going rate for the runes/insignias at the rune trader and pull out anything of decent value. If theres anything left after Salvage I'll merch it.

Anything thats white (most of the time) I salvage for mats. Check for Rare salvage opportunities on each item. Some things don't have a rare salvage so just use a cheap kit to save some money. After I max a Stack of mats, (if I don't need them) I'll sell them off for good $. Granite, iron Ingots and Dust generally sell for about 2.5 - 4k a stack.

Hope that helps as well.

Wiki is your friend to find Max stats on items.

i updated the weapon mod list link here

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...&postcount=760

maybe bookmark it and refer to it when you need to pc your mods.

prod staff has a sweet skin (imo)
and the mods on that one r pretty worthless (again imo)

keep it jus to look seksy or sell as is

Well it sounds like you got that in eye of the north. That staff is super easy to get. I got my Legendary Survivor killing Snow Wurms outside of Borials Station in GW:EN.

While doing this in hard mode I got many gold drops and lots of mods.

Your mods are not good at all - on this particular item - and the staff is not a max req9 or less. Merchant EVERYTHING that is not REQ9 or less AFTER taking off the mods that are listed above in this thread.

Or..save up 7 golds and do not identify them. Sell them for 5K Each. You get 1 point of wisdom title for each item that you identify. People going for this title will gladly buy them off of you for 5K. On that note NEVER sell them a req9. NEVER sell a GOLD OFFHAND without identifying it no matter what the req ESPECIALLY 13! (Two of my forget me not's have been on REQ13's). The Forget me not might be on there. It is the only way to get a 40/40 weapons set and can sell in excess of 20K.

So, gather your req9s and you mods and go sit in Lions Arch and have the trade chat open and see what people are buying. My wife can sell 30K worth of junk in 20 minutes. Makes me so mad as I could go days without selling a thing.