Need Help with Loot

I don't understand loot drops. Gold items dropped have progressed from
once per week, several per week, once per day, several per day. If I can use it, then I hold onto it. Everything left over I give to my wife.

I pretty much remain clueless on how to evaluate loot drops. I finally appreciate that loot is not good vs bad but rather higher resale demand (or ease of usability) vs lower resale demand. One of my favorite bows has q13 but since my build always has q13 this has not been a problem.

Can someone help me better understand how to evaluate loot?

- Check for max damage
- Check for low reqs
- Other?

I spend alot of time reading Price Check and Items offered for sale forums.
I haven't been able to pull it together. I don't want to Price Check stuff, I want a better understanding of loot screening. Thanks.

Skin - common skins are worth less, rare skins are worth more. If the stats were identical, these 2 bow skins would warrant a price difference of 100K+.... Silverwing -v- Feathered Longbow.

Requirement - even though many builds will have 11-14 in the weapon requirement, most people want a bow with 10 or less for the requirement. If you can get a req 8, that is worth a lot more.

Damage - if it isn't max damage, it isn't worth much unless an extremely rare skin. Even the rare skin cases will need it to be close to max damage, or it will need to be used as a caster weapon.

Stats - most of these can be changed, but not all. If it has an inscription slot it can have all stats but the req. and damage modified. If it doesn't have an inscription slot, it better have a max mod (15^50, +5, etc.). Although dependent on the skin and req., most inherent modded weapons (uninscribable) will sell for slightly more than an inscribable version due to the rarity.

Learning all the ins and outs takes a LOT of time. You need to keep an eye on the trade forums here, the auction site here, the trade chat in game, and find out what people are truly paying for things rather than what is being listed as a price. There is no easy answer on how to learn. It just takes a lot of observation and interaction.

Basically, these days, there are only a few items that are worth more than what the merchant will give you. If you spend time reading Price Check and Sell forums, you can get an idea of what rare skins are worth anything. There is also a number of uncommon skins that are worth a few K - it's up to you whether you want to take the time to sell them.
There are also a few mods that are worth something.
But basically, to be worth anything, a weapon needs to be max damage, req 9 (or less), and (usually) inscribable.
But, there's always exceptions.

You can also check Guru Auctions to get an idea of what something is worth, but don't get confused by what people ask for something but pay attention to what people are actually bidding on things.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Max_damage

there is a table of max damage for all types of weapons. a lot of questions like this can be answered via the Guild Wars Wiki.

an item's economic value generally depends on the skin. as stated earlier, the more rare the skin, the more it's worth. as far as usage goes, the skin means nothing at all. the requirement, damage range, and modifiers are the only important things when it comes to whether or not to use a weapon.

one other variable is whether or not the weapon has an inscription slot. if it does, the damage/energy modifier in that slot can be changed whenever you want. if there is no inscription slot, it cannot be changed and you're stuck with whatever it says, i.e. "damage +15% while health is above 50%" or "energy +5"

Just to complicate matters, there are certain rules which are broken and non max items are worth a lot of money. These are typically inscribable Armor 15 req 7 Tactics shields of any skin, but you may find that from time to time there is another build that calls for off max stats.

As for price checking, as many have said it comes down to experience. Best thing to do to help you is to try to value every req 9-10 gold you get for a while. Do this by searching the Price checking and WTS forums, and looking at the Auctions part of this website. As others have said, if there's a low number of high priced items that have no bids on the auctions, take that valuation with a pinch of salt. After valuing your own stuff for a while, you'll start getting a feel for what things are worth and will be able to immediately filter your pre-valuing gold collection slightly.

i merch most everything, i keep only max r9s and rare high req items.

i merch everything, most of the time, its time<money. so, taking an hour to sell sumthing for 20k isnt productive to me, nor is money to be frank. you dont need it in this game.

You do if you want to max certain titles, or buy certain armours, etc...

It takes minimal effort to store items on a mule then open a sell thread and bump it once every 24 hours. There's absolutely no need to stand around spamming items for sale unless you're power-trading.

As for divulging the value of items, the only way you're going to learn is to pay attention to the wtb and wts lists and correlate the data. Don't be against asking in the PC forum as it's a valuable tool.

You've got two concerns when pricing items: Is the item functionally useful? Is the skin valuable?

Let's start with determining if the item is functionally useful. In essence, we're looking for items that give (or could be remodded to give) the maximum benefits that sort of item could give.

• First, the item must be max damage/armor/energy/etc.
• Second, the item must be inscribable or have a desirable max inherent mod.
• (Second and a half, it the item is non-upgradeable in toto, then ALL of the mods have to be desirable and max. (This is why Proph/Factions staves, foci, & shields are 99.999...% garbage.))
• Third, the req must be non-problematic. This is not as big an issue as the trade forums would lead you to suspect. Most builds that use weapons have at least 14 in the weapon attribute, so even req13 is fine. Shields, spears, and bows tend to be the only items that req is ever a real concern.

There are two exceptions to the above:

• First, 15AL, req7 shields for attributes other than Strength are quite valuable. The reason being that casters and other builds that might want a shield, but have no use for any of the attributes linked to shields, can afford to put 7 in an unused attribute with a much smaller sacrifice to their used attributes than putting 8.
• Second, extremely rare skins can be sold to people who just want the skins, even if the item is functionally useless.

Now, about the skin:

• Do you like the skin? Great, then use the item. Inquiry over.
• Is the skin particularly rare? If so, you might be able to sell it. Check the High End and Sell forums to see what kinds of items people sell for what.
  • In general, rare skins are those that only drop from hard-to-reach places, or have very low drop rates, or both. Elite-zone/dungeon-end-chest-specific drops make up most of the class of valuable skins.
  • Note that purchasers of items tend to want low req. items. There's no rational reason for this, but they do. An item with a high req. needs to have a much rarer skin in order to sell successfully.
• Is the skin, while common, rarely found on a functionally useful item? If so, you might be able to sell it. For instance, Bo Staves drop all over the place in factions, but they're virtually all junk. A max Bo Staff with desirable max mods is very rare and very valuable.