How do you know what to sell?

Is there a way to tell what is "vendor trash" or what is a collectable or something that should be salvaged?

I find it confusing that some items say Salvagable but is actually something that you can trade to a collecter. Or something you should salvage for the 'parts'.

There are SOO many collectors that trying to keep track of what is where and who collects what.....

Is there a Rule-of-thumb to follow? Thanks.

There is no rule of thumb that I know about.

apart from.....

Do NOT salvage globs of ectoplasm!

you can always hit F10 while in game and check up on an item but unless I really want something from a collector I just sell everything to the trader. (which is why my storage is full Doh!)

One rule of thumb - most (if not all) of the stuff you get from collectors can be more easily gotten from chests, or by drops, or by purchasing from other players, so the easiest thing to do is to ignore collectors.

Other than that, it takes a bit of time and experience to know what to merch, or salvage, or sell. You can use the Price Check forum on here to get an idea of what weapons and items may be worth something. The wikis are your best source of info on what stuff salvages into what and what's what. But, it's beyond the scope of these forums to expect anyone to give you detailed advice on everything you might run into.

http://www.guildwiki.org/Main_page
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page

Ignore the Collectors and to find out what stuff sells well , spend a bit looking at Trade chat in Kamadan and Lions Arch , I find the US Districts busier than Euro if that helps

ok best advice going would be - dont ever salvage ectos as said above and if in doubt check wiki for the item.
Eg orr emblems on wiki will tell you both what they salvage into and that they are an item thats collected at halloween.
From that you should be able to decide exactly whats trash and what isnt - its easier tbh than ending up with a thousand or so replies covering every item.
If in doubt with say a gold weapon always ask for price check in an outpost as that gives a rough value or ask a guildie or friend.
Runes from armor/garbs always check at rune npc for their prices - only a few are actually worth salvaging but sometimes a rune can rise in price quickly if a trend starts - eg after a derv update that gets players using dervs , derv runes will rise in price.

Its difficult at times to separate merch-food from rare items. There are just certain items you need to be aware of because you can come across them in normal play. As to what the list is, all players have their own and it often varies.
As far as collector items goes, you can always check this list of profitable trophies
uhm...as far as I know, you can't

Knowing what to sell to the Merchant and what not to sell takes some research.

In general, it's a good idea to go through Ventari's Forum on check the Price, Buy and Sell forums. This will give you a good idea on what's hot and what's not.

In general if it's not maximum it's not worth much. For example, R11 Sword with Furious (9%) and +29 HP are merchant fodder (or hero fodder). R9 sword with Furious 10% and +30HP, might be worth keeping. Certain skins are more popular and rare than other, so you need to have a rough idea (again from research) on what's hot.

As far as salvage items....I think everyone will have there own system for this. Personally, I try and keep anything related to Special Event Collectors (Charr Carvings for example for Wintersday). Again a little research go along way. Read through the wiki entries do see what you can get for them.

I spent 20 minutes in Kamandan over the weekend just looking at the Party Search Trade list. That can give you some great information very quickly on what people are looking.

This has been an ongoing issue for me since I started. I'm the type of person who will read and research something endlessly, but this seems to be one of the few areas where I was just stumped... because there is NO easy answer.

I've been playing since October, and here is the very general criteria I've started to use "on the fly" - meaning, the criteria I use when I'm trying to decide quickly what to sell and what to keep and what to look into further...

1. A blue or purple item which has a requirement of 8 or 9, and does max damage, I will hold onto until I have more time to look into whether or not people are really into it. This thread is a quick reference of items/requirements/stats compiled in one place. I now know the max damage for each class of weapon off the top of my head, but early on, I'd just look on that list for like, axes - max damage of 6-28.

2. With trophy drops (all the little stacking bits like kournan pendants, icy lodestones, krait skins, plague idols, etc.) I've started looking each of them up on the Wiki. I keep ones that either Nick has not yet collected, or that are sought by Wintersday/Halloween/Canthan Chef collectors, and I store them in storage characters. I ONLY started doing this recently, once I decided I was truly committed to this game and it was worth (to me) investing in extra characters.

3. Gold weapons I will almost always investigate pretty thoroughly. I make use of the GWEstimator to see if people are buying/selling them and for what price. I've gotten better at identifying immediately if something is merch food (high requirement, less-than-max inherent stats, etc) so I don't have to research quite so much... but early on, I was honestly looking up everything I found.

4. I will salvage off max modifiers or inscriptions that are worth more than a couple of platinum.

5. I have a list I wrote out of Runes & Insignia that are worth more than just the standard 25gold. I basically went to the trader, looked at the selling prices of all the Runes/Insignia that were going for more than like 150g, and wrote them down. I can quickly scan that list and know that a Major Fire rune is pretty worthless, but a Major Vigor is absolutely worth salvaging. The trader will give me a lot for a Warrior's Sentinel, but next to nothing for a Sentry.

6. I'm always looking for weapons/mods/runes & insignia I want for my heroes.

7. Anything Green I price check here.

8. I periodically scan the WTB Forum here, to see what sort of things people are collecting.

9. I pay really close attention to "named" things... names I see frequently coming up in the trade chat in Kamadan: Celestial, Plagueborn, Voltaic, etc.

10. When in doubt, I ask here on Guru. I don't really trust the price checks I see given in cities over the chat... but here, the community sort of keeps people honest, even if as individuals a few might be inclined to try and cheat. I also make heavy use of the Search function here... "Diamond Aegis" in quotes, "Ruby Maul" in quotes, etc. Helps me find what others have price checked, or have bought/sold them for in the past.

When I first started, I REALLY wanted there to just be a simple list somewhere I could consult... and I couldn't really understand why it didn't exist. I "get it" now. It would be impossible to create or maintain. The value of things is something you learn over time, sometimes by making mistakes, but usually by devoting the time to researching the items. I enjoy that part of things, so I have no problem spending time on it.

Since selling to players can take such a long time I tend to go by 3 rules.

1 Do I want to use the item on a character or hero if yes then keep

2 if it has an inscription rune or mod I want then salvage the mod and sell what's left to a trader.

3 salvage anything else to build up a stock of materials I can use later in the game.
Salvage kits are cheap or you can use the various mission rewards that can be traded for salvage kits.


You could watch what people are selling in the game, I think the only items that sell fairly constantly are gold items with perfect stats or unidentified golds.

Such lists did exist at one time. But the people who started them, soon became less involved with the game and stopped updating the threads. Then the prices became outdated and the lists were not only useless, but caused problems and arguments, as they were still being used as a basis for buy/sell pricing.

@OP - I always kept collector items for weapons that would work for my heroes - the Lotus staffs in Factions, any 20/20 wands or +30 offhands.

Always check the wiki for what material you will get from salvage. Mats like dust, granite, feathers, and iron have a steady market. Always ID an item before salvage as you will get more materials from it.

Except for the "I'm leet" weapons such as Voltaic Spear or Bone Dragon Staff, you will find that only the "old school" inherent mod weapons have a high end market. Even then it depends on the mod and the skin.

Any gold weapon with max damage will usually sell for 1-5k depending on desirability, but it might take a while to find a buyer.

The collectors.....

The tips above are spot on, but until I have the money needed (or find the drops i want), I gear my heroes up with items that I can get from the collectors.

Thank you all for the feedback.

I find it frustrating that there isn't an "auction house" type function in this game. I usually (in other games) find pricing of items by looking at what is for sale and how many of a given item is available.

Trying to check each item is very time consuming when you have been on a mission/quest and come back with lots of stuff. To have to check each item by "price check forum" is also time consuming THEN having to find a buyer or try to meet up with said player........

I have not gotten to the point of Decking out my Heros - yet - but it is a good idea for me to start collecting items they May be able to use in the future!

Great feedback - thanks again.

A hint regarding salvaging:
Salvage all metal looking shields, armor pieces and swords. They most often yield iron. Once you have a stack you can sell to players for 5-6k. That white sword that merchant offers 80g for might turn into 6 iron that you can get 120g for. Also stonehead hammers, granite hammers can be salvaged to granite and it sells for a nice price , even better than iron.
Stuff that yields cloth, bones, wood, chitin, merch it, since the material value is low.

Another point about salvage sell or keeping things you find.

Some items are just general no special use while others do have a use.

1 items for collectors that gain you weapons and the lower level armour pieces.

2 items for quests, naga pelts for instance needed for a factions quest.

3 items needed by Nicholas the traveller

4 items needed for festivals, it would be worth checking what's needed for the Canthan new year.

Many players myself included have lists of items to collect year round that get spent during festivals.
If you plan ahead it saves that last minute rush.

Collector items for 20/20 focii are pretty much the only option if you don't want to spend ungodly amounts of money to outfit your heroes with 20/20 focii (most of them are better off with staves though).

4x 20/20 focii = easily 80-120k

basically BDS (Bone dragon staff), VS (voltaic spear), CC (Celestial compass), Platinum ______ (staff noninscribable, bow, sword), Dragon staves (cantha), bo staves (cantha), celestial staves, zodiac, Deep/Urgoz drops, r7 and r8 max items, r7 15armor inscribable shields, r6 14 armor inscribable shields, chaos axes, storm bows, eternal bows, w=etc.

Mostly everything has been hit by z-chest spam

Although traders and item descriptions show classify them as 'common' and 'rare', there are actually 3 kinds of materials:

- Common
- Crafted
- Rare

Crafted materials are shown as 'rare' but they are not really rare. They can be crafted in artisans. All of them. And all require either common or other crafted materials to be crafted, never rare.
They also are the ONLY materials that can be salvaged to get crafted or common materials.

Some cases are rather funny.
You can get wood from charcoal. It seems the kits can 'unburn' the wood.
While leather costs 5 tanned squares, when yo salvage them you'll get 6..8. It seems like kits can also generate matter.


The actual rares and common can't be salvaged.

Globs of Ectoplasm are not crafted and so, they can't be salvaged.

As someone who also misses the market of Eve Online (but not much else about that game now ), may I simply say +1.
I use my heroes as dumping grounds for greens that don't quite have the stats I want for my own characters, unless there's a few k to be made from selling them instead of course.