Two questions about drops.

Hi there. I'm a new player and I've been in pre-Searing for about a week. I have two newbie questions, if that's alright.

I've been starting to see pieces of salvage that have to be identified first (not weapons). I think most of the time I would identify one I'd unlocked something for PVP. These pieces of salvage would have different attributes as well. I can't remember exactly what it would say, but I think it was something along the lines of +10 health, defense, energy, etc. However, upon using a salvage kit on one of them, I wouldn't really get anything special out of it other than the same old crafting items. Did I miss something there?

Secondly, I'd like to know if there are sites where I can find information on monster drops and such. In particular I'd like to know what the best available drops are for pre-Searingmaps, since I am there now. Guild Wars wiki has some info, but it doesn't seem complete. For instance, while gathering items for Nicholas Stanford I was quite surprised by the amounts of dye dropped by zombies. GW Wiki didn't mention anything about that at all.

For question 1) You have to use an expert salvage kit. The presearing equivalent of this is a Charr Salvage Kit I believe. It will allow you to salvage modifications off weapons and runes off armor.

Question 2) Drops like dye are completely random. It was probably just crap luck that you got many dye drops from zombies. Although presearing is known for dropping more dye than post searing.
And generally most drops are random. Although some skins will only drop off certain enemies. ie only Outcast mobs will drop Outcast items(staff, shield, ect).

1) In Post-Searing, you can use an Expert Salvage Kit, Superior Salvage Kit, or Perfect Salvage Kit to extract those +10's. Standard Salvage kits don't make the cut. While the presearing equivalent is the Charr Salvage Kit, they're extremely pricy for the new player- 10k for a full kit at 5 uses, or 2k per usage left on the kit, as opposed to the 25 use, 400g Expert Salvage Kit found in Post-searing.

2) Dye drops are all completely random. While there is a higher drop-rate in Pre than in Post, I've noticed that in an update a couple of months back that feels as if ANet has seemingly increased the dye drop rate in ALL areas of the game. Maybe I'm just being delusional, though.

Moriarity,

while in pre - with limited storage - dont bother about any dye drops other than white and black - keep those.

If you want to there are ppl who buy other colours in pre.

As for runes and mods from coloured armour and weapons - you won't find very good ones in pre. you can only get them with a charr salvage kit in pre, if you get a kit give a me call - I have good mods sitting around. They will only be any good to you while in pre though - when you go post there will be better ones.

Staying in pre to get LDoA on your first char is pretty unusual, but that is because it used to take much longer. Levelling in post is much faster and you pretty soon only want certain runes and max mods.

edit: i am sure there is a table in presearing.com that gives max mods etc that drop there.

here
http://www.presearing.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=127&Item id=47

Aww.. so I wasted those things by using regular salvage kits on them.

I have grinded in other games and this honestly doesn't seem like a very long grind to me. It would be a nice one to just get out of the way. Maybe I'll break it up a bit and create a regular PVE character I can use to finish the campaigns.

Edit: About the dyes, I got about 5 dyes in roughly 10-15 minutes. No blacks or whites.

Thanks! I was mainly wondering if I could find something better than the bonus items I got from EotN in pre-Searing. Can't use the necro staff much since I didn't get points in curses, but the energy bonus was nice.

or

make yourself a pvp only char and goof around with that.

or

if this is a fresh accnt/new accnt. start up a factions and nightfall to unlock some starting skills. with that run a couple quests to get marks to exchange for bags and "holding" mods so you have 10 slot bags ready to go when you leave pre.

there is stuff you can do with alts that will make your transistion from pre somewhat easier. I would though suggest that if this is your "main" char, not to start up a new prophecies alt to run the campaign until your main is finished with ldoa, running that a second time with your main might be somewhat "boring". pleanty of action in the starting areas of factions and nightfall to hold you over and by the time your done with prophecies with your main.. youll probably forget all about factions/nightfall starting areas .. lol. (prophecies rather long)

that is of course if you have factions/nightfall.

at any rate. welcome to gw! have fun.

cheers
d

PS. you already have the best pre sear weapon in the game from bonus.. called IMP.. should you choose to use him. lol

one thing i have not noticed anyone telling you as that when you get to post searing these runes you salvage can be very valuable, such as a major vigor rune. sell them to the rune traders and not to a merchant. most times they will sell for the minimum 25g. also, some of the more popular runes (you can tell by the price at the trader) can be sold at some of the more popular trading areas to other players for more than the trader will give to you. runes are a very good way to make some cash early in the game.

Thats a good point Gray, I merched them, all for ages before I realised

but I dont think you pick up much in pre thats wrth saving - limited bag space you know.

Major vigor doesn't drop in Pre, only minor. But it sells for 4k+ in Pre (unsalvaged) and only for 3k in Post. Plus, you're likely to want to keep it and use it once you get max armor.

Of the rest of the runes available in Pre only a handful of them sell for more in Post than on the player market in Pre: Soul Reaping, Survivor and I think Fast Casting (but not sure, haven't seen one traded in Pre recently).

If they're professional dye traders they will ofer small prices. Still, it's better than the 1g the merchant offers I suppose.

You can find the going prices on presearing.com and you can wait around for someone that wants to buy dye and ask for those prices, but it can get tedious.

Keep black or white if you get any, they will sell well in Post and you can get a little bundle to get you started.

The only thing I seriously recommend getting in Pre is 50 iris flowers and exchanging them for an equipment pack from Yakkington, it costs 2.5k to buy one in Post. Don't bother with armor, Charr bags and so on, there's equivalent or better stuff in Post.