I traded a bunch of crappy rare items and 2 plat for 2 minor runes and 2 major runes to some noob. They weren't salvaged so I guess the price was fair and it was a bit of a gambling, and even though I lost my major rune of Wilderness Survival (my poor, poor level 14 ranger
) I was able to salvage a Major Rune of Vigor. It sells for ~10 plat at the rune trader and people would pay up to 12 plat for it :P Although, I want to keep it myself :/ I think a great place to farm is the Dragon's Lair. It's the only place so far that I actually had a Superior rune drop, which, unfortunately, I lost during salvaging.
I also sold a Major Energy Storage rune to another noob for 4 plat. Overall I made ~17000 yesterday, although I understand that I got extremely lucky with that noob, spent 1 hour trying to sell my stuff, and the stuff I sold I had accumulated over the last week or so.
A great technique for selling your stuff is to port into an area, spam your "WTS omfgleet bow" a couple times, go to a different district, do the same thing, go to a different area, do the same thing - someone's bound to WTB one or more of your items. Also, mission places are often ignored by human traders, so there isn't much competition there and people are looking for better gear to beat the mission or trade in stuff from the previous mission. Another good technique is to run up to somebody who looks like they might buy a crappy item you have and attempt to trade with them. Accept whatever they feel your item is worth. This saves time and usually gives you a bit more money than you would get from an NPC trader. Also, try selling your stuff to human traders in the major cities - some of them are resellers and might want to get your stuff for pretty good money.
I discovered recently that salvaging CRAPPY stuff only helps if you know what you're getting AND you need it. Don't salvage cheap wands if you're a warrior, because you will never get steel ingot. So by salvaging things you actually lose money, especially if you're using only the expert salvage kit - say a bow costs 50 gp. You spend 16 gp to salvage it (cost of one use of an expert kit) and you get 5 wood planks (3 gp each at the material trader). 16 + 3 x 5 = 31 gp. You just lost one use of an expert kit AND 50 - 31 = 19 gp. Good job! Morale of the story - sell stuff to traders unless they contain saucesome upgrades or are worth more than 100 (value > 100). By the way, I hope most people have realized by now, that the actual price of the items in guild wars is NOT determined by their value. In fact, actual human-to-human transaction price of most items is about 10 times their value (does not apply to runes, materials, salvage items, and upgrades). To find out what the price of runes and materials is, visit an appropriate NPC trader and check the BUY price, not the SELL price. Then make sure you sell for a little bit less than the BUY value but more than the SELL value.
Well, I'm done. Feel free to comment on/add to this little and very unorganized guide.
~Elthin Averas, N/E20.
