Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure how to get these runes back. They’re sitting on some unused exotic karma armour, and I’d like to move them, maybe to another character… But I can’t seem to actually do anything with the armour pieces.
I’ve tried transmuting with HoM pieces, but they seem to retain their inability to be salvaged.

if you had transmuted the rune to any other REAL armor piece and not just a skin you can salvage it (if this other armor piece is no karma armor too cause you cant salvage ANY item that you bought with karma!)
just buy a lvl 10 white armor piece or whatever and transmute it to it then you can salvage

so I can use my lvl 79 transmutation stones then? Nope. Transmuting lvl 10 whites with lvl 80 karma exos still requires a 80-transmute crystal
That’s over 10g to buy the gems to get the crystals… over 20% of the cost of the runes themselves

Is there not an option to salvage that doesn’t require spending 12g?

If the Karma armor is below level 80, yes. Else you need to use a level 80 transmutation crystal.

I’m having a similar problem. I want to take the traveler runes off of my Phoenix Light armor set and put on my Trickster light armor set. The problem is, the only way to get runes back is to either destroy the armor by salvaging it, or just spending 65 gold on a set of new runes. There needs to be a way to get runes off of armor without destroying it, and it should be practical!

I just don’t understand why karma armour can’t be salvaged. Anet clearly knows which armour is karma. Why not give karma back when you salvage a karma item? Jugs, Kegs, swigs, thimbles… this is a perfect use for them instead of just saying “No Salvage!”

Salvaging karma items would be a direct method to turn karma into gold. Something ANet does not want and the in-game economy would be damaged by the influx of materials, upgrades and gold.

There have been rumors of an item in the database files that extracts upgrades from items, but it has not been introduced yet (if it actually exists). Most likely will be a gemstore item like the Transmutation Splitter.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Salvaging karma items would be a direct method to turn karma into gold. Something ANet does not want and the in-game economy could not survive.

This.
I have 6 million karma. I would ruin the price of melandru runes

Orangensaft.7139:

if you had transmuted the rune to any other REAL armor piece and not just a skin you can salvage it (if this other armor piece is no karma armor too cause you cant salvage ANY item that you bought with karma!)
just buy a lvl 10 white armor piece or whatever and transmute it to it then you can salvage

Just to point out for anyone else reading this: The white or blue item has to be of level to accept the upgrade before transmutation. Transmuting won’t let you pass an upgrade to an item lower than the upgrade’s required level.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Salvaging karma items would be a direct method to turn karma into gold. Something ANet does not want and the in-game economy would be damaged by the influx of materials, upgrades and gold.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lost_Orrian_Jewelry_Box
argument rejected!

You are seriously going to compare those items(with horrid material chances) to salvaging Exotic armor? That’s exactly why everyone spends all their karma on them….

Granted, people wanting material for Legendary or named Exotic forging can get a decent return for Karma with them, but as a gold source, they are pitiful.

Brother Grimm.5176:

There have been rumors of an item in the database files that extracts upgrades from items, but it has not been introduced yet (if it actually exists). Most likely will be a gemstore item like the Transmutation Splitter.

It’s on the gemstore now. Showed up today.

you can’t say they don’t want a direct karma to gold conversion when they specifically add exactly that. orrian boxes are more direct than salvaging karma items.
salvaging karma items would be about the same, if not lower, return. sure, the first 10 or so listers would think they’re making bank, but when they get undercut in less than 8 seconds, they’ll be sad. If karma items could be salvaged, all that would happen is people would do it and prices of particular runes and sigils would drop to half their current price.
for those first 10 players, they would theoretically make about twice as much gold as the orrian boxes give. within a minute, however, that margin would drop to zero or negative.

Fuzion.4193:

Brother Grimm.5176:

There have been rumors of an item in the database files that extracts upgrades from items, but it has not been introduced yet (if it actually exists). Most likely will be a gemstore item like the Transmutation Splitter.

It’s on the gemstore now. Showed up today.

A nearly pointless item. The only thing worth using that on is a +8 or higher agony infusion. For everything else it is cheaper to buy a replacement upgrade item.

Mystic.5934:

you can’t say they don’t want a direct karma to gold conversion when they specifically add exactly that. orrian boxes are more direct than salvaging karma items.
salvaging karma items would be about the same, if not lower, return. sure, the first 10 or so listers would think they’re making bank, but when they get undercut in less than 8 seconds, they’ll be sad. If karma items could be salvaged, all that would happen is people would do it and prices of particular runes and sigils would drop to half their current price.
for those first 10 players, they would theoretically make about twice as much gold as the orrian boxes give. within a minute, however, that margin would drop to zero or negative.

I can say it all I want and in fact the DEVS stated it when they removed karma items from being salvageable several weeks / months after release (they USED to be salvageable).

I don’t totally disagree with part of your statement, but it was NOT so much about individuals making huge profits, it’s about the market being flooded with materials.

Just curious, which karma exotic armor has traveler rune?

Brother Grimm.5176:

Mystic.5934:

you can’t say they don’t want a direct karma to gold conversion when they specifically add exactly that. orrian boxes are more direct than salvaging karma items.
salvaging karma items would be about the same, if not lower, return. sure, the first 10 or so listers would think they’re making bank, but when they get undercut in less than 8 seconds, they’ll be sad. If karma items could be salvaged, all that would happen is people would do it and prices of particular runes and sigils would drop to half their current price.
for those first 10 players, they would theoretically make about twice as much gold as the orrian boxes give. within a minute, however, that margin would drop to zero or negative.

I can say it all I want and in fact the DEVS stated it when they removed karma items from being salvageable several weeks / months after release (they USED to be salvageable).

I don’t totally disagree with part of your statement, but it was NOT so much about individuals making huge profits, it’s about the market being flooded with materials.

All those ecto’s from exotics……

NiloyBardhan.9170:

Just curious, which karma exotic armor has traveler rune?

Pretty sure the OP must have added them.

Brother Grimm.5176:

NiloyBardhan.9170:

Just curious, which karma exotic armor has traveler rune?

Pretty sure the OP must have added them.

Correct, I added a number of runes to karma sets long before I found out they couldn’t be salvaged. I believe I have both a divinity set, and a travelers set tied up in karma armour.

And the new gemstore items? It’s cheaper to buy new runes, even at 10g a pop that to use those brutally expensive things. 200 gems ~=15g. And that’s the best “deal”. Yet it costs 10g a pop just to buy the runes straight up…

Transmutation stones are at least only 10% of that cost… about 1.5g + the cost of a 65+level transmutable item. But still… that’s a HUGE cost. 9g across 6 items just to get a runeset back from karma items.

There must be a better solution.

DougTheSlug.3920:

I just don’t understand why karma armour can’t be salvaged. Anet clearly knows which armour is karma. Why not give karma back when you salvage a karma item? Jugs, Kegs, swigs, thimbles… this is a perfect use for them instead of just saying “No Salvage!”

Brother Grimm.5176:

Salvaging karma items would be a direct method to turn karma into gold. Something ANet does not want and the in-game economy would be damaged by the influx of materials, upgrades and gold.

Why don’t people just learn to read things more carefully? DougTheSlug clearly suggested that karma is returned from salvaging karma armor and it wasn’t even edited in later. Not needlessly bringing up the topic of turning karma to gold could have avoided about seven off topic responses (which ironically does include mine). Also it is even arguable if the economy would be damaged. Sellers would lose from lowered prices of materials and upgrades, but consumers would gain. And there is no influx of gold unless you’re telling me that every time you salvage an item, you’re also somehow getting gold out of it. Of course, you’re right that anet likely wants prices to be high and would not want influxes of material so that gem conversion rates to gold are higher and that it would be more appealing to buy gems (though your apparent worry that they don’t want influxes of gold contradicts this…).

And to answer OP’s question. Like others have said, the best and most affordable option is simply to re-purchase those runes. The gem store options for extracting/transmuting to transfer the runes far outway the costs of the runes themselves. If you already have some fine transmutation crystals lying around, I suppose you could use those, but then there’s the opportunity cost of not using it another time, which may translate to the cost in gems anyway if you have to repurchase another crystal another time.

Short answer: re-buy the runes.

DougTheSlug.3920:

There must be a better solution.

that’s why we wanted the upgrade extractor. then they went and threw it in our faces.
Tcrystals are your cheapest option (both to move the rune and to get it back)

DougTheSlug.3920:

There must be a better solution.

There’s not, and that’s deliberate. This makes runes both part of the gold sink and to keep some of them marginally worth crafting.