Guild Wars 2

Looks like ecto prices topped out around 37s on saturday night and have steadily declined to ~30s monday afternoon. Do you guys think now’s a good time to cash out? Will they keep dipping back down to the low twenties or is this just a post-weekend dip that will move back upwards later in the week? Cheers.

Hard to say

There is no reason for a sudden increase in supply, and demand is high as ever so price will rise. The current dip in price is due to investors and speculators cashing out thus temporarily increasing supply but this is a short lived phenomena.

However on the flipside, (And this is why some of the ivnestors are probably cashing out) we have wintersday coming up and events always cause a glut of rare materials due to the extra players online, so the price might be depressed for some weeks. Also, you’d be gambling on arenanet not implementing changes to make ecto easier to obtain in the wintersday patch

Ryuujin.8236:

There is no reason for a sudden increase in supply, and demand is high as ever so price will rise.

I disagree. As the price for ecto rises, it makes more sense to salvage rares — that is, it makes more economic sense to salvage more rares => more ectos in supply.

Ryuujin.8236:

Hard to say

There is no reason for a sudden increase in supply, and demand is high as ever so price will rise. The current dip in price is due to investors and speculators cashing out thus temporarily increasing supply but this is a short lived phenomena.

However on the flipside, (And this is why some of the ivnestors are probably cashing out) we have wintersday coming up and events always cause a glut of rare materials due to the extra players online, so the price might be depressed for some weeks. Also, you’d be gambling on arenanet not implementing changes to make ecto easier to obtain in the wintersday patch

I think there is some cause for increase in supply: high levels of Fractals of the Mists. More and more pugs are getting to the point where they can handle the upper levels of FoTM and above level 10 rares and even exotics drop like candy (I ran level 15 in an hour with a guild group last night and got 8 rares and an exotic). This will start increasing the available supply of ectos pretty significantly in the next few weeks I think (at least until Christmas gives people other stuff to do than FoTM).

kwolf.4306:

I disagree. As the price for ecto rises, it makes more sense to salvage rares — that is, it makes more economic sense to salvage more rares => more ectos in supply.

Every increase in price brings a few more rares into the price range for conversion but that hasn’t staved off the rise thus far either. However…

Errant Venture.9371:

I think there is some cause for increase in supply: high levels of Fractals of the Mists. .

This is a good point; assuming of course FotM at the higher tiers actually drops significantly more rares/exotics and enough people run FotM that this becomes significant.

Actually, I think people running FotM were saving their ectos for ascended gear, and also buying up more. The early-bird power players worked their way through the ecto supply to make the BiS gear. As more of them get the gear we’ll see them put ectos on the market and the price will drop.

FotM definitely drops more rares and exotics by all reports.

Errant Venture.9371:

Looks like ecto prices topped out around 37s on saturday night and have steadily declined to ~30s monday afternoon. Do you guys think now’s a good time to cash out? Will they keep dipping back down to the low twenties or is this just a post-weekend dip that will move back upwards later in the week? Cheers.

rather than looking atthe price look at the numbers for sale from a low of 3000 there are now 18000 on the market when supply over shoots demand where does the price go?

It costs 29.9s in materials to make an ecto.
It costs 26s in green weapons into the MF to make an ecto.

These two factors are increasing supply, you can make serious money right now manufacturing ecto.

Errant Venture.9371:

Looks like ecto prices topped out around 37s on saturday night and have steadily declined to ~30s monday afternoon. Do you guys think now’s a good time to cash out? Will they keep dipping back down to the low twenties or is this just a post-weekend dip that will move back upwards later in the week? Cheers.

I wouldn’t personally touch it until they have confirmed they did indeed find the issue with the salvage kits, with mf, with loot not dropping in open world, and with DR.

Until then I wouldn’t buy any of those resources it’s a waste of money both virtual and RL.

Wintersday coming.
People wanting to convert Gold to Gems.
Stockpiled Ectos up for sale for Gold.
Prices drop from sellers competing with each other.

Sound like Supply and Demand at work. So if people panic and sell all their Ectos now because the prices are falling, I’ll gladly buy them all. Then I can resell them come mid-January when they spike back (assuming of course).

No, thats not it.

You can make ecto for cheaper than it costs on the TP right now. So it hit a price ceiling.

Draygo.9473:

No, thats not it.

You can make ecto for cheaper than it costs on the TP right now. So it hit a price ceiling.

Ectos have always been cheaper if you crafted and salvaged the items. Thing is, salvaging does not guarantee an Ecto drop, so some people choose to purchase them than to gamble.

how do you make an ecto?

Esrever.8613:

how do you make an ecto?

make any rare item and salvage it. (lvl 80 rare)

Anet also said that they are looking into the cost of making and infusing ascended items (with the assumed intention of reducing the cost of making them), thus some people may be anticipating that the future demand for ecto is not going to be as high as it is right now (or are holding off on buying ecto right now as they want to see if Anet changes the way to make ascended gear or the materials needed for it).

Just another stab in the dark with speculation as to why the price has dropped.

How to get yourself some Globs of Ectoplasm:

Be an Armorsmith.

Stage 1: Collecting Materials
Farm Heavy Bones in Orr, or Potent Blood from skales/bats/karka, or Large Fangs from the Grubs north of Lion’s Arch in the Gendarran Fields.
Mine Mithril from any zone level 60 and up. Mithril tends to be abundant in many of the locations you’ll find yourself visiting often.
Salvage level 60-80 cloth items you find while farming your Bones/Blood/Fangs.
Alternatively, buy the materials or gather them while playing World vs World.

Stage 2: Refinement
Turn your Mithril Ore into Mithril Ingots. 2 Ore = 1 Ingot.
Turn your Silk Scraps into Bolts of Silk. 2 Scraps = 1 Bolt.
Buy Silk Thread from the Armorsmithing NPC for ~5 silver.

Stage 3: Crafting
You’ll be making rare helmets. 1 helmet = 1 insignia + 1 Mithril Ingot + 2 Bolts of Silk + 1 Silk thread.
Each insignia requires 10 Silk Thread + 2 Bolts of Silk + 15 <Bones/Blood/etc>.
Therefore, for each helmet you will neekittenhril Ore, 8 Bolts of Silk, 11 Silk Thread and 15 Bones/etc.
If you gather your own materials, then for example creating 25 Carrion helms will cost you ~1.25 gold plus your time.

Stage 4: Salvaging
Visit a merchant and buy a Master’s Salvage Kit for ~16s. Each usage of this kit will cost you ~64 copper.
Salvage your helms. You will receive 0-3 ectos depending on your luck. I average 1 per helm.
Each helm will have cost you ~7s to craft and salvage, plus your time.

If we consider 28s to 35s to be the cost of each ecto (for the sake of this example), then even if you salvage four helms and only get 1 ecto you’re still in the clear. Since the payoff is usually in the ballpark of 4 ectos per 5 helms, it’s a great way to save some cash if you’re poor and/or have the time.

The investment here is leveling up your Armorsmithing to about 375 and gathering the materials, thus your time. The payoff is that you actually earn money (through drops earned while gathering your materials) and can rest knowing that you’re capable of being self-sufficient if you need to be.

If this is too much of a time investment or grind, then there’s always the option of dropping lump sums of cash down to buy them. You can get your cash elsewhere, like event farming, WvW (via events, flipping sentries is something you can do solo if you hate zerging/sieging), dungeons, fractals, etc.

If the ecto bubble bursts, it’s going to be because people decide that half a gold per ecto isn’t worth their investment when it would take less time to just craft stuff. The only other alternative would be some sort of manipulation on ArenaNet’s part, such as changing crafting requirements, or increasing the drop rate of rare items.

That’s a bad way of looking at things Kerithlan.

Although you are correct in all your considerations, the materials that you farmed should always be looked as an item that has also value. With this i want to say that if you are intending to make cash out of Globs, you first need to see how much does all the ingredients cost, if they were all purchased from the cheapest available place.

For example:
If the combined blood/bones/Fangs price plus the Mithril, Silk, master salvage are cheaper than the cost of a glob then one should create the glob throughout this method. However, if the prices of the materials are higher than the globs, then they should be sold separately for a maximum profit.

Don’t forget, everything you get hold of, has a added value. It could range from 0 to hundreds of gold. People often tends to forget that.

LHound.8964:

Although you are correct in all your considerations, the materials that you farmed should always be looked as an item that has also value.

Yes it IS very important, people forget that. Let me explain it in a way they’ll understand.

How to make ectos for ~64 copper.
- Visit a merchant and buy a Master’s Salvage Kit for ~16s. Each usage of this kit will cost you ~64 copper.
- Walk to Cursed Shores to avoid warp costs
- kill a mob
- loot an exotic (some RNG required, but hey, it’s free!)
- salvage it and get with some bad luck only 3 ectos.

Congrats, you just salvaged Dawn and got 3 ectos for only 64 copper!

No I understand that, I was posting a super baseline example for how the process works. In particular the way I posted should net people their investment in ectos back for if they’re leveling their craft up.

In this case you could sell the helmets as trash 80 rares for slightly less than the cost of an ecto, and the materials to make each one don’t pass 30s. Example, last I checked bones were going for 1s 25c each, so 15 would run you 18s 75c. Silk Scraps and Mithril Ore both run for about 20-50c a piece, so even if you total everything up it doesn’t pass the minimum buying cost of an ecto.

In the particular example I posted, unless the market changes drastically, you’re not going to make more from selling the helms or mats than you will salvaging them. That might change depending on what happens with ecto prices, but right now it’s an investment of your time gathering materials vs your money buying ectos.

Edit: having said that if you’re looking to spend cash anyway, buying the raw materials should be slightly cheaper right now.

Make them throug Weapons, e.g shields or daggers.
Clothes need silk from vendor for 4s each ten.

When I was talking about the price of an ecto as far as material costs, I pulled values of the mats off the TP.

So when I said you can make money if ecto is above 29.9s, I wasnt pulling a random number out of my hat. You do also have to keep in mind the 15% the TP will take, which is why its level around 32s.

it simply cant go higher because its cheaper to make it via crafting (even if you buy all the mats off the TP) than to buy it via TP. There is also a second method that requires no crafting, but costs on average 26s per 1.25 ectos.