Guild Wars 2

Re: Upgrade extractor on Trading Post. I don’t know what discussions have taken place regarding this item as nothing seems to come up when I do a forum search of this item so understand if I am repeating a topic that has already been discussed. Item is purchased in-game from Black Lion Trader for 250 Gems. This cost is rather high for this item, but more importantly, the description of the item is seriously incomplete. I finally had reason to purchase this item for use on an account bound item, so bought one. Upon use, I was lucky to read the fine read print of the extractors’ window (prior to using) which stated that any item placed in the extractor would become ‘SOULBOUND’ upon use of the extractor. I then looked at wiki which appears to state that items subjected to the extractor would be account bound. I then saw further discussion within a recent gw2 forum thread that the upon extraction the recovered component items were found to be account-bound and thus non-salable. So – not only is there confusion as to what the outcome of using the extractor would be with respect to the re-acquired component items (soulbound versus account-bound) but there is also the issue that the components recovered can’t be sold/traded. This information is missing from the description of the extractor in the trading post; imho this is a serious omission with respect to this item as it currently exists on the TP. This item (and it’s description) needs a serious re-work. At present there is an EXTREMELY limited use for this item. My intent was to see whether swapping out of a valuable component on an amulet was worthwhile – the risk of everything becoming soulbound and non-saleable defeated any possible use for me of this item. I filed a support ticket to try to recover the 250 Gems as I have zero use for this extractor as it currently exists.

I think the last time this item was really discussed was back when they added the wardrobe to the game. Before then, a lot of the sigils and runes could be extracted by using transmutation stone/crystals to combine things, then salvage it out of the result with a Black Lion Salvage Kit.

As I recall, it was noted that with the gold to gem conversion rate (which I hear has gotten worse), it was cheaper to just buy a new one of whatever off of the trading post than to buy an extractor.

But yes, a lot of the finer details of how it works need to be clearly stated before you buy it.

yea there have been quite a number of posts regarding these. The main issue is the large cost of salvaging upgrades from karma/wvw gear as it is the only way. Really hope someday they remove that restriction as I cant see the logic, personally I just want to be able to remove the upgrades, dont care about ectos or anything else. Would still need a bl kit to guarantee removal, so cant understand why they wont change it.

one other suggestion that has been made for these is to make them multi use, to justify the cost for them, would at least make them more practical in terms of cost to benefit

One extractor would cost the equivalent of 25g (And I’m using the gems2gold conversion rates, therefore assuming you are paying money for it) and the only sigil you might want to extract is “sigil of generosity” that goes for 78g buyout.

Even then, if the sigil is account bound or, worse, soulbound, the usefulness of this item falls underground. It’d be way more convenient to salvage the weapon for the sigil (that can be sold or re-used) and get a new weapon (preferably with dungeon tokens) OR buy a new sigil alltogether (It surely won’t cost more than 25g if it’s a common one; most of the time it’ll be around 5g)

As of now, I see no reason to buy the extractor. It’s simply counterproductive, inefficient and not convenient. I spend less money buying a new weapon with a new sigil. (I didn’t bring runes in the discussion simply because they don’t cost more than 13g buyout and would be unable to justify the purchace of the extractor in ANY CASE).

TL;DR: it’s garbage

I’m pretty sure they’d have to make them worth less than BLSK’s on the basis that they’re pretty much strictly worse. Most people agree, however, that these items are terrible and not worth the money on any front, seeing as sigils and runes can just be replaced with new runes and sigils and overlapped.

Granted, most of the consumables in the gem store are not worth it at all and are way over-priced per unit if paying with cash.

Sorry for the necro, but I figured this is better than a new thread of the same subject.

This upgrade extractor in the Gem Store has always been a rip-off. With the rare exception of already Generosity sigils (which even then destroying most items with a BL kit is still cheaper) or high level infusions. They have since added the Infusion Extractor, making this item now complete junk unless someone wants to extract a single sigil type from a super rare weapon. It’s about time they addressed the cost (be it lower the cost vastly and/or add them to vendors), or simply delete them from the gem store. When you start talking thousands of gems for a consumable item, it better be permanent rather than the silly 5-25 uses it is now.

it’s a total waste that extractor. selling gems and buying a new rune makes more sense… you could buy like multiple runes for the price of 250 gems extractor

Would you find it worth while if they raised to to say 1000 or 1500 gems but gave it unlimited uses.

simplesimon.2084:

Would you find it worth while if they raised to to say 1000 or 1500 gems but gave it unlimited uses.

Yes.

That said, just before HoT I was able to use it to extract a poly luminescent undulating refractor (black) from something, and it didn’t become account or soul-bound…

Do I understand rightly that it’s been changed now, retroactively, on the upgrade extractors that I bought on the gemstore?