Guild Wars 2

Since the account-wide Magic Find change, salvaging blues and greens has been a no-brainer. However, in the past I could salvage rares and I’d generally get an ecto and some mats. Now though, whenever I’ve salvaged a rare I get exactly 1 T5 mat and that is it.

Have the conditions regarding salvaging rares changed? This used to be how I got ectos.
If so, what do you do with them? I’ve been selling them on the TP for ~20s a piece.

You’ve just had bad luck. Though I’ve noticed I fairly often don’t get ectos even with a Black Lion kit. On the other hand, I did get 3 ectos off one item yesterday. Many seem to suggest you check the price of an ecto. If it’s higher than the item’s price, salvage, if it’s cheaper, TP the item and buy the ecto with the proceeds.

That’s what I used to do Donari. I’ll have to give em another go I guess. Was getting mad that what once was netting me a fairly consistent flow of ecto turned into salvages that didn’t return enough to warrant the use of the salvage kit.

It really ‘seems’ to me that the rate of ecto salvage has dropped. After salvaging all my rares still since the MF changes, the amount of globs I get is significantly less than it used to be.

Of course, I may just be on another bad RNG streak. It just appears that the salvage rates of globs has not been that great as of late for me.

It is very possible that that salvage rate was lowered some. They would never tell us this info if they did.

I usually wait until I get 20 rares to salvage. At that amount RNG tends to average out. If you just do a 2 or 3 at a time, the runs where you don’t get any are obvious and painful. I haven’t noticed any decreases when I salvage 20 at a time.

I use Mystic Forge salvage kits and get Ecto’s 8-9/10 times. I normally get 1 T6 mat, 1 Rune/Sigil, and 1 Ecto.

Astral Projections.7320:

I usually wait until I get 20 rares to salvage. At that amount RNG tends to average out. If you just do a 2 or 3 at a time, the runs where you don’t get any are obvious and painful. I haven’t noticed any decreases when I salvage 20 at a time.

Heh that used to be true but I’ve stopped caring/paying attention to the results now. It’s basically “is it a rare gs?” yes → sell, no → salvage for me.

Do rares give luck essences?

Zomaarwat.3912:

Do rares give luck essences?

They do not.

I haven’t seen a drop in ecto salvage rates, I’ve done a run post patch and actually did better than average.

I’ve been tracking how many ectos after each salvage and there is roughly a 35% chance of getting nothing. You rolled a D6 and got a 1 or a 2. The problem is unless you are buying rares to salvage en masse, you only need a couple of bad outcomes to convince yourself that salvaging was the wrong thing to do. At the end of a session I may have had 2 or 3 rares dropped on me. At roughly 25s each you will need two or more ectos out of salvaging those to profit but you actually have a surprisingly high chance only getting one ecto or less, around 20% in the case of three rares and in the case of only salvaging only two rares it’s over 40%.

So you salvage, end up with less than if you just sold them and you kick yourself swearing that the ecto drop rates have been fudged again. You quickly forget the times you get 2 or more but the times you end up with fewer than you need for salvaging to be the better choice accumulates in your memory.

Edit: This is with master salvage kits.

I salvage quite a lot of rares and I haven’t noticed any change in the average rate of ectos. Sometimes I get none, sometimes 3. No different than usual.