Currently you cannot salvage equipment you purchased with Karma, Badges of Honor and certain other exceptions. This is a huge problem for people who have, for instance, invested in expensive runes for armor that isn’t being used anymore, but since there is no way to transmute equipment now we can’t “transfer” upgrades from equipment.
The solution to avoid exploitation is simple:
If you salvage equipment that was bought with Karma or Badges of Honor, you get NO essences of luck/globs of ectoplasm/dark matter/crafting materials, none of that. You ONLY get the chance based on your salvage kit of getting the upgrade back. This solves so many issues it’s not even funny.
Also ANet, get rid of your stupid Upgrade Extractors from the Gem Store. Those are an insult to the playerbase. Starting price of 250 gems for ONE? What… I don’t… how in the… SIGH.
(edited by Mal.1670)