This is some info directed to newer players about the shards you get from breaking down gear: Green (Minor), blue (Major), purple (Glimmering) and orange (Effervescent) ones.

These are used for re-rolling the affixes on armor and weapons, for example you get a weapon with “Treasure Master” on it, but want to have “Unbending”. It can easily take 30+ shards to get a certain affix you want, and much more if you go for a certain combination of two affixes, which are on purple armor pieces or on legendary weapons.

Since I see alot of different prices in the Auction House lately, here a picture of the exchange rates at the shard vendor, an NPC which unlocks late in the MSQ, where you have to build the rainforest outpost. Nearest portal stone to the outpost is Ocean’s Edge, then enter Rainforest from there.

As you see the current rate is:

10 Minor Shards = 1 Major Shard

15 Major Shards = 1 Glimmering Shard

20 Glimmerings = 1 Effervescent Shard

What does that mean for prices which I personally would pay in the auction house? Say, my goal is getting Glimmering Shards by exchange. Those are sold for around 7500 Dram in the last weeks, sometimes for 6000 (and it is rather an exception finding them any cheaper).

So I would pay 7500/15 = 500 Dram at max for a major shard and 7500/150 = 50 Dram at max for a minor shard. If Glimmerings can be bought for 6000, prices even fall, a major shard is worth 400 Dram at max then, a minor only 40 Dram.

Effervescent (orange) Shards are, in theory, at a prize tag of 120k-150k Dram if Glimmerings were bought & exchanged for them. However, no one seems to buy them for this amount (neither do I personally exchange for them, unless I run out of space for Glimmerings).

Hope this helps!

PS, a sidenote/request for devs:

The Insanity of having to farm 3000 green shards, in theory, or 20 Glimmerings, for ONE single legendary roll (which, because of the number of possible combinations with 2 affixes, is mostly unsuccessful), was already mentioned on forums. These rates are not attractive for the endgame, at all.

My orange shards don’t come from the vendor, but all from direct Lvl 15 dungeon drops, which is a good start, but I still don’t have enough to even think about rerolling proper affixes for my legendaries. Others can’t get even most necessary affixes like “unbending+whatever” on a +6 tank weapon, after spending lots time to get this drop, which is just sad.

I wished these rates were changed or there were at least more sources for effervescent, for ex. raid tokens, pvp tokens etc., anything, so those being lucky enough (or rather, grinding the heck outta 15s) to finally get a legendary have a fair chance to roll useful combinations on it also.