So I decided to start it off with a blog post on a subject that is on everyone’s lips : “what should I (not) salvage ?”. The recent fix of the Salvage-o-matic also changes some stuff and it was worth finally writing this guide in my opinion.

The question is pretty simple to handle : it all breaks down to what you can get from salvaging, balanced by the vendor/TP value of the item and the cost of salvage kits. The math to decide wether to salvage or not might be a bit too hard to decide on the fly wether to salvage or not but I’m still gonna drop it here, and just write a good habits guide later on in this post.

First, let’s define our variables :

c = value of one appropriate salvage kit usage (master’s salvage kit for rares and exotics, basic kit for everything else).

a = average item yield of a salvage. You get different materials depending on what the level of the item you salvage is, what piece it is (chest armour has better yield than shoulder armour for example) and the kit you are using. I would recommend buying to salvage for profits only if you have a clear understanding of what you’re doing.

t = trading post value (after deducing the 15% fees).

v = vendor value of the item.

Here’s an example to understand how “a” works :

Light armour gets salvaged into cloth. Levels 44 to 63 give linen, levels 58 to 80 give silk and levels 74 to 80 give gossamer. If I want to salvage solely for silk, I’ll obviously buy armour between levels 64 and 72. Then I’ll check what armour piece has the best yield compared to its average buying price.

The equation on wether to salvage or not is thus the following :

If a – c > max(t;v) then salvaging is the best idea.

But that can be quite hard to do every single time you are looking at that blue in your inventory and have to think fast in the downtime of your farming/dungeon tour/pvp. Hence, I shall provide you with a simple guide on what to do with the items, in the form of a flowchart 🙂

This flowchart should prove to cover all your salvaging choices that will happen during normal playing.

Now, were you to want to tread on the dangerous path of salvaging items bought on the Trading Post for profit, please do read the next paragraph.

Salvaging for profit is a good idea, but requires a lot of thinking and math before being put into practice. I will always advise you to check the current recovery chances and salvage rates (do your own research or check wiki/reddit).

A good example of what I did and thus what you could be doing is the following :

When silk scrap price rose to 3s (ascended crafting patch hyped it up from 8c), I bought basic, fine and masterwork rarity level 64-72 light armour on the TP. With an overall salvage rate of 2 scraps/piece, I made a profit as long as I bought them under 5s. And God Zommoros knows there were a lot at this price 🙂

This guide is now over. I hope you found it both enjoyable and useful. Here’s a last piece of advice for YOU, the wannabe salvage master : basic rarity armour of levels that are a multiple of 5 cannot be salvaged. Same goes for armour bought with karma (unless forged together), badges of honour or from a vendor (you can forge that too though).

Enjoy 😉