Real Life Highscore

A fair few people have been requesting a Guild Wars 2 guide to what they should be salvaging in and with which kits. I have been keen to do this for a while now but there were a few gaps in the community’s knowledge about certain things. Those have now been filled and I present to you my guide to salvaging in Guild Wars 2.

Prefer to watch and listen? Why not check out my video guide to salvaging instead?

Ambiguous & Inaccurate Tooltips on Salvage Kits

“Chance of Rare” seems to actually mean the chance to get the next tier material.

“% chance” doesn’t seem to be a flat chance to receive said rare materials, it may actually be an increase in the base chance. There also seems to be very little difference in the chances despite what the tooltips say. There is no solid confirmation on what this means yet.

Thanks to Inquisitive_Myth for his blog on the subject, check it out for more hard data.

The Different Salvage Kits and When You Should Be Using Them

Crude –  A great starter item but ditch it by the time you are level 10.

Basic – This is the main kit you will be using. Use it to salvage white name gear and salvage scraps.

Black Lion – These should primarily be used to retrieve upgrades from gear though they can be used to salvage from ect0s since they are comparable to the Mystic kits.

Mystic – You will be using these on level 70+ rares to obtain the valuable Ectoplasms. The Mystic kit is created by transmuting a fine, master and journeyman salvage kit in the mystic forge along with three mystic forge stones.

What is Worth Salvaging?

Don’t salvage rares below level 70 or blue/green named items. These will always vendor for more then the value of the materials you gain (except in rare circumstances at lower levels).

Salvage materials and white name gears that provide metal, leather and fabric are the most worthwhile. Wood is rarely worth salvaging (as found in rifles, pistols, bows, shields etc.).

Is Salvaging Affected By Diminishing Returns or Magic Find?

This is actually one of the pieces of information I was waiting on to make this guide. Thanks to Redditor Marko_Oktabyr we now know that they it isn’t. Awesome!

If you have any knowledge or experience to add please feel free to do so in the comments below.