Understanding the Market

Good Morning folks.

Some of you have probably seen me trying to sell things I thought were "good items" that were (politely and constructively) rejected and told that they weren't worth much. With this in mind, my question to everyone is in regards to weapons, shields, foci, other things, what IS sellable? I would love to just be able to know what I should "keep or ditch" as it were.

If someone can point me to a guide, or give me a solid reference point to start from, that would be awesome. Clearly I am not understanding what is sought after.

I'm new, so I can't really help much. The veterans could come up with more informative answers. All I can point at is the wiki page for perfect items. These probably would sell, imperfect would not, or would have very low market values.

Imperfect weapon can sell for good price, if they are rare skins.

A good point a reference from weapon values.... Only desired skins that drop from end chests are really "worth" something... IE from end dungeon chests, end chests from UW/FoW, End Chest in HA.... If a weapon skin drops from a monster or a chest you can unlock with a lockpick... the value of those items is rarely above 10k.

It is not hard to find out what is sought after and what is not; for example, when you visit the sell forum of this site and look at the high end threads you can already can get a good look at expensive weapons/miniatures/collectibles etc.

to understand it, first of all: looks, if a weapon has a gorgeous skin, it'll be worth more then one with a hidous skin.

second of all. mods, it differs if an item in inscribable or what we call "oldschool"(meaning it has an inherent mod and not an inscription slot), in most cases oldschool weapons are more expensive when they come with a good inherent and in case of offhand with 2 inherents.

last but not least. rarity. there are some items that are hard to find since they only drop rarely on only on one place in the game a thread that shows some: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...highlight=ange

other rare skins such as "gold"Bo staves, Echovald Shields etc are dependant on their stats. the value of such items depend on activities on which people make money with. e.g. a dual modded echovald shield with a vs. demons inheret fetches you a nice ammount of ectos simply because the Domain of Anguish speed clear is popular.

So with this in mind, I need to keep in mind the fact that skin is more important than stats? Probably from the shear amount of farming going on in the game. Ill throw another variable in there... what about components? I would assume Zealous/Vampiric components are nice, but what else?

Very good to know, or at least learn as I go. I've always been one who wants to put good items on the market not litter it with crap as it were. I can only hope this discussion further educates me and others needing to see this sort of feedback.

Pretty much, but as ele kid said there are some skins that drop from monsters IE skins that don't drop with Insc slot with perfect mods are worth alot. Depends on the weapon... most people go with the +30 or 20% enchanting grip, a 20/20 sundering or 10/10 Furious Head/Haft, and a 15^50 or +5 energy inscription/Modifier.

if you are really in doubt use the price check section--they will tell you if its merch food or worth your time posting in sell.

Once upon a time if you got a gold drop, and you saw it was q9, you closed you eyes and prayed that it had a perfect and sought after inherent.

These days (since the introduction of NF) most weapons people sell are inscribed junk, which means they are by nature "perfect"

Almost any q9 insc weapon which a creature drop or comes from a locked chest will be a common skin, rarely worth more than a 2-3k, 5-10k if mods/insc are valuable.

No one, and I mean no one wants anything but MAX weapons for such skins. For example a sword is 15-22 require 9, anything else is junk.

When it comes to "rare" weapons, allowances are made. Collectors will at times accept higher reqs or imperfect stats for weapons that command several million gold, or "modern" weapons such a prot BDS will often sell with high req due to rarity.

If you trying to amass cash slowly, then selling low end weapons can get you a little spending money over time, however don't expect to get rich in a hurry, people are fussy these days.

Personally if it isn't q9, I merch it, and if it is, I give it to new players in Ascalon (properly modded), I can't be stuff spending hours in Kamadan to make a lousy 10-20k or whatever.

I suggest you keep an eye on the for sale items here on the forum, and also look at price checks, over time you will get a feel for prices and come to know which are the skins people want.

I can tell you this much, such skins you wont posses in a hurry, since they all come from end chests in dungeons, and only then infrequently.

If you are very lucky, it is still possible to get some very sought after skins in Tyria and Cantha dropping from monsters, I sold a q9 White Reaver 15^50 for 80k not long ago which a kindly White Mantel dropped for me

Good luck bro.

^ That's one of the best for you.

1. Max stats. With the exception of AL15/req7 shields, an item has to have max stats to be worthwhile. 14-27 bow? Junk it.

2. Good mods, or fully mod-able. One of the following must be true:
2.a. The item is inscribable; OR
2.b. The item has desirable max inherent mods. ("Desirable" meaning it's a mod type that you'd want, like "+X% dmg if health over 50%" and not "+X% dmg while hexed.") For certain very rare skins that only drop uninscribable, and particularly item types that need two inherent mods, close-to-max mods might be valuable. (Example: a 20/19 of one of the rare canthan-only wand skins would be worth a fortune despite being imperfect.)

3. Skin needs to be rare.

4. Conform with the market's illogic. There's a few irrational beliefs that are commonly held in the GW markets. Despite the fact that they are irrational, they will affect the prices of your items.
4.a. Attribute Reqs. With the exception of shields, which are usually on an "off" attribute, it's very rare to find any build that has less than 14 in the attribute that its items require. Accordingly, the item req should not matter at all. Nonetheless, people go gaga over low-req items (7-9) and take no interest in high-req items (10-13).
4.b. Inscribable vs "old school." Despite the fact that they are functionally identical (except for a bug with shields that actually makes inscribable better), a fair proportion of people value inherent-modded items much more highly than the exact same items with inscriptions.

First, one must understand this: GW is an old game, and by now, everyone has already amassed a lot of wealth. Thus, only the very best items actually get a buyer at all are perfect and rare items.

Essentialy, everyone in this game can get a functionally perfect item for about 5000 gold and some materials at a weapon crafter. Why would they spend money on anything that's not perfect?

So, what skins are worth anything? Go into the auction section of this website and look at what is offered, and at what price.

For a starting player, however, you're better off starting with the generics like crafting materials. Those are always needed, and there's a trader NPC that offers a direct way to learn what what is worth.

general rules of thumb that I follow, as there are always exceptions:

1) non-inscrib > inscrib

2) sell perfect inscriptions only (exception being 19% forget me not) and typically only the shield inscs (10 vs, -5/20, -2/ench, +45/ench) and staff insc (apt not att, FMN pretty much all i bother with)

3) sell only perfect mods (no exceptions - that I know of anyway), I typically only bother with +30s for shield, swords, axes, and 20/ench for swords, daggs, staves, and 20/20's for swords pretty much. Most scythe mods sell well, but i don't farm NF so unless I get by way of unid buying, I don't get scythe stuff ....again, you can keep what you want if you have the tolerance for spamming wts <=3k items. Don't bother with bow mods, or 15^50's -- not worth the time selling imo. Exceptions are: demonslaying stuff for sword/axe, odd-ball slaying mods -- I'll typically keep those for a bit.

4) if an item doesn't stack and it's value is <5k, merch it after a few hours (or w/e your threshold is) of kama-spam(unless you have lots of mules or don't mind constantly updating/checking wts thread on here) -- although I tend to break this rule because I'm an idiot who doesn't follow my own rules lol

5) buy good deals if the item is stackable and can be saved for another day of selling (perfect ex is tomes -- after farming event w/e's farmers will sell of stacks of sin or mes tomes for 80g/100g ea....buy them up and sell later for 200g/300g ea, similarly with sweets/alc/etc.)

6) don't bother with "cheap" minipets, they are cheap for a reason...unless you have lots of cash (ectos) and an entreprenurial spirit for high-end mini speculation, don't get into the mini-trading game!

7) buying UNID golds can be a worthwhile investment. again, best done on event w/e's when farmers are aplenty, and you can pick them up for 7=4.5k (or lower!)...follow rules 2 and 3 when you find mods worth keeping (and 4)

8) materials -- salvage for iron, granite, fiber, and dust...these are consistently good selling materials. especially important to remember if you get into buying unid's as certain items salvage into buttloads of the above (especially with "measure for measure" inscript on em')

9) gold, dual-mod canthan skin shields -- keep these! in these waning days of GW, most players (who have been at it awhile, myself included) have accomplished and purchased most of what they want/need in preparation for GW2 and are now biding our time perusing the wtb's and kama sell channels (or w/e) looking to spend our 'disposable income'. As a result, a lot of people have found a niche item/weapon that they want to collect. Most of these collections include canthan, dual-mod shields!! Just keep what you get, and at the least get a PC on it/them before you merch - at least until you get an idea of what to keep and what is worthwhile to try selling.

10) where was I? Oh yeah, if you are going to farm - stay in Cantha, or do the SC's (dungeons or elite areas). No point farming NF if not dungeons, if you intend to sell what you find (unless you are selling UNID's, or materials of course!). Most of what is wanted that is of the highest value (besides the uber-rare end-chest stuff) is going to be found in Cantha (bo staves, dragon staves, shields, 20/20 skins, etc.)

I think 10 rules are enough for now. I'm sure others will have much to say, too, but hopefully my general rules that I use, and my little mini-guide for trading/collecting will hep you on your quest to become GW's first billionaire lol

GL and most importantly, have fun!!

A website I personally use a lot is http://argos-soft.net/GwEstimator/ This site keeps track of the Kamadan trade channel and make it searchable. If you have any doubt bout the value of a shield/mod/etc see what people are asking for it there.

A lot of things in the game are based on elitism. So things that are very hard to get are very valuable. A drop in normal mode is almost never worth a lot.

Argo Soft is aweful, just aweful.

I can put WTS 1 chitin fragment 1000e and it lists... great.

Almost everything in Spamadan is offered way over market these days, and many sellers spend days before lowering prices. Argos is ok for getting a ballpark figure on low end stuff, nothing more.

You want to price high end or rarities: Use this forum.

Oh and normal or hard mode, makes not the slightest bit of difference in terms of potential rare drops, apart from perhaps a slightly better chance of getting such a drop.

Be careful though, there are greedy people on here that will make a low ball price check then offer on an expensive item just to get their hands on it to make a profit.

I've been doing this for nigh on 6 years and I still don't have a clue of what's valuable and what's not. This is why I have a storage and 15 characters all full of crap.

What would be nice would be a comprehensive keep/chuck guide for pre-searing. The drops are so limited there, surely a guide to keepers shouldn't be too hard? Hate to think of the valuables I must've ditched in pre.

All of these responses are good points to take in. My biggest thing is that even though this game in itself is an old game with a replacement on its way, there is nearly a year before (I think) we will see GW2, and I have to still experience all of GW1, alongside my good friend, my mother, and my wife. Yes we all play.

In worst case when you have nobody to ask, you could always compare your skin with the PvP Rewards from Tolkano. If you got a good weapon with an exotic skin, chance is it might be worth something on the market. It's no guarantee though.

Here's a page that I put together on GuildWiki that will give you a good place to start for inscribable drops. I used 8k as the cutoff value because (in my opinion), anything worth less than that isn't worth the bother of spamming in Kamadan. Note that there's an *extremely* large variation in the prices - some stuff on the list would be borderline 8k while others might be 100e+ (700k+). When in doubt, use the Price Check forum.

Oldschool (non-inscribable from Prophecies or Factions) can be much harder to find a price for, but can be *much* more valuable than equipment with inscriptions. Even some "perfect" modded oldschools can be next to worthless due to overfarming (Dead Bows being a good example), but if you hit on a really rare Canthan oldschool it can be like winning the GW lottery.

Generally, you should Price Check the following oldschool items:

• any oldschool wands, foci, or shields that have two inherent mods
• any martial weapons which have perfect 15^50 or +5 energy mods
• any staff that has either 10% HCT (all) or 20% HCT (matching attribute or another attribute of the same profession) (Note that Prophecies staves will be worth considerably less than Canthan-exclusive skins, all things being equal - Prophecies staves are almost all "Core" skins, although I think the "Obsidian" Earth staff drops in Proph. those can be worth big bucks if perfect 20/20 non-inscribable)

Mixed profession oldschool caster gear is generally worthless even if the mods are perfect. For instance, a Divine Favor-requiring wand with 20% HSR Domination spells.

Hope this helps!

Edit

I've posted more than a few PC requests for valuable stuff, and I've *never* had that happen to me. Not once. However, you should always wait for multiple opinions. There are *a lot* of PC posters who have no idea what they're talking about.