So About That Silver-Fed Salvage-O-Matic - Is It Worth It?

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> I had wrote this post after a big discussion about Silver-Fed amongst a trade post guild. No one really argued the idea that Silver-Fed is not worth the cost if a player has routine flow of mystic shards and mystic kits. No one really argued that it's convenient to have it so a player doesn't have to worry about kits, in which this case having both the Copper-Fed and Silver-Fed in shared inventory slots is pretty awesome. What they were discussing was deeper yet, players who use an extraordinary amount of salvage charges per day. So we're talking about guys who sit around and eyeball the trade post, looking for prices to drop on rares or putting in bids on these kind of items, buying them out and salving them all. Some of these guys claimed to salvage around 3000 rares a day, which is why I based the OP equation on the number 3000 for salvage charges. This gets into: "Is it more cost efficient to purchase and use the Silver-Fed or to purchase mystic stones? or really... just to annoyingly buy many Master Kits?"

>

> Even with this kind of salvage activity, albeit convenient to have the Silver-Fed, the cheapest route is Mystic Kits, if you run out you go Master Kits. But when you're making that kind of gold return each day... just buy the Silver-Fed. Saves you a lot of routine grief purchasing Master Kits.

 

3000 rares is arbitrary. The equation could be 100 or 50000 and the math is the same: either there's more net gold one way or there's not. The only point of 3k versus 100 is that the law of large numbers works better, in that at 3k, you'll be getting average results rather than suffering through a losing streak. I chose 100 because it makes the math transparent to everyone.

 

Regardless, the original posted started with two assumptions that aren't supported by the evidence:

* Master|Mystic kits produce an average of 1 ecto per rare (they don't; it's closer to 0.875)

* Basic & master kits yield an equal amount of ecto per rate (they don't; the basic rate is somewhere north of 0.5 and under 0.7, but I can't find as much data for it).

 

> But when you're making that kind of gold return each day... just buy the Silver-Fed. Saves you a lot of routine grief purchasing Master Kits.

If you invest in the Silver-fed, you're losing that kind of gold. It can **never** pay for itself for the people reading the forums. What power traders are doing is paying the 150-170 gold for the convenience, just like you might pay 200 gold for a skin: the kit has a value to people that is completely outside its efficiency.

 

It's a bad investment; it's a QoL improvement that's worth it regardless of whether I salvage 100 rares/day or 3k.

 

> Some of these guys claimed to salvage around 3000 rares a day,

I believe it. But that doesn't represent the vast majority of players, who have salvaged less than 21k since they started playing. Presumably, anyone with 3k/day salvages has already done the math. This thread started as a "PUBLICS SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT SILVER-FED" -- that means it should apply to most people.

 

So I'll double down on my tl;dr:

* The Silver-fed will never pay for itself. It's a quality-of-life convenience, not a quantity-&-efficiency investment.

* Don't use basic/copper-fed on rares.

 

[Etterwyn.5263]

> @"Dante.1763" said:

> > @"Blude.6812" said:

> > > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > > The answer is simple: I bought it because I couldn't be bothered returning to the Mystic Forge every single time I ran out of salvage kits. I make them for the daily and use them but that's about it. Ir's like gathering tools for me. I just want it because it means never having to restock on them.

> >

> > My Mystic forge conduit is always with me.

> >

>

> Congrats? That item costs more than the cost of the silver fed.

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge_Conduit_(container)

 

This version Can't be re-sold but no biggie for me. I got mine for 55 or 60 gold at the time I bought it.