Curse

Bright Star Shine · Aug 27, 2011, 01:37 PM // 13:37

This guide should help you in determining if your weapon is worth something, or if it is merchfood, thus saving you the effort of making a PC thread in the first place and saving us the effort of having to say your weapon is merchfood.

The biggest thing I want to say first is: this thread is about general cases, where you have common stuff. I will not talk about every possible exception to my rules of thumb. If you have a weapon that has not been talked about in this thread, it will most likely be an exception to the rule, and I advise you to ask a PC.

A lot of this post will be from this thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/a...t10490411.html

Jan gave me permission to use his post as well to make this one, so I won't take all the credit^^

Ok, first off:

Inscribable weapons:

General rule of thumb #1: if you have any q9 max damage inscribable weapon, with a normal/common/unwanted skin, you can always sell it for about 5k in Kamadan. If 5k means a lot to you, I'd say go for it, but in general, I would say save yourself the effort and merch it.

Any higher req inscribable weapon is in general merchfood. Exceptions to this rule are the desired skins, but since there is already a guide for that, I will redirect you there:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/r...t10482377.html

Now, some other special cases with inscribable weapons are q8/16 or q7/15 shields. This only covers Tactics requirement shields. Strength and Motivation are all merchfood, and Command can sometimes get a little bit of cash, but very hard sales.

In general:
-blue q8/16 shields go for about 50-70k, for the common skins, and 15-25e for the popular ones (like Oaken Aegis, Tribal shield, Summit Warlord etc).
-gold q8/16 shields go for 20-40e for the common skins and 70-550e for popular ones (here it is VERY skin dependent, and if you have one of those, I'd advise askin a PC anyway)
-blue 7/15 shields go for 60-80k usually, sometimes even up to 100k, but very rarely nowadays for common skins and 15-25e for the popular ones.
-gold 7/15 shields go for 20-30e for the common skins and 80-500e for the popular ones.

For q8/12e foci, general rule is: if it's blue, merch it to save yourself the effort, but if you really must, you can get like 15k for it for the popular attributes (Domination etc) and the gold ones go for 50-100k depending on attribute as well.

Now, one more thing about inscribable weapons:
q8 15-22 Swords.
These are rather rare, and you will very rarely encounter them in trades, but they're also not very popular.
Exceptions are gold q8 15-22 swords. These are incredibly rare however, so I would ask a PC if you have one or want to buy one.
For blue q8 15-22 inscr swords, the rule is usually: 15-25e depending on skin.

Now, that's all I will say about inscribable weapons for now, since they are not intersting and every inscribable weapon, with the exception of q8 max ones is crap anyway.

Moving on to the:
Uninscribable Martial Weapons:

This is where the picture gets REALLY complicated, so I will work with a couple classes:

Unconditionals:
If you got one of those, put it up for sale and look at the bids, most of them are priceless and one of a kind, so they are impossible to PC, and the few people that could help you out with knowledge about uncods are so biased by their own love for them that they will over PC you by a bunch of ecto, so there is really no telling.

For more info about unconditionals, redirect yourself to this thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/u...t10440017.html

q7 Max weapons:
These do no longer drop and as such are only possible to be acquired by trade.
In general, the 15^50 ones go for the most (obviously) but other ones can also still fetch a bunch of ecto's. Again, this can not be generalised, if you have one, ask for a PC, I won't be going over every possible one.
Note: q7 +5e exists only on Canthan swords, and they are all easily 1200e+ up to 2000e+ for some, so I'd advise just pc'ing those...

q8 Max weapons:
Technically still possible drops (swords, shield and foci only) but very rare nonetheless. Most q8 Max weapons date from pre-NF release because they were a lot more common then.
In general:
For Swords and Axes:
-q8 15^50 goes for 20-50e depending on skin.
-q8 +5e goes for 30-150e for most skins, with a few exceptions, which can go up to 300e+.
-q8 15^stance/ench goes for 50-100k

For Hammers and Bows:
-q8 15^50 goes for 20-90e on most skins, and up to even 1000e+ for some skins (Swamp Club and Dwarven Hammer).
-q8 +5e goes for 10-60e depending on skin and more for the really rare ones.
-q8 15^stance/ench goes for 30-50k, but hard sales.

The others: 20_50 15vHexed and 20wHexed are usually worthless, unless you find a collector who needs one and will sometimes pay you royally if you gave him the weapon to finish his collection.

Other Uninscribable Martial Weapons:

-General Rule of Thumb #2: q9 15^50 or q9 +5e goes for 15-100k+ depending on skin. For example q9 +5e Oni Blade or Jitte will easily fetch 100k+ whilst a q9 +5e Spatha will be merchfood.

q10's are also sellable, but even with perf mods, they won't exceed the 25k range usually, and only the ones with popular skins will go over that.

Dualvamps:
Something I forgot to mention earlier, but because it's an exception as well, I thought I would make a different one.
Dualvamp weapons usually sell for 30k-50e depending on skin and req. Exceptions are q7/q8's or very popular skins. If you have one, even on a crappy skin, you can usually sell it easily due to it's usefulness.

Shields:
This is where it also gets rather complicated, so I will make subcategories.

Singlemods:

General rule of thumb #3: if your shield is a singlemod, it's merch.
Exceptions:
- +10vDemons usually fetches 20-50k depending on skin.
- +30hp on the very popular skins can also get about 50k usually.
- +45wE or +45wS same thing, but more like 25-30k
That's pretty much all I have to say about singlemods.

Dualmods:

This is where it gets even more complicated, so again, I'll make subcategories.

Dual inscription mods:
With this I mean shields with +10vDamagetype -2wE or -2wS.

- +10vDemons -2ench:
This deserves a notice on it's own because it's a very, very wanted combination due to it's usefulness in DoA. On really crappy skins, this will usually still get like 70e. Most go for 150-200e because they can only drop on canthan skins, which are pretty much all popular.

- +10vX -2wE:
Here it gets more skin and req dependent. The useful ones such as vSlashing, vLightning, vPiercing etc all go for about 20-30e depending on skin and req. Some for more. The others can get 50-70k depending on mods, skin and req.

- +10vX -2wS:
These are a lot less popular than the -2wE versions, and usually only go for about 50k max. Hard sales as well.

Normal mods:
With this I mean mods that can be replicated with inscriptions.

+10vDamagetype:
- +30hp/+45wE/+45wS: Those are very popular and go for quite some cash usually, but depending on skin and req.

Matching mods:
With this I mean the following combinations:

- -2wE/+45wE, -2wS/+45wS and -3wH/+60wH: Depending on skin and req, you can get anywhere between 30 and 350e+ for those.
General rule of thumb #4: -2wS/+45wS > -2wE/45wE >> -3wH/+60wH.

- -5/20: only goes well with +30hp. If you have something with these mods, ask a PC, because it's incredibly skin and req dependent. -5/20 combined with +45 is usually merchfood or more like 25k, because it's really unwanted.

- +1/20%: On shields, those are pretty useless, but there are plenty of collectors who will pay a lot for these. Mostly they only sell well with a +30hp or a +45wE mod and with low req.

A basic rule that applies to all shields is: if you have a dualmod shield, which has more that 2 off perfect, it's usually not worth selling. But ask for a PC just to be sure. For example, a -2wE/+41wE shield will usually be merchfood.

Mixed mods:
With this I mean -2wE/+45wS or -2wS/+45wE.

They are usually merchfood, but on popular skins, you can usually find an idiot who will pay like 40k for it. If you have a mixed mod shield though, if the hp mod is even 1 off, it's usually merchfood straight away.

For shields, there is a big dependence on skins. Popular skins are the following:
Echovald, Ornate, Outcast, Magma's, Summit Warlord, Bladed, Emblazoned, Guardian of the Hunt, Amber Aegis, Diamond Aegis, Irridescent Aegis (imo, this is the rarest shield skin in the game, uninscr that is), Exalted Aegis, Gothic Defender, Kappa Shield (also incredibly rare uninscr), Zodiac, Plagueborn, Celestial, Spiked Targe.

Moving on to:
Staffs:
Staffs are rather complicated as well. Again, subcategories:

Prenerf staffs:
With the release of GW Factions, there came a lot of updates to weapons and their stats.
With the release itself, they nerfed q7 max damage Bows, Axes and Hammers, but swords, shields and offhands could still drop q7 max.
Shortly after release (a couple weeks/months, not too sure) they updated staffs.
Prenerf staffs (as they came to be called, but it was actually a buff, so don't get confused^^) didn't have the inherent HSR 20% white text that staffs have nowadays..

Look at these 2 staffs, the left one is prenerf, but it is a perfect prenerf staff (sort of) since it has the HSR of Divine Favor. These staffs are exceptions, and you can't ever find one anymore by playing the game. But prenerf staffs, if you would stumble across one for some magical reason and decided to sell it, I'd advise to always ask for a PC, because the posibilities are so vast and complicated that I'm not going to explain all of them because my knowledge of those staffs is also very limited, since I don't own any and don't care for them either.

Postnerf staffs:
Now, for uninscribable staffs the norm is usually that a staff is only worth something when it's either 20/20 or 20/10.

An example of a 20/20 staff is this one:

It has 20 HSR of spells inherent (the white text) and a 20% HCT inherent of Domination spells, which means that with an Adept Staff Head, you can make it 40/20. I sold this one for 70e I think, which was mainly due to the skin.

An example of a 20/10 staff is this:

These are a lot less wanted and worth a lot less as well, but on rare skins and with good reqs (9 or 10) they can still sell for a little bit.

For staffs the norm for pricing is, from highest to lowest:

1: Bo Staff, Dragon Staff and Platinum Staff
2: Forbidden Staff, Celestial Staff, Plagueborn, Zodiac, Outcast, Ghostly, Raven

General Rule of thumb #5: if a staff is not one of these categories, and has anything other than 20/20, it's a definite merch. Even q9 20/20 Jade Staffs are absolutely unwanted. If they are one of the top 3 skins, and even q13 20/20 with a good attrib (like domination) will get you like 50e. If that Bo Staff of mine was q9, it would have been 300e+. Now, the #2 skins still go for a bit if they are q10/11 20/20, but a lot less. The top 3 skins as q9 20/10 also still fetch quite an amount, but considerably lower than 20/20.

The reason for this is because a 20/20 on one of these staffs is INCREDIBLY rare. Because a staff can only have the inherent 20% for one of the attributes available to the profession for that staff. For example a Bone staff can only be 20/20 in Death, Blood and Curses, while a Bo Staff can be 20/20 in anything but Energy Storage and Soul Reaping, and maybe Healing Prayers, but not sure.

On a sidenote: if you have one of the rare skins, and it's mixed 20/20, but still usable, for example a Bo Staff q9 Divine Favor 20/20 prot, it would still be worth a bit. But with these staffs, it's always wise to PC just to be sure.

The rest of the staffs are a lot less worthwhile, for more info, check this thread:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/r...t10457533.html

Wands and Offhands:
This is probably the most complicated part of this entire post.
The possible combinations with wands and offhands is so immense that I am gonna try to keep is as short as possible...

Singlemods:
Merch. No exceptions.

Dual inscriptions:
Those are usually rather interesting, because there is no way to replicate them with inscr wands/foci. This doesn't mean that all dual inscr foci are worth something, but they are definately worth keeping/PC'ing.

Normal dualmods:
Depends on combinations. Any 20/20 matching uninscr wand or offhand is worth a lot of money, because they are so incredibly rare it's stupid. So always pc those. Other dualmods are usually worth a lot less and wands and offhands are very easily merchfood. Exceptions are 10/10's and any combination with a +30hp or a +45wE mod.

Skins:
Here I am going to list all the popular and common skins so you can get an idea of whether or not your weapon is worth something or not.

Swords:

Common/unwanted: all swords that drop in Nightfall, all core swords with a couple exceptions, all swords that drop in EotN with a couple exceptions.

Uncommon: Celestial Sword, Crenellated Sword, Dusk Blade, Jade Sword, Wicked Blade, Sunqua Blade, Fellblade, most dungeon reward swords, Dadao, Katana, Broadsword, Platinum Blade, Shinobi Blade (Inscribable), Shadow Blade.

Semi-rare: Plagueborn, Zodiac, Gothic, Vertebreaker, Platinum Blade, Dadao, Katana, Broadsword, Shinobi Blade (uninscribable), Emerald Blade.

Rare/wanted: Oni Blade, Jitte (extremely wanted with the right mods, both inscr and uninscr), Crystalline (uninscr > inscr usually), Obby Edge, Eternal Blade.

Axes:

Common/unwanted: all axes that drop in Nightfall with 1 exception, most of the axes that drop in EotN with some exceptions, most core axes, Archaic Axe, the common Prophecies drops, Cleaver (Canthan and Tyrian), Rusty Axe, Sickle (crescent).

Uncommon: Serpentine Reaver, Gemstone Axe (inscribable), Tribal Axe (inscribable), Serpent Axe (inscribable), Stygian Reaver, Mammoth Axe, Morning Star Axe, Halo Axe, Grinning Dragon Axe, Celestial Axe (inscribable),

Semi-rare: Zodiac, Chaos Axe, Gemstone, Kaineng Axe, Gothic (Dual) Axe, Jade Axe, Celestial Axe (uninscribable), Hand Axe (Canthan), Eaglecrest, Pyroclastic Axe, Stygian Reaver.

Rare/wanted: Tribal Axe (uninscribable), Sickle (uninscribable), Serpent Axe (uninscribable, Tyrian). Any of these are so excruciatingly rare, it's ridiculous. Seriously, I know of only 1 uninscribable max damage gold Tribal Axe, and that one was a bugged drop in the Mausoleum from last year, so go figure.

I'm gonna leave it at this for now, I'll update the other weapons later on.

Suggestions to updating this guide are always helpful and feel free to comment, I will do my best to keep this guide as detailed and comprehensive as possible.

superraptors · Aug 27, 2011, 01:45 PM // 13:45

nice and simple

Our Blood · Aug 27, 2011, 02:08 PM // 14:08

nice work on this

it contains all basic info you need for your weapons, and in doubt people can still post pc thread ^^

+1

warren_kn · Aug 27, 2011, 03:34 PM // 15:34

Without a doubt one of the most useful posts on this forum in a long time.

Thanks for spending the time and effort

Jason Xll · Aug 27, 2011, 04:02 PM // 16:02

Good job, sticky'd for now. Keep the spam to a minimum though people.
PS the uncond part about bias is not true...

Bright Star Shine · Aug 27, 2011, 04:36 PM // 16:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason Xll

Good job, sticky'd for now. Keep the spam to a minimum though people.
PS the uncond part about bias is not true...

Lol, find me one expert on uncods who isn't so biased to the point that he almost gets turned on by just looking at one?

gw_poster · Aug 28, 2011, 01:36 AM // 01:36

Excellent work, Bright. Thanks for the useful info. Hopefully this threaD coupled with shadowfell's high-end insc thread (if it's being updated?) will cut down on a lot of unnecessary/redundant pc's.

Malice Black · Aug 28, 2011, 03:18 AM // 03:18

Good effort

A couple off issues though -

1. Needs more pictures/colour to break up the text.
2. Needs organizing a bit. A lot of what you write is available on wiki so just needs a link directing to wiki page.
3. If you're going to generalize prices I would suggest you list some of the more expensive items that exceed the stated prices.

Example - Sephis axe can hit 500+ ecto. Req8 15^50 Mursaat Hammer is worth far more then 90e. I would need an extra zero added to 90 to even consider selling mine.

Kabong · Aug 28, 2011, 07:51 PM // 19:51

Quick comment on a generally-admirable attempt to summarize what surely took years of experience to learn:

R7 +5energy weaps are usually regarded as being worth several times more than the 15>50 version.

It's true.

retcute but deadly · Oct 07, 2011, 10:30 AM // 10:30

Sickle (uninscribable), Serpent Axe (uninscribable, Tyrian). Any of these are so excruciatingly rare, it's ridiculous.

I have a Sickle and a Serpent Uninsc.
I also have Q7 -16 gold H+44 Rcive D -3 - Defender skin
A Q8 -16 Magmas unins. Recieved d -4
Plus a lot more in my 1300 peace large collection.
God job with this guide

Bright Star Shine · Oct 08, 2011, 11:44 PM // 23:44

Why did it get un-stickied?

Chaos Theory Pvp · Oct 09, 2011, 01:01 AM // 01:01

Very good guide, get it re-stickied

Bright maybe rearrange it a little so the martial q8 and uncon stuff is at the bottom and the junk notes at the top so as a new player gets to read the important first, gets them to the merchant quicker :P

Peachie · Oct 09, 2011, 02:58 AM // 02:58

I removed its sticky status and added it to the top of list in the sticky that links to all the guides. It was just a matter of tidiness and the thread remains easily accessible.

Bright Star Shine · Oct 09, 2011, 09:11 AM // 09:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peachie

I removed its sticky status and added it to the top of list in the sticky that links to all the guides. It was just a matter of tidiness and the thread remains easily accessible.

Aight..

I'll clean it up a bit somewhere this week when I got some extra time on my hands. Get some screenshots etc and make it a little more compact.

Xelanger · Nov 02, 2011, 03:14 PM // 15:14

Hi~

Just wondering if this guide is still being updated. I have many years' worth of q9 max gold weapons across several mules and I suspect a lot of them can be merched.

If the OP is too busy, does anyone else know of another guide? The classification by skins is really useful to me.

Thanks!

LicensedLuny · Dec 01, 2011, 01:42 AM // 01:42

I recently saw this posted in reply to a PC thread. With expugnare's permission, I am copying it here in the hope that it will be easier to find when folks need such info in the future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by expugnare

About the wands--

As a pretty veteran collector of nice elementalist wands and staves, I can decisively say the value of wand mods goes in this order:
1) 20 / 20
2) 20 / +5e^50
3) 20 / +15e/-1e
4) 20 / 10
5) Anything Else

If you have any of these with good skins and good requirements, then they will be worth a pretty penny.

For example, a r9 Fire Celestial Scepter with 20 HCT / 15/-1 cost me around 350e. Aris (i dealer i) has a r9 Dragon's Breath Wand that is 20 HCT / 10 HCT that I would gladly pay over a stack for.

It really depends on the skin/mod combination.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

Between ...

the rarity of a "nice" dual mod wand or focus appearing for sale,
the small number of "serious" collectors active with money to spend at any given time, and
the tendency (I assume) for such high end trades to be negotiated in private or records be wiped from sell threads,

I often find myself lost as to how to help anyone PC these things.

So, as a somewhat experienced overall trader with very little insight/understanding of the truly high-end inherent caster gear market, I found expugnare's post extremely helpful.

It is not always quick or easy to get the attention of such a serious collector willing and able to spend top dollar on the rare occasions one of these "godly" caster items comes up for sale. Therefore, I'm reluctant to PC any such uber-fancy caster item as, simply, "250e+"

Rather, I'd be more likely to say,

What you have there is extremely rare. In GW trading, extreme rarity does not always immediately result in extreme prices, though.

If you want to get that sold and move on quickly, you may have to settle for <X>. Your item there does strike me as extremely rare, but the collectors paying a high premium for them aren't always that many and aren't always that active with money ready to spend. If you're willing and able to take your time until you find that "right buyer" then this could very well be worth significantly more, perhaps <5 times X> or even more.

You could certainly list it for offers and hope the timing is right to spark a bid war, but I don't want to leave you with the impression there's any guarantee you'll easily find someone willing to offer that premium price.

Given the range of players who come here seeking PC advice, I worry about simply answering their questions with the <5 times X> numbers without any warning that it can take a long time to get such offers. I've seen so many PCs where a player new to trading is told things like, "I wouldn't sell that for less than 200e," only to watch the novice's resulting Sell thread sit for weeks or more without a bid of even half that much.