Salvage

“

Some items you'll find will be salvageable. Use a salvage kit to break them down into crafting materials.

— Salvaging

Salvaging is the process of breaking down items into crafting materials or upgrade components by using salvage kits. As a lot of rewards in the game are provided in the form of various items, often as individual equipment pieces or Unidentified Gear, salvaging is used to convert these rewards into standardized crafting materials.

Mechanics

To salvage an item, double-click on a salvage kit, then click on the item to be salvaged. If the item stacks, such as salvage items, you can repeatedly salvage items from the stack. Alternatively, right-clicking the salvage kit allows it to salvage whole stacks, or automatically salvage items of CFine rarity or lower, DMasterwork rarity or lower, or ERare rarity, starting at the top of your inventory. Higher quality kits have a greater chance to receive a higher-tier crafting material than normal. If an item has an upgrade component attached, higher quality kits also give a greater chance to salvage the component while salvaging the item. Note that you won't get the upgrade component but the materials it breaks down into, unless you're using an Ascended Salvage Tool or a Black Lion Salvage Kit.

What can be salvaged

These types of items can be salvaged:

• Equipment: weapons, armor (including aquatic headgear), back items, and trinkets
• Salvage items
• Dyes
• Runes, Sigils and Relics
• Food and feast items (with a Portable Composter)

Exceptions

These items cannot be salvaged:

• Some starting equipment
• Items soulbound to another character
• Equipment bought with:
  • Karma
  • Coin (except cultural armor)
• Equipment received from the Level-80 Equipment Package
• Some equipment from story rewards, such as the masterwork weapons in Order weapon containers.

Equipment bought with Badges of Honor can be salvaged, but only return a random and lesser amount of badges. (Globs of Ectoplasm and crafting materials cannot be obtained.)

Salvage types

See also: Salvage kit

Each item may have one and, sometimes, several salvage types, displayed in the item's description in its tooltip. There are four salvage types, and each produces a different selection of materials. The required salvaging tools for each type are:

Standard

Can be salvaged with standard kits of different tiers (such as Basic Salvage Kit or Master's Salvage Kit). This is the most common salvage type, found on most equipment items of exotic and lower rarity. Usually produces crafting materials depending on the item's required level and rarity.

Ascended

Can be salvaged with Ascended Salvage Tool (or the 5 use and 20 use kit versions). Only found on items of ascended rarity, particularly ascended equipment. Produces an assortment of some of the ascended crafting materials.

Compost

Can be salvaged with Portable Composter. Can only be used on food and feast consumable items that were crafted by the Chef discipline. Produces Extracts of Nourishment of different rarity depending on an item, which are used in crafting of the ascended feasts, the highest tier of food items.

Research

Can be salvaged with a Research Kit or automatically upon crafting. The latter method is enabled within the crafting interface by selecting the checkbox "Automatically salvage output with a research kit". Produces Research Notes currency and can only be used on items that were crafted. This is a special type of salvaging as it can be used as an alternative to other salvage types.

None

The item can't be salvaged.

Salvaging results

The level or tier of the crafting material received from standard salvaging depends on the level of the item. Salvage items will give crafting material appropriate for the level of the item. The exact results of any salvaging attempt vary, and the salvage kit used will affect the random result. Some individual items may produce additional materials or currencies, unique to them.

By item type

• Light armor produces cloth scraps
• Medium armor produces leather scraps
• Heavy armor produces ore (but not Silver or Gold)
• Weapons can produce either ore (but not Silver or Gold) or logs, depending on weapon type:
  • Always produces log: focus, longbow, scepter, short bow, staff, torch, trident
  • Produces log or ore: axe, hammer, harpoon gun, mace, pistol, rifle, shield, spear
  • Always produces ore: dagger, greatsword, sword, warhorn
• Back items produce leather scraps.
• Other trinkets produce ore (but not Iron)
• Runes produce Lucent Motes and a small chance of charms
• Sigils produce Lucent Motes and a small chance of symbols

By equipment quality

• CFine (or better) equipment can produce Essences of Luck.
• ERare (or better) equipment can produce Glob of Ectoplasm, at level 68 or higher.
• FExotic equipment can produce Glob of Dark Matter, at level 68 or higher.
  • Exotic weapons and armor with non-craftable prefixes also have a chance to produce an inscription or insignia for the respective prefix.

Ascended equipment

GAscended equipment does not salvage into the standard results (such as Ectoplasm or cloth scraps) described above, instead producing various crafting materials like Balls of Dark Energy and Stabilizing Matrices, or rarely salvaging into crafting components. For instance, an Elonian Shoulderguard Panel (rather than an Elonian Leather Square) could be received from a Zojja's Shoulderguard.

Salvage kits

Ascended equipment can only be salvaged with the following salvage kits:

• Identical results but different amount of uses:
  • Ascended Salvage Tool (1 use)
  • Ascended Salvage Kit (5 uses)
  • Ascended Salvage Kit (20 uses)
• Crafted ascended items can still be salvaged with Research Kit, producing Research Notes instead and destroying any upgrades.
  • Stat changing no longer allows an item to be research-salvaged.

Ascended salvage result

Each type of equipment produces a different set of possible drops when salvaged. Ball of Dark Energy can be produced by everything except rings.

Armor and weapons

• Lesser Vision Crystal (most armor) or Vision Crystal (body-slot armor & weapons); always drops
• Ascended Insignia (Crafted armor only) or Ascended Inscription (Crafted weapons only); rare drop
• Salvaged Greatness (Armor) or Salvaged Puissance (Weapons); very rare chance
• Crafted components, such as Elonian Shoulderguard Panel; very rare chance

Ascended trinkets excluding rings

• Stabilizing Matrix (0-5, rare chance for 10 or 20)
• +1 Agony Infusion (5-9) ^{[verification requested]}
• Salvaged Dignity (Backpacks only; astronomically low chance)
• Salvaged Excellence (Amulets only; astronomically low chance)
• Salvaged Brilliance (Accessories only; astronomically low chance)

Ascended rings

Ascended rings give additional drops depending on their upgrades, resulting in more Stabilizing Matrices.

• Stabilizing Matrices (2-42)
  • Every ring gives one drop of 2-5, 10 or 20, with lower quantities being more common. The average is around 4.
  • Attuned rings give an additional drop of 1-2, usually just 1.
  • Infused rings give an additional drop of 1-5, 10 or 20, with lower quantities being more common. The average is around 3.
  • Rings that are both Attuned and Infused thus give three drops for an average total around 8.
• Salvaged Grandeur (astronomically low chance)

Because of these additional matrices, it is always recommended to attune rings before salvaging, and infuse if you otherwise don't need infused equipment.

Source specific drops

Items bought with Unbound Magic

• These are guaranteed to drop 500 Unbound Magic, in addition to the drops above. Similarly, Siren's Landing backpacks bought with Karma and Orrian Pearls (these are one of the few karma-bought items that can be salvaged).

Raid-specific gear

• These are guaranteed to drop 60 Magnetite Shards, or 60 Gaeting Crystals for the most recent expansion.
• This is in addition to any drops noted above. For example:
  • Assaulter's Sparking Vanquisher dropped in Wing 1 will salvage into 60 Magnetite Shards, 1 Vision Crystal and 1 Ball of Dark Energy.
  • Narella's Malicious Bauble dropped in Wing 2 will salvage into 60 Magnetite Shards and a random amount of Stabilizing Matrices.

Salvage rate research

See also: Category:Salvage rates

Some notable items:

• Food: Portable Composter/Salvage research
• Unidentified Gear: CCommon, DMasterwork, ERare
• GAscended equipment: Ball of Dark Energy/Salvage Rate
  • Ascended amulets: Salvaged Excellence/Salvage research
• Relics: Relic/salvage research
• Runes: Rune/salvage research
• Sigils: Sigil/salvage research

Trivia

• Prior to the May 24, 2022 gane update, items from level rewards were not salvageable.
• Salvage types were added to item tooltips with the October 4, 2022 game update.