Black Lion Underground - 05 October 2012

Well that didn’t take long to make money.  Here I was only several days ago back on the path to poverty after taking an amulet gamble, only to find myself relatively rich, having leapt from around 60s to 17 gold. It’s also nice knowing that I’ve products worth 5 gold wrapped up in the Trading Post that I can draw down at any moment. 

You would think it difficult to make money and I was beginning to sweat at little at the thought that this column would fail to find any unique or interesting ways of making money.  Squeezing profit margins out of any item on the trading post is incredibly tough, especially with the steep sales taxes (far too high in my opinion).  But, there is one item that sells well and continues to sell: Globs of Ectoplasm.

If you didn’t know, these are a rare item required for the majority of high end crafted items or armour and are a much sought after commodity.  To obtain them, the general method is to salvage rare items above level 68.  This poses a primary question; How do you easily obtain level 68 rare items without breaking the bank?

There are a couple of options to this, with the time consuming method simply being to grind high level monsters with magic find items equipped.  This is cost effective but is also incredibly dull. What I have done instead is found that spears and tridents aren’t sought after, and tend to sell incredibly cheaply on the Trading Post (as little as 19 silver).  Placing buy orders for as little as 15 silver will see five cost around 75 silver.   I then salvage these items in the hopes of obtaining Globs of Ectoplasms.

Having tested this extensively, the level of the item (as long as it is rare or higher and level 68 or above) has the same chance to yield 0 to 3 Ectoplasms as that of a level 80 rare item.  The fact that Harpoon Guns and Spears aren’t on many peoples agenda makes them even more lucrative as they are cheap to pick up and provide just as many Globs of Ectoplasms as any high level weapon.

To apply some perspective here and using a Mystic Salvage Kit (Black Lion Kits work just as well) I bought and sold Ectoplasms all the way to where I am now. Out of 40 salvaged items, I managed to obtain 69 Ectoplasms.  I then turned a large proportion of these Ectoplasms into Ruby Orichalcum Earring of the Berserker which sell for around 2g and 70s each (with a total construction cost of around 1g). Including the original purchase price of the weapons (around 75 silver) there is a considerable margin.

Is there a risk to this Ectoplasm gambling? Yes.  You might not get an Ectoplasm every single salvage.  However, as a single Ectoplasm bought from the Trading Post can cost you as much as 18s and 58c it is surely better to take a risk on obtaining 3 through salvaging than it is to just buy 1.

I must add that it has yet to fail me, having always broken exactly even (5 Ectoplasms from 5 weapons, although not necessarily from each weapon) or considerably better (I once received 13 Ectoplasms from 5 weapons; 2g 41s worth of items for a 75silver fee).

Tip of the Day

During all this, I have also been purchasing Onyx Shards. They can be bought in a buy order for around 6s 61c and can be listed and sold for around 8s 55c (or a little more) making around 65c profit per item.  Although this is small, selling 25 can make you 16 silver in a matter of minutes.  I’ve sold around 200 in the last few hours,making a clear profit of 1g 31s.