Guide To Item Upgrades: The Intermediate Guide To Item Upgrades
Path of Exile Item Upgrades
Item upgrades are a common and important way to improve the performance of numerous items in Path of Exile. They can also provide additional damage, AD or even affixes.
In most cases, however upgraded Common and Magic gear is outclassed by Rare-grade gear because of their higher requirements.
Armor
Armor upgrades can be applied to both armor and weapon items. They boost the effectiveness of the item upgrader kit they are connected to. Armor upgrades can be found in the game's world and can be purchased from Blacksmiths at any bonfire. They can also be salvaged using a professional or higher salvage kit to retrieve upgrade components from other items.
The amount of damage an armored item or weapon will absorb is contingent on the extent of its upgrades. A piece of armor upgraded to its highest upgrade level will increase its ability to absorb damage. However, it's important note that this will also increase its weight, causing it to be heavier than it was before.
There are a few different types of armor upgrades that are available in the game and they all have distinct effects. Certain upgrades grant armor a greater number of health points while others make it more powerful and lighter. The name of the armor upgrade will indicate the type of upgrade an item can receive, as shown below.
Some upgrades are magical or a combination of technology and magic, which is shown by a "Magic" or "Hybrid" entry in the table below. Some upgrades also require a fee to use, which are indicated by a "Charges" entry in the table below. The charges associated with these upgrades change every day or never expire, according to the upgrade.
Iron Ore is the cheapest option to upgrade your armor. You can locate it by exploring and looting small treasure chests. Titanium is more expensive however, it is available at the smelters in Orgrimmar and Stormwind City. Some upgrades, like the Reforge or the Hot Potato Books can only be applied on armor pieces of the highest level. These upgrades can give players a significant boost in stats, and are definitely worth the cost.
A piece of armor upgraded to the highest upgrade level will dramatically increase its defense values but the wearer must be aware that putting on weight will dramatically reduce its speed and agility. Therefore, it is not recommended to upgrade the majority of armor pieces that are higher than +9 since the defensive boost gained is generally not worth the additional weight and power cost of the improvements required.
Weapons
Weapon upgrades give players the ability to improve certain aspects of their weapon. Upgrades can increase the accuracy of a rifle, or the damage caused by shotgun shells. Certain weapons come with special upgrades to improve their inherent capabilities. Frictionless materials (improves stability, minimizes the risk of overheating) and Kinetic coils (increases the projectile's speed for greater damage) are two examples.
The majority of upgrades to weapons require a whetblade, one of three Power Dices and a different amount of Minerals and Erons. They can be gained by completing Side Quests or by killing a certain number of monsters and bosses.
Upgrading a Weapon, Equipment Set piece or Whetblade requires visiting the NPC [Armor] Boboko in Central Flarine and paying her an upgrade price of a certain number of Bars. The higher the upgrade level, the higher the number of bars required to complete it. The cost of the upgrades will be lower if have more than one of the upgrade materials.
In Chapter 2: Season 5 the way you upgrade your weapon and equipment sets has changed. Prior to Chapter 2 Season 5, you could upgrade your weapon or equipment by paying a specific amount of Bars. You could do this until you reach a max upgrade level of the equipment or weapon, after which the upgrades would reset.
It's possible, but it depends heavily on RNG. It is better to purchase gear that has low levels of upgrade but with high base scores and stat distributions. These will have a chance at gaining you the best tier of benefits and blessings.
To level up faster, most players will prioritize upgrading their weapons. In addition players, they should also consider upgrading the weapons favored by their teammates to make them more powerful and effective. For instance, Shepard should consider upgrading the M92F to unlock the Beretta M93R to increase its utility when accompanied by experts in biotics like Grunt and Tali.
Jewels
Jewels can be used to increase a stat or provide secondary effects in weapons and armor. Jewelry crafting is a method of making them, in which you combine the gemstone with specific reagents on a table. The higher the grade of the gemstone, the better its secondary effect. These reagents are available from Treasure Goblins and World Bosses in the world, or by finding Legendary Gear. You can also buy them from The Jeweler in exchange for Scattered Prisms and gold.
The quality of a jewel can be improved upon by the Jeweler, with stages that vary from Crude to Royal. The boosts to stats will differ according to the tier that the jewel is at when it's inserted into jewelry, weapons or gear.
The Jeweler is able to create the highest levels of gems with the exception of rare and legendary ones, which you must attain a certain level to get. Jewels can be replaced with another jewel without destroying the original. However, you can only replace one jewel in an item of equipment once.
It is normal to use more jewelry to enhance the appearance of. The jewels can also enhance performance and create a surface harder than steel, so that the repeated friction caused by pivots does not cause damage to the movement.
In addition to the upgrades mentioned above players can also acquire glyphs for their shields and weapons from a Glyphmaster. These glyphs offer a small boost in power and can be exchanged, however they're not guaranteed to show up as loot. Glyphs are upgradeable, as jewelry, by visiting the Jeweler for gold and Scattered Crystal. Glyphs may also be removed and returned to the inventory. Other upgrade components, such as traits or aegis can't be exchanged and can only be found with an upgrade items extractor or salvaging with the Black Lion Salvage Kit or an Ascended Salvage tool.
Trinkets
Trinkets are items of equipment that offer a wide range of small but useful advantages to your hero. They can be acquired starting in the starter areas as loot, personal story rewards, from vendors, and through doing road interactions. They can also be made by jewelers, and then found or purchased on the Trading Post.
The first trinket a player is able to unlock is the cloak. It grants a small but useful bonus in speed of movement and the ability to escape. After that, they'll be able to purchase amulets, rings and necklaces in the same way to how a player can acquire weapons and armor. Each piece of gear comes with one upgrade slot that accepts either a universal or jewel upgrade. Universal upgrades are smaller and can be used on any device. Jewels cannot be upgraded or replaced and only work with certain trinkets.
These trinkets can provide additional bonuses and abilities that are active even when the hero isn't in combat. This allows a hero to be more efficient while inactive. It can also make up for the lack of a good slot in the talent tree or team which are usually filled by the hero's optimal stats.
A good guideline for trinket upgrades is to prioritize BiS (Best-in-Slot) items that you aren't planning to replace in the near future, then any items with desirable stats but less important than the iLevel of the item to be upgraded. This is especially true if an item has multiple stats you'd like to upgrade since it's generally more beneficial to upgrade one important stat than two sub-optimal ones.
In the beginning of the game players in the jungle are likely to upgrade their trinket into a red one in the middle and top players will usually opt for a green or pink ward (depending on the game's matchup). These choices will have an impact on the hero's ability to manage the map.
In addition to the items listed above, players can also find a number of other trinkets in the game in the form of awards and trophies. These can be obtained through completing certain milestones within the story. For instance, completing the main quest of a chapter or defeating an opponent. You can check them out by selecting the achievement from the reward section of the hero's menu.