Guide To Item Upgrades: The Intermediate Guide On 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.

Rare-grade equipment is often superior to the more modernized Common or Magic equipment due to their higher requirements.

Armor

Armor upgrades can be applied to both armor and weapon items. They increase the stats of whatever item they are connected to. Armor upgrades are found in the world of the game and can be purchased from Blacksmiths at any bonfire. Alternately, they can be salvaged from items with upgrade components in them using a specialist or more powerful salvage kit.

The level of an armor's or weapon's upgrade determines the amount of damage it will take on. The ability to absorb damage of an armor piece will increase when it's upgraded to the highest upgrade level. However, it's important to keep in mind that this will increase its weight, causing it to weigh more than it was before.

There are a variety of armor upgrades available in the game. Each has a different effect. For instance, certain upgrades will give the armor a certain amount of additional health points, while others will make it stronger and lighter. The type of armor upgrade that an item will receive will be identified by the name of the upgrade, as shown in the table below.

Some upgrades are magic or a mix of magic and technology, which is shown by the "Magic" or "Hybrid" entry in the table below. Some upgrades also require charges for use. They are referred to as "Charges" entries in the table. These charges are either updated daily or never expire based on the upgrade.

Iron Ore is the cheapest method to upgrade your armor. It can be found by exploring and looting small chests. Titanium is more expensive, but can be found at the smelters of Orgrimmar and Stormwind City. Certain upgrades, like the Reforge and the Hot Potato Books, can only be applied to high level armor pieces. These upgrades can give significant improvement in stats and are worth the investment, especially for 1-handed weapons.

Upgrading a piece of armor to max upgrade level will greatly increase its defense values, but the player should be aware that putting on weight will dramatically reduce its agility and speed. It is not recommended to upgrade armor beyond +9. The boost in defense usually isn't worth the weight and power cost of the upgrades.

Weapons

Weapon upgrades allow players to improve the effectiveness of certain aspects of a weapon. For instance an upgrade could increase the damage dealt by shotgun shells or the accuracy of a rifle sniper. Certain firearms also have upgrades that enhance their inherent qualities. Frictionless materials (improves stability, minimizes weapon overheating), and Kinetic coils (increases the projectile's acceleration for greater damage) are two examples.

The majority of upgrades for weapons require the use of a whetblade, or one of the three Power Dices and a different amount of Minerals and Erons. They can be obtained by completing Side Quests, killing a certain amount of bosses or monsters, or through the Weapon Upgrade NPC located in Central Flarine.

The process of upgrading a weapon, equipment Set piece, or Whetblade requires visiting the NPC [Armor] Boboko in Central Flarine and paying her an upgrade fee of a certain number of Bars. The higher the upgrade level, the higher the number of bars you will need to complete the upgrade. The cost of upgrades will be less if you have more than one of the relevant upgrade materials.

In Chapter 2: Season 5 the way you upgrade your weapon and equipment sets has changed. Before you could go to an Upgrade Bench and pay a certain amount of Bars to upgrade your weapon or equipment to a higher quality. You could do this until the weapon or equipment reached its maximum upgrade items level at which point the upgrades would be reset.

You can still do this however, the process is high on RNG and low on agency. You should consider buying equipment with minimal upgrade levels but with high base scores and stat distributions. These gears have a greater chance of giving you the highest level of advantages and benefits.

To improve their skills faster, many players be more inclined to upgrade their weapons. Additionally players, they should think about upgrading the weapons they use with their teammates to make them more powerful and effective. Shepard, for example should upgrade his M92F in order to unlock the Beretta M93R. This will make the weapon more useful when used in conjunction by biotic specialists like Grunt and Tali.

Jewels

Jewels are placed in the sockets of armor and weapons, increasing a stat and providing secondary effects. Jewelry crafting is a method for making them, in which you combine the gemstone with specific reagents on a jewelry table. The higher the quality of the jewel the better the secondary effect. These reagents can be gotten from Treasure Goblins and World Bosses in the world, or by collecting Legendary Gear. You can also purchase them from The Jeweler for gold and a Scattered Prism.

The Jeweler can enhance the quality of a gem in stages ranging from Crude up to Royal. Based on the tier of the gem, it will provide a different stat boosts when inserted into weapons, equipment and jewelry.

All tiers of jewels are crafted at the Jeweler however, there are some exceptions to this, such as the rare and legendary gems that require you to be at a certain level to qualify for them. Like other upgrade components jewels can be swapped with another identical jewel without damaging the original one. You are able to replace the jewel once within an item of equipment.

Utilizing more jewels in a movement will make it more smooth, and is often done for aesthetic reasons. Jewels also enhance performance and create a surface harder than metal so that repeated friction from pivots does not cause damage to them.

A Glyphmaster can provide glyphs to enhance the look of your shields and weapons. These are a small perk and can be swapped out at any time however they aren't guaranteed to drop as loot. Glyphs can be upgraded as jewelry, by visiting the Jeweler for gold, and also a scattered Crystal. Glyphs can also be taken out, which returns them to the inventory. Other upgrade components, like traits and aegis, cannot be swapped out, and can only be recovered using an Upgrade Extractor or salvaging them with a Black Lion Salvage Kit or Ascended Salvage Tool.

Trinkets

Trinkets can be used to give your character many small, but useful advantages. You can find them in the starting area as loot or personal story rewards. They can also be obtained from vendors and by doing road interaction. They can also be crafted by jewelers and later found or purchased from the Trading Post.

The first trinkets that a player unlocks will be the cloak, which grants a small, but valuable boost to speed of movement and the ability to escape. The player can then acquire necklaces, amulets, and rings in a similar manner similar to how they obtained weapons and armor. Every piece of equipment has a slot for an upgrade which can be universal or jewel. Universal upgrades are smaller and are able to be used on any piece of equipment. Jewels are not upgradeable or replaced, and can only be used with certain trinkets.

These trinkets can also grant bonuses and abilities that are active when the hero is not fighting. This allows the hero to be more effective while inactive and may also help to compensate for the absence of a strong team or the absence of any talent tree slots that would normally be filled with hero's ideal statistics.

As a general rule trinket upgrades should be a priority BiS (Best in Slot) items you won't replace anytime soon. Next, any items with desirable statistics that are less significant than the iLevel of the item level upgrade that is to be upgraded. This is especially true when an item upgrading has multiple stats you wish to upgrade, since it's generally better to upgrade a single crucial stat than two subpar ones.

Jungle players often upgrade their yellow trinkets to a red one at the start of the game. Mid and top players, on the other hand, will choose a green or a pink ward, depending on the matchup. These choices will have a major impact on the hero's ability to control his map.

Aside from the items mentioned above, players can find a number of other trinkets in the game in the form of trophies and awards. These can be earned by completing certain milestones in the story. For instance, finishing a chapter’s main quest or beating a boss. These can be viewed by selecting the relevant achievement in the reward tab of the hero menu.