Path of Exile
item upgrading Upgrades
The performance of a variety of Path of Exile items can be enhanced by upgrading them. They can provide extra damage, AD or even affixes.
Often times however upgraded Common and Magic gear is beaten out by Rare-grade equipment due to their higher requirements.
Armor
Armor upgrades can be applied to both weapon and armor items. They increase the performance of the item they are attached 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 salvage upgrade components from items.
The amount of damage that a piece of armor or weapon can absorb depends on the degree of upgrades. A piece of armor upgraded to its highest upgrade level will boost its damage absorption. It is important to note that this will increase the weight of the armor, which means it must be more heavy.
There are several different types of armor upgrades that are available in the game. Each has a different effect. For instance, certain upgrades give the armor a certain number of additional health points, while others make it lighter and stronger. The name of the armor upgrade will indicate the kind of upgrade that an
item upgrade will receive, as shown below.
Some of the upgrades also require magic or a hybrid technology and magic, which are shown by the "Magic" and "Hybrids" entries in the table. Certain upgrades also require fees to use. They are referred to as "Charges" entries in the table. These charges are either updated daily or never expire, depending on the upgrade.
The cheapest method to upgrade armor is with Iron Ore, which can be gathered by exploring the environment and looting minor loot chests. Titanium is more expensive, however, it is available from smelters located in Orgrimmar and Stormwind City. Certain upgrades, like the Reforge or the Hot Potato Books can only be used on armor pieces that are of high-level. These upgrades can give a significant improvements in stats and are definitely worth the cost.
The player should be aware that upgrading a piece up to the maximum upgrade level can increase its defense value. However, it will also affect its agility and its speed. For this reason, it is typically not recommended to upgrade the majority of armor pieces above +9, since the added defense is generally not worth the extra weight and power costs of the upgrades needed.
Weapons
Weapon upgrades allow players to improve the effectiveness of certain aspects of an weapon. Upgrades can increase the accuracy of a rifle, or the damage that shotgun shells do. Certain weapons also come with upgrades that improve their innate characteristics. They include Frictionless Materials (improves stability and decreases the chance of the risk of overheating) and Kinetic Coils (increases the velocity of projectiles for greater damage).
The majority of upgrades to weapons require three Power Dices, a different amount of Minerals and Erons and a whetblade to apply. They can be gained by completing Side Quests or by killing a certain number of monsters and bosses.
To upgrade a weapon, equipment set piece, or Whetblade you need to visit the NPC [ArmorBoboko. Boboko located in Central Flarine, and pay her an upgrade fee of a certain number of Bars. The more bars required to complete an upgrade the more expensive the upgrade. If you have multiple upgrade materials, the cost of upgrading will be less.
In Chapter 2: Season 5, the ways to upgrade your weapon and equipment sets changed a little. Before, you could seek out an Upgrade Bench and pay a certain amount of Bars to upgrade your equipment or weapon to an increased rarity. You could do this until your weapon or equipment reached its maximum upgrade level and at that point, the upgrades would reset.
It's possible, but it relies heavily on RNG. Instead, you're much better off visiting stores and buying gear with low upgrade levels but excellent base scores and stat distributions. These gears have a better likelihood of granting you highest level of advantages and benefits.
Most players will want to prioritize weapon upgrades for the weapons they most often use to allow them to progress faster. Players should also upgrade the weapons that their squadmates utilize to increase their power. Shepard, for example should upgrade his M92F so that he can unlock the Beretta M93R. This will increase the effectiveness of the weapon when used by biotic specialists like Grunt and Tali.
Jewels
Jewels are used in the sockets of armor and weapons, increasing a stat and providing secondary effects. They can be created through an process known as jewelry crafting, which is where you combine a gem and various reagents at a jewelry table. The higher the level of the gem, the greater the secondary effect. These reagents can be found around the world from Treasure Goblins, World Bosses and sometimes by salvaging Legendary equipment. You can also buy them from The Jeweler in exchange for Scattered Prisms and gold.
The Jeweler can improve the quality of a gem in stages ranging from Crude up to Royal. Based on the level of the gem it can provide different stat boost when slotted into weapons, gear and jewelry.
The Jeweler can create the highest levels of gems with the exception of rare and legendary ones which require certain levels to gain. Jewels can be replaced by another jewel without damaging the original. However, you can only replace the jewels in an equipment piece only once.
Using more jewels in the movement will make it feel smoother and is typically performed for aesthetic reasons. The jewels also improve performance and create a harder surface than steel, so that the repeated friction caused by pivots does not cause damage to the movement.
In addition to the above upgrades players can also acquire glyphs for their weapons and shields from a Glyphmaster. These glyphs give a slight boost in power and can be traded, but they are not guaranteed to show up as loot. Glyphs, like jewelry, can be upgraded at the Jeweler to exchange gold and Scattered Crystals. Glyphs can also be removed and returned to the inventory. Other upgrade components, such as traits and aegis cannot be swapped out, and can only be recovered using an Upgrade Extractor or salvaging them with the Black Lion Salvage Kit or an Ascended Salvage Tool.
Trinkets
Trinkets can provide your hero with a variety of small, but valuable benefits. They can be acquired starting in the starter areas as loot, personal story rewards, from vendors, and through performing road interactions. They can be purchased from the Trading Post, or crafted by jewelers.
The first trinkets a player unlocks will be the cloak, which gives a small but useful bonus in speed of movement and the ability to escape. After that, they can get amulets, rings, and necklaces in the same way to how a player can acquire weapons and armor. Each piece of equipment has an upgrade slot that is either universal or jewel. Universal upgrades offer smaller bonuses and can be put into any kind of equipment while jewelry cannot be replaced or upgraded and is only compatible with specific types of trinkets.
These trinkets also provide additional buffs and skills that are active when the hero is not in combat. This allows the hero to be more efficient when they are not active. It can also compensate for the absence of strong slot in the talent tree or team which would normally be filled by the hero's optimal stats.
As a rule, trinket upgrades should prioritize BiS (
Best item upgrader in Slot) items that you aren't likely to replace anytime soon. Then, you should consider any items with desirable stats that are less significant than the iLevel for the item upgrader mod (
just click the following webpage) to be upgraded. This is especially true when an item has multiple stats that you'd like to upgrade, since it's generally more beneficial to upgrade one important stat than two sub-optimal ones.
At the beginning of the game junglers will usually want to upgrade their trinket to a red in the middle and top players usually choose either a pink or green ward (depending on the game's matchup). These choices will have a significant impact on the hero's ability to control his map.
In addition to the items listed above, players will also find other trinkets that form trophies and rewards throughout the game. These can be earned through completing certain milestones in the story, like finishing a chapter's main quest or killing a particular boss. These achievements can be seen by selecting the relevant achievement from the reward tab of the hero menu.