Guide To Item Upgrades: The Intermediate Guide To Item Upgrades

Path of Exile Item Upgrades

item upgrader kit upgrades are a common and crucial method to enhance the performance of numerous items in Path of Exile. They can be a good source of damage, more AD or even more affixes.

Rare-grade equipment is often superior to the more modernized Common or Magic gear because of their high requirements.

Armor

Armor upgrades can be applied to both weapon and armor items. They boost the stats of whatever item they are attached to. Upgrades to armor can be found in the world of the game and purchased from Blacksmiths on bonfires. They can also be salvaged using a specialist or higher salvage kits to retrieve 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 increase its ability to absorb damage. However, it's important keep in mind that this will increase its weight, which will cause it to weigh more than it was before.

There are many different kinds of armor upgrades available in the game. Each has a different impact. Some upgrades give armor an additional amount of health points while others make it more powerful and lighter. The name of the upgrade will indicate the kind of upgrade the item upgrader kit can be given, as illustrated below.

Some upgrades are magical or a combination of magic and technology, which is indicated by a "Magic" or "Hybrid" entry in the table below. Some upgrades also require charges in order to be used. These are identified as "Charges" entries in the table. These charges are continuously updated or never expire based on the upgrade.

The cheapest method of upgrading armor is to use Iron Ore, which can be obtained by exploring the environment and looting small loot chests. Titanium is more expensive, however it is obtainable through smelters in Orgrimmar and Stormwind City. Certain upgrades, like the Reforge or the Hot Potato Books can only be used on high-level armor pieces. These upgrades can give significant boost to performance and are worth the investment, especially for 1-handed weapons.

The player must be aware that upgrading a piece up to the maximum upgrade level will increase its defense values. However, it can also decrease its agility and its speed. Therefore, it is not recommended to upgrade armor pieces beyond +9, because the increase in defense is generally not worth the weight and power cost of the improvements required.

Weapons

Weapon upgrades allow players the ability to improve certain aspects of their weapon. Upgrades can increase the accuracy of a rifle or the damage that shotgun shells do. Some weapons also have special upgrades that improve their innate capabilities. They include Frictionless Materials (improves stability and minimizes weapon overheating) and Kinetic Coils (increases projectile acceleration for more damage).

The majority of upgrades to weapons require a whetblade, one of three Power Dices and a different amount Minerals and Erons. These can be gained by completing Side Quests or by killing a certain amount of monsters and bosses.

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 are required to complete it. The cost of upgrades will be lower 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 an increased level of rarity. You could do this until your weapon or equipment reached its maximum upgrade level at which point the upgrades would be reset.

You can still do this but the process is high on RNG and low on agency. Instead, you're much better off going to the stores and buying equipment that has low upgrade levels but excellent base scores and stat distributions. They will also have a chance at gaining you the best tier of perks and blessings.

To level up faster, most players will prioritise upgrading their weapons. In addition, players should consider upgrading the weapons they use with their squadmates to increase their power as well. For instance, Shepard should consider upgrading the M92F to unlock the Beretta M93R to enhance its effectiveness when accompanied by biotech specialists such as Grunt and Tali.

Jewels

Jewels can be used to boost a stat or provide secondary effects in weapons and armor. Jewelry crafting is a method for making them, where you combine gemstones with specific reagents on a table. The higher the quality of the gem, the greater the secondary effect. These reagents can be obtained around the world from Treasure Goblins, World Bosses and occasionally by salvaging Legendary equipment. You can also purchase them from The Jeweler in exchange for Scattered Prisms and gold.

The Jeweler can boost the quality of a gem in stages ranging from Crude up to Royal. The boosts to stats will differ depending on the level the jewel is in when it's inserted into jewelry, weapons, or other gear.

The Jeweler can create the highest levels of gems except for the rare and legendary ones that you must be at an appropriate level to obtain. Jewels can be replaced by another jewel without damaging the original. You can only replace the gem once in an item of equipment.

Using more jewels in a move will make it feel smoother and is typically done for aesthetic reasons. Jewels also enhance performance and make a surface harder than steel so that repeated friction caused by pivots does not damage them.

A Glyphmaster can provide glyphs that can enhance the appearance of your shields and weapons. These are a small perk and are able to be swapped easily, but are not guaranteed to drop as loot. Glyphs, like jewelry, can be upgraded by the Jeweler to exchange Scattered Crystals and gold. Glyphs can also be removed and returned to the inventory. Other upgrade components like traits or aegis can't be exchanged, and can only be found with an Upgrade extractor, or salvaging with the Black Lion Salvage Kit, or Ascended Salvage.

Trinkets

Trinkets are a great way to provide your hero with a variety of small, but useful benefits. They can be acquired starting in the areas of starting as loot, personal story rewards, from vendors, or by doing road interactions. They can also be made by jewelers, and found or purchased from the Trading Post.

The first trinkets that a player can unlock is the cloak, which grants a small, but valuable boost to speed of movement and evasion. The player can then acquire rings, amulets and necklaces in a similar manner as they did with weapons and armor. Each piece of equipment has one upgrade slot that can accept either a universal upgrade or a jewel upgrade. Universal upgrades are smaller and are able to be used on any device. Jewels cannot be upgraded or replaced and only work with certain trinkets.

These trinkets also provide additional buffs and skills that remain active whenever the hero is not fighting. This allows the hero to be more effective when not active and may also help fill in the void of a solid team or the absence of any slots in the talent tree that would normally be filled with hero's ideal statistics.

As a rule trinket upgrades should be a priority BiS (Best in Slot) items that you will not replace anytime soon. Also, consider items with desirable statistics that are less significant than the iLevel for the item upgrade to be upgraded. This is especially true if an item upgrade has multiple stats you'd like to upgrade as it's usually more beneficial to upgrade one important stat than two sub-optimal ones.

Jungle players will often upgrade their yellow trinkets to a red trinket at the beginning of the game. Top and mid players however will pick either a pink or green ward, depending on the game's matchup. These choices will have a major impact on the hero's map control abilities.

In addition to the items listed above, players may also find other items in the form of trophies and awards. These can be earned by completing certain milestones within the story. For instance, completing the main quest for a chapter or defeating an opponent. These can be viewed by selecting the relevant achievement from the reward tab of the hero menu.