10 Fundamentals About Item Upgrades You Didn't Learn At School Path of Exile Item Upgrades

Item upgrades are a common and essential way to boost 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 gear due to their high demands.

Armor

Armor upgrades can be applied to both weapon and armor items. They improve the effectiveness of the item they are connected to. Upgrades to armor can be found in the world of games and purchased from Blacksmiths on bonfires. Alternatively, they can also be rescued from items with upgrade components within them by with a professional or higher salvage kit.

The amount of damage a piece of armor or weapon is able to absorb is dependent on the extent of its upgrades. The absorption of damage by a piece armor will increase when it is upgraded to the highest upgrade level. However, it's important keep in mind that this will increase its weight, which will cause it to weigh more than before.

There are a few different types of armor upgrades available in the game, and they all have different effects. Certain upgrades give armor a greater number of health points while others make it more powerful and lighter. The name of the upgrade will tell you the kind of upgrade an item can receive, as shown below.

Some of the upgrades are also magic or a mix of technology and magic which is indicated by an "Magic" or "Hybrid" entry in the table below. Certain upgrades require charges to use. These are indicated as "Charges" entries in the table. The charges associated with these upgrades change every day or never expire, depending on the upgrade.

Iron Ore is the cheapest method to upgrade your armor. It can be found by exploring and looting small loot chests. Titanium is more expensive but it can be obtained from smelters located 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 provide a significant improvement in performance and are worth the investment, particularly for one-handed weapons.


A piece of armor upgraded to the highest upgrade level will greatly boost its defense however, the user must be aware that putting on weight can drastically decrease its speed and agility. It is not recommended to upgrade armor past +9. The added defense generally isn't worth the weight and power costs of the upgrades.

Weapons

Weapon upgrades allow players to increase the effectiveness of certain aspects of the weapon. Upgrades can improve the accuracy of a rifle or the damage that shotgun shells cause. Certain weapons also come with upgrades that enhance their inherent qualities. Frictionless materials (improves stability, minimizes weapon overheating) and Kinetic coils (increases the projectile's velocity for greater damage) are two examples.

Most upgrades for weapons require three Power Dices, a different amount of Minerals and Erons, and a whetblade. They can be gained by completing Side Quests or by killing a certain amount of bosses and monsters.

Upgrading a Weapon, Equipment Set piece, or Whetblade requires visiting the NPC [Armor] Boboko in Central Flarine and paying her an upgrade fee that is based on a specific number of Bars. The more bars required to complete an upgrade, the higher the level. 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 equipment and weapon sets changed a little. Prior to Chapter 2 Season 5, you could upgrade your weapon and equipment by paying a certain number of Bars. You could do this until your weapon or equipment reached its maximum upgrade level, at which point the upgrades would reset.

You can still do this however, the process is high on RNG and low on agency. It is better to purchase gear that has minimal upgrade levels and high base scores and stat distributions. These gears have a better chance of granting you the highest tier advantages and benefits.

To improve their skills faster, most players will be more inclined to upgrade their weapons. Players should also upgrade the weapons their teammates utilize to increase their power. For instance, Shepard should consider upgrading the M92F to unlock the Beretta M93R, which will make it more useful when paired with experts in biotics like Grunt and Tali.

Jewels

Jewels can be used to increase a stat or provide secondary effects in armor and weapons. Jewelry crafting is a method for making them, in which you combine the gemstone with specific reagents in a jewelry table. The higher the tier of the gem is, the greater its secondary effect. These reagents are available from Treasure Goblins and World Bosses all over the world, or through collecting Legendary Gear. upgrade item can also buy them from The Jeweler for gold and a Scattered Prism.

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

All tiers of jewels can be made at the Jeweler, with the exception of the rare and legendary gems that require you to be at a sufficient level to qualify for these. In contrast to other upgrade components, jewels can be swapped out with a jewel of the same kind without destroying the original one. You are able to replace the jewel once in an item of equipment.

Utilizing more jewels in the movement will make it more smooth, and is often performed to enhance the aesthetics of the movement. Jewels also enhance performance and create an outer layer that is more durable than steel, so that the repeated friction caused by pivots does not damage them.

In item upgrade to the upgrades mentioned above players can also obtain glyphs for their weapons and shields from a Glyphmaster. These provide a small bonus and are able to be swapped easily, but are not guaranteed to drop as loot. Glyphs can be upgraded as jewelry, by visiting the Jeweler for gold, and also scattered Crystal. Glyphs can also be removed and returned to the inventory. Other upgrade components, such as traits and aegis, aren't swappable and can only be retrieved using an Upgrade Extractor or salvaging them with Black Lion Salvage Kit or an Ascended Salvage Tool.

Trinkets

Trinkets can be used to provide your hero with many small, but valuable advantages. They are available in the starting area as rewards for personal stories or loot. They are also available from vendors as well as through doing road interaction. They can be found on the Trading Post, or crafted by jewelers.

The first trinkets a player is able to unlock is the cloak. It grants an unimportant but beneficial boost to speed of movement and the ability to escape. The player can then collect necklaces, amulets, and rings, in a similar way as they did with weapons and armor. Each piece of equipment comes with one upgrade slot that can accommodate either a universal or a jewel upgrade. Universal upgrades offer fewer benefits and can be placed in any type of equipment, however, jewelry cannot be replaced or upgraded and is only compatible with certain types of trinkets.

These trinkets can also grant bonuses and abilities that are active even when the character is not in combat. This lets a hero be more efficient when they are not active. It can also make up for the lack of a good slots in the team or talent tree which would normally be filled by the hero's best stats.

In general trinket upgrades should be prioritized over BiS (Best in Slot) items you won't replace anytime soon. Next, any items with desirable stats that aren't as important as the iLevel of the item that is to be upgraded. This is particularly true if an item has multiple stats that you wish to upgrade, as it's usually better to upgrade just one important stat than two sub-optimal ones.

At the beginning of the game players who are in the jungle will typically want to upgrade their trinket into a red one, while top and mid players usually choose either a pink or green 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 mentioned above, players can also find other trinkets that form of trophies and rewards throughout the game. They can be obtained by completing certain milestones within the story. For instance, completing a chapter’s main quest or beating a boss. upgrade item can see them by selecting the achievement in the reward section of the hero's menu.