The Reasons To Focus On Making Improvements To Item Upgrades
Path of Exile Item Upgrades
The performance of many Path of Exile items can be enhanced by upgrading them. They can be a good source of additional damage or more AD or even more attachments.
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 boost the performance of the item that they are connected to. Armor upgrades can be found in the world of the game and can be purchased from Blacksmiths at any bonfire. They can also be salvaged using a specialist or higher salvage kit to salvage upgrade components from items.
The amount of damage a piece of armor or weapon can absorb depends on the extent of its upgrades. The absorption of damage by an armor piece will increase when it is upgraded to its maximum upgrade level. But, it's important to be aware that this upgrade will raise its weight, requiring 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. Some upgrades give armor an additional number of health points, while others make it stronger and lighter. The type of armor upgrade that an item can receive is indicated by the name of the upgrade as indicated in the table below.
Certain upgrades require magic or a combination of technology and magic, which are indicated by the "Magic" and "Hybrids" entries in the table. Certain upgrades also require fees in order to be used. These are identified as "Charges" entries in the table. The charges for these upgrades refresh daily or never expire depending on the upgrade.
The cheapest method to upgrade armor is with Iron Ore, which can be found by exploring the area and looting minor loot chests. Titanium is more expensive, but it can be obtained from the smelters in Orgrimmar and Stormwind City. Some upgrades, such as the Reforge and the Hot Potato Books, can only be applied to high-level armor pieces. These upgrades can give a significant improvements in stats and are well worth the cost.
A piece of armor upgraded to max upgrade level will greatly boost its defense, but the player should be aware that increasing its weight will drastically reduce its speed and agility. It is not recommended to upgrade armor beyond +9. The boost in defense typically isn't worth the weight and power costs of the upgrades.
Weapons
Weapon upgrades allow players to increase the effectiveness of specific aspects of a weapon. Upgrades can improve the accuracy of a rifle or the damage caused by shotgun shells. Certain firearms also have upgrades that enhance their inherent characteristics. Frictionless materials (improves stability, minimizes weapon overheating) and Kinetic coils (increases the projectile's speed to cause more damage) are two examples.
The majority of weapon upgrades require a whetblade. It's one of three Power Dices and a different amount of Minerals and Erons. They can be obtained by completing side quests or killing a certain amount of bosses and monsters.
Upgrades to a weapon, equipment Set piece, or Whetblade requires visiting the NPC [Armor] Boboko in Central Flarine and paying her an upgrade cost of a set number of Bars. The higher the upgrade level, the more bars are required to complete it. item upgrading of upgrading will be lower if you have more than one of the upgrade materials.
In Chapter 2: Season 5, the method of upgrading your equipment and weapon sets has changed a bit. In the past you could search for an Upgrade Bench and pay a set amount of Bars to upgrade your weapon or equipment to an increased quality. You could do this until the weapon or equipment reached its maximum upgrade level, at which point the upgrades would reset.
You can still do this but the process is based on RNG and low on agency. Instead, you're much better off going to the stores and buying equipment with low upgrade levels but good base scores and stat distributions. These will have a better chance of bringing you the highest tier benefits and blessings.
Most players will want to prioritize upgrades to the weapons they are most likely to use to make sure they are able to level up faster. In addition to these players, they should think about upgrading the weapons they use with their teammates to make them more powerful as well. For instance, Shepard should consider upgrading the M92F to unlock the Beretta M93R, which will make it more useful when accompanied by experts in biotics like Grunt and Tali.
Jewels
Jewels are utilized in the sockets of armor and weapons, increasing the stats of a weapon and providing additional 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 gem, the greater the secondary effect. These reagents are obtained in 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 quality of a jewel can be improved at the Jeweler, in stages that vary from Crude to Royal. Depending on the tier of the jewel it will give different stat boost when slotted into gear, weapons and jewelry.
All levels 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. Jewels can be substituted with another one without damaging the original. You can only replace the jewel only once in a piece of equipment.
It is normal to use more jewels for aesthetic reasons. Apart from improving performance, the jewels create an area that is stronger than steel, so the repeated friction from pivots won't cause harm as easily.
A Glyphmaster can provide glyphs that can enhance the appearance of your shields and weapons. They offer a small benefit and can be swapped out at any time however they aren't guaranteed to drop as loot. Glyphs are upgradeable, as jewelry, by visiting the Jeweler for gold, and also Scattered Crystal. Glyphs can also be removed, which returns them to the inventory. Other upgrade components like traits or aegis cannot be exchanged and can only be retrieved through an upgrade extractor, or salvaging with Black Lion Salvage Kit or an Ascended Salvage.
Trinkets
Trinkets are a great way to give your character many small, but useful advantages. They are available in the start-up area as loot or personal story rewards. They can also be obtained from vendors as well as through completing road interaction. They can also be found on the Trading Post, or crafted by jewelers.
The first trinket players will be able to unlock is the cloak. It gives a small but beneficial boost in movement speed and evasion. The player can then acquire rings, amulets and necklaces in a similar fashion similar to how they obtained weapons and armor. Each piece of gear comes with one upgrade slot that can accept either a universal or a jewel upgrade. Universal upgrades are smaller and can be utilized on any piece of equipment. Jewels cannot be upgraded or replaced and are only compatible with certain trinkets.
These trinkets can also grant buffs and skills that are active whenever the hero is not fighting. This allows the hero to be more effective when not active, and can also help make up for a lack of a strong team or the absence of any slots in the talent tree which would normally be filled with the hero's ideal statistics.
A good guideline for trinket upgrades is to prioritize BiS (Best-in-Slot) items that you won't be replacing in the near future, then any items with desirable stats that are less important than the iLevel of the item to be upgraded. This is especially true when an item has multiple stats that you'd like to upgrade, as it's often better to upgrade just one important stat rather than two sub-optimal ones.
Jungle players often upgrade their yellow trinket to a red trinket at the beginning of the game. Top and mid players however will pick a green or a pink ward, depending on the matchup. These choices will have a major impact on the hero's abilities to control maps.
Apart from the items listed above, players can find other trinkets in the game in the form of trophies and awards. These can be earned by completing certain milestones in the story, such as finishing a chapter's main quest or killing a certain boss. These achievements can be seen by selecting the relevant achievement in the reward tab of the hero menu.