Path of Exile

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Pyros

<Silver Donator>
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You could trade alchs for wisdoms, don't know what's the going rate but it used to be 120:1 so it was worth it if you didn't want to bother. You shouldn't be IDing blues regardless unless you need alts and have wisdoms(which you don't obviously). Don't know only time I had an issue with wisdoms was back when I started and was IDing everything at low levels so I looted a lot of whites instead but that made me waste portal scrolls so not worth it. Oh also you can trade portals for ID 1:1 at the vendor.
 

Venijk

Bronze Knight of the Realm
132
7
As far as "cheap" currency you can vendor for wis scrolls, I would say:

Portal Scrolls: Vendor excess
Transmute Orbs (To ID a rare): Vendor excess
Transmute Orbs (To ID a magic): Maybe vendor excess
Armor Scraps/Whetstones: NEVER vendor

By vendoring magic items you ID'ed using wis scrolls you got from selling a transmute to vendor, you can convert somewhere around 1.75 and 3.5 transmutation orbs to an alteration orb. Comparing that "exchange rate" to straight buying an alteration from the vendor (16 transmute per 1 alt) means it's a huge waste to purchase a low level orb from the vendor. I've never seen "WTB transmute orbs" in trade chat so unless there is an underground transmute trading ring out there, I'd say the real question is how much you value a transmute orb over an alteration orb. I use tons of alterations on maps (although less now with the unid map = +30% qual bonus) so my go-to for alteration farming is killing Piety and selling every magic or rare item on the way.

Maybe I'll try to parse out what the average alteration/alch yield is from IDing a random item.

Here's the cost benefit I did for this stuff..

Armor Scraps and Whetstones

You can use armor scraps and whetstones for the ilvl60 chaos formula, 2x chaos for an ID'd set of 20% items, 3x chaos for an UNID set of 20% items.
If you use them on UNID items you run the risk of not IDing something you could actually sell, making the cost/benefit more complicated so I recommend just using your judgement there. Keep in mind you can't ID the rings, belt, or amulet you use in the formula either.

Using scraps on ID'd items with:
Average quality 10%: [40 scraps + 10 whetstones] = 2 chaos
Average quality 15%: [20 scraps + 5 whetstones] = 2 chaos

Transmutation Orbs
I'm only going to look at the cost/benefit of doing this for magic items since rares have the chaos formula and stuff making it complicated.

The two unknowns are the market value of a transmute orb and the number of shards received on average from selling an ID'd magic or rare item. You do get alch shards or a wisdom scroll shard on occasion, but for the sake of simplicity and to err on the side of a cautious recommendation I'm not going to include them.

The constants are:
.25 transmute = 1 wisdom from the vendor
UNID magic = .1 transmute from the vendor
The cost to ID via vendoring a transmute = .25 + .1 = .35 transmutes

Since I don't have solid numbers for the average vendor value of a magic item, I'm going to guess a best case scenario of 4 shards average per magic item and a worst case of 2 shards average per item.

Magic Worst case:
2 shards per item = 10 ID'd items for an alteration, 10 x 0.35 = 3.5
Sell if: 1 Alteration > 3.5 transmutes

Magic Best Case:
4 shards per item = 5 ID'd items for an alteration, 5 x 0.35 = 1.75
Sell if: 1 Alteration > 1.75 transmutes
 

Loyang_sl

shitlord
121
0
Still looking for some people to team with.

My marauder is lvl 40 now in Softcore. I have yet to die once.

add me. name is Poopsaggy
 

Hateyou

Not Great, Not Terrible
<Bronze Donator>
16,649
43,315
Suddenly having serious problems with wisdom scrolls again, was doing well at the end of cruel with them but now in merciless it's like I just don't get any. It's gotten to the point where I'm not ID'ing anything other than rares even if I think the item might be an upgrade. I'm also picking up white items that take 4 spots or less in the inventory in order to sell them for scroll fragments but it makes no difference. Gradually running out of wisdom scrolls no matter what I try. I typically run around 140% IIR, which I don't really think is that high, but perhaps I'm getting too many rares to keep up without running any IIQ (probably around 20% IIQ usually).
Get in to public Ledge/Felshrine/Docks groups. I completely ran out at one point due to alt farming, but if you do this, most people (Especially docks) don't pick up wisdom or portal scrolls which you can vendor for a wisdom. Sometimes they even skip over transmutation orbs, which you can vendor for 4 wisdom.

I probably have 2000 wis/portal scrolls atm, and I ID everything. I am actually one of those people that doesn't pick those scrolls up atm, cause I don't really have room for them.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
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Get in to public Ledge/Felshrine/Docks groups. I completely ran out at one point due to alt farming, but if you do this, most people (Especially docks) don't pick up wisdom or portal scrolls which you can vendor for a wisdom. Sometimes they even skip over transmutation orbs, which you can vendor for 4 wisdom.

I probably have 2000 wis/portal scrolls atm, and I ID everything. I am actually one of those people that doesn't pick those scrolls up atm, cause I don't really have room for them.
Ah yes that's a good advice, pub farming groups often skip portals and IDs and sometimes transmutes/alts/whetstones/scraps because they're too lazy to go back for a second or blind as shit, so you can get a large bunch, while still lvling and shit.
 

Dabamf_sl

shitlord
1,472
0
PantssParty died at lvl 49 in waterfall caves
frown.png
RIP, although I'll be playing him in softcore still. I'm a marauder DW ele cleave build and was just facerolling everything. The build is super heavy in health early on and I had even just gotten Iron Will, but fuckin freeze casters chain-froze me. My piece of shit computer was running like a slideshow too which didn't help. I guess I can't be mad really. I have two late 40s chars, my first two ever, and hadn't died yet. I never played HC on anything before and now I get why people do. I was farming felshrine way long because I was nervous about Vaal. Now it doesn't matter and I'll fight anything and only care if it's so hard that I die repeatedly. Kinda takes the tension away

re: wisdom, why are you IDing blues? Past like level 20 on your first character, they are almost never useful.
 

Deruvian

Lord Nagafen Raider
659
123
Just killed merc piety in HC last night, finished the entire game 1-67 solo. Also, god knows how, managed to get clipped with a merc vaal slam and lived to tell the tale. He was enfeebled and I had fat fingered my granite pot of iron skin a second before it happened, did about 3700 or so on me. I have heard reports of it doing far more damage than that, so I'm sort of confused as to how that was possible.
 

Obsidian

<Bronze Donator>
755
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PantssParty died at lvl 49 in waterfall caves
frown.png
RIP, although I'll be playing him in softcore still. I'm a marauder DW ele cleave build and was just facerolling everything. The build is super heavy in health early on and I had even just gotten Iron Will, but fuckin freeze casters chain-froze me. My piece of shit computer was running like a slideshow too which didn't help. I guess I can't be mad really. I have two late 40s chars, my first two ever, and hadn't died yet. I never played HC on anything before and now I get why people do. I was farming felshrine way long because I was nervous about Vaal. Now it doesn't matter and I'll fight anything and only care if it's so hard that I die repeatedly. Kinda takes the tension away

re: wisdom, why are you IDing blues? Past like level 20 on your first character, they are almost never useful.
I guess my luck is just terrible, 57 and I'm still wearing at least 1 blue (primarily for socket reasons). I seem to have bad luck with getting upgrades that have acceptable sockets, have quite a few rares in my stash that are big stat upgrades from what I wear but break down my skill link setups.
 

Crazily

N00b
301
0
Just killed merc piety in HC last night, finished the entire game 1-67 solo. Also, god knows how, managed to get clipped with a merc vaal slam and lived to tell the tale. He was enfeebled and I had fat fingered my granite pot of iron skin a second before it happened, did about 3700 or so on me. I have heard reports of it doing far more damage than that, so I'm sort of confused as to how that was possible.
Damn, I am 65, 2910 HP and about to try Merciless Vaal.......
 

Dabamf_sl

shitlord
1,472
0
I guess my luck is just terrible, 57 and I'm still wearing at least 1 blue (primarily for socket reasons). I seem to have bad luck with getting upgrades that have acceptable sockets, have quite a few rares in my stash that are big stat upgrades from what I wear but break down my skill link setups.
Are we talking about a 5L blue? That makes sense to me, but otherwise don't you have jewelers & chrom orbs to try and modify your good rares for the proper sockets? Or hell at least roll the blue to good stats & upgrade it to a rare

I am less depressed about dying when people talk about merciless. Seems like it's just impossible for your first playthrough to not die in merciless. Plus my computer sucks and I take some slams just because it's jerky.
 

Venijk

Bronze Knight of the Realm
132
7
I guess my luck is just terrible, 57 and I'm still wearing at least 1 blue (primarily for socket reasons). I seem to have bad luck with getting upgrades that have acceptable sockets, have quite a few rares in my stash that are big stat upgrades from what I wear but break down my skill link setups.
Scour + Alch.

Once you get to lvl70+ that 15% experience loss can be hours of progress. That combined with trying to do the hardest maps you can handle and a reasonable amount of the tension returns.
 
6,216
8
game is insanely laggy for me lately. i thought i could ignore it, but legit enemies stop attacking, none of my attacks connect, then suddenly im teleported to the spot i was in 10-15 seconds prior and dead.
 

DMK_sl

shitlord
1,600
0
Does anyone else feel you don't upgrade gear/find better gear enough in this game? I'm stuck with the same gear for at least 4-5 levels minimum... It's really starting to frustrate me. Thoughts?


Also I'm a level 29 marauder and I find magic owns me. I feel as though I'm slowly getting more and more owned by mobs.. Is that due to Marauders being weaker mid-game or just the game ramping up in difficulty?
 

Dabamf_sl

shitlord
1,472
0
Your class is irrelevant. Your build is all that matters. Post your build if you want someone to critique it. Also, if magic is owning you, get resists. That's what they're there for
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,219
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And gear not upgrading very often?
Depends on the quality of the gear you initially find. A well rolled lvl 30 item will last you until 60 in a lot of cases. A decent one can be replaced by a blue you roll yourself or buy from someone for a low price 10-15levels later. There's no need to upgrade your gear every 3levels or whatever. When I make rerolls I generally don't even upgrade any of my gear until lvl 40, granted a bunch of it is uniques and shit for leveling purposes but gear is fairly irrelevant until cruel act2-3 imo.
 

Deruvian

Lord Nagafen Raider
659
123
I think the problem is that you can ride almost any build into the high 20s low 30s and have the appearance of being well built. I know when I first started, I'd end up having some shitty build that would inevitably end up using molten shell as a crutch more and more until I felt essentially useless unless I was spamming it. There are of course some builds that are late bloomers (spork or summoner) and some, like cleave, that scale pretty linearly as long as you have really good gear the entire time.

The gear thing is really a factor of your newness to the game. Upgrading every handful of levels isn't totally unusual if you have no items banked in the stash. After a few play throughs, you'll find it be comes a lot smoother as you save the half decent things you find while leveling. RNG always plays a factor, but I've found that adding a fair amount of increase item rarity, like 50% or so, really helped increase the rate in which I was finding rares off of mobs. At your level, you're probably running into a bit of a gear check at the crematorium, where if you don't have enough HP, low fire resists and lightning resist can easily get you killed.
 

DMK_sl

shitlord
1,600
0
I've pretty much invested all my points into strength and specialized in 2h with a few accuracy points and a few points in +life. Damn that sucks you don't really find upgrades that often. That's why I enjoy playing these games for the constant loot dropping and feel of progression that way as well as leveling. Kind of put a dampener on things for me with PoE. I get bored if I'm not finding new cool items.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
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There's more than one slot. What I'm saying is you won't find an entire set of gear every other level. You will generally replace one slot every 20-30mins while lvling, but some pieces will stay the same for 10-20 levels fairly often if they're good.