There are several common options for crafting when Orbs are intended to be used. The usual three are Poe Chaos Orbs, Exalted Orbs and Vaal Orbs. Notably, they are all incredibly valuable to players and are commonly used for trading, therefore a player has to make sure that he cannot get a better item by using these Poe currencies to trade with other players. Sometimes a good Rare quality item can be bought with just a few Exalted Orbs of value which will often be better than spamming Chaos and Exalted Orbs on an item in the hopes of gaining the needed modifiers.
But if one cannot find the required items on Poe Trade there a few key factors to keep in mind before beginning the RNG journey of crafting in Path of Exile. One is having a strong base item. Some base items only drop in the end-game such as Steel Rings (an obvious upgrade from Iron Rings) and certain belts. Most of the time, buying a strong base from other players will be much more advantageous than using an inferior item to use lots of PoE Currency purchasable from Eldorado GG on it. Remember that high-level base will also have a high item level.
Item levels are incredibly important when crafting rare items. There are modifiers that do not appear on lower level items, or certain tiers of modifiers will not be available. Some players confuse item requirement with item level – requirements appear due to a complex system of suffixes, affixes, implicits, and item base but can be completely unrelated to item level. This hidden quality of items can be made visible by allowing full tooltips in the Options menu and by holding the Alt button while hovering over an item. Having the item level visible will make crafting with Orbs of Alchemy, Chaos Orbs, Exalted Orbs much easier.
There is one advantage of a low lvl item – it cannot roll higher tier modifiers and will have a much lower level requirement. If a player is planning on selling items on Poe Trade or leveling many alts, this can be an option. Good leveling gear is often desired by many players, and Rare quality items can fit that description (e.g., boots with movement speed modifiers). Although, this is not recommended for most players and newcomers as Chaos Orbs and other crafting currencies can be better spent trading with other players for Unique items.
Betrayal League Crafting
The Betrayal League in Path of Exile introduced new crafting mechanics. In order to gain crafting recipes, a player has to go through the questing stage and defeat all of the Forsaken Masters to unveil items and gain the ability to use Suffixes/Prefixes on the Crafting Bench.
While the Immortal Syndicate is considered extremely rippy, it can be used to a great advantage for profits. Since the unlocked crafting recipes are tied to the account instead of one character even dying is not much of an issue for future profits. There are several specific recipes that are worth a lot for those who engage in trading and want to gain a lot of Poe Chaos Orbs and Exalted Orbs from trading.
In the Trade 820 and 1 channels, players will sometimes ask for help with crafting and give a tip to the person who has unlocked the Betrayal League crafting recipes. Tips are generally from a few to dozens of valuable Chaos Orbs. For some recipes that cost Exalted Orbs, players may tip one Path of Exile Exalted Orb.
Recipes most sought after are the “Can Have Multiple Crafting Mods” and “Hits Cannot be Evaded”. Both of these cost Exalted Orbs and players will be willing to tip large amounts of Poe currency in order to gain access and add these modifiers to their items. Hits Cannot be Evaded can be gained from Vagan. A simple strategy is to buy as many unveiled Vagan items from Poe Trade and then get to work unveiling them for this modifier. Can Have Multiple Crafting Mods can only be acquired during end-game mapping as it is a set-in-stone recipe found in The Pale Court map.
