Upgrading - The Campaign

Vendors

The vendors are immediately available and can do a lot for you beyond just buying and selling items. There is basic crafting built into vendors that can make the first few acts much easier.

Vendor Basics

1. Chromatic Orb: Items with linked sockets including one of each color will sell for one chromatic.

2. Scroll of Wisdom: You need wisdoms to identify possible upgrades, or buy them from vendors. Certain other orbs can be sold for them.

3. Alteration Shard: Identified magic or higher items will sell for alteration shards.

4. Transmutation Shard: Unidentified items instead give transmute shards. Transmutes are very valuable in acts 1-3 so don’t identify everything.

Vendor Crafting

1. This recipe is really nice during the campaign if you find a few extra Quicksilver Flask. Boots with no movement speed will receive 10%, and boots with MS will have it increased by 5%.

2. The easiest way to upgrade melee weapons during the campaign. When a higher level weapon base becomes available you can add %physical damage and crafted attack speed instantly.

3. This can be nice in act 1 if no Sapphire Ring drop and you cant afford one from the vendor.

The Crafting Bench

Starting at level 12 you can use the Crafting Bench to easily add one affix to gear if it has room. Life and resistances are available right away, and allow you to upgrade consistently during the campaign. The crafts can be changed or removed at any time.

Basic Crafts

!https://www.poe-vault.com/uploads/2025/10/30/aJjdrg2vIHsiKHcehdenK8737pk2gP8yesB9izLv.png(Bench Basic Crafts!

The basic crafting options will be unlocked as you progress through the campaign and maps.

Undiscovered crafts and their locations are shown at the bottom of the list. Most are easily found, but some require running unique maps that cost a bit.

Essences

You will encounter Essence monsters early in the campaign, click three times to free and kill them.

Essences are among the best tools for upgrading early because they create rare items with one guaranteed mod. How it works and why it’s good depends on the progression of your character.

During Campaign

Don’t worry about the guaranteed mod, any essence is a potential upgrade for weaker pieces. Essences value during the campaign is creating rare items without Orb of Alchemy.

Lower-tier essences can only be used on Normal items and you won’t have enough Orb of Scouring for multiple attempts, so toss bad results and slam a different item with the next essence.

Endgame

After the campaign essences retain their value but the way you use them changes. High-level essences, especially rare ones, guarantee powerful mods and don’t require scouring each time.

The highest tier only comes from using Remnant of Corruption on monsters containing purple essences, which begin appearing in maps. With a few points invested on the atlas tree you should have enough to corrupt all of them.

• The remnant is applied to the monster itself, while still imprisoned.

If your build doesn’t need these, sell them! They are nice income while farming.

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