Path of Exile Currency Basic Guide
In Path of Exile, various currency items replaced single currency, all automatically adjusted by the market, therefore, the inflation will not appear. We split these currency items into three kinds: Common Currency items, Valuable Currency items, and Expensive Currency items. For beginners, these could understand which currency items would be much better for using when it comes to craft or redeem in the future. For more detailed info., please go to the wiki.
Common Currency items
We divided poe currency into three groups. The first of these is the common currency, which the player will meet from the very first minutes of the game, and which can be used for low-level crafting and ease of levelling.
On the first line are two types of scrolls – Wisdom and Portal. The first serves to unidentify items, and the second creates a portal to town, which is clear from their descriptions.
Then in the second line are the orbs that players use to craft starting items.
Orb of Transmutation adds 1-2 new modifiers to normal equipment (white ones) and the item becomes magic rarity (blue).
You can also use Orb of Chance to upgrade normal equipment – as a result, most likely there will be a magic item, but maybe you are lucky and get rare or even unique!
Orb of Alteration re-rolls modifiers on magic equipment.
Blessed Orb re-rolls values of the implicit modifiers (under the requirements within two horizontal lines, commonly found on rings, amulets and belts).
The third line is the orbs that improve the quality of items. In Path of Exile, the maximum quality that can be obtained on an item using these orbs is 20%.
Blacksmith’s Whetstone improves the quality of weapons, Armourer’s Scrap – armour, and Glassblower’s Bauble – quality of a flask.
The latter is Engineer’s Orb, it improves the quality of a strongbox, allowing you to get a big reward.
The next line contains the orbs that affect sockets on a weapon or armour.
Chromatic Orb re-rolls the colour, Jeweller’s Orb randomizes the number of sockets and the last one, Orb of Binding is quite useful at the beginning of the game. It will upgrade the normal item to a rare one and add up to four linked sockets (except shields and one hand weapons because they can only have up to 3 sockets max).
The last 2 currency items are Silver Coin and Perandus Coin. They are not used for crafting, but serve as the currency for NPCs. Silver Coin can be exchanged for prophecies with Navali (you will meet her in the first act at The Climb) and after you help her, she will be in the city. Perandus Coin can be used to trade for items with Cadiro Perandus. It is much more difficult to meet him, he appears only on maps with Perandus mod, at the very end of the game.
All of the above currency items are rarely used in poe trade currency, they are usually sold in bulk – several hundred at once, and Perandus Coin in general by thousands. Therefore, spending a few dozen of these orbs to craft the necessary equipment at the beginning of the game will be a good solution.
Valuable Currency items
This category contains orbs which fall much less frequently than those from the previous group. They are very often used by high-level players and therefore the demand for them is always high. The best solution is to leave them for crafting end-game equipment and maps or sell to other players.
The first line contains the best-selling orbs, the demand for which is always very high in the game. Orb of Alchemy upgrades normal item to rare, often used for crafting maps or end-game equipment.
Orb of Fusing re-rolls the links between sockets. You can spend around one thousand orbs to get 6 sockets linked on one item so they are always in demand.
Orb of Scouring removes all modifiers from a magic or rare item and convert it to normal rarity. Vaal Orb corrupts an item, adding new modifiers or even breaking the item because regardless of the result, the item can no longer be modified by any other currency. These two orbs are used by players to craft and get the top items in the game.
In the second line are the orbs that players may need, but they do not fall often. In this regard, there is still a demand for them, but they are unlikely to be sold at a good cost, as the previous orbs. Regal Orb upgrades magic equipment to rare, adding one new modifier. Orb of Regret can be used to gain one passive skill respec point. They will be useful in order to redistribute skill points in the passive tree but do not forget that for quests you can get up to 20 free respec points. Gemcutter’s Prism improves the quality of a gem. Gem quality enhances the characteristics of the gem, whether active skill or support. Prior to opening the recipe, 20% quality gem (selling level 20 gem with one Gemcutter’s Prism to any vendor will give you the same gem with 20% quality but reduced its level to 1), Gemcutter’s Prism was much more expensive.
In the last two lines are currency items that are used to craft maps – end-game content in the game. Cartographer’s Chisel improves the quality of a map. Orb of Horizons allows you to replace one map with another but within the same shooting range. Harbinger’s Orb replaces the map with another, while the card becomes one dash higher.
The last line is sextants. This is a special kind of currency item that adds special modifier to all the maps of the same region. They come in three types – Simple Sextant, Prime Sextant and Awakened Sextant. The higher the quality of Sextant, the better modifiers it gives. We advise you to use them if it is easy for your character to clear a high shooting range (10+) rare maps in order to maximize the received loot on the map.
Expensive Currency items
These are orbs that are used as currency in trade with other players, or simply orbs, the cost of which is much higher than the rest and they very rarely come across to players.
In the first line are Chaos Orb and Exalted Orb. These are the two main orbs for which you can buy poe currency or sell almost any item in the game. They are very rarely used in the craft. Chaos Orb re-rolls modifiers on a rare item, and it’s often cheaper to use a bunch of Orb of Scouring with Orb of Alchemy. Exalted Orb adds a new random modifier to a rare item (provided that there can be a maximum of 6 – 3 Prefix and 3 Suffix maximum). For Exalted Orb, one usually sell and buy expensive items, because the cost of this orb is several dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of Chaos Orbs, depending on the league. Therefore, we recommend exchanging Exalted Orb for the desired item or Chaos Orbs.
The last three orbs can be sold for a dozen Chaos Orbs. Orb of Annulment is needed for crafting, as it allows to remove a random modifier from a magic or rare item. Ancient Orb reforge a unique item as another of the same item class, it is used to get expensive League-specific unique items. Divine Orb re-rolls values of all explicit modifiers on equipment, whether rare or unique.
We should also talk about the Mirror of Kalandra. This is one of the rarest and most expensive items in the game. To drops to a very rare number of players and if you are one of them you are fabulously rich! One Mirror costs hundreds of Exalted Orbs, even a Mirror Shard (after collecting 20 shards you get Mirror of Kalandra) costs a lot.