Currency creation and trading

Trading
Trading is core Path of Exile feature, helping players exchange items. Currency is item, used as universal trading equivalent. For example, a player prefer using swords, but found a good staff. He can trade the staff for some currency, then trade the currency for a good sword. Traditional Path of Exile currencies are Chaos orbs and Exalted orbs.

Exact prices of items change non-stop every minute, based on supply, demand, popularity, and game updates.

Players sell items in trade chat, trade forums and Premium Stash Tabs. Most popular method is selling in public stash tabs and finding items in trade-index sites like POE.Trade or official Path of Exile Trade.

How many currency is needed
Path of Exile is a flexible game with a ton of features. Players do not need trading at all to beat the game. In fact there is solo self found game mode, where trading items with other players is disabled.

However, trading allows you to use items, you did not find by yourself, and help other players with items they may want. Many players create “build guides” for other players, including list of gear, they supposed to buy on market.

Also trading could be a fun meta-game itself for a person.

Many players like to buy a six-linked items or fusing orbs, needed to create six-linked items. Other players buy rare items, suitable for their characters. Some build guides on official forum require using one or several specific unique items.

For example, energy shield based character builds require ether to find items with high energy shield or trade currency for them with other players.

Again, players do not need to be involved in trading. It is just popular game feature, you can have fun with.

Efficiency
The basic idea of making currency is trading time. Players always spend time to make currency. Every action in the game takes time: killing monsters, picking loot, movement, porting to map and back, trading with vendors and other players, putting items in stash. So players try to focus on making more currency in limited time: hour, evening, week end. Basic “currency per time” increase relies on increasing value of actions: value of maps, value of trade sessions, value of loot management. Trading 1 chaos orb for 2 fusing is less value, then trading 10 chaos for 20 fusing in the same time, spent for act of trading.

Methods of increasing map value:
 * Crafting maps to increase pack size, item quantity and item quality.
 * Using prophecy to add more monsters.
 * Spending sextants to add monsters to maps.
 * Doing master missions to add monsters to maps.

Another way to get more value per hour is improving map crear time:
 * Increasing character AOE and single target damage.
 * Using movement skills.
 * Increasing movement speed.
 * Reducing time spent on collecting loot, interacting with map objects, backtracking.
 * Reducing number of teleports to hideout or town.
 * Reducing time spent in hideout or town.

Currency drop
To be involved in trading currency should be created in game. A lucky player can get more exalted orbs from trading than from killing monsters, but where this currency came from at the very beginning? A lot of currency is created by killing monsters. Players kill a lot of monsters every day. Some players have a goal to reach certain character level by killing enough monsters. Other players target farm specific items by killing a lot of monsters. Also, there are achievements and challenges, involving a lot of monster kills. All of that generates currency.

Popular method to improve value of collecting currency from monster kills is using drop filter to highlight currency items, highlight high-value items, and completely hide low-value drops. Picking less items is spending less time to get currency. Less time per currency is more currency in a time period.

Arcanist's Strongbox drops currency when opened. Some players prefer to craft it before opening, to increase item quantity.

Vendor recipes
Vendor recipe system can be used to make currency. Here are some examples: It is personal preference whether collecting and vendor trading items for currency worth spending time in terms of efficiency and currency per hour.
 * All rare item set for chaos orb.
 * Six socketed item for 7x jeweler’s orbs.
 * Six linked item for divine orb.
 * Linked red, green and blue socketed item for chromatic orb.
 * Set of 40% total quality gems for gemcutter’s prism.

Divination cards
Some Divination cards are used for direct currency generation without trading with other players. Collect full stack of the divination card and trade it for currency with Tasuni or Navali.

List of divination cards granting currency

Loreweave
Loreweave is another vendor recipe. Assuming a player kill a lot of monsters, he finds many unique rings. Consider saving 60 unneeded unique rings to vendor trade them for Loreweave. Then selling it to other players. Perform trade search to find Loreweave price. Is it worth time to pick and collect 60 rings? Also, remember, you can vendor unique items for alchemy shards.

Six Linked Socketed Items
Six-linked item can be sold to vendor for a divine orb. So it is minimum price for any six-linked item on the market. Some items players value a lot more, if they have good stats, because six-linked item provides opportunity to increase active skill damage with five support gems. Basic famous six-link item is Tabula Rasa. You can get it as unique item drop, divination cards Humility and Vanity, or prophecy Cleanser of Sins. Humility is a common drop in Waterways map and Channel map.

Delve
Delve means exploring Azurite Mine.

Finding loot in delve requires sulphite. It is reward for Niko map missions. Players get one Niko mission for free every day. Killing map bosses has a chance to reward another Niko mission. Using sulphite scarabs adds Niko mission to maps. And there is a chance for random Niko mission spawn on map, when a player opens it without scarabs or master mission choice. Once enough sulphite is accumulated, players can start delving.

There are several ways to get currency from delve, ether by direct drop or trading valuable items with other players. Direct method and farming azurite is good for beginners, because they can do it on any comfortable depth level without much skill and risk.

Direct currency
There are currency nodes with currency icons and description. Just travel there and collect reward. Also any node has a chance to reward currency for clearing all monsters, just like on maps. Special nodes, like Vaal Outpost, have currency chests. So it may be worth to check as well.

Azurite
Players need to farm azurite to improve their character’s stats in delve, like darkness resistance. However, it is possible to trade azurite for resonators with Niko. Check resonators price on market. Players may wish to buy them in packs for crafting. If it is profitable enough, target farm azurite nodes in delve, convert it to resonators and sell it on market

Fossils
It is advanced and usually more profitable method. Players tend to buy many fossils on the market in large packs. So it is worth farming them in delve. There are nodes with fossils explicitly visible on delve map, but they are rare. More common way to find fossils is to explore darkness in side passages. Use flares to avoid darkness and blow walls with dynamite. Such side passages with fossils behind walls is common in long delve corridors.

This method is advanced and require practice with understanding delve layouts. Azurite mine map is a grid. All grid points contains something, ether marked on the map, or not. If the map has empty space in place of supposed node, and there is long corridor next to it, there must be hidden something there behind a wall.

Immortal Syndicate
Players interact with Immortal Syndicate members by doing Jun missions. One mission is offered daily. There is a change to get another Jun mission as reward for killing map bosses. And there is a chance for random Jun mission spawn on map, if there are no other master missions in it.

If a player wants to specifically find master missions on maps, he can run many maps with only fast boss kills. There is a good chance master mission will spawn for map opening or boss killing.

There are several different approaches to organize Jun’s syndicate “map”. They all have pro’s and con’s. Learning them, understanding and implementing then requires advanced game experience and separate guides.

Beginner players do not have to involve with all syndicate manipulating details. Here is basics. Choose several members with good rewards. Try to increase their ranks and promote to branch leadership. Run safehouse for rewards. Sell rewards to other players. Choosing members is based on rewards. Refer to Immortal Syndicate page. Here is some high market demand ones: Also many other syndicate members provide chests with different scarabs. Check scarab prices on Trade.
 * It That Fled in Research provides craft to upgrade breachstones.
 * Tora in Research provides craft to level up gems.
 * Cameria in Intervention provides chests with sulphite scarabs.
 * Vagan in Intervention provides chests with legion scarabs.

Bestiary
Bestiary is another master mission mechanics. It rewards players with beasts in menagerie. You can itemize them with Bestiary Orbs and sell to other players. Beast master is Einhar.

There are several different ways to get Einhar’s mission: daily mission, killing map boss, opening a map with no other missions, and using a bestiary scarab.

Players help Einar to capture beasts by reducing enemy HP to minimum. Then you can visit Menagerie, buy bestiary orb, find your beast, itemize it, and sell to other players. Also some beast generate currency buy killing in arena directly.

Actual market prices are based on popularity and change with time and game updates. Usually players like to buy beasts for crafting and for opening portals to bestiary bosses. Here is some examples to check prices:
 * Farric Ape - unique belt
 * Craicic Squid - unique jewel
 * Farric Taurus - unique map
 * Craicic Chimeral - imprint
 * Farric Pit Hound - level 21 gem
 * Saqawine Vulture - six linked rare armour
 * Farric Lynx Alpha - Add a Suffix, Remove a Prefix
 * Farric Wolf Alpha - Add a Prefix, Remove a Suffix
 * Farric Tiger Alpha - Farrul's Den Portal
 * Saqawine Rhex - Saqawal's Roost Portal
 * Fenumal Hybrid Arachnid - Fenumus' Lair Portal
 * Craicic Spider Crab - Craiceann's Cove Portal

Atzoatl
The Temple of Atzoatl is a temple with many rooms.

Alva will open portals to it after a player completes enough missions for her. Minimum is 4 missions, 3 incursions each, 12 incursions total. Same room does not have second incursion on the same map, so some players prefer to delay Alva quests to manipulate room incursion probabilities. Alva missions are generated every day, and randomly by killing map bosses or opening maps without missions.

If nothing else, Alva provides a lot of additional monsters on each map, which has Alva mission. It increased total quantity of item drops, including currency. Atzoatl itself is a free map.

Direct currency rooms are: Vault, Treasure and Wealth of Vaal. Some players prefer target farm other room for a small chance of very valuable reward.


 * Hall of Offerings and Apex of Ascension - old league unique items
 * Locus of Corruption - double-corrupted items
 * Doryani's Institute - double-corrupted gems
 * Museum of Artifacts - old league unique items
 * Throne of Atziri - Atziri (endgame boss)
 * Atlas of Worlds - maps
 * Court of Sealed Death - strongboxes
 * Hall of Mettle, Hall of Heroes, Hall of Legends - legion encounter

Legion
Legion is league mechanics included in core Path of Exile. Sometimes players meet black obelisks. Those are Timeless Monoliths. After activating they start Legion encounter. There are several ways to generate a timeless monolith:
 * They have a 10% chance to spawn in a map
 * As a Delve node in the Azurite Mine
 * As a room in The Temple of Atzoatl (the Hall of Mettle room and its upgraded versions).
 * As a sextant affix
 * As a Legion scarab

Some legion monsters and chests with currency icons drop currency directly. Common reward for each legion encounter is timeless splinters. Collect 100 splinters to assemble an timeless emblem. This emblems usually are in high demand on market.

Legion generals from rare legion encounters can drop unique legion items, some of which sell well on market. Check prices of unique items of Legion league.

Legion encounters can randomly reward players with incubators. They can be sold well to other players. Check market prices. Fine incubators and Ornate incubators generate currency directly. Other popular incubators are:
 * Geomancer's Incubator - six linked item (can be traded for divine orb value).
 * Thaumaturge's Incubator - high level gem
 * Time-Lost Incubator - old league unique item
 * Foreboding Incubator - valuable currency shards
 * Skittering Incubator - scarab

Blight
You will meet Blight encounters on maps. After successful completing blight encounter players are rewarded with chests of items. Common blight rewards are oils and blighted maps. Blighted maps are just a giant blight encounters. You can sell blighted maps for other players. They usually have a relative high cost. If player are capable of doing blighted map successfully, they reward with very many blight chests. Some blight reward chests drop currency directly.

Upgrade oils with 3-to-1 vendor recipe until you get good enough oil, worth spending time trading. Oils are used in augmenting amulets, rings and blighted maps. Check prices of the following oils:
 * Opalescent Oil
 * Silver Oil
 * Golden Oil

Metamorph
Players find metamorph encounters on maps. It involves collecting monster organs and assembling metamorphs, boss-like enemies. Different organs have different rewards. There are direct currency reward options and rewards from other leagues: oils, incubators, scarabs, fossils.

Metamorphs, killed in maps, while having full difficulty bar, drops unique organs of map bosses. Assembly 5 different Metamorph organs to fight metamorph boss in Tane Lab. Those have the same metamorph rewards with more chances to be more valuable. Some players just stack all 5 organs with several currency reward mods.

Catalysts are the special metamorth legue rewards, used to increase jewelry quality. Players can sell catalysts to other players.

Delirium
Players find Delirium mirrors at the beginning of maps with a small chance. After going through the mirror, delirium empowers existing and add new monsters to the map. Kill as many as possible. The reward type is shown during the encounter. There is direct currency reward, looking as chaos orb sign. Previous league rewards is also possible to find in delirium: oils, incubators, scarabs, fossils.

Harvest
Harvest is a mechanic, allowing players to grow plants in the personal groves. Those plants have a valuable craft-like rewards. Seeds to plant are found in seed caches on maps. Some players may want to purchase specific seeds in large packs on market. So it may be worth collecting seeds on your maps for trading.

Tier 2 - tier 4 seeds are collected from plants in grove and could be traded as well.

Leveling Gems
Some players level gems in weapon switch to sell on market. The rarest and the most valuable are awakened gems. But they are hard to find for most beginner players. Drop-only gems may be easier option to start with.

List of drop-only gems

Check the price of level 3 Enlighten Support and Empower Support on Trade site, for example.

To improve leveling process increase quality of drop-only gems with Gemcutter's Prism and use Tora reward in immortal syndicate research.

Labyrinth
Players must complete The Lord's Labyrinth to progress in ascendancy tree of their characters.

Izaro's Treasure at the end has a chance to give multiple currency items. Also some assorted chests in labyrinth itself drops currency as well: Labyrinth Trove, Emperor's Trove, Emperor's Treasury, Emperor's Vault.

The endgame Eternal Labyrinth was reported for giving better currency rewards.

Endgame bosses
Killing bosses for loot is a natural popular concept of all RPG games, including Path of Exile.

Refer to endgame part of List of unique monsters.