Alchemy Orb and Item levels

I bought a bunch of alchemy orbs so that I could alch the rings and belts I get from mapping.

I was alching anything over ilvl70 but then someone told me I should only be alching ilvl77+

Is that true? If so, why?

I'm not finding very many ilvl77 items so I don't think I'll get opportunities to alch much. Right now I'm mostly doing lvl72-74 maps.

Please let me know what the best way is to get value out of my alchemy orbs. Thanks!

great community we have here :(

Item level. Area zone, blue +1, rare/unique +2. So in a level 75 map. Items dropped by a rare or unique( boss) will be 77. Item mods are item level restricted. The mods and the required lvl are listed on wiki I think. 77 used to be for some mods the highest tier but 2.0 I think it is higher. Develop manifesto /patch notes ....can'you recall which one mentioned it. But the wiki is propably updated by now

absolute max affix is now 84, but not all items need to be there.

Depending on what stats your after, you could go quite a bit lower (its only an alch after all).

have a look at the wiki and find the affixes your looking for, then figure out what items you should be alching. Also ask yourself if you actually need to top T1 affix level, or if the next one down would suffice.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Item_affix

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1290356