[WIP Belton] The PoEconomist: Jewel Crafting For Profit

Why Craft Jewels?

Jewels provide some of the best late game scale-ability for builds. They are always in demand, highly customizable, and luckily for the savvy crafter- commonly misunderstood! Moreover, unlike traditional rare items in Path of Exile, Jewels only have 4 possible affixes, making the "perfect" jewel much more obtainable for the average player. Jewels are also often seen as secondary in the gearing process to build enabling uniques, and commonly sought after rare items such as high Energy Shield gear. This means that they are often some of the last things that players will optimize within their build. Particularly in temporary leagues, this is a perfect recipe for investing into an "appreciating asset"- that is to say something that implicitly gains value over time simply by virtue of its function.

What Jewel Base Should I Craft?

While each base has mods that are unique to their respective jewel type, warranting consideration for use depending on your build-- for the purposes of this guide we are focusing on crafting for profit- and in that respect there is a clear cut winner- the cobalt jewel.

Cobalt Jewels are the only base type that are able to roll spell related mods such as Spell Damage and Cast speed. Moreover, they are the only base that is able to roll energy shield %-- while still being able to roll life %, physical damage, attack speed, etc. This means that cobalt jewels are the only "universal" base type-- allowing for greater flexibility in the crafting process.

Furthermore, the vast majority of builds that are life based are heavily reliant on scaling their Health pool through life %. This is especially the case on jewels, as they provide 7% life as an affix, whereas the typical life % node on the tree is only 5%. Energy shield based classes on the other hand, have an abundance of Energy shield % scaling due to intelligence granting 1% per 5 int, the 20% energy shield mods available on rings and amulets, and generally more efficient nodes on the tree. This is significant to us because it means that ES based builds (many of whom will be focusing on cobalt jewel related mods) can be more liberal with their affix choices on jewels-- it is not uncommon to see ES builds using 3 modded jewels that are dmg/dmg/dmg as opposed to life based builds which will almost always prioritize life/dmg/dmg. Life based builds are more likely to benefit from many of the mods that are available on both Crimson and Viridian Jewels, and therefore their prices can suffer if they do not have the life % roll. This isn't the case with Cobalt Jewels, and it is one of the core reasons why we select only them for crafting.

Chaos Spam or Alterations and Regals?


In short, alts and regals. Every. Single. Time. No debate.

To extrapolate- jewels have massive affix pools that are in many cases conflicting with one another. The control afforded by using alterations combined with their cheap cost relative to chaos means that you are going to entering the regaling phase with at least 2 cohesive and collaborative affixes. While the regal is still somewhat of a "hail mary"-- it is a calculable risk and one which can be accounted for over time and a large enough sample size, and with informed decisions at the alteration and augment phase- can be swayed to your favour. Chaos Spamming, while it can pay off in the short term, will inevitably be a net negative outcome compared to alt/regaling.
Furthermore, typical rare items have 6 mods, whereas jewels only have 4. Chaos spamming a Vaal Regalia, for example, could end up saving you alot of time and stress if you got lucky and hit a high ES roll and a bunch of Resistances or Intelligence--- rolls that would have otherwise needed to be exalted onto that item multiple times had you opted to alteration craft. However, since jewels only have 4 mods- you are only ever going to need to exalt a jewel once, and unlike many other pieces of gear, jewels will typically have numerous favourable outcomes at this stage.

yo belton it might also be an idea to make a guide about which crafting mods you shouldnt reroll and the ones you should reroll