Dreading the unveil grind in 3.8? Consider skipping it [analysis]

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tl;dr: If you make less than 50-100exa per league (which is 99+% of the playerbase), you should not unveil a single item. Sell your veiled items in bulk instead, and use that currency to buy pre-crafted items -- and a lot else besides!

I personally followed this strategy in 3.7, and I can say that it massively improved my experience in Legion.

Be aware that the following only applies to Veiled mods. Normal benchcraft mods from story progression, plaques in boss encounters, etc., are completely 100% worth getting, since they are effectively free or negligibly cheap.

Also, for most of the following, I will exclude Master-specific affixes such as Vagan's "hits cannot be evaded" mod. I'll deal with these at the end.

So, you need to unveil a lot of items to get a complete bench. According to the wiki and some math, it requires a minimum of 1735 unveils before you have a complete master bench. Not everyone needs every basic unveil mod, so let's be really conservative and say that you only need to unveil 500 items before you have the mods you personally need.

Then, think about this: How much does it cost you to unveil 500 items? Of course, it costs the time and tedium. It also costs some amount of currency because you could have sold those unveils instead. The market for unveiled items is very active in my experience, and it is easy to bulk-sell veiled items for 3c each. They can even go for 5c or higher, but I will use 3c.

If you need 500 unveils to 'complete' your bench, and each unveil is -3c, then the entire unveil process costs about 1500c total, or between 10-15 exalts depending on what point in the league we're talking. The cost is actually higher, because you're giving up on the currency immediately for a payoff in the future (and future payoffs are discounted against present gains) but we will leave that aside.

So, the cost of having a bench that allows you to craft Veiled mods onto your own items is around 10 exalts. Now, how many times are you, as a player, going to use those veiled mods? Probably for a lot of players, the answer is 5-10 times. In that case, you're paying 1-2ex per item just for the Veiled mods on each of those items. If you're willing to pay 2ex for a single benchcrafted mod on an item, then that item is surely worth 5-10ex. If your build is full of 5-10ex items, then it is probably a 50-100ex build.

Putting it another way, if you have 10ex to spend on single mods on five of your items, then the other five items are, again, probably worth at least 50-100ex.

We can also look at the price of crafting services, compared to crafting your items. From what I gather, the most reputable crafter charges ~50c per craft. So if it costs 10ex to unlock the basic mods on the crafting bench, then this implies that you should be crafting at least 30 items before your investment breaks even with crafting services. If you can find a cheaper crafter whom you trust, then you may need to craft many more items on your own before unveiling is a good investment.

Remember, this is all for basic benchcrafting mods such as +int/%quality, not including master-specific items like +2 support gems. Let's talk about master-specific mods now. It won't take long, because the conclusions are obvious.

Someone please correct me if this is a bogus figure, but it seems like master-specific veiled items can sell for upwards of 50c each. Now, let's assume it takes 20 master-specific veiled items before you get your desired crafting mod (again, someone with more experience can chime in on this). That is an expenditure of 1000c, or ~7-10exa. That is 7-10exa for the ability to craft a single master-specific modifier, not counting the bench fee itself. Unless you are crafting these items to sell, there is next to no chance you should unveil any of your own master-specific items. It would take tens or hundreds of crafted items before that investment would pay itself back.

So, to recap: Unlocking the basic mods on your crafting bench carries a cost of >10exa. If you are crafting items for your own use and not to resell, it is very unlikely that this is a worthwhile investment from a currency perspective. For master-specific modifiers, this is even more extreme, and almost no-one should be unveiling these items for themselves at the current going rates.

Instead of unveiling your own items, consider chucking the generic veileds in a 3c dump tab, and individually pricing the master-veiled items. This way, you can save a lot of time and headache, and make plenty of currency besides. I did this in 3.7 and had no regrets at any point.

Disclaimer: If too many people adopt this strategy, then the market for veiled items will tank. But I doubt a single reddit post would have that much influence.

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Buyers haven't learned or reacted to the fact that ilvl 82+ veiled items are much, much more unveil XP than ilvl 68 ones. (The breakpoint might be 81, I need to research this)

You can consider selling items that are lower ilvl and buying higher ones if you do want the unveils.

Edit: Checked, the magic number is indeed 81. This was true for claws, gloves and chests (didn't check all slots). So that's tier 12 maps.

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Cheydinhal wrote:

Bit of a newbie question....

But the whole point of this thread is that you will sell the items you find from betrayal bosses and dont unveil them, but sell them for 3c each as they are unveiled?

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Exile009 wrote:

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tl;dr: Delicious knowledge.

Source:- https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/cvzuc1/dreading_the_unveil_grind_in_38_consider_skipping/

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Hasunic wrote:

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Cheydinhal wrote:

Bit of a newbie question....

But the whole point of this thread is that you will sell the items you find from betrayal bosses and dont unveil them, but sell them for 3c each as they are unveiled?

Some of the mods regular mods are 1-5 c, but vagan, catarina and stuff like that can be sold for 30-50 c depending on the time of the league and the number of items for sale.

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Cheydinhal wrote:

Sorry I still dont get it, i feel dumb haha

You say some stuff like vagan catarina and such can be sold for 30 c each piece...but you dont know the veiled stats you get until after you unveil it....sorry this must sound really dumb, but I just pick up unveil and npc those items and normally just use it to craft, if you happen to get any beneficial as a stat out of those veiled....