What items do you upgrade with the crucible mechanic?

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be upgrading with the crucible thing. Should I do white weapons or something? I don't get the strategy.

Don't apply the Crucible mechanic to weapons and other items that you have nicely configured already and wish to use for a while.

At least at lower levels, I found it common to wreck a decent piece of gear with conflicting modifications and very minimal benefit.

I've read in these forums that a scour can be used in some manner to remove the Crucible modifications, but I have not verified this and scours are not cheap when you are first starting out.

My recommendation is to avoid the Crucible game mechanics while testing out builds in this league. In a few weeks, GGG may have figured out how foobar'd the league is and then make some meaningful design updates.

The bull$hit updates thus far haven't balanced the Crucible NPCs nearly enough to warrant the deaths / time investment v. the reward.

Bump. Still wondering about how to use the crucibles.

I have been triggering the mechanic, in most zones through act VII. I just put in whatever weapon/shield I find that is appropriate for my build and see what I get. So far a lot of duds, but a couple nice ones. Current wand has a permanent frenzy and endurance charge, both of which are nice for leveling.

I don't find any harm in putting in my rare item. If the first node is a brick and you don't have a scour you'll find something else to use soon enough.

Of course you could also put in favored white bases and then craft the item once you get a tree you like. I imagine I might do this once I am further along like 80+

They are deploying a patch soon to remove all lower-tier passives with downsides from rolling.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3362856

The encounters have also been made less difficult and from streamer plays in the past 2 days you can see that's the case.