Early leveling gear is just awful.

"

Ashgar77#6123 wrote:

I'm level 21 on my Monk and still wearing some level 4 and a couple of level 12 rares. I cannot find anything new and not without lack of trying as I have spent several hours farming.

"

HaxorDoge#8588 wrote:

You need to check in-game vendors in town each time you level up.

Why? - Because their stock refreshes each time you level up and vendors is your best bet in terms of getting reliable gear upgrades if you do not want to engage with trading. They are legit selling good gear from time to time.

And trading is your best way to gear-up and progress through the game right now, unless you are able to dedicate 8 hrs/day to grind on your own as if it is a full-time job.

Since "crafting system" is a slot machine and effectively non-existent, you are better off spending any orbs you find on trading website (because even for 1 Exalted you can get pretty decent leveling gear), rather than wasting it on slot machine and hoping that it will result in anything useful.

You heard that exactly right: - Using your orbs for any purpose other than trading is a complete loss and waste of currency unless you deliberately play Solo Self-Found mode.

The only orbs that you can safely waste because they are not worth anything - are Orb of Transmutation and Orb of Augmentation. They are very common, they are worth nothing, and this is your only way to experiment with slot machine hoping to get at least 2 decent affixes when upgrading white base items. Every other kind of currency is better off to be converted into Exalted/Divine and used exclusively in trading.

Another thing that will greatly help you is to use Golden Rings/Amulets all the time even if they have trash stats on them - they always come with Magic Find bonus, and trust me that even having 10-20% of Increased Rarity of Items Found versus having 0% Magic Find is a day and night in terms of quantity and quality of drops. And having Magic Find on any other gear pieces is very strong too, it is just that Rings/Amulets are easiest to get.

This is how it is as of today.

"

Ashgar77#6123 wrote:

The ring/amulet info is very helpful, thank you. I'll be trying to work on those then to see if that helps.

I do check vendors every time I level and it's almost always just garbage or I get some item that has an obscene stat requirement I'm nowhere close to obtaining. I hoped to avoid doing the whole trading part as it's very tedious and very difficult at times to even get ahold of the person you want to trade with.

"

https://poe2db.tw/us/Unique_item

"

HaxorDoge#8588 wrote:

"

Ashgar77#6123 wrote:

The ring/amulet info is very helpful, thank you. I'll be trying to work on those then to see if that helps.

I do check vendors every time I level and it's almost always just garbage or I get some item that has an obscene stat requirement I'm nowhere close to obtaining. I hoped to avoid doing the whole trading part as it's very tedious and very difficult at times to even get ahold of the person you want to trade with.

With trading - yeah, it is what it is. General rule of a thumb - if you don't get the invite within 1 minute, then it is generally not worth to wait for that item during leveling and you can just move on.


With Monk all you really should care about during leveling is your weapon - just look for Phys Damage + Phys Damage % as your base filter. Then, within the relative price section select Exalted orbs, and set maximum price to 1-2. And from the list just sort it by weapon DPS, and just buy whatever is the best one you can afford. Added elemental damage on weapon is good - but only buy those if they are within your price range.

Once you got your weapon - add 2 sockets into it and throw in 2 Iron Runes with +20% Phys Dmg each. Thats it - now you are all set for next 10-15 levels or so. On new characters I aim for good weapons at lvl 1-6 / 10-15 / 30-35 / 40-45 / 50-55 / 60-65+. Same for gear changes.

So during the game you need just 4-5 more or less good weapons up to reaching endgame.

Also, one very important thing - do not forget about your accuracy rating. You want some accuracy on weapon, on some gear pieces. Hit Cap for melee is super important.

You can see your Hit Chance within each skill info for 2 mtr radius. For me it was legit a life changer on Warrior once I've reached 100% Hit Chance (around 600 accuracy rating) for melee range. On Warrior it is even more punishing to not be hit capped because all your attacks are slow as hell.


As for your gear - just whatever you can get or buy with 1-2 Exalts with Evasion / Energy Shield + Cold/Fire/Lightning res values (you want all 3 elemental resistances pretty much on each gear piece because of penalties on act completion) + random accurancy here and there is nice for melee until you get the Hit Cap, as mentioned.

You don't need to stack life during the campaign, but it is just "nice to have" if you can get it on cheap item. Also, you don't have to be res capped during the campaign, but the higher you can get - obviously, the better. And you never want to be on negative res value for any element.


All other stats during leveling - this is just a luxury. It is nice to have other things, but it is completely not mandatory. Just focus on your weapon, go for pure Damage nodes early on, and keep dropping Bell to kill things fast. Replace your armor even 15-20 levels just to keep up your evasion and energy shield.


And just generally, if you are not into trading or would like to have a more rewarding playthrough - it is absolutely mandatory then to have % Increase Rarity of Items Found (Magic Find) as much as you can get it. As mentioned, any values greater than 0% is already huge and impactful change.


Another thing you can do, is to check available unique items. Many of them are very trash for endgame, but are strong just for leveling purposes, and many of them you can get again for just 1-2 Exalts. Just be sure to not buy something that will brick your build or gameplay lol, because you can make some quite wild combinations:

"

https://poe2db.tw/us/Unique_item