[GUIDE] Corrupting Boxes for Fun and Profit

So after (somewhat) extensive testing, I think it's about time for this info to get out. Essentially, with Vaal Orbs at their current price, it is extremely easy to profit by corrupting certain boxes. The three most notable sets are, in detail, Jeweler's Strongboxes, low-level Cartographer's Strongboxes, and high-quantity Armorer's/Blacksmith's Strongboxes. It is possible to profit by corrupting other boxes - I got a 6L out of one - but it's far less reliable. Do note that just because you corrupted a box does not guarantee that it'll spew money at your face; while it is very likely to spawn corrupted rares, there will be corrupted garbage too.

However, before I can tell you which boxes are best to corrupt, I have to talk a bit about how boxes and corruption interact. When you corrupt a box, most if not all of the white items in that box will become corrupted as though with a Vaal Orb. This can permit some rather interesting occurences. You'll also note that corruption on boxes actually interacts with magic, rare, or unique items within the box. This can make corrupting certain boxes rather risky - there's little risk in corrupting a box which gives you extra blue items, but bricking extra rares or, god forbid, a unique is probably a bad idea.

Now, for the boxes themselves. The initial assessment is for boxes outside of maps, then in "normal" maps, then in extremely high-IIQ situations.

Boxes Outside Maps

First, and most reliably, Jeweler's Strongboxes. The main reasons you want to corrupt these are that they often do a great job of filling out an IDed chaos recipe, and that 6-mod jewelry tends to have more worth than jewelry with 3, 4, or 5 mods. Thus, you mostly want to corrupt Jeweler's Strongboxes whenever they're likely to be dispensing a large number of white or IDed items in order to fill up a recipe and, hopefully, get lucky - and with 6 mods, that's easier than you'd think.
Mod Summary: Corrupt Jeweler's boxes past area level 60 whenever you roll "of Abundance" (+# items), "of Bounty" (+% items), or "of Kalandra" (mirrored) in order to fill up chaos recipes and, if you're lucky, pick up some good 6-mod jewelry. However, it isn't worth rolling past a good "of Treasures" (+% rarity) or "of Affluence" (+# rares) in order to get a corruption-worthy mod. If you find a rare Jeweler's strongbox with a high "of Curiosity" (+# magics) roll and the "of Wisdom" (IDed items) mod, it's probably worth vaaling - otherwise, avoid it.

Second, and most hilariously, Cartographer's Strongboxes. The main reason you want to corrupt these is similar to the reason you want to corrupt Jeweler's Boxes - you want some delicious rares, more specifically maps with 100+ increased item quantity. However, you want to be careful with this if you're running a build which gets brutalized by certain map mods, because nothing is more annoying than having a 127% Dungeon map that you can't use.
Mod Summary: Corrupt Cartographer's boxes whenever you roll "of Abundance" (+# items), "of Bounty" (+% items), or "of Kalandra" (mirrored) in order to get very, VERY high-quantity maps. If you find a rare Cartographer's strongbox with a high "of Curiosity" (+# magics) roll and the "of Wisdom" (IDed items) mod, it's probably worth vaaling - otherwise, avoid it.Be careful if you're running a build that gets screwed over by map mods, though.

Third, and most profitably, Armorer's and Blacksmith's Strongboxes. The main reason you want to corrupt these is for 6-linked armor pieces and 2handers. If the item within the box can 6-link, it has a 1/144 chance to do so when corrupted, and every 6-link item, no matter how terrible, is at least worth a Divine Orb. As a result, the amount of quantity you want to roll on an Armorer's or Blacksmith's Box in order to corrupt it will vary with market prices - right now, it requires 8 or so 6-linkable items to be corrupted within the box, which is usually a decent Abundance or Bounty roll. I wouldn't risk corrupting a Kalandra's on these boxes unless you also have high Bounty, high Abundance, or both. I also don't consider it worth corrupting the Curiosity/Wisdom combo here unless one of the prior conditions is also satisfied due to the relatively low number of items added by the Curiosity mod.

The most notable differences between Armorer's and Blacksmith's are the likelihood of a 6L, and the likelihood that that 6L will actually be useful. Assuming that all types of item that can drop from a box have an equal chance to do so, a Blacksmith's box is more likely to get you a 6-link. However, that 6-link is almost guaranteed to have only one use - vendoring for a divine. 6-linked armor, on the other hand, tends to sell for about an exalt, even if the rolls are absolute garbage.
Mod Summary: Corrupt Armorer's and Blacksmith's boxes whenever you roll "of Abundance" (+# items) or "of Bounty" (+% items) in order to eventually get a 6-linked item or two. It is worth corrupting a "of Kalandra" mod on this box if you have one or both of the previous mods, but otherwise don't bother.

Boxes Inside Maps

I could go into huge detail on what boxes you want to corrupt in maps, but instead it is probably better to talk about when you should stop corrupting the boxes I discussed in the last section. Essentially, in maps, you will want to stop corrupting certain boxes as the level of map increases. You probably want to stop corrupting cartographer's boxes at around level 70 maps - this is about when the ability to reroll maps becomes vital to being able to continue chaining them. However, you don't want to stop corrupting Armorer's, Blacksmith's, or Jeweler's boxes until the point when the white items that would come out of the box are probably going to be worth more than a corrupted 6-link or a decent corrupted piece of jewelry - I have yet to hit these maps, but from what I've been advised, you want to stop around level 77ish maps.

High-Quantity Situations

Remember those 100+ increased quantity maps I mentioned in the "outside mapping" section? Well, boxes within these maps can have a far better chance to drop a 6L when corrupted, and will drop more shiny corrupted rares for you. As a result, you want to corrupt almost all boxes within low-level maps that have 120+ increased quantity. The exceptions to this are Artisan's, Arcanist's, Chemist's, and Gemcutter's boxes. Artisan's, Chemist's and Arcanist's boxes just don't corrupt well, as they can't give any corrupted drops, and the drops from a corrupted Gemcutter's box are going to be more valuable uncorrupted than corrupted.

Also, there are certain strongbox mods you don't want to corrupt over in high-quantity mods due to how corruption interacts with magic and rare items within boxes.
These mods are:
"of Affluence" (+ rares)
"of Complexity" (+ sockets)
"of Treasures" (+ %rarity)

You can use use vaal orbs on boxes? :()

Nice guide.

SCIIIIIIIIIIIIIIENCE

i found using vaal orbs on boxes quite wasteful. You're probably better off gather as many stones of lahzwars or whatever as possible and vaaling them. You'll probably average 1 exalt per 30 or so vaal'd maybe better.

So I hear reading is a thing some people do.

"

BearCares wrote:

i found using vaal orbs on boxes quite wasteful. You're probably better off gather as many stones of lahzwars or whatever as possible and vaaling them. You'll probably average 1 exalt per 30 or so vaal'd maybe better.

Mathematically, it's pretty far from wasteful, if you do it properly. It's much like chancing uniques - it's not always going to pay off, but when it does, it does so pretty damn well. Heck, it's pretty much exactly like chancing uniques in almost every way - there's going to be discarded junk almost all of the time, and there are going to be streaks where you get fuck-all that's actually useful. But at the end of the day, you're using a low-value currency in a way that's eventually almost guaranteed to make you more than you would have if you hadn't used it.

And if you need proof that boxvaaling can get you worthwhile items instead of the white junk you linked:

The boxvaaling is quite nice. Have tried it out today, here are the results so far:

Well, I can attest to the awesomeness of corrupting a box:

Corrupted some boxes, especially nice on "mirrored" boxes as you get more "chance orb rares" than usually.

No 6L success so far...