Path of Exile's currency system is undoubtedly more complicated than most games in the genre. This is partly because it doesn't follow any 'traditional' currencies. What does that mean?
Well in most games, you'll have two to three centralized currencies, one premium and the rest are in-game currencies. PoE decided to break away from the norm and create a totally different currency system. Instead of creating a centralized currency, the developers decided to use the in-game crafting items as a currency in itself.
For example, if you want to buy a weapon, instead of paying them X amount of gold, you have to pay them in crafting materials such as Chaos orbs, Exalted orbs etc. You can pay them one Exalted orb or X Chaos orbs with an equal valuation to Exalted orbs since Exalted orbs are rarer.
So the first lesson in PoE currency consists of the two R's,
●Rarity- How rare a crafting item is or the chances of it dropping when you're farming for gear and items.
●Ratio- The ratio of valuation with respect to other crafting items, for instance, at the time of writing of this article, you can get 20 Vaal orbs in exchange for 198~199 Chromatic orbs.
New players usually get swindled by pros who are waiting to prey on unsuspecting prey who aren't privy to these prices, so make sure to do your homework before you consider trading. You can use this link to check the exact value for each craftable item in the current league.
Tier lists
Path of Exile currency can be broken down into three tiers, Cheap, Valuable and Expensive.
Cheap currencies contain Common to slightly Rare drops. You'll have hordes of theses by the time you reach the end of a league. Portal Scrolls are easy to find whereas a Chromatic or Augment orbs is a bit rarer. Normally used to trade cheap gear but mostly items.
Valuable items are significantly harder to farm and require powerful endgame builds so that you can farm them efficiently from higher-level enemies. These are the most frequently used to trade for middle to high-level gear.
Expensive currencies rarely drop from enemies. There are cases PoE players who have been playing since the closed beta didn't get a Mirror of Kalandra. The Eternal drop is now a legacy item, which means it does not drop from enemies anymore. It can only be traded with other players who currently own them. Used to trade for legendary gears with custom and unique modifiers.
How to Begin
It depends on how you want to play the game. Veterans mostly speedrun the whole league, create optimized builds with the end goal of efficiently farming higher level bosses and enemies. If you have similar plans, you'll need to research optimal builds and build towards it.
As far as currencies go, horde anything and everything you can till the point you need them to trade for more powerful gear. Remember that currencies are actually tradeable items with powerful effects, so don't spend for cheap weapon enhancements.
You can also enjoy the game without an optimal build, but remember that endgame content isn't possible without one. Once again horde anything you farm so that you can use them for trading for powerful gears whenever you're planning for an endgame build.
In Part- 2 of this series, you'll learn about the currencies in more detail, such as how you can farm them. You'll also learn how to use the trade chat and other features to help you better spend your hard-earned loot.
