How it works

Step 1 - get your character in (pick one)

A. You're on poe.ninja (easiest). poe.ninja lists characters from the official Path of Exile ladder. Find yours on poe.ninja's builds page (search your character or account name), open it, and copy the link from your browser's address bar. It looks like https://poe.ninja/poe1/builds/<league>/character/<account>/<name>. poe.ninja refreshes characters every so often, so after changing gear tick Refresh from poe.ninja or wait a few minutes.

B. You're not on poe.ninja (not high enough on the ladder yet): use Path of Building instead.

1. Install Path of Building Community (free).
2. On pathofexile.com, open My Account > Privacy Settings and make sure your characters tab is not hidden, so Path of Building can read your gear.
3. In Path of Building: Import/Export Build > Import from website, enter your account name (including the #1234 part), pick Path of Exile, choose your character and import both passive tree and items.
4. Still in Import/Export Build: Export > Generate > Copy. That long code is your build. (You can also share it to pobb.in and use that link.)
5. Paste the code here, and type your league in the League box (codes don't include it, and the trade links need it).

Path of Building is also the best way to double-check any suggestion: every report has a Copy example item for PoB button, which you can paste in as a new item to see the numbers yourself.

Step 2 - set the basics

• Totems (in Options): if you use Spell Totem, enter how many you really run. Path of Building can't see it, and it changes how much damage your totems do.
• Max price: your budget per item, in divine or chaos orbs. Leave it empty to search any price. It goes straight into the trade searches, compared in exalted-orb equivalent, so items listed in either currency show up.
• Priority: balanced, more damage, or more defence.
• Options (optional): how strictly to keep resistances and defences, roll quality, which slots to check, and trade filters. The defaults are sensible, and your choices are remembered on your device.

Step 3 - read the report

• Upgrades are ranked best first. The top one is your MVP upgrade.
• Each shows your item next to an example item to look for. The example isn't a real item anyone has listed: it's a recipe PoE MVP built from mods that can roll on that item type, to show what's worth paying for. Real listings from the search will have these mods (or better) plus others. Lines tagged needed stop something else breaking (resistance cap, mana reservation, attributes). keep lines are the useful parts of your current item. Lines with a % are new affixes and what each adds on its own. Hover a line to see why it's there.
• Open trade search opens the official trade site with every requirement filled in, cheapest first. Any listing it shows is at least as good as the estimate.
• Something look wrong? Use the feedback box at the bottom of the report. It helps a lot.

1. Load your character's Path of Building data (from poe.ninja or your code).
2. Find what each item is holding up: resistances you'd drop under cap without it, mana your auras reserve, attributes your gems need, movement speed, your anoint, and the item's armour/evasion/energy shield.
3. Test each affix on your current item by removing it in Path of Building. Affixes that matter (like +3 minion skill levels) are kept in the target item.
4. Try every mod that can roll on that item type (from Path of Building's mod data) one at a time, and add the best ones that fit the free prefix and suffix slots - one mod per family, like the real crafting rules. Armour, evasion and energy shield are offered as one "about 20% more than your item" option, worked out from the base type.
5. Simulate the finished target item against your current gear, and build a trade search that demands everything the simulation assumed.

Covers weapons (your active weapon set), off-hands, armour, jewellery, belts and rare jewels for spell, attack and minion builds. Estimates assume an item that just meets the search minimums. Uniques, charms, flasks and radius jewels aren't evaluated yet.