Three Things That Make A Build Expensive Or Cheap In PoE

In Path of Exile, if you are a new players, you may don't see the difference in builds. What make a build expensive or cheap? What separates a noob friendly build from a high end meta build? What sorts of specific things make high end builds prohibitive to new players?

There are three things that make a build expensive or cheap.

1) How much does it need help to be able to work?

This is mostly talking about good abyss jewels, abyss uniques and how mandatory a 6-link is. Tornado shot, for example, requires a good amount of powerful abyss jewels and at least a 5-link with a good bow. Kinetic Blast, on the other hand, can do it with a white wand and a 4-link.

QOTF, on the other hand, is an item that forces you to build your other items differently. You need grace, so you lose either an aura or 2 heralds. You want evasion helm and boots when possible, so you lose options there. You need a 10-15c flask(Jade of Reflexes) early league - all of this makes it a poor candidate for entry level.

2) It has a mandatory expensive unique.

Shavs, Ngahamahu(early league), Soul Taker, Dying Sun, Indigon etc. Not much to say here. If it needs an expensive item to play, it's going to be expensive.

3) It doesn't feel good without certain items.

Magma Orb and Gloomfang, Bow builds and Rigwald's Quiver/+arrow shaper quivers, Some helm enchants(Like Tornado Shot or Fire Nova Mines), almost anything w/ Dying sun etc. You can technically play these types of builds & make them work without the items but they just don't feel good.

The following are my breakdown of build types:

Starter builds: These builds function well with nothing but a 5 link, capped resists, and as much life/ES as you can get. Can get to about T10 maps on nothing else than gem level ups.

These further break down into 2 categories of scale-ability of end game potential. They either straight cap out as a mapping only build or you have the option to put more chaos orbs poe into them and they can also become end game boss killers.

Budget builds but not good starters: These builds require very specific items to function even in T1 maps. The items required aren't super expensive but you will need to play the character totally different until you can get them. You generally play these as a second character of the league.

Expensive builds: These are the builds that are super mappers or boss killers but require several 1ex+ items with an overall starter budget required of 10ex+. These are the build you absolutely avoid until you know what you are doing. Even then it's almost like a league goal for the average player that you will save up the currency and play that build mid/late league.