Sacred Orb - what's the point?

In 3.16 GGG introduced variable values of base defences on items. That caused a lot of people to fall into a rage, thinking that anything other than a perfectly rolled base would be useless. Obviously this wasn't the case.

Still, GGG than created a solution: The Sacred Orb. The Sacred orb randomises the numeric value of base defences on an armour. On a Vaal Regalia the base defence ranges from 171-197. That means, 27 possible outcomes for each Sacred Orb used. If we would consider using Blessed Orbs instead for a second, that would mean: We would probably have to spent a lot of Blessed Orbs to get that perfect roll. But back to the Sacred Orb. According to the wiki, the Sacred Orb is more than three times rarer than the Exalted Orb.

Since it's introduction I haven't found a single Sacred Orb and I have played a lot, too much to be honest. I probably have found something like 30-40 raw Exalted Orb drops (in SSF) since than. So obviously the Sacred Orb is much more rare than three or maybe four times the rarity of the Exalted Orb. I don't really mind that. I just wonder: Whats the point of having the Sacred Orb than? If it's so god damn rare that 2-3 Leagues passes and a pretty invested player like me never finds one. In my opinion it has questionable usage outside of min/maxing the hell out of your build and even than does 27 ES really matter? I am wondering, what am I missing? What makes this Orb so strong that justifiy its rarity? Shouldn't it be more on par with the Blessed Orb? Honestly, isn't a Blessed Orb not better anyways, on items with an implicit obviously?

I don't get it. I mean I am not losing sleep over this, it just is a weird design decision.

They liked the fact perfectly rolled uniques sold for far higher values than standard rolls and decided to make a stat that applied to literally every armor item. Thus there's a bit more variance in things and room for something to be "perfect" and thus valuable. Sacred orbs are for things that are extremely rare for other reasons and you don't want to feel it "bricked" because it happened to be bad with base percentage.

And yes that 27 ES does matter; look at the price difference between a triple t1 vaal regalia and one where the flat ES is a tier or two lower.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that this game is designed as a trading game, SSF being just an option

In my opinion, they wanted Sacred orb to be an item to make final touch on already very good items. If they made it like Blessing orb rare, everyone would be rerolling everything and it would only turn into annoying "must do" thing and the new feature of base defense range would be basically pointless.

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Ludvator wrote:

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that this game is designed as a trading game, SSF being just an option

In my opinion, they wanted Sacred orb to be an item to make final touch on already very good items. If they made it like Blessing orb rare, everyone would be rerolling everything and it would only turn into annoying "must do" thing and the new feature of base defense range would be basically pointless.

Fair enough, I understand that. I still think there is a big discrepancy between its rarity and accessability and its actual usage and impact on gameplay.

But ok, its an item for the perfectionist, I get it.

Id say that if you decide to play SSF, you must accept some things may be inaccessible to you even if you play a lot.

that being said, there could certainly be a room for improvement, it could be kind of target farmed maybe. Like Regrading Lens for example, which is very rare but still can be somewhat targeted in SSF by focusing on Heist stuff.. or simply adding a specific location divination card

it also gives you an option:

farm a perfect base first, and then craft it

craft an item and then sacred it.


its designed to keep you playing. now instead of taking the first ilvl 86 vaal regalia you find, you either spend time looking for a better one, or spend time earning currency to improve the one you found.

I view this in 2 different ways.

First, an extra layer for the perfecting of gear in league.

secondly, seems like they threw us standard players a bone where 99% of all gear is minimum roll.

just think about a double legacy shav's with defense enchant and near max base roll, thats about a 600es shav's.

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Ludvator wrote:

Id say that if you decide to play SSF, you must accept some things may be inaccessible to you even if you play a lot.

No doubt, I am well aware of that. Again, I am not complaining about me not being able to get a Sacred Orb. I don't care about that. It was rather the general design decision I was questioning but I understand it better now.

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Thror2k5 wrote:

it also gives you an option:

farm a perfect base first, and then craft it

craft an item and then sacred it.


its designed to keep you playing. now instead of taking the first ilvl 86 vaal regalia you find, you either spend time looking for a better one, or spend time earning currency to improve the one you found.

Sure I get it. I didn't look at it from a trade players perspective initially.

Still, currently on the market according to poe.ninja:

A Sacred Orb goes for like 80 Chaos Orbs. For something that is multiple times rarer than an Exalted Orb, it in my opinion an indicator that people doesn't value a Sacred Orb as much.

well, exalts have a lot more use in actual crafting too.

you have metamods, some other crafted mods, slams, AND trade currency for exalts. sacred orbs just do the 1 thing.

also this is end of league, where people are making perfect perfect gear, and actually want sacreds.

2 weeks ago they were 40c. its a very 'super final step' of crafting.

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PilotLanguste wrote:

Sure I get it. I didn't look at it from a trade players perspective initially.

Still, currently on the market according to poe.ninja:

A Sacred Orb goes for like 80 Chaos Orbs. For something that is multiple times rarer than an Exalted Orb, it in my opinion an indicator that people doesn't value a Sacred Orb as much.

I think part of the low price is caused by how many of them you need to actually get a perfect roll. At 80 chaos orbs each, that can still easily set you back 1600 chaos orbs to get a perfect roll or even 1 off, so only people who have that much spare currency for such minute improvements have any interest in buying them.

Even when exalted orbs are only used for Harvest crafting to protect prefixes or suffixes, the chance to hit the desired result is usually higher than the chance to get a perfect roll from a sacred orb, and the effect is much larger.