There are so many people talking about how they've gone 400 hours without running into xyz citadel or haven't gotten an insert good item here

It's just like diablo II. 99.9% of the items you find are going to be trash for your character but likely tradeable to someone. Divines per hour are almost always calculated in conversions. I ran 11 70% quant 40% density breaches and got a whopping 3 raw divines but made about 20 divines in trades.

In POE1 there were third party websites that could track your net worth in divines so you would calculate how much you're spending to do xyz thing and then refresh when you've finished your session and refresh to see if you made a profit or a net negative. That doesn't exist yet but that's how you should all be thinking naturally.

Some of you are not big on trading, which is fine, but if you're not playing SSF, in my opinion, you have little to complain about in terms of not getting an item you need

You can buy the citadel tablets for cheap.

Secondly

If you're complaining about people ignoring you on trade site:

Stop trying to buy the cheapest upgrade you can possibly find. Every single POE1 player knows that you used to have to scroll on 2-3 sometimes 4 pages on the trade site to GET OUT OF BOT RESELLING TERRITORY

If you want a weapon that boosts your damage by 20% then stop trying to find that weapon for 1-5ex. Seriously, set a minimum buy out to 15-25 ex and the first person you whisper is going to respond.

Thirdly

If you want results in your mapping experience beyond just getting a lucky drop, you have to invest in some sort of strategy. I'm currently running trade searches for specific waystones that suit my strategy. What I mean is, it cost currency to make currency.

Lastly

If you are seriously poor and frustrated at not finding anything, buy 2 stacks of wisdom scrolls, take a stack of transmutations and augmentations, and regals(or not) get a good loot filter and identify everything that drops. If a strong white base drops, transmute and aug it. Did it roll t7+ affixes? Regal it. Did the regal roll well too? Slam it. I legit made about 10 divines in one map from just 4 items that randomly dropped, had really nice base stats and I exalted the rest. ANYTIME YOU DO AN 81+ ZONE you should do the above if you are poor. I do it and I'm not poor because it's fun to find items that roll well.

Brief list of affixes that I consider good:

• 30+ movement speed
• 110+life (180 body)
• 110+ mana (180 weapon)
• 60 total resistance (double 30%)
• 25+ rarity
• attack modifiers 20+(cold/phys/lightning/fire added dmg)
• Crit dmg or attack speed on gloves
• Mega high defence rolls (90%es/evasion/armour)

Quick Example:

Blue Expert Intricate Gloves(ES) drop and I identify them and get 20% crit dmg bonus. I'm going to aug it, if I hit any of the above, I'm going to regal it. If the regal rolls well, I will triple slam without looking. If the regal hits something stupid I will exalt it once, if I hit something stupid again I will toss it.

White Siphoning Wand drops, I transmute and aug it. If ANY of the caster mods are high I'll regal it. If any suffixes are available still, I will slam it and try to get +5.

SPEND YOUR CURRENCY TO MAKE CURRENCY.

One big hit is exponential and you miss every shot you don't take.