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I just finished my most complex and painful craft yet, only possible due to the powerful Graveyard mechanic and lots of hard work.
In Standard, I have a golemancer whom I like deeply. I mostly use the character to raid Sanctum and do whatever farming I feel like at the moment. I made the character originally in Trial of the Ancestors, where I managed to snag a Brass Dome with a double corrupt granting +1 to level of socketed gems and +2 to level of socketed minion gems. Naturally, it was huge for my build for the longest time: Witch has a hard time finding armour sources, 5 maximum elemental resistances and implicits to die for. However, eventually I began to wonder. Could I make something even better?
Other uniques wouldn't work for what I wanted and this specific double corrupt was hard to come by. Therefore, I figured I'd like to make a Rare item. But what kind? It would have to satisfy these criteria:
1) Give big defences 2) Give gem levels (essential for damage) 3) Give max res
I went researching. Eventually, I landed on a Chayula's Grasping Mail as the base item. It gives all defences and can have a 50% global defences fracture, making crafting easier. Here's where the road turned up: Getting Spell Suppression with the two correct gem mods from fossil crafting would've been an astronomically low chance. I buried the project.
However, in Necropolis, when I heard that you could craft multi-fractures AND Grasping Mails, I went back to the morgue of ideas and dug this up again. I searched for a base with fractured Global Defences and max Spell Suppression. Nothing. I tabbed the search and kept clicking it throughout the weeks. Eventually, one base was posted for 150 divs. I quickly scrambled to sell pretty much every currency I had gathered up to that point and bought it. Then, I went back to farming Harvest, until I thought I was ready.
This is where the true pain began. Over the course of the next week, I spent 310 Grand Embers, 5 Orbs of Conflict and 3 Exceptional Ichors trying to push the max res implicit up. I had the worst luck with grand rolling, max res turned from Grand to Greater against a Perfect Eater mod TWICE. That's when I got fed up and started using Beast locking. The first lock showed me that the Grand max res mod would've turned into Greater for the third time, but on the next lock, it went through. I removed locks by using Sacred Orbs when the defence values would've gone up and with a jeweller's orb when it would've gone down. With six locks and 126 Grand Ichors, I finally achieved Exquisite max res with Exceptional Pride effect. This will be important later.
I used Perfect Fossils to make the base into 30% quality, then added a Gilded fossil implicit for a good measure and went to CoE to check the best fossil setup. I'd have to use Corroded, Dense, Pristine and Faceted fossils in a Prime Resonator to get my desired suffixes in 28 tries. I was confident at that point. With the hilariously busted Allflame of Sulphite, I got 65k sulphite from one map and delved all the way to 666 depth (deepest I've ever been) and found a very nice amount of fossils. However, at the end, it took me 85 attempts to get the mods I wanted. This experience has scarred me for life and I swear I'll never, ever seek to make another multi-gem fossil craft. The name "Victory Wrap" feels like much-needed catharsis. That sense of victory continued when I was suggested to use a Tailoring Orb and the first one I tried gave me the literal best option. My main golem and the support gems are all either blue or red, so not having green sockets made it much easier to craft. And if I'd ever want to use a different skill or support, I could just use an Omen of Blanching, since the enchant forbids green sockets, not white ones. I might actually try making four sockets white, purple juice doesn't sell for that much.
This is where Exarch dominating the item is relevant again. That meant Eldritch Annulment Orbs were guaranteed to remove a prefix. They couldn't remove the fractured mod, so I could pretty much keep trying for my desired 110% to Armour, Evasion and Energy Shield -mod forever, by:
1) Crafting life 2) Slamming ex 3) Removing crafted mods 4) Eldritch Annul
And rinse and repeat. I got t2 after 8 tries and decided to settle there for now and craft phys taken as ele. After all, CoE said my chances were 1/44 and I didn't want to tempt fate. I can finish it in Standard, where Eldritch Annuls are cheaper. It's not a big difference, but this is my beloved now.
Now, how does this improve my build? According to PoB, by socketing this would remove 1.8% of total DPS and 5.7% elemental max hit, but give me 22% spell suppression (hard to get as a Witch), 6% phys max hit, 55% more effective hit pool, 173 more life (due Brass Dome's "Strength provides no bonus to Maximum Life" mod being gone), 113% more energy shield, 167% more Evasion and +2% movement speed.
I'll have to test it in practise, but this seems like I've arrived at the end point chestpiece for that character. I'm not sure how I could've made it better.
Now, the price? I dread to think of it and can't remember all the prices as they were along the journey, but here's the rough estimate of the total worth of resources used on this: 150 divs worth for the base, 110 divs worth for the eldritch, 63 divs worth for the fossil slammage, 1 div for a Tailoring Orb and 3 divs of Eldritch Annuls and Exalts. Now, I want to make it clear that at no point did I have 327 divs just chilling at my stash. Most of the materials were self-farmed, including five frogs and about two thirds of the eldritch embers/ichors. This increased the pain but kept costs affordable. I would map for a day and then pour all the eldritch embers and ichors I got into the chestpiece. I would only look for Molten Cavities and Vaal Outposts in Delve, only using currency when I got sick of delving. I also got a donation from someone who quite the league, which went a long way.
This was quite the journey and I'm glad it's mostly over. Thanks for reading and in you didn't, TL:DR: I made this cool item, fossils and eldritch suck majorly.

Hey! So me and my gw have been trying to get the harness on for almost 2 years. In the beginning we had a accident where she panicked while the harness was on her neck. Started to fly all over the place and then almost hang herself. That trauma was a major roadblock for us for a looong time. But today, we went outside for the first time in a harness. How did i do it? I modified the harness, so that it was less scary for her. This is a tip for everyone strugling with harness training. It takes a lot of patience from the bird to stay calm while the owner is putting on the harness the old fashioned way. This was my solution to that. We went from hating harnes to being outside on walk(s) within a weekend. How to do it?
Step 1. Sew together a collar, that has a clip on / off attachment. It's just one string, not multiple like the regular harnes, so it's a lot easier for harness hating birds to stay calm. Practise putting on the collar. When the collar is on, click with the clicker in frequent intervals and give A LOT OF TREATS. When the birds is not afraid of the collar anymore (not flying around, not in a panick mode, rather just annoyed. My personal check point was when my gw was preening with the collar on i knew she was used to it). Putting on the collar and you pressing the clips and taking the collar of teaches the bird that you WILL take it off. This is super importnant, because this teaches the bird that you touching the collar means it's being taken off a good thing your fingers are not being assaulted.
Step 2. Sew together 2 more collars from the harness. (See picture) It's tested to be durable and safe, so in my opinion that was my go to material. I sacrifised 3 harnesses for these collars. The lenght of the collars should be adjustable, i took measurements from my macaws neck and chest and the distance between them with my hand, but make it adjustable, so you can tighten it as much as needed, once it's on. So to recap: 1 collar that should fit the neck, 1 collar that should fit the chest and 1 collar that should be the lenght of the distance between the previous 2.
Step 3. So now, the bird is ok comftorable with something being around it's neck and it comforable with you touching the collar. The next step is to "fool" the bird that you are about to take the collar on, but you put the chest piece on. Then unite the chest and neck piece and tadaa. You have a working harness. On a your bird eager to go outside. Now CLIP the leash on the uniting collar piece. And CLIP THE END OF THE LEASH TO YOUR TROUSERS BELT LOOP!! DO NOT TRUST YOUR ABILITY TO NOT LOSE THE LEASH FROM YOUR HAND ON YOUR FIRST OUTDOOR TRIP, IF YOUR BIRD DECIDES TO FLY. CLIP IT AND MAKE SURE IT'S SECURE.
After you make sure the collars are secure, and tight enough, the leash is secured to the middles collarpiece and the end of the leash is secured to your beltloop (thing, i dunno what it's called) you are free to adventure outside. Have fun!
Now after this your bird (being smart) knows that things being tied to hehis body means outside go and buy a regular harness and use it.