Gamble sashes!

[Archon_Wing]

Gambling a decent belt was always a pain. A belt less than 16 slots can be very annoying and the only 16 slot belt you can gamble is a plated belt, which requires a hefty 60 strength. You could hope that another type of belt comes out exceptional, but that's unreliable and the exceptional belts also have pretty high requirements, with the exception of the demonhide sash.

But as I was searching on Arreat Summit I came across the rather neglected normal rare to exceptional rare upgrade formula. Thus, as long as you have a tal, shael, and Perfect diamond to spare you should always gamble sashes unless you are somehow trying to max out defense on your character, in which case your character needs a bunch of str anyways. This of course, only works on rares. If you gamble a lenymo, there's another upgrade for that. ;)And if you're really lucky, you'll gamble a demonhide sash instead of a sash anyways.

Yea, for some reason it took me until now to figure this out, but in case someone wants to save a few stat points here and there. Also i've found the belt slot to be the most difficult to fill with something decent.