Orb of Alchemy

[Krede]

When using an Orb of Alchemy on an armour. Will it remove/degrade anything, like armour or sockets+links? Or will it just add the rare factors?

[Lagwin1980]

All it dose is make the white item into a rare, if you have quality on the item it's unaffected, if you have sockets linked they are unaffected as are the colours of the sockets.

Just read the descriptions of the orbs, if there's anything it dose over and above the basic it tells you.

[Krede]

But sometimes it can be hard to understand what it does completely, before using it. I've used a chaos orb on a helmet, and it made it worse than it was before. But thanks for the answer :-)

Does the alchemy not add any new properties, or do i need to use a chaos too?

[76561198069409126]

Orb of Alchemy
Upgrades a normal item to rare item

A rare item can have minimum 3 mods and max 6, so when you use is it will add min 3 max 6 mods (3 prefix + 3 sufix) to a white item

Chaos Orb
Reforges a rare item with new random properties

It means it changes the mods on the item that is already rare.

All Currency items and what they do:
{LINK REMOVED}http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Category:Currency_items