Seeking help on upgrading weapons

I have been looking through sites about upgrading weapons and It's not clear to me at all. Some sites say gold and purple are the same. Some say purple are completely worthless. 1 site says never to upgrade items. I don't want to make posts all the time asking for price checks. I want to be able to work it out for myself. So at the end of my post, I'll post a gold and a purple. Would it be a waste or time to put upgrades on them? Also...if anyone knows of any 'noob' guide to upgrading then I would love to know because I want money! I always get golds and purples and never greens. Also...what on earth is '15^50'? What do these numbers stand for? The amount of websites I have gone through is unbelievable and when I ask for help nobody else knows either. Please don't flame me for being stupid. All i ask is help so I don't keep asking the same questions.

I'm no expert... but I can point these things out:
1. As a general rule, golds are better than purples... but not always
2. 15^50 = damage + 15% while your health is over 50%, its an inscription (upgrade) that you can attach to weapons
3. The two weapons you posted are pretty good, its really up to you as far as how much you would mind spending on upgrades - I always just use weapons I find, because I'm poor... but if you have some money to spend - you can add better inscriptions to the weapons you posted.

Hope that was some help, have fun!

Agreed! (b'.')b

Some other things you need to know about when dealing with various pricing, and worth of keeping, and selling of items.

First and most important, You really need to have Experience with the game. A general understanding of the market, and what a certain thing is worth, can make you rich, and keep you from making "noob mistakes"

Secondly, Purples (or commonly referred to as "Grapes") are usually Worse than Golds because of two things.

a) People find Gold pigments "Purtey!" and much more pleasing to the eyes.

b) They usually come Non-Max Dmg. and most of the time don't have both Dmg. Modifiers on them.

Third, Unless your weapon is [wiki]Maximum damage[/wiki]("Max Dmg") it won't go for much, and is therefore not worth modifying with a [wiki]Weapon upgrade[/wiki].

Fourth, Your Super-Guide to Everything:

[wiki]Main Page[/wiki]

Use it well

point 15: If you have a max damage BLUE item and that same 14^50 or 15^50 it is indistinguishable from the gold one in damage output. Staff is less so because it's inherent half spell recharge range is lower when it's blue. Collector items are perfect. Nightfall and more specifically inscriptions have altered the economy making many weapons far more cheaply obdainable, and by the same token harder to sell for a large sum. All one needs it a desirable skin (just for example: Elemental sword) with a good low requirement mod it up and viola.

Modding items is *very* often not going to make you money if you plan on selling them however, since many will not care about which mods you think are best. Yet most will still add a perfect sundering and fortitude mod in an attempt to get more money for the sale. In theory, this should make no difference. BUT, many folks are lazy, and just would rather buy a perfect item than spend the effort to make it.