Crafting the best endgame gear in Path of Exile 2 involves a complex, multi-step process that balances resource use, RNG, and strategic choices to maximize item potential for late-game content. Here are the top crafting strategies for achieving high-quality gear:
Start with Ideal Base Items
Choosing the right base is foundational. Higher item-level bases provide access to better affixes and more impactful mods. Prioritize bases that suit your build’s primary attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence) and damage or defense type. Acquiring these bases efficiently may require investing poe 2 currency or deciding to buy poe 2 currency to accelerate your progression.
Build Up Through Basic Crafting
Start crafting by turning white base items into magic items using Orbs of Transmutation and adding a second mod with Orbs of Augmentation. Upgrade those to rare items by applying Regal Orbs, which add a third affix. This stages the item with a strong foundation before high-end refining.
Use Chaos and Harvest Crafting to Refine Stats
Chaos Orbs reroll rare item affixes to get a better combination, while Harvest crafting (if available) allows for deterministic crafting by adding or removing specific affixes. This dramatically improves your chance of obtaining best-in-slot stats fitting your build.
Leverage Endgame Crafting Systems
Breaches and Catalysts: Catalysts boost quality on specific modifiers, which multiply their effects and increase item power.
Expeditions: Use Expedition Fragments to reroll or add modifiers tailored to your build.
Omens and Tributes: Omens allow safer rerolls and crafting by granting modifier control or better corruption odds.
Socket and Link Management
In PoE 2, sockets are on skill gems and auto-linked, simplifying the process. However, ensuring you have the right support gem sockets and colors requires specific crafting orbs like Jeweler\'s Orbs.
Final Enhancements and Corruptions
Exalted Orbs add additional rare affixes, pushing items towards maximum potential. Vaal Orbs can be used at the last step as a gamble to gain powerful corrupted mods or extra sockets but carry risk of ruin.
Strategic Resource Management
Save high-value orbs like Exalted and Vaal Orbs for items with strong foundations. Use regular currencies on early-stage crafting and invest poe 2 currency to achieve targeted affixes. This economizes crafting and avoids costly failures, though some players may opt to buy poe 2 currency to accelerate access to key crafting orbs.
Knowledge and Patience
Success hinges on understanding which affixes synergize with your build, the crafting meta, and leveraging tools like Craft of Exile or simulators to plan crafts. Patience in iterating crafts and combining crafting systems results in superior gear.
Endgame crafting in Path of Exile 2 is an incremental and strategic process involving base selection, staged crafting steps, high-end refinements, and calculated risks with powerful currencies. Mastery over these systems enables the creation of best-in-slot gear ready to tackle the most challenging content.