How to Gear Up Fast & Easy in Path of Exile 2

Introduction

Welcome to our guide on gearing up fast in Path of Exile 2. We will take a look at all the intricacies of items and the most efficient ways to gear your character up, providing you with valuable insights, strategies, and tips on achieving your goals in PoE 2. If we’ve piqued your interest, follow us on the journey of exploring the complexity of items in this ARPG.

Table of Contents

• General Overview
• Item Rarities
• Item Affixes
• Item Level
• Gear Crafting
• Gear Farming
• Trading for Gear

Gear in PoE 2

Gear in Path of Exile 2 is a complex and intricate system with many gimmicks, which can be overwhelming for new players. In the following sections, we will take an in-depth look at what PoE 2 has to offer regarding itemization, explaining some of the more complex parts and giving advice on how to quickly obtain the best gear for your character.

How many gear slots are there in PoE 2?

There are 10 (9 if using a two-handed weapon) gear slots in Path of Exile 2. Players can also equip up to 5 flasks, which provide utility-related effects, and normal or cluster jewels on the passive skill tree.

What are the item types in PoE 2?

Gear can be divided in multiple categories: Weapons, Helmets, Body Armour, Gloves, Boots and Accessories (Necklace, Rings, Belts). Flasks are also of two types: Life & Mana Flasks and Utility Flasks.

How to gear up fast in PoE 2?

Fastest way to gear up during the campaign

Gearing through the campaign is one of the game's easiest and most straightforward parts. Skill gems will usually have enough base scaling and increases from the passive tree, so the affixes are pretty standardized between all classes.

The most popular campaign gear setup would be a weapon with decent flat damage, which is more than enough to carry you through acts and early maps, with the rest of the gear usually having maximum life and elemental resistance affixes to cap resists and have enough HP at all points in the game.

Most of your equipment will consist of magic & rare gear during the first few acts, eventually swapping all magic items for rares as they become more readily available at higher levels. These are easy to acquire as they become common drops from any Rare or Unique enemy in maps and can also be purchased from vendors in town.

Moving forward, at the end of the campaign, you will get into the early game. In the next section, we will cover the most optimal ways to gear up while progressing through the atlas.

Fastest way to gear up during early-game

The early game is the most crucial part of your character’s development. Getting a proper start into mapping and understanding how to gear your character properly is essential to reach the endgame effortlessly. In this section, we will give you the best tips and tricks to speed up the process and efficiently gear up.

One of the most important parts regarding the early game in PoE 2 is getting an optimized loot filter or creating one of your own. The further you progress into the endgame, the more loot you will find, and many items that drop in Path of Exile 2 can be worthless after a certain point in a game. Having a proper loot filter helps you only see items that may be important to you, saving you significant amounts of time sorting gear and improving the visibility of important drops.

The first step when getting into the early-game of PoE 2, mapping, is ensuring that your resistances are capped and finding a decent weapon. In PoE 1, the next step would be farming unidentified Rare gear for the chaos recipe, to farm a small amount of currency, and trade for any mandatory uniques/gear pieces for the build you are following, which we expect to stay the same in the sequel.

Once you’ve acquired the core pieces of your build, you can work towards filling the remaining gear slots with items that have 4-5 decent affixes in preparation for the endgame.

Within a few hours of farming the chaos recipe and progressing through the atlas, you should have enough damage and durability to comfortably clear T16 maps. At this point, we’re slowly entering the last stages of the game, so next, we will cover the best method to quickly gear up during the endgame.

Fastest way to gear up during endgame

The PoE 2 endgame is, at the same time, the grindiest but also most fun part of the game. In the end-game, the gear possibilities become so varied that you have multiple choices for each gear slot that perform fairly equally. This essentially allows players to play each build in numerous different ways, which means that you can play the same build for multiple leagues in a row without feeling repetitive.

Gearing up in Path of Exile’s endgame can be tedious, mainly because of the considerable time investment required to obtain each gear piece in order to make your builds viable for any type of activity. Farming doesn’t necessarily get repetitive, as Path of Exile encourages players to try out many farming strategies by balancing them properly to offer similar amounts of loot.

The fastest method to farm for gear when reaching the endgame is by clearing maps, defeating bosses, or taking part in other activities like Heist, Delve, Expedition, and more to obtain currency, which you can after spend to either purchase your desired gear up-front, or trade for crafting materials with other players and craft it yourself.

Generally speaking, by taking into consideration what we know from PoE 1, most builds are capable to comfortably clear any content available in PoE around the 1 mirror budget mark. If we take an average farming strategy, it will take players around 200 hours to obtain one Mirror of Kalandra worth of other currencies and items, which they can use to bring their build to an endgame-optimized state.

Item Rarities in PoE 2

Items in Path of Exile 2 can have four different rarities: Normal, Magic, Rare, and Unique. Out of these four, players can completely alter all except Uniques, which generally provide powerful effects, and sometimes even affixes that are exclusive to that Unique.

The item's rarity determines the number of explicit affixes the item can have (prefixes & suffixes), with Normal items having no explicits. In the sections below, we will take a look at the other three rarities: Magic, Rare and Unique.

Magic Items

Magic Rarity is the second tier of items, which you can find as early as the first zone in the campaign. These are generally considered starter items, can have up to two affixes (one suffix & one prefix), and are replaced by Rares in the middle of the campaign.

Other than this, the items also have a niche use in crafting, spamming alteration orbs on a Magic item to obtain a rare modifier, which will usually net the player with a clean base that can be used for crafting end-game gear.

Rare Items

Rare items are the bread and butter of Path of Exile, being the most widely used across all builds, alongside powerful or build-defining Uniques. They can have up to six explicits (three prefixes & three suffixes), which makes them extremely versatile due to the large number of affixes available in the game.

Combining the affix variety with other crafting mechanics in the first game allowed players to create almost perfect items, and we hope to see similar depth to items and crafting in PoE 2 as well.

Uniques in Path of Exile 2

Unique Items are the most powerful type of gear in the game, offering a variety of generally useful affixes alongside one or multiple modifiers exclusive to that Unique item. These modifiers grant extremely powerful effects or modify spells or spell archetypes in positive ways, allowing players to create builds around them.

In Path of Exile 2, Uniques are categorized into tiers based on how powerful they are. Uniques like the Headhunter, Mageblood, or Kalandra’s Touch are tier 0, as they have some of the most powerful effects in the game. The higher the tier, the lower the drop chance for those respective items is.

How to get Unique items in PoE 2?

Depending on the Unique item you desire, there are three different ways to obtain a Unique:

• Uber or Normal boss exclusive Uniques can only drop by defeating a specific end-game boss, with each encounter having its own specific loot pool. Uber versions of the bosses can also drop items that are in the normal difficulty’s list of drops, and most chase Uniques have a drop chance of around 2%.
• As a random drop from any mob in the game. Any unique that is not tied to a boss’s loot pool can randomly drop from any monster you defeat. They have a low chance of dropping and using MF (Magic Find) gear can significantly increase your chances of finding your desired unique item.
• By trading in Divination Cards. Most chase or powerful Unique have Divination Cards tied to them. These can drop from specific maps, and after obtaining a full stack (with the number of cards for a full stack varying from 1 to 21, depending on the set), you can trade them in for the item listed on the div card.

Can you modify stats on Unique items in PoE 2?

You cannot fully modify the stats present on Unique items, but you can alter them in two different ways: you can reroll the affix values using Divine Orbs, and you can also attempt to corrupt the item with a Vaal Orb or inside of a Vaal Temple for a random outcome.

When corrupting an item, there’s an equal chance it will gain a random corrupted implicit, become a Rare item with random modifiers, completely disappear, or just gain the “Corrupted” tag with no changes. Once an item has been corrupted, it cannot be further modified with the exception of Tainted currency.

Most popular Uniques

We are yet to see what new Unique items may show up in PoE 2, but the developers mentioned that powerful Uniques from the first game will appear in the second as well, with different bases or minor changes. Below, you can find a list of the most powerful Uniques from the first game that may see a reoccurrence in PoE 2, alongside their exclusive effects:

Path of Exile 2 Item Affixes

Affixes from your gear are one your character's main sources of power. There is a large variety of modifiers, and each type of gear has its own affix list from which the item can roll up to 6 affixes. These offer a variety of offensive and defensive stats, like flat damage, % increased damage, maximum life, and elemental or chaos resistances.

Affixes are also classified into tiers, with some having a single tier and others having up to 11 tiers. Tiers determine the minimum and maximum values the affixes can roll, with Tier 1 being the best tier affixes can roll.

Also, the chance to get a tier 1 modifier is way lower than getting a T4 or T5 modifier. Generally, T1 has a set chance, and the following tiers have twice the chance to roll, except for a few stats with equal weighting for all tiers.

Implicits

Implicits are modifiers tied to the item base, offering modifiers that augment the item type. Generally, implicits cannot be modified outside of rerolling the values using blessed orbs. Examples of implicit modifiers would be increased elemental damage on weapons, movement speed on boots, or projectile speed on quivers.

Prefixes

Prefixes take up half the explicit modifiers on an item and generally offer offensive and defence-related stats, like flat, or percent increased Armor, Evasion, or Energy Shield. More unique prefixes can be found on items with different influences or dropped from specific areas like Vaal Temples and Delve.

Suffixes

Suffixes will take up the other half of explicits on any item, and they range from critical strike-related bonuses and attack speed increases to elemental resistances. Influenced items may have suffixes with more outstanding effects, themed around the boss that they are influenced by.

Item Levels in PoE 2

Gear in Path of Exile has a set item level from when it drops based on the area level. Item Level does not directly impact the item's stats, but it matters when crafting.

What is the max iLvL?

We are not sure what the max iLvL would be in PoE 2, but based on PoE 1, we can expect items to go up to item level 88, from strongboxes with the +5 to item level of drops modifier in Tier 16 maps.

How to get max iLvL gear?

In order to get max item level gear players should run the highest tier maps available and opt into mechanics that can increase the iLvL of drops. Since Item Level is set based on the area level, combining these two strategies will lead to dropping gear of the highest iLvL possible.

Does item level matter in PoE 2?

Despite not having a direct effect on the power of the item, iLvL is very important in PoE 2. The item level of gear will determine what affixes can roll on the item, alongside the maximum tier that affixes can roll. Sometimes, getting items of a specific or low iLvL can help greatly with crafts, as it will limit the number of tiers and modifiers available, making it way easier to get a desired outcome during a craft.

Crafting vs Farming vs Buying Items in PoE 2

Obtaining your desired gear in PoE 2 can sometimes be challenging and require many hours of grinding, good knowledge of crafting, or even figuring out the crafting method yourself. In this section of our guide, we will cover the most common ways players obtain the gear they need to increase their characters' power so they can conquer any end-game activity.

Crafting

Crafting is one of the most powerful methods of obtaining gear in Path of Exile 2. Path of Exile features a unique system of how items function, with players being able to craft any item from scratch. There’s a large variety of materials you can use to obtain many different outcomes, essentially allowing an item with any desired combination of affixes to be created relatively deterministically.

With good enough knowledge of all available crafting systems and how they interact with each others, not only can you craft close to BiS items cheaper in most cases than the market price, but you can also devise crafting methods for items used by popular builds or by a large variety of builds for profit.

Alongside the benefits of saving currency, despite seeming complicated and like it may have a high barrier of entry, crafting items by yourself can be extremely fun. In most cases, you won’t aim for the highest available tiers for every single modifier when working on a crafting project, and the unexpected results that can sometimes come out of RNG parts of the craft can be very satisfying.

Despite all these positive aspects, crafting has its downsides, just like any other strategy to acquire gear in Path of Exile 2. Even if crafts are mostly deterministic, they usually have parts that require luck, and you may have to repeat certain steps multiple times until you get a satisfactory result. These RNG-based parts of crafts can sometimes end up on the losing end, having you spend more currency than you would pay for the item upfront.

In most cases, item prices on the trading platform are above the average of the crafting cost for that specific item, so in the long run, crafting is more efficient than buying, while sometimes, in closed-case instances, you may end up drawing the short straw. If you have a tight budget, we recommend buying the item upfront, and if you have a bit of leeway with your budget, crafting is always a more rewarding and fun option.

If you would like to simulate crafts and theorize crafting methods, we recommend Craft of Exile’s website, which offers a variety of features like an emulator, a simulator to get large sample expected tries and costs, and a calculator that will help you figure out crafts, find affix weighting, testing for the most efficient ways for each step of a craft, or automatically testing different combinations of fossils and other crafting currencies for the most efficient crafts.

How to craft items in PoE 2?

Currently, we are not sure exactly which crafting currencies and league mechanics will be part of Path of Exile’s 2 repertoire, but we can expect most of the main materials and league mechanics that offered crafting options to be present in the sequel as well.

The crafting bench will be removed unless GGG decides to take a different approach regarding crafting until the game’s release. This will have a major effect on the more complex crafts since players will not have access to meta-mods anymore.

In order to craft items, players can use any crafting currency on any non-Unique and non-Corrupted item, and the item will modify its affixes according to the material’s description. This may seem simple, but the best and most efficient crafts always come from combining multiple crafting methods together, which requires knowledge of each system to develop these strategies.

Farming

Farming directly for gear is usually very inefficient in Path of Exile unless the targeted item is an Unique that has divination cards tied to specific maps. Rare gear has an immense pool of affixes and tiers that they can roll, so expecting to drop an item that has 5 or more decent affixes can be close to impossible, with millions of different combinations existing in the game.

Instead, players prefer farming for sought-after currencies or fragments through different methods since, over the course of a couple of hours, most farming methods yield a consistent amount of income per hour, which can then be used to either purchase the desired item directly, or to attempt crafting it themselves.

If it is an Unique that has a farmable divination card tied to it, you can simply use a generally profitable and efficient strategy, and you would just have to replace the map you are running with one that can drop the respective card. This will essentially keep the same income from the farming strategy, alongside the added benefit of occasional divination cards.

You can then proceed to purchase more divination cards to get a full stack once you’ve acquired enough currency, or if you are lucky, you will obtain a full stack by itself as raw drops.

Best way to farm gear in PoE 2

The best way to farm gear in PoE 2 is through Uber Bosses or divination cards for Uniques that can be target farmed. If you need rare gear pieces for any gear slots, the best option would be either farming currency and trading with other players for your desired item or farming materials and crafting the equipment piece yourself.

Trading

Trading currency for items is one of the most common ways players obtain BiS gear to prepare their characters for the endgame. The biggest advantage of purchasing gear from other players over the other methods is the guarantee that you will get your desired item with the exact stats you want.

Not only do you get to avoid the RNG of crafting items, which can sometimes lead to positive outcomes, but you also save time by not having to check out the crafting method for a specific item, or in unique cases figure out the best way to do the craft yourself.

It is also less of a hassle, since the player doesn’t have to spend time finding sellers for materials for the craft, which can take some time unless you can afford to pay a premium price to bulk sellers on the trade website. Depending on what builds are currently meta, specific materials may also be hard to find for sale, or severely over-priced, so trading for items is the safest method out of them all.

Can you buy gear in PoE 2?

No! Path of Exile does not include any P2W items or currencies in the store. The store only offers cosmetic items that do not impact your characters' power or progression in any way. However, you can buy any gear piece you need for your character from professional service providers like KBoosting.

FAQ

How does gear work in PoE 2?

Gear in Path of Exile 2 empowers your character through the explicit affixes on the item. Implicits generally give generic bonuses that fit the thematic of weapons, while prefixes and suffixes offer a large variety of modifiers that you can mix and match through RNG-based crafting to create close to perfect gear for your character.

What are the gear rarities in PoE 2?

There are four gear rarities in Path of Exile 2: Normal, Magic, Rare, and Unique.

Will PoE 2 have set gear?

No, at the moment we have not received any information that PoE will receive set gear. Still, in Path of Exile 1 we’ve had gear pieces that interact with each other, like Forbidden Jewels which required both a Forbidden Flame and Forbidden Flesh jewel of the same type to be equipped for the effect to be active.

Can you upgrade gear in PoE 2?

Compared to other ARPGs you cannot upgrade gear in PoE 2. Still, as long as the item is not corrupted you can always change the affixes using different crafting currencies which could result in a better item than the previously owned one.

Will PoE 2 have trading?

Just like in Path of Exile 1, PoE 2 will have a trading feature alongside an online marketplace that players can use to see the listings of every player in the game.

How many unique items can you equip in PoE 2?

There is no limit regarding how many Uniques you can equip at the same time, as gearing yourself up with purely Unique items can be detrimental to the strength of your character since you will be missing a plethora of stats from decent pieces of Rare gear.

What are the best uniques in PoE 2?

The Mageblood and Headhunter will be some of the best uniques in PoE 2. Their effects can enable builds on lower budgets or fill in gaps in different stats to save cost. For example, a Headhunter can allow a squishy MF build with mediocre DPS to ramp up, and a Mageblood could help you cap your chaos res and elemental res with just two flasks, essentially saving you 8 to 10 suffix slots that don’t need to be filled with resistances on your equipment.

How many affixes can items have in PoE 2?

You can have up to 6 affixes on your items in Path of Exile 2: three suffixes and three prefixes.

What is the fastest way to get gear in PoE 2?

The fastest way to gear in PoE 2 is through grinding for currency by using a farming strategy that you can efficiently clear maps with, and then purchase or craft your desired gear pieces.

How to craft gear in PoE 2?

You can craft gear in PoE 2 by using a variety of currencies that can alter the affixes on an item, or by using different league mechanics that have crafting systems, like Harvest.

Final Thoughts

We hope you've learned everything you need about gearing up in PoE 2 and everything surrounding this topic. Our recommendation would be to get familiar with your character, invest some time in learning about crafting, and apply our pro tips and tricks, and you will get your character geared up for the end-game in no time.

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