basic knowledge
Crafting

Basic Currency Crafting — Raising Rarity and Filling Affixes

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Basic currency drops everywhere without running any specific mechanic. Where content currencies are precision tools for adding one specific power, basic currency is the skeleton: raising rarity, adding affixes, removing them.

0.5 changed the crafted-modifier rules substantially, and that rule is large enough to have its own page — see Crafted Modifier Rules. Quality currency moved to Quality Currency. This page is the core loop of adding and removing affixes.

Before you start — rarity and affix limits

Crafting comes down to filling affix slots. Waste a lot of currency and it’s usually because these limits weren’t clear.

  • Normal — 0 explicit affixes. Implicits may still be present.
  • Magic — 1 prefix + 1 suffix, 2 maximum.
  • Rare — 3 prefixes + 3 suffixes, 6 maximum.

Rarity never drops back down when affixes are removed. Strip a rare down to two affixes and it stays rare.

Item level matters just as much. Item level sets the ceiling on which affix tiers can appear. No amount of good currency will put a top-tier roll on a low item level base, which is why serious crafting always starts with “a base worth using, at a high enough item level.”

For reference, unidentified rares generate with 4, 5, or 6 affixes at roughly an 8:3:1 ratio. That’s why nearly everything you pick up off the ground has four.

Currency covered here

What each orb does

Raising rarity

Orb of Transmutation turns a Normal item Magic with one affix. Orb of Augmentation adds a second (Magic caps at two, so it’s effectively single-use). This pair carries most of your leveling gear.

Regal Orb upgrades Magic to Rare and adds one affix, and the two existing affixes are kept. Building two modifiers you want at the Magic stage and then regaling is the standard opening.

Orb of Alchemy also produces a rare, but behaves completely differently: it takes a Normal or Magic item to Rare with four random affixes, and existing modifiers are not retained. Use it on a carefully rolled magic item and that work is gone. Save it for turning blank Normal items into rares quickly. This mix-up destroys more items than any other single mistake.

Adding and removing affixes

Exalted Orb adds one random affix to a rare. It can’t be used once all six are filled. It’s the highest-volume currency in crafting, so it tends to be the unit you budget in.

Chaos Orb in PoE2 removes one random affix and adds one random affix. It is not the full-item reroll from the first game. If you think of it as “rerolling the item,” your plan will be wrong. It’s the tool for shaving one unwanted modifier off an otherwise finished item — with the catch that you don’t choose what gets removed. A good roll can vanish, so don’t spam it once most of the affixes already satisfy you.

Orb of Annulment just removes one random affix. Use it to open a slot for another Exalted, or to gamble a single bad modifier off an item. Again there’s no targeting, so the more affixes present, the worse your odds.

Divine Orb leaves the affix types alone and rerolls only the numbers — and it rerolls all implicit and explicit values at once, not one modifier. That makes Divine a final step, after the affix list is locked in. Divining while you still plan to swap modifiers is wasted currency. It can’t be used on corrupted items, and it has no effect on fractured modifiers. Divine Orbs drop more frequently in 0.5 than they used to.

Locking, copying, and corrupting

Fracturing Orb fractures one random affix on a rare with at least 4 affixes, locking it permanently. A fractured modifier can’t be removed or changed, and Divine won’t move its value. It can’t be used on already-fractured items or uniques. Since the target is random, the standard play is to strip the item down to exactly four affixes first, maximizing the chance the one you care about gets locked. In 0.5 these no longer drop freely — they require Atlas specialisation (the Hidden Scars line, area level 75+).

Orb of Chance either upgrades a Normal item to a Unique or destroys it. No success rates have ever been published, and rarer uniques are less likely. It can’t be used on bases with no unique version. As of 0.5 it also works on Tablets.

Vaal Orb modifies an item unpredictably and corrupts it. Corrupted items can never be modified again by any currency, so this is always last. On equipment you get one of: nothing, up to three affixes rerolled, a Vaal enchantment, or an added socket. Gems shift by a level, a socket, or quality; Waystones move ±1 tier (corrupting a T15 is the only route to T16). None of the outcome probabilities are officially published.

One 0.5 change matters a lot here. The corruption outcome that pushes values beyond their normal range now multiplies each modifier based on its current value instead of randomising it. A good item stays good through that outcome. The old advice that “corrupting rerolls your values randomly” is no longer correct.

Hinekora’s Lock lets an item foresee the result of the next currency used on it; modifying the item in any way removes that. Its detailed behaviour is barely documented officially, so it’s not worth asserting more than the item text says.

Mirror of Kalandra creates a mirrored copy. It works on non-unique equippable items only, and mirrored copies cannot be modified afterward. It can’t be used on corrupted, mirrored, or sanctified items.

A working crafting sequence

This order holds up in the current patch.

  1. Lock in the base and item level first. Check that the modifiers you want can roll on that base, and at what level the top tiers open up.
  2. Transmute, then augment to build one or two desired modifiers while the item is still Magic. Switching to a different base is cheap at this stage.
  3. Use a Greater Essence to go Rare. Both existing modifiers survive and you get a guaranteed third. A Regal’s third affix is random, so if you have the essence, this is the better line — just remember it consumes your one crafted slot.
  4. Fill the remaining slots with Exalted Orbs. On a high item level base, Greater or Perfect Exalted give noticeably steadier results.
  5. Swap failed affixes with Chaos Orbs. Once most affixes are good, the random removal starts costing more than it gains — knowing when to stop is part of the craft.
  6. Divine only once the affix list is final.
  7. Fill quality, and if you really want it, Vaal last.

The governing principle is simple: the less reversible something is, the later it goes. Divine → fracture → corrupt in the wrong order leaves you with no way back.