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Crafting Basics — Making Gear with Orbs, Essences, and Runes

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You don’t have to buy all your gear. Filling in an urgent resistance line or a life line yourself is faster and cheaper. This page lays out the big picture a beginner needs — what each currency does and what order to use them in. The exact rules of each orb and a worked example live in Basic Currency Crafting.

Rolling gear with basic orbs

The core flow is raising rarity Normal → Magic → Rare while filling modifier slots.

  1. Orb of Transmutation — upgrades a Normal item to Magic with 1 modifier.
  2. Orb of Augmentation — adds 1 modifier to a Magic item (Magic caps at 2).
  3. From here there are two paths to Rare:
    • Regal Orb — upgrades Magic to Rare with 1 added modifier, keeping the existing two. Use it after building the mods you want at the Magic stage.
    • Orb of Alchemy — makes a Rare directly with 4 random modifiers, but existing mods are not kept. Using it on a worked Magic item wipes those mods, so only use it on a blank Normal item.

Once it’s Rare, you refine it:

  • Exalted Orb — fills an empty modifier slot at random (can’t be used at 6). The most-used currency.
  • Chaos Orb — removes 1 modifier and adds 1. Not a full reroll like PoE1, and you can’t choose which is removed.
  • Orb of Annulment — removes one modifier at random.
  • Divine Orb — rerolls only the values, not the modifier types. Use it last, once the mods are locked in.
  • Vaal Orb — unpredictable change plus corruption. A corrupted item can’t be touched again, so always last.

The three most common beginner mistakes: wiping a good Magic item with Alchemy, mistaking Chaos for a “reroll,” and using Divine/Vaal too early. Avoiding just these three cuts a lot of wasted currency.

Essences — guaranteed modifiers

Where orbs are random, essences add a guaranteed modifier of the category you want. A life essence, for instance, guarantees a life modifier. Lesser/regular/Greater essences add the guaranteed mod while upgrading a Magic item to Rare; Perfect/Corrupted essences remove a random modifier from a Rare and add the guaranteed one. They’re most valuable for locking down one line you urgently need.

The 0.5 rules around crafted modifiers differ from older seasons, so if you’re using essences seriously, read the detailed rules in Basic Currency Crafting.

Runes and Soul Cores — socketed upgrades

If a piece of gear has sockets, you can insert a Rune or a Soul Core for a fixed modifier. Where orbs “roll” modifiers, this “slots in” what you want, so the result is deterministic.

  • Runes are common and great for patching resistances or damage through sockets. See Expedition Crafting for the types and how to get them.
  • Soul Cores come from the Trial of Chaos and grant special modifiers runes can’t (see Trial of Chaos Crafting).

The effect often depends on the slot (weapon vs armour), so check what it does before socketing.

Crafting stations — the Reforging and Salvage benches

First, a key point: PoE2 has no PoE1-style crafting bench that adds a chosen modifier. Modifiers come from applying the orbs and essences above directly to items. There are two workbenches instead.

  • Reforging Bench — a place to combine three of the same thing into one. For example, three same-tier waystones → one waystone a tier higher, or three essences/runes → a higher grade. Unlocked by an Act 3 quest. Note that combining equipment rerolls its mods (they aren’t kept), so think of it as upgrading materials.
  • Salvage Bench — breaks equipment down into quality currency and Artificer’s Shards. Weapons give Blacksmith’s Whetstones, armour gives Armourer’s Scraps, and each socket gives an Artificer’s Shard (combine them into an Artificer’s Orb). Note that gear with runes socketed is destroyed on salvage, so be careful. Unlocked by an Act 1 quest.

A beginner crafting order

A realistic priority for leveling and early endgame:

  1. Patch the slots you can’t quickly buy (usually resistances on rings/amulets/belts, life on armour) with orbs.
  2. Don’t hoard cheap currency. Transmutation, Augmentation, Alchemy, and Exalted are for solving your current problems now.
  3. Lock one urgent line with an essence.
  4. Fill sockets with runes for resistances or damage.
  5. Save expensive currency — Divine Orbs, stacks of Exalts — for finishing a good, mod-complete item or for the endgame.

For a step-by-step crafting example through the finishing stage, see Basic Currency Crafting.