Path of Exile: Crafting Guide

Crafting in Path of Exile is one of the game’s most intricate and rewarding systems, offering players the ability to modify and enhance their gear in various ways. Unlike traditional RPGs where crafting typically involves combining materials to create a new item, Path of Exile’s crafting system focuses more on altering existing items to suit your build’s needs. Whether you're aiming to add specific modifiers, reroll stats, or create the perfect item from scratch, understanding how crafting works is crucial to mastering the game.

In this guide, we’ll dive into the essentials of crafting in Path of Exile, covering everything from basic crafting with orbs to using the POE Exalted Orbs Crafting Bench for more advanced modifications. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned player looking to refine your crafting skills, this guide will help you navigate the complexities of Path of Exile’s crafting system.

What Can Be Crafted?

In Path of Exile, crafting refers to the process of modifying or enhancing existing items rather than creating them from scratch. This includes weapons, armor, jewelry, and other equipment that your character can use. The core of crafting revolves around adding or altering modifiers on these items to better fit your build or to increase their value for trading.

Modifiers can affect a wide range of stats, including damage, defense, resistances, life, mana, and more. The ultimate goal of crafting is to achieve the right combination of Path Of Exile Currency modifiers that enhance your character’s performance in the game. However, crafting the perfect item can be a long and resource-intensive process, as the game’s randomness often requires multiple attempts to get the desired result.

Basic Crafting: Orbs and Their Uses

The most fundamental form of crafting in Path of Exile involves the use of currency items known as orbs. These orbs can modify existing items in various ways, ranging from simple stat rerolls to more complex changes like adding or removing modifiers. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most commonly used orbs and their functions:

Orb of Transmutation: This orb upgrades a normal (white) item to a magic (blue) item, adding one or two random modifiers. It’s the first step in crafting when you want to enhance a basic item.

Orb of Alteration: Used to reroll the modifiers on a magic item. This orb is essential for fine-tuning magic items to achieve the desired stats.

Orb of Augmentation: Adds a new modifier to a magic item that has only one modifier. It’s useful when you have a good base stat and want to add another beneficial modifier.

Orb of Alchemy: Upgrades a normal item to a rare (yellow) item with several random modifiers. This is a powerful orb for quickly turning a basic item into something potentially valuable.

Chaos Orb: Rerolls all modifiers on a rare item. Chaos Orbs are frequently used in crafting to try and get a desirable set of modifiers on rare items.

Exalted Orb: Adds a new random modifier to a rare item. Exalted Orbs are valuable and often used in high-level crafting to add an additional modifier to an already powerful item.

Divine Orb: Rerolls the numeric values of the existing modifiers on an item, which can help maximize the effectiveness of the stats on your gear.

Regal Orb: Upgrades a magic item to a rare item, adding one additional random modifier. Regal Orbs are a key component in the process of creating high-quality rare items.

These orbs are the foundation of crafting in Path of Exile. Depending on your goals, you’ll use these orbs in different combinations to modify your gear. The challenge lies in the random nature of the modifiers, which means achieving the perfect item can require many attempts.

Advanced Crafting: The Crafting Bench

Once you’ve mastered the basics of crafting with orbs, the next step is to utilize the Crafting Bench, which is available in your hideout. The Crafting Bench allows you to add or remove specific modifiers from your items, offering a level of precision that’s difficult to achieve with orbs alone.

1. Unlocking Crafting Recipes

Before you can use the Crafting Bench effectively, you need to unlock crafting recipes. These recipes are found throughout the game world, often as rewards for completing certain quests or exploring specific areas. Each recipe allows you to add a specific type of modifier to your items. For example, you might unlock a recipe that lets you add +X to maximum life or increase elemental resistances.

2. Using the Crafting Bench

To use the Crafting Bench, place the item you want to modify into the bench, select the recipe you want to apply, and pay the required cost in currency orbs. The Crafting Bench allows you to:

• Add a New Modifier: You can add a new modifier to an item, provided it has an open modifier slot.

• Remove an Existing Modifier: If an item has an undesirable modifier, you can remove it and replace it with something more beneficial.

• Reroll Modifiers: Some recipes allow you to reroll the values of existing modifiers without changing their types.

The Crafting Bench is particularly useful for fine-tuning items after you’ve used orbs to get a good base set of modifiers. For example, if you’ve rolled a rare item with several good stats but it’s missing one crucial modifier, you can use the Crafting Bench to add that specific modifier, making the item much more powerful.

Crafting Strategies: How to Craft the Perfect Item

Crafting the perfect item in Path of Exile requires a combination of planning, patience, and a bit of luck. Here are some strategies to help you on your crafting journey:

1. Start with a Good Base Item

The quality of the base item you’re crafting on is crucial. Higher item level bases can roll more powerful modifiers, so it’s worth starting with an item that has the potential to be great. Look for base items with high defense or damage values, or ones that naturally come with beneficial implicit modifiers.

2. Use Fossils for Targeted Crafting

Fossils are a special type of currency item that can be used in conjunction with Resonators to influence the modifiers that appear on an item. Different fossils have different effects, such as increasing the likelihood of certain modifiers or preventing specific types of modifiers from appearing. This targeted crafting method can be particularly effective when you’re aiming for a specific set of stats.

3. Master the Art of Metacrafting

Metacrafting involves using special crafting techniques to control the outcome of your item’s modifiers more precisely. This often involves using a combination of Exalted Orbs, Annulment Orbs, and the Crafting Bench to carefully add and remove modifiers until you achieve the desired result. Metacrafting is expensive and time-consuming but can yield some of the most powerful items in the game.

4. Know When to Stop

One of the biggest challenges in Path of Exile crafting is knowing when to stop. Because of the random nature of modifiers, it can be tempting to keep rerolling or adding modifiers in the pursuit of perfection. However, this can quickly lead to wasted resources. It’s important to set realistic goals for your items and be satisfied when you reach a good balance of stats, even if it’s not perfect.

Conclusion

Crafting in Path of Exile is a deep and complex system that offers players the ability to create powerful, customized gear tailored to their specific needs. Whether you’re using basic orbs for simple modifications or engaging in advanced techniques like metacrafting, understanding the mechanics of crafting is essential to progressing in the game.

While crafting the perfect item can be a long and sometimes frustrating process, the rewards are well worth the effort. With the right approach and a bit of luck, you can create gear that will give you a significant edge in both PvE and PvP content. So, gather your orbs, unlock those crafting recipes, and start crafting your way to victory in Path of Exile.