PoE 2: Essence Crafting - The Ultimate Guide

Essences in Path of Exile 2 are a powerful tool for crafting, giving players more control over the RNG (Random Number Generator) aspect of item modification. This guide will walk you through the process of acquiring essences, their uses, and strategic tips for using them in your crafting journey.

Both Basic and Greater Essences can be dropped by enemies or found at Essence Nodes scattered throughout the game world.

The Reforging Bench allows you to combine three basic essences of the same type to potentially change their type:

Change the type of Essence.

Upgrade to a more powerful essence (although the chance of this happening is low, around 1-2%).

Transform a normal (white) item into a magical (blue) item with a specific attack or attribute modifier. For example:

Battle Essence: Adds an attack stat such as Accuracy.

Essence of Ruin: Targets chaos-related modifiers, though it may not always provide resistance.

Turn a magical item into a rare (yellow) one, adding another modifier from the same category. They are significantly more valuable and costly (around 7 Exalted Orbs each), so use them wisely.

Unlike other crafting methods, where the result is completely random, essences allow you to choose the type of modifier that is added, reducing the randomness of the result.

Essence of Ice: Applied to a sapphire ring, this could provide cold resistance or damage.

Essence of Flame: Could add fire resistance or damage to an item such as a prismatic ring.

Strategic Crafting

If you have an item with one desirable mod, but need another in the same category, a Greater Essence can secure that second mod.

Catalysts: Add quality to items to increase certain modifiers. The quality can increase elemental resistances or damage types on rings or amulets.

Omens: Can change the way crafting materials interact with items. For example, using an omen to ensure that an Exalted Orb only adds suffixes can be crucial in crafting triple resist rings.

If you want a triple resist ring, you could use an Omen to force an Exalted Orb to add a suffix to an item that already has two resistances. However, as shown, this doesn't always guarantee the desired result.

Essences can be traded or used to craft items for profit. Understanding the market demand for certain modifiers can help you decide which essences to keep or sell.

Remember that crafting is an investment. Sometimes you'll spend more than you gain, but over time, with strategy, you can turn your essences into valuable equipment or currency.

Essences offer a unique blend of control and randomness in Path of Exile 2's crafting system. They are particularly valuable for players who want to tailor their gear to fit their build. Understanding how to acquire, use, and combine essences with other crafting tools such as catalysts and omens can greatly enhance your end-game items. Remember, crafting is both an art and a gamble; patience and strategy can lead to great rewards. If you found this guide helpful, be sure to explore our other content for detailed breakdowns of Catalysts, Omens, and other crafting strategies.