PoE 2 Waystone Crafting in 0.5.5: What Every Mod Gives and How to Roll Them

Goal

Waystones with the bonuses you farm for and none of the mods your build can't run

Base

Waystones of the tier you run; tier sets the danger, not the bonus

Method

Alchemy, then Exalted Orbs up to six mods; Chaos Orb to replace a bad one

In the app

Bonus minimums, unwanted and wanted mods, the next orb for each waystone

Checkpoint

Read the bonus lines above the mods: they are the sum of what the mods pay

Guide coverage

Waystones only; Precursor tablets roll from their own pools

A PoE 2 waystone doesn't work like a PoE 1 map. There is no Item Quantity line and no "good" mod to roll for. Every mod on a waystone makes the map harder, and every mod pays for it with a fixed bonus. The bonuses add up and print above the mods. Crafting a waystone is choosing which danger you accept for which bonus.

Everything below is from the game's own data export for patch 0.5.5 and checked against real waystones copied in game.

How a waystone reads

A normal waystone has no mods and no bonuses. Here is a rare one, copied in game:

Waystone (Tier 7)
Revives Available: 2
Item Rarity: +12%
Monster Rarity: +36%
Monster Effectiveness: +13%
Waystone Drop Chance: +50%
--------
Monsters have 10% chance to inflict Bleeding on Hit
Monsters take 24% reduced Extra Damage from Critical Hits
Monsters are Armoured
Players have 25% less Cooldown Recovery Rate

The four lines above the mods are the four mods' bonuses added together. The Drop Chance of +50% is 10 + 10 + 15 + 15, one share from each mod. Monster Rarity +36% is the Critical Hit mod's 18 plus Armoured's 18.

There are five bonuses:

• Item Rarity: more rarity on items found in the map.
• Waystone Drop Chance: more waystones found. Every mod pays some of this.
• Pack Size: bigger packs.
• Monster Rarity: more magic and rare monsters, and rare monsters more likely to have modifiers.
• Monster Effectiveness: monsters are stronger. It's a bonus line, but it's part of the danger.

Revives Available is not a bonus you roll. It falls as mods are added: a normal Tier 5 waystone showed 5 revives, a magic Tier 5 with two mods showed 4, and the Tier 7 rare above shows 2 with four mods.

What each mod pays

Each mod pays a Waystone Drop Chance share and one other bonus. The bonus is the same at every tier. A higher tier rolls the danger part higher (more damage, more life) but pays the same bonus. All mods are equally common, and all of them can roll on every tier except Fleeting, which needs Tier 11 or higher. A rare waystone holds up to three prefixes and three suffixes.

Two things follow from the table:

• Pick the danger by what it pays. If you farm rarity, a Penetration or Extra Chaos prefix pays more than Bleeding, which only adds Effectiveness. If your build can't take −maximum resistances, that suffix pays the most Pack Size and Drop Chance, and leaving it out costs you the most.
• A six-mod waystone is the most bonus a waystone carries. With three prefixes and three suffixes from the Item Rarity rows, the mods add up to about +87% Item Rarity, but that takes all six to be the best Item Rarity mods. In practice, set a minimum and accept anything above it.

The orb route

The route we use, and the one Exiled Bench follows:

1. Orb of Alchemy on a normal waystone: it becomes rare with some mods.
2. Exalted Orbs add one mod each until it has six. Check the new mod each time.
3. Chaos Orb when an unwanted mod lands: it removes a random mod and adds a new one.
4. On a magic waystone, a Regal Orb only when its mods are worth keeping; otherwise Alchemy is cheaper than building on bad mods.

Orbs of Annulment work too, but they are expensive in PoE 2, and we practically never spend them on a waystone.

Waystone omens. Four omens change your next Chaos Orb on a waystone. With one active, the Chaos Orb replaces all of the waystone's mods, with mods that don't grant one bonus:

• Omen of Chaotic Rarity: none that grant Item Rarity.
• Omen of Chaotic Quantity: none that grant Pack Size.
• Omen of Chaotic Monsters: none that grant Monster Rarity.
• Omen of Chaotic Effectiveness: none that grant Monster Effectiveness.

Read them as a full reroll that leaves out one row group of the table above.

Desecration. Preserved Vertebrae desecrate a rare waystone. Desecrated waystone mods are a separate pool that isn't in the table.

Find the good ones with stash search

PoE 2's stash and map device search reads the same regex as PoE 1's, and since 0.5 it takes 250 characters. The bonus lines are text like any other, so a search can set a minimum on them. This string keeps waystones with at least 40% Item Rarity and hides any with −maximum resistances or less Life and ES recovery:

"item rarity:.*([4-9].|\d..)%" "!imum p|less r"

You don't have to write these by hand. The free waystone regex builder builds them in English or Russian: bonus minimums, tier range, rarity, corrupted, delirious, and the mods to avoid or want. Every mod fits in the unwanted list at once.

Doing it in Exiled Bench

The app's PoE 2 Waystones page takes the same lists: unwanted mods, wanted mods with how many are needed, and minimums on Item Rarity, Waystone Drop Chance, Monster Rarity and Monster Effectiveness. For each waystone it reads the copy, checks it against your lists and picks the next orb by the route above.

From version 2.29 it also runs the craft: waystones in the currency tab's item well, your inventory or a stash tab, each one until it passes. Earlier versions read a copied waystone and name the next orb. See Exiled Bench for PoE 2.

Tips

• Raise the tier, not the bonus. The bonuses don't grow with tier; the map does.
• Count Drop Chance in. Every mod pays it, so a full rare sustains your waystones better than a magic one.
• Write down your "never run" list once and keep it as a saved filter in the regex builder.
• Effectiveness is danger. A high Monster Effectiveness line means harder monsters, not more loot.

If you also play PoE 1, maps work differently: see efficient map rolling.