The crafting strategies involving Regal Orbs and Exalted Orbs each have distinct purposes and advantages, making them suited to different stages and goals in Path of Exile 2 crafting. Choosing which one “wins” depends on your strategy—whether you want to upgrade an item’s quality or maximize the number of powerful modifiers within your poe 2 currency plan.

Regal Orbs serve the purpose of upgrading a magic (blue) item into a rare (yellow) item by adding one extra affix while preserving the existing two. This makes them ideal during the earlier stages of crafting or when you want to move from a less powerful item to a more complex rare with multiple modifiers. Using Regal Orbs is a cost-effective way to turn good magic items into rare ones, opening up the potential for more advanced crafting steps. This is especially valuable when you find magic items with valuable prefixes or suffixes that you want to keep and build upon.

On the other hand, Exalted Orbs are endgame crafting currencies designed to add new affixes to already rare items, increasing the total number of modifiers up to the maximum of six (three prefixes and three suffixes). Exalted Orbs are typically used to enhance rare items that already have several useful modifiers, making these items more powerful and tailored to specific builds. They are rarer and more expensive, reflecting their value in fine-tuning and maximizing top-tier gear.

The Regal Orb is best used as a stepping stone—upgrading magic items into rare items and preparing them for further crafting. The Exalted Orb is the tool of choice for endgame gear optimization, adding additional high-value affixes to rare items to maximize their potential. Neither strictly “wins” over the other; instead, they complement each other in an effective crafting strategy. If you’re low on high-tier resources, you can always look for buy poe 2 currency options to accelerate your crafting progress.

Use Regal Orbs early to build strong rare bases and Exalted Orbs later for precision upgrades to achieve your ideal gear setup.