If you’ve been struggling to find a consistent way to make money in Path of Exile 2 without investing heavily into gear or stacking rarity, essences might just be your answer. While minion builds and breach juicing can be fun, they often land in that “mid” tier of farming efficiency. Essences, on the other hand, offer a surprisingly profitable, low-investment strategy that anyone can pick up.
Over the course of a few days of casual farming, I managed to pull in roughly 15 Divine Orbs just by clicking on essences, using Vaal Orbs, and selling the results. And while I didn’t track exact “div/hour” numbers, the method has proven both consistent and fun — with a healthy dose of dopamine when you hit the big upgrades.
Let’s break it down.
What Are Essences in PoE2?
Essences are special crafting materials that drop from trapped monsters. Each essence guarantees a specific affix when used in crafting, which makes them useful and valuable depending on the market.
Here’s the important part: you don’t need to be a master crafter to profit off essences. You just need to know which ones are worth money. For example:
- Essence of Horror, Hysteria, Delirium, and Insanity → Top tier, always worth a good amount.
- Perfect Essence of Battle → Around 40:1 Exalts, solid but not jackpot-tier.
- Greater Essences like Mind or Body → Often worthless, but can be gambled via 3:1 trades.
If you can recognize value, you can make smart decisions on whether to sell, upgrade, or gamble.
Using Vaal Orbs on Essences
Here’s where things get interesting. Applying a Vaal Orb to an essence monster can cause one of five outcomes:
- Nothing happens.
- Adds random essence.
- Rerolls all essences into the same tier but different types.
- Upgrades the essences to the next tier (Greater → Perfect → Corrupted).
- Instantly frees the monster (sometimes with an upgrade).
This gambling mechanic is where most of the profit (and fun) comes from. For example, you might turn a Perfect Essence of Flame into a Perfect Essence of Horror, which can be worth an entire Divine Orb. On the flip side, you might brick a decent essence into something worthless. Risk vs. reward is the name of the game.
Examples from My Farming
- Greater Essence of Battle + Infinite: I Vaal’d it, hoping for an upgrade. Didn’t hit, but it added a Greater Ice. Small profit.
- Perfect Essences (except Battle): I always Vaal them. There’s too much upside potential with Horror, Hysteria, or Delirium to ignore.
- Greater Essence of Grounding: Rolled into a Greater Ruin — one of the best outcomes. Easy money.
- Greater + Perfect Mix: Sometimes it’s smarter to just sell. Gambling can reduce your profit if the essence is already valuable.
The key takeaway? If it’s a Perfect essence and not already premium, Vaal it every time. The chance of hitting big is worth the single orb.
3:1 Trading: Turning Trash into Treasure
If you’re sitting on piles of worthless essences like Mind or Body, you don’t need to waste stash space. Use the vendor recipe: three of the same tier = one of a higher tier. This is effectively a gambling mechanic since upgrading can hit a valuable type like Haste or Battle.
This is also why some “bad” essences still sell decently on the market — players buy them in bulk just to 3:1 gamble into something better.
Atlas Tree for Essence Farming
If you want to go all-in on essences, you’ll want to adjust your Atlas passive tree. The most important node is:
- Crystal Realm → “Areas with Map Bosses contain an additional Essence.”
This doubles your essence opportunities and is mandatory for a focused strategy. Stack this with essence percentage nodes to increase spawn chance. While pushing past 100% diminishing returns kick in, the investment is still worthwhile.
Optional nodes:
- Random Extra Content chance → Adds more essences into the mix.
- Skip Precursor upgrades; they’re rarely worth the points.
Juicing with Tablets (Expensive but Strong)
For high rollers, the Tablet mechanic lets you supercharge essence farming. A single Tablet that adds “Bosses contain an additional Essence” is basically another copy of the Crystal Realm node. At around 50 Exalts, it’s pricey, but guarantees multiple essences per map.
My testing showed that with a 3-tower setup, I was averaging four essences per map and pulling consistent profit. But unless you’re flush with currency, it’s probably smarter to mix essences with other strategies (Breach, Delirium, Abyss, etc.) rather than dedicating entirely to this.
Tips for Maximizing Profit
- Always six-mod your maps → Doesn’t increase essences, but bosses drop more loot overall.
- Don’t Vaal high-value Greater Essences → Sometimes it’s better to sell guaranteed profit.
- Use Vaal Orbs smartly → Focus on Perfect essences and mid-tier upgrades with gambling potential.
- 3:1 your junk → It turns stash clutter into a lottery ticket.
- Expect variance → Some days you’ll brick 10 essences in a row; other days you’ll hit two Horrors and cash out big.
Final Thoughts
Essence farming in Path of Exile 2 is straightforward, low-barrier, and consistently profitable. Even without rarity stacking or heavy Path of Exile 2 currency investment, you can easily build wealth just by clicking, Vaal’ing, and selling essences.
I made around 15 Divines with this method — without spreadsheets, timers, or market flipping. If you enjoy the thrill of gambling and steady dopamine hits when you hit those juicy Perfects, essence farming is absolutely worth trying.
Whether you’re new to PoE2 or a veteran looking for a chill currency farm, essences deliver—discover more gaming insights at.