Summary
Five-mod jewels are among the most powerful upgrades you can add to any build, but crafting them from scratch can be expensive if you don't have a steady supply of cheap POE2 Currency to fund the process. This guide walks through the complete crafting process for both regular jewels and time-lost jewels, covering emeralds, sapphires, and rubies. You'll also learn a clever trick to buy someone's cheap jewel and turn it into an expensive one with just one small change.
Understanding Jewel Base Types
Emeralds are ideal for attack-based builds, rolling crit chance for attacks, crit damage for attacks, attack speed, and attack damage.
Sapphires work for spell-based builds with generic crit chance and crit damage that apply to both attacks and spells.
Rubies lack relevant crit modifiers and are largely out of the meta.
Diamonds can roll every modifier from all jewel types, making them incredibly difficult to craft due to the massive modifier pool.
Why Base Type Matters
Refined catalysts apply to jewels and can buff specific modifier tags. Emeralds allow attack catalysts for attack-based builds, while sapphires enable caster catalysts for spell builds. Rubies don't offer comparable benefits.
Step 1: Setting Up
Initial Budget
Crafting a five-mod jewel typically costs around 150 divines with average luck. For two jewels simultaneously, plan for roughly 300 divines total.
Buying Fractured Bases
Search for fractured modifiers with maximum rolls:
Emeralds: fractured crit damage for attacks rolls to 20, or fractured crit chance for attacks rolls to 16
Time-lost jewels: fractured crit damage rolls to 10, or fractured crit chance rolls to 7
Critical warning: Always hover over the modifier to verify it's a legitimate fractured mod, not a crafted mod disguised as fractured. Use the search filter for "crafted no" to avoid scams.
Step 2: Annulling to One Modifier
Convert some divines into chaos orbs and acquire annulment orbs. Use annulments on each jewel until only the fractured modifier and one additional modifier remain. This creates a clean two-mod jewel ready for crafting.
Step 3: Chaos Spamming for the First Suffix
On jewels, no modifiers are weighted. Each has an equal chance to appear. For a standard jewel with one fractured modifier, the pool has 30 prefixes and 44 suffixes, giving roughly a 1 in 73 chance per chaos orb to hit your desired crit damage modifier.
Time-lost jewels have 32 prefixes and 45 suffixes, making the odds approximately 1 in 76.
Continue chaos spamming until you hit critical damage bonus for attacks. Multiple crit damage modifiers exist, including specific ones like crit damage with spears. Persistence is key.
Step 4: The 50/50 Risk
Use a regular exalted orb on each jewel to add a random modifier.
The potent liquid contempt emotion provides one of two outcomes:
Remove the suffix crit damage bonus and gain plus one prefix
Remove the random exalted prefix and gain plus one suffix
For a five-mod jewel, you want the plus one suffix outcome. This is a pure 50/50. Losing means chaos spamming again to recover the crit damage bonus.
Step 5: Desecrating the Third Suffix
Preserved craniums cost around 58 chaos each. You'll also need omens of dextral necromancy to guarantee the desecration goes onto the suffix.
Activate your omen and use the preserved cranium. This creates a desecrated suffix to unveil.
Desirable outcomes include generic attack speed, attack speed with bows, attack speed with quarterstaves, attack speed with spears, or movement speed. For time-lost jewels, increased effect of notable passives or small passives are excellent hits.
If you hit a usable but suboptimal modifier, you can sell that jewel and recraft from scratch.
