An Early Game Currency Guide to POE2 Expedition Crafting

As you progress through the early stages of a new league in Path of Exile 2, you'll quickly accumulate stacks of Expedition currency. For many players, these Exotic Coinage, Scrap Metal, and other artifacts sit unused. Most crafting guides focus on endgame, mirror-tier projects, leaving a huge opportunity untapped. This guide will show you how to turn that neglected currency into a powerful, early-game profit engine.

The strategy is simple: we will use Gwennen's crafting window to create valuable "transitional" rare items. Why does this work? Because there is always a huge market for "good enough" gear that helps players bridge the gap to their endgame setup.

The profit formula is straightforward:

Profit = (Chance of hitting a Transitional Item * Sell-through Rate * Avg. Profit) + (Chance of hitting a God-Tier Item * Massive Profit)

The good news? Transitional items are surprisingly easy to hit! Generally, an item with just three good modifiers is valuable enough to sell. This guide will teach you what bases to pick and what mods to look for.

General Tips for Expedition Crafting

Before we dive into specifics, here are some golden rules for crafting with Expedition NPCs:

• Know When to Fold 'Em: If an item is still bad after you've used a couple of crafting options, don't get attached. Just take it and sell it to the vendor. You can even vendor bad items in the same window you're buying new bases from.
• Preserve Goodness: If you get an item with good prefixes, your goal is to keep those prefixes and hope for suffix rerolls (or vice-versa). Protect your progress.
• Pick Good Bases: Occasionally, the initial items offered will already have good mods. Always pick these up!
• The Vaal Orb Lottery: If you craft a decent item but it's not quite valuable enough to bother selling, add Sockets, Quality (especially on Energy Shield bases), and then use a Vaal Orb on it. Sooner or later, you'll hit a powerful implicit modifier that turns a cheap item into an expensive one.

Gwennen (Weapons) - Your Primary Profit Engine

In the "Dawn of the Hunt" league, Gwennen's Exotic Coinage is by far the cheapest Expedition currency, making her the most accessible and profitable NPC to focus on. Here's a breakdown of what bases and mods to look for.

Bows

Bows are always in high demand. There are two main approaches:

1. The Magic Base Hunt: Keep the item Magic (blue). Hunt for a Prefix Reroll option to hit a high % Physical Damage or a high Adds # to # Physical Damage roll on a good base like an Expert Dualstring Bow. A magic bow with a single high-tier physical mod can sell for a significant amount.
2. The Rare Craft: If the item is already Rare (yellow), use the reroll options to aim for high Physical DPS combined with good suffixes.

Target Modifier(s) to Look For	Crafting Strategy & Reasoning
High Tier % Physical Damage or flat Physical Damage	This is the foundation of any good physical bow. A high roll on even one of these mods makes the bow valuable as a crafting base.
+# to Level of All Projectile Skills	A rare and powerful prefix. If you see a bow with +4 or higher, it's worth picking up and trying to craft suffixes.
Good Suffixes (Crit Chance, Crit Multiplier, Attack Speed, Additional Projectile)	If a bow already has a great set of suffixes, use the "Reroll Prefixes" option and hope to hit good physical damage mods.

Quarterstaves, 2H Maces, Spears, Crossbows

The logic for these is very similar to bows. Focus on physical damage or high skill gem levels.

Target Modifier(s) to Look For	Crafting Strategy & Reasoning
High Tier flat Physical Damage, % Physical Damage, or hybrid %Phys/Accuracy	The core of any 2-handed physical weapon's value. Your goal is to get two of these, then try to add good suffixes like Attack Speed or Crit.
+# to Level of all Melee Skills	Aim for +4 or higher. Once you have this, your goal is to add good physical damage mods on top.
High Accuracy + High Phys Damage (Spears)	Spears with both high accuracy and physical damage are highly sought after by specific builds.

Wands & Staves

These are all about spellcaster mods.

Target Modifier(s) to Look For	Crafting Strategy & Reasoning
+# to Level of All {Skill Type} Skills	For Wands, look for +4 or higher. For Staves, +5 or +6. A Staff with just a single +6 to All Skills mod can be worth multiple Divine Orbs. If you get this, your goal is to reroll suffixes for good caster stats.

Sceptres & Focuses

These often serve specialized builds, like minion-based or aura-stacking characters.

Target Modifier(s) to Look For	Crafting Strategy & Reasoning
+# to Level of All Minion Skills (Sceptres)	A +4 or higher roll is extremely valuable for minion builds.
High % Spirit or % Presence Area (Sceptres)	These mods are key for aura-focused builds. Look for 50%+ rolls.
+2 to Level of All Skills (Focuses)	This is a powerful, universal mod that makes any Focus immediately valuable.

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A Case Study: My First 300 Exotic Coinage

I didn't invest much to start—only about 300 Exotic Coinage, which cost me around 20 Exalted Orbs. I focused entirely on Gwennen because her currency was the cheapest.

The results were immediate. I crafted many decent weapons that sold in the 20-100ex range, and a bunch of truly great items that sold for 1-5 Divine Orbs each. One day, I hit three incredible weapons: two Crossbows with over 850pDps, and a Spear with 630pDps. I've already sold one of the crossbows for 32 Divine Orbs.

My current profit from that initial investment is roughly 40-45 Divine Orbs, and I still have many valuable items listed for sale.

A Final Word on Risk

You might worry that your "transitional" items won't sell, leading to a loss. But remember, our profit model already accounts for the probability of selling. Because you are constantly rerolling items with Gwennen, the number of potential "good enough" items you see far exceeds what you could ever find by just running maps. Plus, you have the ability to improve them further! This is a powerful and reliable strategy.

Happy farming, exile!