Path of Exile 2: Understanding Item Modifiers, Modifier Tiers and Item Tiers

Why do higher-level items sometimes have worse modifiers than lower-level ones? That doesn’t make sense… or does it? And what exactly do item tiers do?

As a new Path of Exile 2 player, I had the same questions. I got very confused trying to figure out Sceptre upgrades for my Infernalist, so I did a deep dive to figure it out. Here’s what I found, hopefully it is useful for you.

If you prefer to watch a video in which the below is explained you should check the video below.

Before we dive into the depths of item modifiers we need to have a common understanding of what modifiers are. In short: Modifiers are properties that can be found on items giving it functionality, by either adding more offensive, defense or utility. Modifiers are important because they significantly increase your characters damage output or survivability.

Modifiers, sometimes also called affixes, come in 2 types. Prefixes and Suffixes. Prefixes usually focus more on the offensive, enhancing stats like increased attack, life, mana, spirit, movement speed and key defensive stats like energy shield, armor or evasion rating. On the other hand, suffixes typically focus more on defensive and/or utility, enhancing resistances, life and mana regeneration or attributes that are needed to meet gem and gear requirements like Strength, Intelligence or Dexterity.

The amount of modifiers on an item depend on the rarity of the item.

Normal or White items only have the base stats and don’t come with any modifiers

Magic or Blue items can have 2 modifiers, 1 prefix and 1 suffix

Rare or Yellow items can have 6 modifiers, 3 prefixes and 3 suffixes

Unique items come with a specific set of predetermined modifiers, in other words there is no Random Number Generation (or RNG in short) involved when these drop.

At this point in time, the game doesn’t provide detailed information about modifiers that are available on specific items. However, there are several external resources available that can help. Please note that I am not affiliated in any way with the external resources I mention in this video. An example of an external resource is Craft of Exile that can be used to look for an item slot and see what prefixes and suffixes are available for that specific item slot. This can be a great help to decide what item would work the best with your build.

To bring this to live we will look at an example of a two handed mace. We will assume this two handed mace is a rare item. We will therefore identify three prefixes and three suffixes.

From the prefixes we select the following

1. #% increased physical damage
2. Adds # to # physical damage
3. #% increased physical damage and #% to accuracy rating

For the suffixes we select the following

1. +# to level of all Melee skills
2. Increased attack speed
3. Gain # life per enemy killed

This can be the blue print of the two handed mace that you are looking for that will work best with your build. The affixes can be noted down in order of priority so that you know what to look for when items drop or when you go check a vendor.

With the basics out of the way, lets go back to the exam question: Why do higher items not always mean better modifiers? And actually, why is it more challenging to get better modifiers on an higher item level item?

When it comes to modifiers GGG implemented a comprehensive tier system. A tier gives a value range for a specific modifier and more tiers become available when a character is leveled up and explores higher level areas, finding higher item level items.

This still doesn’t explain or answer the exam question.

It boils down to having to deal with 4 RNG (or better called “Gambling”) moments. To explain this I am using data from our previous example, a two handed mace, looking at the % increased physical damage prefix.

Step 1: Finding an item, what is the item level? The item level defines the number of tiers, or value ranges, that are available on the item. This means that a higher item level item will have more tiers in the pool to pick from randomly. In this example we assume the item level on our 2-handed mace is 60.

The second step is the prefix of suffix that is rolled. As explained earlier there is a limit to the amount of modifiers based on the item rarity. For our 2-handed mace we assume we rolled the % increased physical damage prefix.

The third step is, which tier does the modifier roll? A high item level item doesn’t automatically get a high tier assigned of the rolled prefix. In our example, the 2-handed mace with a high item level can easily role tier 7 resulting in a 50-64% increased physical damage while the tier system goes up to tier 3 which would give 135-154% increased physical damage.

The forth and the last step is the number from the range. Assuming the roll resulting in a tier 7 roll the value will be between 50-64%. For this example we assume the worst roll possible resulting in a 50% increase in physical damage. As can you see the randomness of this is significant with this example showing a variance of over 100% between a bad, but not unusual roll versus the best roll.

This also explains why a lower item level item can have a better prefix than a higher item level item. Comparing our example above with a 2-handed mace drop with item level 35 rolling tier 5 with the max value in the range. This would already show a staggering 59% positive difference against our previous example.

You can find out the modifier tier by hovering over the item and and hitting the alt key. It will then show the modifier range. This is all the info the game currently provides on modifiers. Craft of Exile, or a similar resource, can be used to look for an item and what the modifier tiers look like.

We just spent all this time on modifiers including modifier tiers. But what about item tiers? Those items that show (Tier 1-5) between brackets before they are identified?

Even though these tiers are closely related, they are not the same!

First lets have a quick look at an item with a tier notation. Items can be found with tiers ranging from Tier 1 to Tier 5 with 5 being the best and 1 being the worst. Once the item is identified, the tier notation disappears (and as far as I am aware can’t be retrieved anymore), however the impact of it is still there an applies to all prefixes and suffixes of this item.

If we apply this to the third step of the previous example, this will look as follows:

We have a two handed mace that is now tiered with item level 82. This opens up all 8 prefix tiers that are available for the #% increased physical damage prefix. As mentioned earlier and considering this item is not tiered, the roll on this item can result in the modifier to be anything across the 8 tiers ranging from 40% to 179% increased physical damage. This is exactly as we discussed in step 3.

Lets look at the same example but make it a Tier 4 two handed mace. This results in the number of available tiers to roll from to be significantly reduced making the chance to hit a higher tier on your item much higher.

The data about the jumps per item tier level have not been published. What is displayed here is for informational purposes however, assuming the reduction of 1 modifier tier level per 1 item tier level still drastically improves the rng of each modifier tier.

Hopefully this explains the modifier and tier systems and why higher-level items sometimes have worse modifiers than lower-level ones.

Please drop a comment on the video on Youtube, this blog post or on the alphagamer.net forums or drop in on my live stream on Youtube if you have anything to add or have any questions.