Expedition Guide - Path of Exile 2

Expedition is an endgame league mechanic in Path of Exile 2 that allows players to place explosives to unearth monsters and chests containing valuable loot. Players also need to watch out for Remnants that will add increased difficulty and reward to all monsters following the chain of explosives

In the Atlas, players might notice small icons on Maps that indicate that that area contains and Expedition encounter

Once in a Map containing an Expedition, players will be met by one of four NPCs (Rog, Dannig, Tujen or Gwennen) standing in front of a burial site littered with Monster Markers, Remnants and Chest Icons.

Players will be given 5 Explosives, which they can place to unearth these Monsters and Chests (these can be accessed by pushing V or clicking the icon at the bottom of the screen).

Remnants will also be visible; these are markers that will buff monsters and their drops, making the encounter more difficult and rewarding. Monsters will only be affected by Remnants if they were unearthed by the explosive placed on that Remnant, or an explosive placed after that Remnant. For example, if a Remnant was unearthed with the first explosive, all monsters in that Expedition encounter will be affected by that Remnant. If a Remnant was unearthed with the third explosive, only monsters unearthed with that third explosive and subsequent explosions will be affected by it.

All of this means that planning your explosive pathing matters hugely for getting the most out of your Expeditions. You'll want to aim to hit the good Remnants first to get the most out of the encounter, but just make sure you don't end up making the Expedition too difficult to complete!

Once a player has decided on their route, they can start placing explosives. You can either click the Explosives icon at the bottom of the screen next to your Skill Bar, or use the hotkey V (default). You will now be able to place your first explosive, which has a limited range and a green ring icon that highlights everything it touches, indicating what that explosive will unearth after detonation

This first explosive hits a Magic Chest, Rare Chest, Remnant and some Monster Markers as is indicated by the green colour highlighting these icons

Once a player has placed all available explosives, the Detonator will become active, allowing them to begin the sequence of explosives that will unearth all highlighted monsters, and Chests, while applying the Remnant modifiers to monsters in the chain

You can also hover over the small detonation icon at the bottom of the screen to double check the Remnant effects on your Expedition, to double check you haven't gone over anything too difficult, or something that will make the encounter impossible to complete. When you're ready, click the Detonator to begin the encounter.

The explosives will go off in sequence, unearthing powerful monsters along the way. Slaying these monsters has a chance for special Artifacts to drop which can be used for Expedition Crafting (explained in this guide: Coming Soon), as well as Logbooks, which will be discussed in a separate guide (also coming soon)

If you survived the encounter, and were able to slay all the monsters, you can now open all your Chests and collect your loot!

Remnant Modifiers

There is a long list of Remnant modifiers that will affect the difficulty and reward in Expeditions. Each Remnant will provide both an upside and a downside and should be read carefully before proceeding

Modifiers to watch out for:

• Immunity to # Damage - some Remnants will make monsters completely immune to certain damage types, so make sure you're not going over these and making the encounter impossible to complete. These modifiers will always be listed in bright yellow, making them easier to see
• Utility and Defense Disabling Modifiers: some modifiers will disable your Leech, or make it so you will be unable to Evade any attacks (effectively nullifying your Evasion Rating). Keep a look out for these as they can be deadly
• Runic Monsters are Duplicated: This Remnant modifier is great and will double the number of Runic Monsters unearthed, meaning you have higher chance to find more Artifacts, Logbooks and general loot

There are also several bonus effects, improving the loot found in Chests, and the amount of Artifacts and item types dropped from slain Expedition monsters.

Keep a lookout for the difficulty modifiers that could brick your build (written in dark blue or yellow), while also trying to buff your encounter with as many positive effects (written in light blue)

NPCs and Artifacts

There are four different Expedition NPCs which will indicate the Faction of monsters found in that Expedition encounter, as well as the types of Artifacts that the monsters will drop

Each of these Factions will have special monsters of different types that pose different challenges, along with generic Expedition monsters. Some of these monsters can be deadly, with long range Arbalist creatures and Runic Casters that cast high damage area of effect spells under the player. Make sure to be mobile and not overtune your Expedition encounters with too many remnants before you're ready!

The Artifacts that you find will allow you to craft specific item types with the various Expedition Vendors, use the Recombinator, or can simply be sold on the Currency Exchange to other players. Expedition Crafting is a fairly complex system that requires a fairly decent understanding of item modifiers and crafting basics, and will have its own separate guide. The current Expedition Crafting system is also quite poorly balanced and is likely to change, but players can still luck out with the system

Exotic Coinage can be used to Reroll Expedition Vendor windows to fish for new bases to craft on

Logbooks

Players may also be lucky enough to find Expedition Logbooks, which can be used with Dannig in a player's hideout to open the Expedition Pinnacle encounter.

A separate guide will explain these in more depth, but Logbooks are essentially massive Expedition Maps in which no normal monsters will be present, and players will be able to place at least 20 Explosives to unearth a massive chain of monsters, Chests, and secret underground areas. These are particularly useful for farming large amounts of Artifacts, but also generic loot from slain unearthed monsters.

While in Logbooks, players can also find Runic Splinters which can be used at the Realmgate to travel to the Kalguuran Tomb to fight the Expedition Pinnacle Boss, Olroth, Origin of the Fall. This Pinnacle boss can be defeated to gain more Expedition Atlas Points which are dicussed in the next section

Expedition Passive Point Acquisition

Players can increase the Difficulty and Rewards of their Logbooks and affect Expedition encounters they find in their Maps by allocating Expedition Atlas Passive Skill Points.

Additional Expedition Atlas Points can be obtained by completing various specific encounters related to Expedition.

Expedition Atlas Tree

Expedition Atlas Passive Tree. Click to expand

As you can see above, the Expedition Atlas Passive Tree can have a major effect on the difficulty and reward of Expedition encounters found in your Maps.

A very popular option is Extreme Archaeology, which instead replaces your usual five small explosives with one MASSIVE explosion. The upside of this is that you get more coverage and don't need to carefully sit and plan every explosive placement, but the downside is that it's easier to overtune your Expeditions, make them too difficult, or accidentally hit Immune to x Damage Remnants that could brick your encounter.

Players can further juice their Expedition encounters in Maps by applying Tablets to Towers on their Atlas. These can drastically improve the reward of Expedition encounters, but as always, at the expense of increasing their difficulty

Expedition Tablet Prefixes

Expedition Tablets share the same Prefixes as other Tablets that provide generic increases to loot found within maps affected by them. They include:

• (10-15%) increased Rarity of Items found in your Maps
• (3-7)% increased Quantity of Items found in your Maps
• (3-7)% increased Pack Size in your Maps
• (15-25)% increased Magic Monsters in your Maps
• (10-15)% increased Gold Found in this Area
• (5-10)% increased Experience Gain

Expedition Tablet Suffixes

Suffixes on Expedition Tablets will affect the difficulty and reward of Expedition encounters specifically

• (5–10)% increased quantity of Artifacts dropped by Monsters in your Maps
• (5–10)% increased Explosive Placement Range in your Maps
• Expeditions in your Maps have +1 Remnant
• (5–10)% increased Explosive Radius in your Maps
• (5–10)% increased Quantity of Expedition Logbooks dropped by Runic Monsters in your Maps
• (10–15)% increased number of Rare Expedition Monsters in your Maps
• (3–6)% increased Effect of Remnants in your Maps
• Your Maps contain (5–10)% increased number of Runic Monster Markers

Thank you to PoE2Wiki.net for the list of Tablet modifiers

Unique Expedition Tablet

There is also one Unique Expedition Tablet which causes all Runic Monsters to be Duplicated and spawn with half of their life missing. This can be very powerful as it means that players have double the chance of finding Artifacts, Logbooks and Exotic Coins, but run the risk of being overwhelmed by twice as many monsters

Thank you to PoE2Wiki.net for the list of Tablet modifiers and image of Forgotten by Time

If you'd like to learn more about Path of Exile 2 and its Endgame systems, check one of our other guides below!

• PoE 2 Towers and Tablets Guide
• PoE 2 Breach Guide
• PoE 2 Delirium Guide
• PoE 2 Shrines Guide
• PoE 2 Strongboxes Guide
• PoE 2 Atlas Passive Point Guide