Best Way to Farm Experience

Leveling up in Path of Exile 2 lets you unlock new skills, improves your stats, and helps get ready for endgame content. This guide will show you the best ways to farm XP quickly, covering quests, farming zones, party play, and more.

How XP Works

You gain experience by killing enemies and completing quests. To get the most XP:

• Fight enemies close to your level. If they are too low, you will get less XP.
• Struggling with tough enemies? Farm in areas 1-2 levels below you for faster kills.
• Higher difficulties slow you down because enemies take longer to kill.

Best Ways to Farm XP

1. Complete Quests

The easiest way to gain XP is to play through the campaign. By the time you finish the story, you should be around Level 45, and close to Level 60 after playing through Cruel difficulty when you hit endgame. If you are behind, pick up and complete side quests for extra XP.

2. Farm Enemy-Dense Zones

To level up fast, you will need a build and farming strategy that work well together. Builds with strong area-of-effect (AoE) damage are great for clearing groups of enemies quickly, and movement skills help you get through zones faster. But do not forget about defense! Staying alive means less time wasted on deaths.

Some areas are packed with monsters, making them great for farming:

• Hunting Grounds: Full of enemies and ambushes, with a boss at the end.
• Dreadnought or Dreadnought Vanguard: Full of enemies and bosses.
• Jiquani’s Machinarium: A maze-like area loaded with enemies. Be careful, it is easy to get cornered. There is also a boss here.
• The Aggorat and Utzaal: Huge zones with lots of enemies.

These spots are also great to earn gold, so you can combine both XP and gold farming at the same time. To reset an area and respawn enemies, press CTRL + Left Click on the entrance and select “Reset.”

3. Focus on Speed

• Use movement-speed gear and skills to move faster.
• Do not waste time picking up useless loot.
• Combine questing with farming when possible.

4. Fight Optional Bosses

Grouping up with party members and hunting down all the optional bosses on the map can be a good way to gain experience fast. Doing this in a group will make the fights faster, and those bosses reward a lot of XP, among passive points and other useful items.

Advanced XP Farming (Endgame)

Once you hit endgame, these are the preferred methods:

• Run Maps on the Atlas (aka “Mapping”): Maps have lots of monsters and great XP rewards.
• Boss Rush: In maps, skip straight to bosses for big XP bonuses.
• Breaches: Super dense with enemies, perfect for quick XP farming.

Leagues and Events

Farming XP with Abyss

Abyss was reworked in patch 0.4.0 and is now part of the core map-mechanic pool. Because of this, it does not appear in every zone by default anymore. Instead, Abyss shows up only when a map rolls an Abyss modifier or when a Precursor Tablet adds Abyss to the map.

This means that some older assumptions about “every zone spawning fissures” or “guaranteed Abyssal Pits” no longer apply. However, when you do get an Abyss-enabled map, it still provides strong XP due to its high monster density.

Abyss Basics

Abyss now behaves like other mechanics, such as Ritual or Breach. It may or may not appear in a zone depending on your map rolls or Tablet effects.

When it does:

• Fissures spawn enemies in waves.
• Closing fissures progresses the encounter toward an Abyssal Pit.
• Pit difficulty still depends on which monsters were killed:
  • Normal monsters → Standard Abyss mobs, fast clears.
  • Magic monsters → Tougher packs with higher XP value.
  • Rare monsters → Dangerous, inherit Abyssal modifiers, but give top-tier XP and loot.
  • Rogue Exiles → Transform into Lichborn variants; dangerous but rewarding with unique jewel drops.
  • Bosses near Abyss → Can summon giant Abyssal Larvae (good XP but slow kills).
  • Essence monsters near Abyss → Always drop an extra Essence.

Tip for XP farming: Focus on Abysses in maps that actually rolled the mechanic. Since mechanic frequency varies per map, Abyss should be treated as a “high value when present” XP source, not something to expect every run.

Rewards and Scaling XP

Clearing all Abyssal Pit monsters spawns an Abyssal Trove, containing loot and Gnawed Bones.

• Gnawed Bones, Well of Souls crafting, and Desecrated modifier crafting still exist but may behave differently depending on map context after the 0.4.0 redesign of Abyss. Their XP relevance is indirect, coming from gear upgrades rather than guaranteed fissure loops.
• Abyss can still be competitive with Breach or Delirium for XP, but only in maps where it actually spawns.

Crafting with the Well of Souls

Unlocked in Act 2 (Lightless Passage), the Well lets you upgrade items using Gnawed Bones.

• Use a Gnawed Bone to desecrate and create an Abyssal-infused item.
• Cast Desecrated Gear into the Well.
• Pick one of three hidden modifiers to lock in.

Exclusive affixes include:

• Crossbow: +1 Maximum Summoned Ballista
• Staff: +X Spirit
• Quarterstaff: % chance to build extra Combo on Hit

These modifiers do not help XP directly, but upgrading your weapons here can speed up clears, indirectly boosting XP/hour.

Waystone Infusions

Using Preserved Vertebrae at the Well, you can infuse Waystones with Abyss modifiers. These can drastically change farming efficiency:

• Increased Rare monster count → more XP per encounter.
• Abysses spawn 7-9 extra Pits → more fissures, more XP.
• Areas overrun by Abyss monsters → density spikes for XP grinding.

Since Abyss frequency is not guaranteed, these infusions serve as a way to deliberately force Abyss density instead of assuming it appears in all zones.

Endgame Abyss Content

Abyssal City and deeper Abyss content accessibility depend on rolling Abyss encounters in your maps. When they appear, these zones provide extremely dense, high-level XP.

XP Strategy: Use Abyss-enabled maps for spike XP sessions rather than relying on Abyss as a guaranteed leveling method.

With Patch 0.4.0, Abyss is no longer a guaranteed XP engine in every zone, but when the mechanic rolls on your maps or gets added via Tablets or Waystone modifiers, it remains one of the strongest leveling tools thanks to its monster density and layered rewards.