Leveling uniques are like trusty sidekicks in Path of Exile! They pack a punch without breaking the bank and help you blaze through the campaign until you graduate to endgame gear. Here are some top contenders for different stages of your journey:
Early Acts (1-34):
Mid-Game (35-60):
Late Game (61+):
Remember, the "best" leveling unique depends on your build and playstyle. Consider your skill gems, ascendancy, and what stats you need most when making your choice.
Bonus Tips:
I hope this guide helps you navigate the exciting world of Path of Exile leveling uniques! Feel free to ask for specific recommendations or advice based on your build and current progress. Happy slaying! ⚔️
The following gear is helpful while leveling during the Acts, as they are cheap Unique items that provide significant boosts, and can be worn from a low level onwards. These are not necessarily required, and players with no currency can simply use the gear that drops during the Acts, and linked gear purchased from town vendors.
Slot | Builds | Item | Benefits |
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Helmet | All | Goldrim | Elemental resistances |
Body | All | Tabula Rasa | Ability to 6-link your main attack ability |
Gloves | All | Lochtonial Caress | More damage and and charge generation |
Boots | All | Wanderlust / Nomic's Storm / Shavronne's Pace / Victario's Flight / Seven-League Step | Faster movement |
Belt | Melee/Ranger | Meginord's Girdle / Perandus Blazon / Belt of the Deceiver / Wurm's Molt | More damage and elemental resistances |
Spellcaster | Perandus Blazon | Easier leveling | |
Rings | All | 2 Praxis / 2 Perandus Signet / Kaom's Sign / Blackheart / Le Heup of All | Reduced mana cost of skills / Increased XP gain |
Amulet | Melee/Ranger | Karui Ward | More damage, faster attacks |
Spellcaster | Atziri's Foible | More mana, improved mana regeneration | |
Weapons | Melee | 2 The Screaming Eagle / 2 Dreadarc / Limbsplit / 2 The Princess | High damage output with low level requirement |
Ranger | Silverbranch / Roth's Reach, along with Asphyxia's Wrath / Hyrri's Bite | ||
Spellcaster | 2 Lifesprig / 2 Axiom Perpetuum / Fencoil / 2 Abberath's Horn | ||
Poison | 2 Goredrill / 2 Bloodplay |
Players can use vendor recipes to easily craft weapons that are required for leveling, if they have no currency to purchase items, or if they are playing in SSF mode (solo self-found).
To do this, simply sell the items in the "Recipe" column to any vendor at any town, in order to receive the item in the "Result" column.
Recipe | Result |
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Magic Boots with 10% increased Movement Speed |
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Magic Boots with (X+5)% increased Movement Speed |
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Magic Weapon with Adds x Physical Damage |
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Magic Weapon with Adds x Fire Damage |
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Magic Weapon with Adds x Cold Damage |
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Magic Weapon with Adds x Lightning Damage |
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Magic Weapon with Adds x Fire Damage to Spells |
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Magic Weapon with Adds x Cold Damage to Spells |
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Magic Weapon with Adds x Lightning Damage to Spells
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Magic Weapon with +1 to Level of all Physical Spell Skill Gems |
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Magic Weapon with +1 to Level of all Fire Spell Skill Gems |
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Magic Weapon with +1 to Level of all Cold Spell Skill Gems |
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Magic Weapon with +1 to Level of all Lightning Spell Skill Gems |
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Magic Weapon with +1 to Level of all Chaos Spell Skill Gems
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Additionally, for several builds that rely on spells that scale extremely well with levels - for instance: Absolution, Wintertide Brand, Exsanguinate, Corrupting Fever and others, the player should attempt to craft a wand, dagger or an INT-based shield of as low iLVL (You can view this by holding ALT while hovering over the item) as possible (recommended 1-11) by first using Orb of Transmutation and then using Orb of Alteration alongside of Orb of Augmentation to try and roll one of the following mods on these items:
Players should be aware that only ONE of these mods can roll on the item, as they all share the same mod group. Trying to gain, for example - x to Level of all Physical Spell Skill Gems and x to Level of all Cold Spell Skill Gems together is not possible, and the same is true for any other combination with the notable exception of x to Level of all Spell Skill Gems mod which is not available until iLVL 55 of the item, but at this stage it also becomes FAR less likely you will get both mods.
The average number of tries to hit one of the above mods is higher at lower iLVL and much lower at higher iLVL items. By crafting either one weapon and one shield or two weapons, you stand to have +2 to a specific gem, which is a massive boost to your power during any stage of the game, even in maps.
We’ll be taking a look at which uniques are most-used by players across different level brackets and game modes.
We’ll look at level 70+, level 90+ and all levels of characters.
All Levels | 70+ | 90+ |
---|---|---|
Tabula Rasa | Thread of Hope | Thread of Hope |
Thread of Hope | Watcher’s Eye | Watcher’s Eye |
Watcher’s Eye | Atziri’s Promise | Primordial Harmony |
Atziri’s Promise | Lion’s Roar | Rumi’s Concoction |
Lion’s Roar | Primordial Harmony | Atziri’s Promise |
Primordial Harmony | Rumi’s Concoction | Cinderswallow Urn |
Goldrim | The Wise Oak | Lion’s Roar |
Wanderlust | Tabula Rasa | The Wise Oak |
The Wise Oak | Cinderswallow Urn | Primordial Eminence |
Rumi’s Concoction | Primordial Eminence | Glorious Vanity |
Looking at All Levels, we can see multiple uniques that are generally considered to be “leveling unique items” in Goldrim and Wanderlust. What’s interesting here is how popular Thread of Hope is. The Harvest update introduced Glancing Blows as a keystone on the passive tree, which just so happens to be in a great position to take advantage of a “Very Large Ring” Thread of Hope!
In the level 70+ bracket, Tabula Rasa starts declining drastically in popularity, as players transition away from their leveling gear and into stronger choices. Two Primordial jewels show up here, displaying the popularity of Golem builds.
Finally, in the level 90+ bracket, we see Tabula Rasa has dropped out of the picture entirely, with Glorious Vanity being a newcomer to the fold. Thread of Hope reigns supreme as the most popular choice, while there is very little fluctuation among the rest of the uniques.
Here, we’ll mainly be comparing how the Hardcore choices look relative to the Standard choices.
All Levels | 70+ | 90+ |
---|---|---|
Tabula Rasa | Tabula Rasa | Thread of Hope |
Wanderlust | Thread of Hope | Glorious Vanity |
Goldrim | Lion’s Roar | Watcher’s Eye |
Lifesprig | Spreading Rot | Rumi’s Concoction |
Blackheart | Rumi’s Concoction | Spreading Rot |
Karui Ward | Lioneye’s Remorse | Primordial Harmony |
Kaom’s Sign | Conqueror’s Efficiency | Lion’s Roar |
Lochtonial Caress | The Jinxed Juju | Forbidden Taste |
Araku Tiki | Witchfire Brew | The Jinxed Juju |
Survival Instincts | Crown of the Inward Eye | Crown of the Inward Eye |
One key difference that is immediately observable when looking at the All Levels bracket is how almost all of these uniques are squarely in the “leveling unique items” bracket. This is significantly different from Standard, where many of the unique items were certainly not your typical leveling uniques.
In the level 70+ bracket, Thread of Hope once again makes an appearance, one notch below Tabula Rasa. Given the difficulty of obtaining this jewel, it’s reasonable to expect its use to be lower given there will likely be reduced availability, yet it is quite popular! Notable newcomers include Spreading Rot, Lioneye’s Remorse, and Witchfire Brew, with two of those uniques being very useful to Essence Drain / Blight builds.
In the level 90+ bracket, we see Forbidden Taste coming into the picture. This flask is extremely useful for characters with very large life pools, allowing for instantaneous life recovery when it is most needed. Worthy mentions in this bracket are The Jinxed Juju (a commonly used unique in Spectre builds) as well as Crown of the Inward Eye, both of which do not show up in Standard.
Let’s move on from trade leagues and take a look at how unique usage varies when players have to find their own uniques, starting with Harvest SSF Standard.
All Levels | 70+ | 90+ |
---|---|---|
Tabula Rasa | Tabula Rasa | Thread of Hope |
Wanderlust | Spreading Rot | Atziri’s Promise |
Spreading Rot | Atziri’s Promise | Rumi’s Concoction |
Goldrim | Thread of Hope | Cinderswallow Urn |
Assassin’s Haste | Conqueror’s Efficiency | Spreading Rot |
Survival Instincts | Rumi’s Concoction | Lion’s Roar |
Survival Secrets | Lion’s Roar | Tabula Rasa |
Atziri’s Promise | Assassin’s Haste | Crown of the Inward Eye |
Karui Ward | Cinderswallow Urn | The Wise Oak |
Blackheart | The Wise Oak | Victario’s Charity |
One of the first things that you can see when going down the All Levels bracket is that Spreading Rot is quite popular. You’ll recall that this didn’t show up in non-SSF Harvest Standard, but likely shows up in SSF given that this is a quest reward in Act 5, therefore players can reliably make Essence Drain / Blight builds. We see a trio of quest reward jewels in Assassin’s Haste, Survival Instincts and Survival Secrets here as well, with players making do with the readily-available options.
In the level 70+ bracket, Tabula Rasa and Spreading Rot remain very popular choices, as is expected. Impressively, Thread of Hope is relatively popular even in SSF leagues!
As we tighten things up by looking at the level 90+ bracket, one key difference is that Tabula Rasa actually sticks around, where in trade leagues, it was nowhere to be seen. This isn’t overly surprising given the increased difficulty of obtaining a six-link when you can’t trade, but interesting nonetheless. We do see Victario’s Charity for the first time, suggesting that Minion builds are a popular choice in SSF leagues.
Finally, to wrap up unique statistics, we’ll take a look at Harvest SSF Hardcore.
All Levels | 70+ | 90+ |
---|---|---|
Tabula Rasa | Tabula Rasa | Spreading Rot |
Wanderlust | Spreading Rot | Thread of Hope |
Blackheart | Lioneye’s Remorse | Lioneye’s Remorse |
Goldrim | Lion’s Roar | Tabula Rasa |
Karui Ward | Thread of Hope | Rumi’s Concoction |
Lifesprig | Bated Breath | Lion’s Roar |
Araku Tiki | Conqueror’s Efficiency | Glorious Vanity |
Kaom’s Sign | First Snow | Forbidden Taste |
Spreading Rot | Belt of the Deceiver | Soul Tether |
Lochtonial Caress | Rumi’s Concoction | Bated Breath |
We’ll begin by looking at All Levels. If you recall the Harvest Hardcore stats, you’ll note that the entirety of this list is identical with one exception; Spreading Rot shows up in place of Survival Instincts, another nod towards the reliability of Essence Drain / Blight builds.
In the level 70+ bracket, we see Bated Breath, First Snow and Belt of the Deceiver as newcomers. Bated Breath slots into any Energy Shield build quite well, while Belt of the Deceiver is a fantastic unique belt for life-based characters, providing ever-important life and resistances. First Snow is specific to Freezing Pulse builds, which is rather unexpected to see as one of the most popular choices, though given that this is also a quest reward and has a limit of two, it might explain its popularity.
Finally, in the level 90+ bracket, we don’t see Watcher’s Eye at all, where it was also missing in Harvest Standard as well. It’s certainly a very powerful option, suggesting that acquisition of Watcher’s Eyes is relatively difficult (both in terms of rarity and perhaps also encounter difficulty). The final newcomer here is Soul Tether, a relatively rare unique belt which allows Life Leech effects to not be removed when you reach Full Life.