ARPGs thrive off of interesting loot for players to chase. Games like Diablo 3 focus on set items, while others like Grim Dawn focus more on crafting and item modifiers.
Path of Exile firmly falls in Grim Dawn's camp of crafting being paramount to success, but that doesn't mean that Unique items don't serve a purpose. Certain Unique items can enable entire playstyles or builds, while other Uniques are so terrible that they are a detriment to use rather than a boon. From armor pieces to weapons, here are ten Unique items that you should either chase or avoid.
Updated February 17th, 2021 by Charles Burgar: Path of Exile has seen some massive balance changes since this was last written. Plenty of new Uniques have been added or rebalanced, allowing for a wide variety of new builds. With a new influx of chase Uniques, this list was in desperate need of an update. Certain entries have been replaced with much more impactful items, good and bad.
10 Amazing: Tabula Rasa
Tabula Rasa is an item with no stats on it. It has no implicit stat, prefixes, or suffixes. With that said, Tabula Rasa might be one of the best leveling and early Mapping items in the game.
That is because Tabula Rasa is guaranteed to drop as a six-link chest piece with all white sockets. This means that you can use any skills with any Support Gems fully linked together as soon as level 1. For those who play solo-self-found and don't trade, this chest is a godsend. You can also farm Divination Cards for Tabula Rasa at the Blood Aqueducts in Act 9, allowing any player to obtain this item if they need it.
9 Terrible: Bitterdream
Bitterdream is one of the most annoying Uniques in Path of Exile. It supports socketed skills with six Support Gems, making it somewhat useful for leveling.
Its issue comes when you finish leveling. When you have no other use for this item, it would make sense to sell it. The issue is selling this item gives you six Support Gems instead of currency shards. Every time you pick up this item, you need to leave your instance, talk to an NPC, sell the item, then sell the six gems they just gave you, then put your six Scroll of Wisdom fragments in your stash. Leave it on the ground whenever you find one.
8 Terrible: Reach of the Council
Veteran Path of Exile fans will remember just how overpowered this bow was when it was released during Prophecy league, but like most frequently updated games, times have changed.
This bow has been nerfed three different times; that's how good it was. Now, Reach of the Council is simply a bad bow that provides no meaningful upsides. It is the only bow in the game with Greater Volley intrinsically in the weapon, but the number of bow skills that benefit from that support gem are so low it makes this weapon hard to justify using.
7 Amazing: Shavronne's Wrappings
Shavronne's Wrappings is a great example of what makes a good Unique in Path of Exile. This chest armor grants a solid chunk of Energy Shield and prevents Chaos damage from bypassing your Energy Shield.
This is a build-enabling benefit, allowing players to reserve their Life with no concern for Chaos damage instantly-killing them. Reserve a few auras that take up your HP, run the Pain Attunement keystone, then annihilate everything that gets in your way. If you can't transition to Chaos Innoculation or want to use your Life pool as a source of damage, Shavronne's Wrappings is hard to top.
6 Amazing: Bottled Faith
Nearly every character in Path of Exile can benefit from using a Bottled Faith flask. Obtained from the absurdly rare Cortex Unique Map, this item grants an absurd amount of flat critical chance and increases the damage enemies take.
If that wasn't enough, this flask lasts up to six seconds a use, can be used three times before you need to refill it, and spawns Consecrated Ground that heals you. Nearly every high-tier PoE build scales some form of critical damage to enhance their damage. Bottled Faith's additive critical chance makes your critical hits much more consistent. Most builds get anywhere from a 20-30% DPS boost from drinking this single flask. It's that good.
5 Terrible: Crown Of Thorns
Sacrificing your helmet slot for a circlet with little Energy Shield and the Pain Attunement keystone isn't worth it. Crown of Thorns is meant to be a way for casters to level as a low-life variant, but it fails spectacularly at doing so.
Chaos damage can still bypass your Energy Shield, so any enemies that deal that damage type can one-shot you. This item also doesn't grant much Energy Shield for hybrid Life/Energy Shield characters to consider using. If that wasn't bad enough, most spellcaster builds path right by Pain Attunement on the Passive Tree. There are far better items out there.
4 Amazing: Most Unique Jewels
We're going to cheat here and list multiple Uniques at once. Unique Jewels contain some of the most robust, powerful, and sought-after effects in the game. These Jewels range from augmenting your skills to changing how your Passive Tree functions. Every build in Path of Exile can benefit from at least one of these Jewels.
- Inspired Learning: When you kill a Rare monster, you gain one of its modifiers for 20 seconds. You can use multiple Inspired Learnings to mimic the effects of Headhunter, saving you hundreds of Exalted Orbs in a trade league.
- Thread of Hope: This Jewel projects a ring of variable size on your Passive Tree. You can allocate any passives in this ring, even if they aren't connected to other nodes.
- Timeless Jewels: Each of these Jewels augment your Passive Tree. These either replace or add effects to your passives, fundamentally changing the way your Passive Tree functions. There are five you can find: Glorious Vanity, Brutal Restraint, Elegant Hubris, Lethal Pride, and Militant Faith.
- Unnatural Instinct: Every unallocated small passive node in this Jewel's radius is granted to you. This is absurdly powerful if placed near the Scion's starting location in the Passive Tree.
- Voices: Voices can support up to three Medium Cluster Jewels instead of the usual two. In essence, it allows you to craft a miniature Passive Tree.
- Watcher's Eye: Obtained from the Elder, this Jewel grants powerful buffs to certain auras, some of which are build-enabling.
3 Terrible: Iron Fortress
Scaling core stats on your character is nothing new in Path of Exile. The Iron Fortress, an item that should be a chase Unique for Strength-scaling builds, is deceptively terrible.
The Prophecized version of the Iron Heart causes every ten points of Strength to grant 3% increased melee physical damage instead of the standard 2%. While this sounds like a worthwhile bonus, this effect is so minor that you're better off with a mediocre Rare item. A 1,000 Strength build, for instance, would gain 100% increase melee physical damage from this chest piece. Decent Rare chest plates grant significantly more than that, providing flat critical chance or Support Gems to certain skills. This item is a trap for new theorycrafters. Avoid it at all costs.
2 Amazing: Headhunter
Headhunter is the strongest Unique in Path of Exile for characters that focus on Mapping—Path of Exile's main form of endgame. While this belt is equipped, you gain all of a Rare monster's modifiers when it dies for 20 seconds.
These buffs can stack on each other. For example, one Rare monster you kill might increase your character size. If you kill a second monster with the same modifier, you get it twice. Since Path of Exile has so many enemies in its endgame, it isn't uncommon to have characters take up the entire screen and attacking 20 times per second after Headhunter kills a few enemies. Even crazier, some builds have found a way to quadruple Headhunter's duration, causing every buff to last 80 seconds instead of 20.
With the right setup, this single belt can give your character tens of thousands of Energy Shield, millions of free DPS, enough movement speed to traverse maps in one second, and a character so large that it covers your entire screen. Headhunter is equally efficient as it is absurd.
1 Terrible: Veil of the Night
Path of Exile is balanced around your character having 75% Fire, Cold, and Lightning resistance. If you are under this threshold, most enemies will one-shot you.
That's why Veil of the Night is easily the worst Unique in Path of Exile. This helmet locks your elemental resistances to 0% with no means of changing it. For a negative that severe, what's the benefit? You gain a small boost to your Armour, Evasion Rating, and Energy Shield. A 20% defense boost is not enough to mitigate a 75% damage increase from nearly every enemy in the game. Stay far away from this item.