Currency farming is an essential aspect of Path of Exile 2 (POE 2 Exalted Orbs), allowing players to acquire the necessary resources to build powerful characters and trade effectively with other players. With the release of patch 0.31, new strategies have emerged, and one method has recently stood out as the most profitable and efficient: citadel hopping. After extensive testing on streams and in-game experimentation, it’s clear that this strategy can generate an impressive amount of currency, particularly divine orbs, making it the go-to approach for serious PoE2 farmers.
In this article, we’ll break down every aspect of citadel hopping, from the preparation of maps and tablets to the optimization of your atlas for maximum returns. By the end, you’ll have a step-by-step guide to consistently farming high-value fragments and turning them into substantial profits.
Why Citadel Hopping Works
Citadel hopping revolves around the concept of targeting citadel maps with a high drop chance for fragments, which can then be sold for divine orbs. Unlike other strategies like Lockbooks or simple map farming, citadel hopping combines the power of map modifiers, tablets, and atlas planning to maximize fragment drops.
The results speak for themselves. In a typical four-to-five-hour session, a player can obtain around 76 fragments, including:
17 primary fragments
27 secondary fragments
32 tertiary fragments
On the market, these fragments have the following approximate values:
Primary fragments: ~2.4 divine orbs
Secondary fragments: ~1.8 divine orbs
Tertiary fragments: ~1.7 divine orbs
When combined, the total value comes to roughly 2 divine orbs per fragment, translating to around 152 divine orbs for a single session. After factoring in costs, such as Visions of Paradise precursor tablets (used to double map runs), the net profit can be about 120 divine orbs—an exceptional return in PoE2 terms.
Step 1: Preparing the Maps
The foundation of a successful citadel hopping session lies in map selection. The primary goal here is to maximize waste drop chance, which directly influences the number of fragments you can obtain.
When choosing maps, consider the following:
High Waste Drop Chance: Aim for maps with at least 110-115% waste drop chance as a baseline. This ensures a higher probability of dropping two or even three fragments per run. While most runs will yield two fragments, three fragments are possible with the right combination of map modifiers and atlas bonuses.
Crafting or Buying Maps: While crafting your maps is an option, the easiest approach is to check trade websites for maps with the desired waste drop chance. Apply filters to exclude corrupted maps or maps with unwanted mods such as reduced recovery rates or movement penalties.
Instilling Maps: Once you have a base map, you can further increase waste drop chance using instillation with Liquid Envy Emotions, which can push waste drop chance above 200%, significantly improving your fragment yields.
Tablet Selection: Use three tablets that offer 50% increased quantity of wastestones. These tablets can be slightly expensive, but they’re a worthwhile investment. While additional modifiers can also boost results, the main priority is ensuring each tablet maximizes the wastestone drops.
Step 2: Running the Citadels
The core of the strategy involves running citadels twice per map using different tablet setups. Here’s the step-by-step approach:
First Run
Insert the chosen map into a citadel.
Apply one Vision of Paradise tablet to allow the map to be run twice.
Include two additional tablets to boost the quantity of wastestones.
With this setup, your first run can achieve waste drop chances of over 460%, and in optimal conditions, certain atlas modifiers can push this value even higher, resulting in occasional triple fragment drops.
Second Run
After completing the first run, replace the Vision of Paradise tablet with a third standard tablet.
Run the map again to collect additional fragments.
By splitting the runs in this way, you fully leverage the Vision of Paradise mechanic and the tablets, ensuring that each citadel run maximizes fragment drops.
Step 3: Optimizing the Atlas
Your atlas plays a crucial role in citadel hopping. The strategy works best when you actively manipulate the atlas to:
Prioritize waste nodes: Map your atlas to maximize the number of nodes providing increased quantity of wastestones.
Increase fragment drop chance: Use modifiers and atlas passives to boost the effectiveness of tablets and map instillations.
Facilitate citadel hopping: Invest in towers and nodes that allow easy movement from one citadel to another, ensuring minimal downtime between runs.
A few key considerations:
Make sure map boss skill points are fully invested (10/10), as this directly impacts the drop rates of calamity fragments.
Use nodes like Remnants of Power to enhance wastestone quantities.
Ensure that the atlas is adjusted for optimal citadel hopping, not just general mapping.
By carefully setting up your atlas, each run becomes faster and more profitable, allowing you to chain multiple citadel runs efficiently.
Step 4: Using the Grand Project
The Grand Project tablet is a vital tool for speeding up citadel hopping. After completing a citadel, use the Grand Project in nearby towers to instantly move to the next citadel. This reduces travel time significantly, allowing you to run more citadels per hour and increasing your overall profit.
Combined with the Vision of Paradise tablet, this creates a loop where you can run the same map twice before moving on, drastically improving efficiency and fragment output.
Step 5: Calculating Costs and Profits
It’s important to account for the investment needed to implement this strategy. The main expense is the Visions of Paradise tablets, which cost roughly 2 divine orbs each. In a typical session, about 16 tablets are used, totaling 32 divine orbs.
Subtracting this cost from your fragment sales, the net profit is substantial. For example:
Total fragment sales: 152 divine orbs
Cost of Vision of Paradise tablets: 32 divine orbs
Net profit: 120 divine orbs
This return makes citadel hopping far more lucrative than most other farming methods in patch 0.31, including traditional Lockbook runs or solo map farming without optimizations.
Step 6: Handling Variability
While citadel hopping is highly reliable, there are occasional fluctuations:
One fragment drops: Rare instances may yield only one fragment due to unlucky RNG.
Three fragment drops: On rare occasions, atlas modifiers and optimal instillations can lead to triple fragment drops, boosting profits beyond expectations.
To manage these variations, focus on consistency rather than chasing occasional high rolls. Over multiple runs, the average fragment yield remains impressive, ensuring reliable returns.
Step 7: Advanced Tips
Avoid unwanted mods: When selecting maps, exclude negative mods that may hinder your farming, such as decreased movement speed or low recovery rates.
Leverage trade sites: Look for pre-modified maps that already have high waste drop chances to save time and investment.
Monitor the market: Fragment prices fluctuate, so selling at the right time can significantly impact overall profit.
Streamline runs: Set up a routine where map instillation, tablet use, and atlas planning are performed systematically to maximize efficiency.
Why This Strategy Dominates
Citadel hopping stands out for several reasons:
High profitability: Consistently generates large amounts of divines per session.
Repeatability: Works reliably across multiple runs with minimal setup once the atlas and maps are prepared.
Flexibility: Can be adapted based on available maps, tablet availability, and player preferences.
Scalability: The more citadels you have unlocked, the more you can hop efficiently, multiplying profits.
Compared to alternative strategies like Lockbooks or pure map farming, citadel hopping combines speed, predictability, and high returns, making it the definitive currency farming method in PoE2 patch 0.31.
Conclusion
For PoE2 players looking to maximize their currency gains, citadel hopping is the ultimate strategy. By carefully selecting maps, using the right tablets, optimizing your atlas, and leveraging the Vision of Paradise and Grand Project mechanics, you can achieve consistent and substantial profits.
While preparation takes some effort, the results speak for themselves: hundreds of fragments per session, translating to over a hundred divine orbs in net profit buy POE 2 Exalted Orbs. This method is efficient, scalable, and arguably the most reliable way to farm currency in the current state of the game.
Whether you’re a veteran PoE2 player or a newcomer aiming to build wealth quickly, mastering citadel hopping will give you a significant advantage. Combine it with market awareness and optimized atlas setups, and you’ll find yourself with the resources to invest in powerful builds, trade effectively, and dominate the PoE2 economy.
So, gear up, plan your maps, and start hopping—your next haul of divine orbs awaits.