In Path of Exile 2, a fresh layer of endgame depth emerges with the introduction of Desecrated Items, a rare and volatile type of gear tied directly to Abyssal Fissure encounters. These pieces aren’t just corrupted in the traditional sense—they roll with an unusually strong positive implicit modifier that’s counterbalanced by a punishing negative one. For players chasing the absolute limits of their builds, learning how to work with these items becomes a kind of high-stakes puzzle. The entire loop is self-contained: the fissures drop both the items and the special resources you’ll need to shape them, which means the more time you spend in those dark rifts, the more control you have over this unique progression path—assuming you’ve got the PoE 2 Currency to keep up with the costs.
Abyssal Fissures themselves are chaotic, escalating events that crack open in endgame maps, spewing out wave after wave of abyssal creatures. They’re not the kind of thing you can half‑pay attention to—if you don’t shut them down fast enough, they’ll overrun the area. The fights scale aggressively with the map tier and its modifiers, so a high‑level fissure can feel like a mini‑boss rush. I’ve seen people on Reddit mention that melee builds can really struggle here because of the sheer density of enemies. But if you manage to hold your ground and close the rift, the loot can be absurdly good, with a strong chance of landing a high‑tier Desecrated base that could change the trajectory of your gear hunt.
The real hook with these items is the double‑edged implicit system. On one side, you might roll something that completely redefines your build—extra projectile forking, free bursts of Adrenaline, that sort of thing. On the other, you’re saddled with a drawback that can be brutal if you’re not prepared, like taking part of all physical damage as chaos or losing all passive regeneration. It’s not a simple “good mod, bad mod” choice either; sometimes the upside is so strong you’ll bend your whole build around it, and other times the downside is a deal‑breaker that sends the item straight to the stash tab of shame.
That’s where the fissure‑exclusive crafting tool, the so‑called “Abyssal Cleanser,” comes in. You can’t just slap a Divine Orb on these implicits—they’re locked out from normal currency. Using a Cleanser strips away the negative implicit entirely, but it also locks the positive implicit permanently. It’s a trade that feels almost surgical: you’re committing to that upside forever, but in exchange you free the item from its most dangerous flaw. From there, it’s back to familiar territory—Alchs, Chaos, Essences—layering explicit mods on top of a base that’s already way above the norm.
Interestingly, not everyone bothers with cleansing. There are builds that can shrug off or outright ignore certain negatives. A Chaos Inoculation character, for example, doesn’t care about chaos damage at all, so “Physical Damage taken as Chaos” becomes irrelevant. In those cases, you’re effectively getting two powerful implicits for the price of one, and that’s where the system starts to feel almost broken—in a good way. The trick is spotting those rare synergies, and that’s something you can’t really shortcut without a deep understanding of both the game’s mechanics and your own build’s quirks.
What’s fascinating about this whole mechanic is how it pushes players into more deliberate engagement with Abyssal Fissures. It’s not just another loot source—it’s a risk‑reward gamble that can completely alter your gearing priorities. Some people will cleanse for safety, others will gamble on raw, dangerous power. And for those willing to invest early, it can make sense to buy PoE 2 Currency to stockpile the fissure‑specific crafting mats. The system rewards both mechanical skill in surviving the fissures and game knowledge in exploiting the implicits, and that combination makes it one of the more exciting additions to PoE 2’s endgame so far.
