Waystones are an important resource in through the endgame quest "Cataclysm's Wake," you'll need to use unique items called Waystones.

In short, Waystones fuel your progress through the endgame, so you'll need to become familiar with the processes of finding them, upgrading them, and using them quickly. You'll also soon learn that many Waystones have unique effects, affecting conditions of the maps they unlock: for example, increasing enemy difficulty, boosting the chances of rare loot drops,

How To Get Waystones

Getting Waystones As Random Drops

It is possible to find Waystones as random drops from enemies throughout the world of Path of Exile 2. This is likely the most common method of finding Waystones. Like almost everything else in the game, though, they're totally random drops, and there's really no way to guarantee you'll get a Waystone from any particular battle. Nor is there an established meta for farming Waystones like there is for Spirit Gems. Of course, you'll only find them in high-level and endgame areas, so make sure you stick to those locales to increase your chances.

Using a high-tier Waystone to unlock a map does increase the chances of further Waystone drops on that map, so the more mapping you do, the more map nodes you'll be able to unlock. If you're low on Waystones, try cashing in a high-value one with several modifiers to unlock a new node, and you'll be more likely to find more while you're clearing it. And if you don't even have high-tier Waystones to use, you can follow the steps for upgrading them outlined below.

Buying Waystones From Doryani

If you're having trouble finding Waystones organically, you can always buy one from Doryani. Doryani always has Waystones available in his shop. At the beginning of the endgame, you can purchase a single, Tier 1 Waystone from him for 5,000 gold.

The Waystones in Doryani's shop scale with your level, and you'll begin to see higher-Tier, more expensive options as you start to clear more of the Atlas.

Keep in mind, though, that the Waystones Doryani offers generally won't have modifiers, and will almost always be inferior to the ones you get from enemy drops. You'll probably want to upgrade them before taking them out.

How To Upgrade Waystones

Upgrading With A Reforging Bench (Increasing Tiers)

There are basically two ways to upgrade your Waystones in Path of Exile 2: using a Reforging Bench to increase their tiers, and using Orbs or Distilled Emotions to add new modifiers. We'll look at the Reforging Bench method first. By the time you get to the endgame, you've likely already started using the Reforging Bench in Path of Exile 2. This is a crafting station that allows you to combine three of the same item into a higher-tier version. While you've probably mostly used it for upgrading weapons and armor thus far, you can also use the Reforging Bench to upgrade your Waystones.

The output of the Reforging Bench will always be one tier higher than the Waystones you put in. Keep in mind that this is the only way to upgrade a Waystone's tier; using Orbs will only add new modifiers.

Upgrading With Orbs & Distilled Emotions (Adding New Modifiers)

You can also apply another typical loot upgrade method to improve your Waystones in Path of Exile 2: Orbs. For items, Orbs are sort of like a shortcut to the Reforging Bench; they allow you to immediately bump an item up to the next tier, or add a random modifier. But for Waystones, Orbs don't have any effect on tier; however, they can still be used to add extra modifiers. Just use them as they would normally to add new conditions to your Waystones.

In a similar vein, you can also use Distilled Emotions to add new modifiers to your Waystones. Keep in mind, though, that one of those modifiers will always be Delirium. Unlike Orbs, Distilled Emotions have predictable effects on Waystone modifiers. See the table below for how each different Emotion will affect your Waystones.

With all that in mind, you can manipulate your Waystones into being as high-tier and as helpful as possible. Learning when and how to use them is an important step in progressing through the endgame of Path of Exile 2.