When it comes to raising skill quality in Path of Exile 2, both the Arcanist’s Etcher and the Gemcutter’s Prism play essential but distinct roles, and understanding which is “better” depends entirely on what you’re enhancing and how your build is structured—an important consideration for how you allocate your precious poe 2 currency.
Gemcutter’s Prism:
This classic currency is used to increase the quality of skill gems—your actual active abilities. Each use of a Gemcutter’s Prism on a gem raises its quality by 1%, up to a cap of 20%. Higher quality on a skill gem enhances its power in ways unique to that particular gem: more damage, longer duration, faster projectiles, tighter area of effect, or reduced mana cost. The increase is usually direct and highly visible on the gem’s tooltip: as soon as you add quality, you see the relevant stat or property bumped up. Gemcutter’s Prisms are relatively common, and most high-end or min-maxed builds will aim for all core skill gems to be maxed at 20% quality. This direct boost makes Gemcutter’s Prisms extremely valuable to any spellcaster, as they heighten the effectiveness of nearly every core ability your character uses.
Arcanist’s Etcher:
By contrast, the Arcanist’s Etcher is a currency intended for caster weapons—wands, staves, and sceptres—that grant a “skill” as part of their base properties. Using an Etcher on such a weapon increases the quality of the weapon’s granted skill, not the weapon stats or the skill gems socketed in it. Raising the granted skill’s quality can lead to bonuses like increased spell damage, faster cast speed, or other modifiers exclusively attached to that unique skill (as shown under the skill’s info when holding the ALT key). The Etcher is applied to only those weapons which inherently grant a spell; it is more limited in scope, less immediately transparent, and often its benefit is subtler than what you see from Gemcutter’s Prism. Anecdotally, while some casters report dramatic improvements (a more potent or smoother spell, more projectiles, or utility buffs), others find the changes less obvious—sometimes not reflected visually in the main weapon stats or the expected skill tooltip. Many players simply choose to buy poe 2 currency to ensure they have enough Etchers on hand.
Which Raises Quality “Better”?
The answer comes down to where your primary spell power comes from:
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If the main source of your ability’s effectiveness is a skill gem, then the Gemcutter’s Prism directly amplifies your core abilities, stacking boosts for every percent of quality. Its impact is broad: nearly every build benefits from maxing skill gem quality, and the improvement is always directly measurable.
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If you’re relying heavily on a weapon-granted skill—particularly those exclusive spells or special attack abilities that only your wand, staff, or sceptre can provide—then the Arcanist’s Etcher is indispensable for squeezing extra effectiveness from that weapon slot. However, its impact is more niche and, in some cases, the quality upgrade might be modest compared to what you’d see on a gem, especially for average or non-unique weapon skills.
For optimal results, dedicated spellcasters use both: Gemcutter’s Prisms to maximize skill gems and Arcanist’s Etchers to elevate the unique spells granted by their caster weapons. Together, these currencies form the backbone of magical quality improvement, but if you’re choosing just one for raising “skill quality” broadly, Gemcutter’s Prism almost always delivers a larger and more noticeable gain in overall spell power for most builds.
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