The tablet question has an answer nobody gives
There are eight tablet bases in Path of Exile 2 and one shared pool of 90 modifiers. Every tablet has 10 uses. Every tablet is inserted into a Precursor Tower to change the maps around it.
That means “which tablet is best” is not a question about rarity or price. It is a question of arithmetic: how many of the 90 modifiers actually do anything on this base.
I sorted all 90 modifiers by which mechanic they touch, assigned every one to exactly one category, and counted. The spread is enormous.
All 8 tablets, ranked by working mods
Working mods means modifiers whose text only functions when that tablet’s mechanic is present in the map. Dead mods are modifiers from a different mechanic, which do nothing on this base.
| Tablet | What it adds to the map | Working mods | Dead mods |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expedition Tablet | A Kalguuran Expedition | 15 of 90 | 45 |
| Abyss Tablet | Abysses | 10 of 90 | 50 |
| Ritual Tablet | Ritual Altars | 9 of 90 | 51 |
| Delirium Tablet | A Mirror of Delirium | 9 of 90 | 51 |
| Breach Tablet | An Otherworldy Breach | 7 of 90 | 53 |
| Temple Tablet | Vaal Beacons | 7 of 90 | 53 |
| Overseer Tablet | Empowers the Map Boss | 3 of 90 | 57 |
| Irradiated Tablet | Irradiated | 0 of 90 | 60 |
The remaining 30 modifiers are generic map juice — pack size, rarity, extra strongboxes, waystone quantity — and they work on any base.
Read the last row again. There is no modifier in the entire tablet pool that mentions Irradiated. An Irradiated Tablet’s effective pool is 30 generic modifiers, and 60 of the 90 possible rolls are wasted on it.
Why Expedition is the best base
15 working modifiers is not a small edge — it is half again more than the next best base, and five times the Overseer pool.
The Expedition modifiers that carry real weight:
| Modifier | Roll |
|---|---|
| Expeditions contain Additional Bosses encased in ice | 1 to 2 |
| Expeditions have Surpassing chance to Duplicate Runic Monsters | 30 to 40% |
| Expeditions have Surpassing chance to contain an additional Verisium Remnant | 30 to 40% |
| Expeditions contain buried Strongboxes | 1 to 2 |
| Expeditions contain Vaal Relics | 1 to 2 |
| Increased number of Rare Expedition Monsters | 25 to 35% |
| Quantity of Expedition Logbooks dropped by Runic Monsters | 15 to 25% |
| Verisium Remnants chance to add an additional Runic Modifier | 25 to 35% |
| Monsters from Verisium Remnants drop increased Verisium | 15 to 25% |
| Expedition Explosive Area of Effect | 5 to 10% |
Two extra bosses encased in ice is the standout. Bosses are where expedition loot concentrates, and this modifier adds them on top of whatever the chain already had. Duplicate Runic Monsters at 30 to 40 percent is a second multiplier on the same chain.
The whole set feeds one loop: more runic monsters, more of them rare, more runic modifiers on them, more logbooks out. That is why Expedition tablets hold value even with mediocre rolls.
The prefix and suffix split changes how you shop
13 prefixes, 77 suffixes. Every one of the 13 prefixes is a generic map modifier. All 60 mechanic-specific modifiers are suffixes.
So the mechanic juice on a tablet is a suffix lottery, and the prefixes are close to interchangeable. When you buy a tablet for a specific mechanic, the prefixes tell you almost nothing and the suffixes tell you everything.
That also explains why a tablet with two mechanic suffixes is worth far more than one with a high-tier generic prefix.
The biggest numbers in the whole pool
Ranked by raw magnitude, not by how often they appear:
| Modifier | Roll | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Map has increased chance to contain Rogue Exiles, Azmeri Spirits, Essences, Strongboxes or Shrines | 70 to 100% | Five separate modifiers, each close to doubling a mechanic’s appearance rate |
| Map has increased chance to contain a Summoning Circle | 70 to 100% | Same magnitude for summoning circles |
| Map has chance to contain four additional Abysses | 20 to 40% | Four extra abysses on one roll |
| Abyss Pits are twice as likely to have Rewards | fixed | Doubles the reward branch, no roll needed |
| Delirium Fog lasts additional seconds before dissipating | 6 to 12 s | Stacks with the 20 to 30% slower dissipation mod |
| Ritual Altars allow rerolling Favours additional times | 1 to 3 | The strongest single Ritual modifier |
| Ritual Favours have increased chance to be Omens | 35 to 70% | Turns tribute into omens |
| Quantity of Wombgifts found | 30 to 60% | Highest percentage on any Breach modifier |
| Abyssal Monsters increased Effectiveness for each closed Pit | 8 to 12%, up to 100% | Scales all the way to a full double |
| Quantity of Waystones found in Map | 30 to 40% | The sustain modifier, and the one most players ignore |
That last row deserves its own paragraph. 30 to 40% increased Quantity of Waystones found in Map is a suffix, and it is worth more than most players assume because it solves the problem that stops everything else: running out of waystones. Compare it to the pack-size prefix, which is 5 to 7 percent. One of these sustains your atlas; the other slightly fattens a single map.
Tablets do not scale with item level
Every one of the 90 modifiers is listed at level 1 with a fixed roll range. There are no tiers, no higher brackets, no reason to hunt high item level tablets.
This is the opposite of gear, and it means a tablet you pick up in early maps can roll the exact same values as one from the deepest tier of the atlas. The only thing that varies is which modifiers you land — and, per the table above, whether the base you put them on can use them.
Picking by goal
| Your goal | Base | Modifiers to chase |
|---|---|---|
| Logbooks and Verisium | Expedition Tablet | Duplicate Runic Monsters 30 to 40%, extra bosses 1 to 2 |
| Omens and tribute | Ritual Tablet | Omens 35 to 70%, reroll Favours 1 to 3 extra times |
| Simulacrum splinters | Delirium Tablet | Splinter stack size 15 to 30%, fog lasts 6 to 12 s |
| Wombgifts and Hiveblood | Breach Tablet | Wombgift quantity 30 to 60%, one level higher 10 to 30% |
| Desecrated currency | Abyss Tablet | Four additional Abysses 20 to 40%, pits twice as likely to have Rewards |
| Boss uniques | Overseer Tablet | Boss rarity 35 to 60%, boss quantity 13 to 20% |
| Waystone sustain | any base | Quantity of Waystones found 30 to 40% |
| Deliriousness on the player | Delirium Tablet | Deliriousness 15 to 30% — note this makes the map harder |
The Irradiated row is deliberately missing. If you want what Irradiated maps give, you are better off getting it from atlas passives or map rolls than from a tablet with a 60-modifier dead zone.
The waystone guide covers the sustain problem these tablets solve, and the map juicing guide covers what stacks on top of a modified map.
Matching the tablet to the run
If you already run one mechanic heavily, the tablet decision is easy: take the base that matches it, and accept that most of your rolls are dead. That is fine — you only need one or two good suffixes.
If you are undecided, Expedition is the base with the most upside per tablet, and its modifiers reinforce each other instead of competing.
If you only want generic map juice, any base works and the base choice is irrelevant — you are rolling against 30 generic modifiers no matter which tablet you use. In that case pick the cheapest base you can buy, which is usually not the one you were looking at.
For the rest of the atlas loop, the endgame guide covers tower placement, and the mechanic pages — Breaches, Expedition, Ritual altars and Delirium — cover what each one actually pays out, which is what should decide your base in the first place.
The one-line answer
Sort the eight bases by working modifiers and the ranking writes itself: Expedition 15, Abyss 10, Ritual 9, Delirium 9, Breach 7, Temple 7, Overseer 3, Irradiated 0. Buy the base whose mechanic you actually run, and remember that only the suffixes matter.