You'll hit a point in Path of Exile 2 where you've got a Precursor Tablet in hand, a stash full of orbs, and the game still says "nope." The crafting step you want is locked behind the Arbiter of Ash, and it's not subtle about it. If you're trying to build a steady mapping loop and keep your income predictable, that gate matters, because better tablets are a big part of how people keep their runs worth the time. A lot of players end up topping up their supplies or planning their next upgrades around PoE 2 Currency, then realizing the real bottleneck isn't the stash tab—it's that one boss standing between you and rare tablet rolls.

Why the lock feels so annoying

The frustrating bit is the timing. You're already in the end-game mindset: you want more mods, more monsters, more shrines, more everything. Then the UI blocks specific currency interactions until the Arbiter is dead, so you can't just brute-force progress with crafting. It pushes you straight toward The Burning Monolith whether your build is ready or not. People try to ignore it and keep running "fine" maps, but you notice the difference fast. Your tablet options stay bland, and the whole loop starts feeling like you're playing with the handbrake on.

What the Arbiter actually does to you

This fight isn't just a DPS check; it's a "did you build like a grown-up" check. The Arbiter's pressure comes from his tempo. He closes distance, strings thrusts into longer combos, and punishes panic rolls. If you get clipped once, it can snowball into losing position, losing flasks, then losing a portal. He also has clear phase shifts, and that's where folks mess up. They keep playing the same rhythm, but the boss doesn't. The later stage ramps the speed and throws more AoE coverage at your feet, so if your mitigation is shaky or your movement is sloppy, you feel it immediately.

Rewards, and the real reason you're here

Sure, the drops can be exciting. Morior Invictus Grand Regalia gets talked about for a reason: it's a defensive chest that can slot into a lot of setups, and the socket-based scaling makes gearing choices feel a bit more like a puzzle. Still, the real prize is the permanent permission slip. Once the Arbiter goes down, you can finally push tablets like Abyss or Challenger's up into rare territory, and that's where your mapping starts to look "end-game" instead of "practice." When a rare tablet rolls juicy lines—more magic monsters, better shrine odds, that kind of thing—the difference isn't theoretical. You see it in density, in drops, and in how often a run feels like a hit instead of a whiff, especially if you're also farming niche bits like preserved jawbone poe2 in U4gm along the way.