PoE 2 Regex Guide

Regex: short for Regular Expression: is a text-pattern matching system. In Path of Exile 2, it powers the search bar found in stash tabs, vendors, the passive tree, and the atlas tree. Press Ctrl-F to open it anywhere. Type something. Things get highlighted. Congratulations, you are already doing it.

The PoE 2 stash tab search does not need perfect words. Typing resist catches every resistance modifier across all your tabs. That alone is worth the thirty seconds it takes to learn this. The rest is just doing more of the same with less typing.

Basic Syntax: The Only Four Things That Matter

The 50-character limit per search box is your real enemy. Shorten everything. Crossbow wastes four characters you could spend on another affix. sbo works fine and you get seven characters back to spend on something useful.

Warning

Typing bow to find Crossbows will also highlight every regular Bow in the vendor. You have been warned. Use sbo.

PoE 2 Stash Tab Search: Practical Patterns

The stash tab search is where item filter regex pays off most. You are looking at hundreds of items across multiple tabs. Typing "m Li" surfaces every item with flat Maximum Life. Typing "m En" finds Energy Shield gear. Combine them:

"m Li|m En|resi"

That three-token string covers the majority of defensive affixes worth caring about. Done in eleven characters.

Vendor Search: Leveling Example

Useful vendor loot search string for a crossbow character during leveling:

"sbo|ent sp|to att": Crossbows, Movement Speed, Added Damage to Attacks

"!quiver" "sbo|ent sp|to att": same, minus quivers stealing the spotlight

The exclamation block runs as a separate search group. Multiple quoted blocks separated by a space all apply simultaneously. The item must satisfy all blocks to be highlighted.

Waystone Mod Filtering

Rolling Waystones without a waystone mod filter is how players accidentally run maps that delete them. Build a rejection string of modifiers your character cannot handle and paste it before committing to any map.

"!ele ref|!no regen|!less recov": exclude elemental reflect, no regen, less recovery

For juicing: target maps with high rarity and pack size. A general-purpose map modifier regex that catches useful rolls:

"([3-9].|1..)%.*rar|quan|([3-9].)%.*ed.pa"

This pattern is advanced syntax. It matches 30%+ increased rarity, quantity keywords, and 30%+ pack size references. You do not need to understand it. You need to copy it from poe2.re and paste it. The site was built precisely because manually writing this is nobody's idea of a good time.

Tool

poe2.re generates complex regex strings for Waystone rolling and stash filtering. Use it instead of suffering.

PoE 2's search supports a handful of advanced regex syntax operators beyond plain text. Square brackets define character ranges. Parentheses group expressions. The dot matches any single character.

The ilvl: prefix is a built-in property filter. str:, dex:, and int: work the same way for attribute requirements, but need a \s or quoted space before the number. None of this is documented in-game. You are welcome.

Passive Tree and Atlas Navigation

Both the passive skill tree and Atlas passive tree support the same search bar. Type a keyword: life, proj, crit: and matching nodes light up. Press Enter to jump between results sequentially. This is faster than dragging a 1000-node tree with a mouse, which is an activity nobody should be doing voluntarily.

Combine with exclusion: searching "life" "!flask" surfaces life nodes while hiding anything tied to flasks. Useful when your build has no flask investment and you are tired of looking at those nodes.

Saving and Reusing Regex Strings

Nobody wants to retype "([3-9].|1..)%.*rar..(?!ch)|quan" from memory. Save your strings. Three valid methods:

1. Social Window Status (J): paste your string there. Friends will ask questions. Ignore them.
2. Exiled Exchange 2: the price-checking tool has a regex storage feature built in.
3. Notepad: the original cloud storage. Works offline. Zero skill expression required.

Copy with Ctrl-C, paste into the search box with Ctrl-V. The character limit is currently 50, expected to be raised to 250 in a future patch, like it eventually was in Path of Exile 1. Until then, abbreviate everything.