Quick answer: In Path of Exile 2 (0.5.x, Runes of Aldur / Return of the Ancients), a Time-Lost Jewel is a special radius jewel that, once socketed into your passive tree, upgrades the passive nodes inside its radius rather than granting flat stats. Its modifiers read verbatim on poe2db like "Small Passive Skills in Radius also grant (1–2)% increased Attack Damage" or "Notable Passive Skills in Radius also grant (3–7)% increased Magnitude of Ailments you inflict." They come in four bases — Time-Lost Emerald (Dexterity), Time-Lost Sapphire (Intelligence), Time-Lost Ruby (Strength) and Time-Lost Diamond — drop as magic, rare or unique (drop level 20), and can be Vaal-corrupted to grow their radius. A well-rolled Time-Lost jewel that catches four or five strong notables is one of the biggest single-socket power spikes in the game; a blank one is worth a handful of Exalted Orbs.
If you just found one and have no idea whether it's junk or a jackpot, this guide covers exactly how Time-Lost jewels work, which mods matter, how to get and roll them, and what they're worth in 0.5.
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What is a Time-Lost Jewel in PoE2?
A Time-Lost jewel is a radius jewel: it only does something when you socket it into an allocated jewel socket on the passive skill tree, and its effect applies to the passive nodes inside a circular radius around that socket. Instead of giving you raw stats, it re-writes the passives you already have — every Small Passive and Notable inside the circle picks up an extra bonus.
That is the whole trick, and it's why the community calls them best-in-slot for almost any build: a single jewel can turn a cluster of ordinary attack or life nodes into attack-plus-extra or life-plus-extra nodes, for free.
The stat block on poe2db shows two kinds of modifiers:
- "Small Passive Skills in Radius also grant [X]" — buffs every small (basic) node in the circle.
- "Notable Passive Skills in Radius also grant [X]" — buffs every notable (named) node in the circle.
A rare Time-Lost jewel can carry up to three prefixes and three suffixes, each one either a small-passive line or a notable-passive line. Stack several that fit your build and point them at a dense part of the tree, and the payoff scales with how many relevant passives you catch.
How do Time-Lost jewel colors work? (Emerald, Sapphire, Ruby, Diamond)
The four bases map to the game's three attributes plus a wildcard, and that determines both where you socket them and what they tend to roll:
| Base | Attribute theme | Rolls best around |
|---|---|---|
| Time-Lost Emerald | Dexterity (green) | evasion, attack, projectile, ailment nodes |
| Time-Lost Sapphire | Intelligence (blue) | energy shield, caster, mana, cold/crit nodes |
| Time-Lost Ruby | Strength (red) | armour, life, martial, fire nodes |
| Time-Lost Diamond | wildcard | any modifier — the base for the Against the Darkness unique |
The metadata backs this up: the Time-Lost Emerald is internally a Dexterity radius jewel (`JewelRadiusDex` on poe2db), so it's built to sit in the Dex parts of the tree, where its affixes align with the evasion and attack notables you'll find there. Sapphire and Ruby follow the same logic for the Intelligence and Strength regions respectively. The color-to-affix tendencies above are community-observed and hold well in practice — but always read the actual rolled mods, not the color, before you buy.
In short: pick the color that matches the attribute region you want to socket into, then hunt for the specific small/notable lines that scale your damage or defenses.
Time-Lost jewel radius: why it decides everything
Every Time-Lost jewel has a base radius (`local jewel effect base radius 1000` on poe2db). Radius is arguably more important than the mods themselves, because the jewel's value is mods × number of passives caught. A large-radius jewel over a dense cluster can hit a dozen small passives and multiple notables at once; a small radius in a sparse spot barely does anything, no matter how good the mods.
This is where Vaal Orb corruption comes in. Time-Lost jewels can be corrupted, and one of the possible outcomes on the poe2db corruption table is a "Radius to Large" enchantment — enlarging the area the jewel affects. Corruption is a gamble (there are 11 possible enchantments, including defensive ones like "Immune to Maim," "You cannot be Hindered" and "Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you," plus the chance to brick nothing useful), but landing a larger radius on an already-good roll is exactly how the god-tier Time-Lost jewels are made.
Rule of thumb: radius first, then mods. A Large jewel with two decent notable lines usually beats a Medium jewel with three great ones, because it catches far more nodes.
What are the best Time-Lost jewel mods in PoE2?
There's no single "best" mod — the best line is whatever multiplies your build's main scaler across the most nodes. But the tiers work like this:
- Notable-passive lines are the premium mods. Lines like "Notable Passive Skills in Radius also grant (5–10)% increased Magnitude of Damaging Ailments you inflict with Critical Hits" or "...grant (3–6)% increased Area of Effect of Curses" add a chunky bonus to every notable you catch. Two matching notable lines on one jewel over three or four relevant notables is a huge multiplier.
- Small-passive lines are the consistency mods. Lines like "Small Passive Skills in Radius also grant (1–2)% increased Attack Damage" or "...grant (2–3)% increased maximum Energy Shield" are individually small, but a dense cluster has many small passives, so they add up.
- Match the theme. A crit-cold caster wants Sapphire lines that boost cold/energy-shield/crit notables; a bleed attacker wants Emerald or Ruby lines that boost bleed/attack notables. A perfectly on-theme jewel where every line helps your build is what sells for real money.
The affix pool is large and shared across the modifier list, so most drops will have at least one irrelevant line. A jewel is chase-tier only when two-plus of its mods directly scale your build and it has the radius to reach your best notables.
How do you get Time-Lost jewels in PoE2?
Time-Lost jewels drop throughout the world as regular loot — they can appear as magic, rare or unique items (poe2db lists their rarity pool as magic/rare/unique, drop level 20). There's no single dedicated farm; like other jewels, they show up more meaningfully as you push higher-tier, more-juiced endgame maps, where item quantity and rarity are higher.
Because the drop is generic and the roll is what matters, most players don't farm a specific Time-Lost jewel — they buy the exact roll they need on the trade site. That's the efficient play: chasing a build-perfect, Large-radius, double-notable jewel through raw drops takes hundreds of jewels, while the trade market lets you filter for the mods you want. The catch (flagged by players early in the league) is that Time-Lost mods weren't always cleanly searchable on the trade site, so pricing has been inefficient — which is good news if you're buying a strong combo before the market catches up.
You can also craft toward a better jewel: Ancient Liquid Emotions (Delirium's jewel-crafting currency) can remove a random mod and add a guaranteed one on Time-Lost jewels, and a Vaal Orb can gamble the radius upgrade. Both are covered in our PoE2 currency guide.
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Against the Darkness: the unique Time-Lost Diamond
The most famous Time-Lost jewel is the unique Against the Darkness, built on the Time-Lost Diamond base. Two things make it special: it rolls a Large radius by default, and it can roll from any part of the Time-Lost modifier pool rather than being themed to one attribute — so it's the versatile pick for builds that want a bit of everything, or that sit at a tree junction touching multiple node types. Like most top-tier uniques it carries a "Limited to 1" tag, so you can only equip one Against the Darkness at a time.
What is a Time-Lost jewel worth in PoE2?
Price is entirely roll-dependent, so treat any number as an estimate and verify live on the trade site or poe.ninja. As a live anchor for conversions, on 2026-07-31 (Runes of Aldur softcore, poe2scout) 1 Divine Orb ≈ 456 Exalted ≈ 8.8 Chaos. With that in mind:
- Blank / off-theme rares: a few Exalted Orbs. If none of the mods help your build, it's trade fodder.
- One relevant notable line, Medium radius: low — often still under a Divine.
- Two matching notable lines that scale your build: several Divines, more if the radius is Large.
- God-roll (multiple on-theme lines + corrupted Large radius) or a strong Against the Darkness: deep into the double-digit Divines, because it's a genuine best-in-slot socket that no rare jewel can replicate.
The value gap between a bad and a good Time-Lost jewel is enormous, which is exactly why buying the roll you want is usually cheaper than gambling for it.
Are Time-Lost jewels worth it?
For most endgame builds, yes — a good one is among the best single-socket upgrades available, because it multiplies passives you already invested in. The decision tree is simple:
- Leveling / early maps: skip it. Your tree is too sparse for a radius jewel to shine, and your currency is better spent elsewhere.
- Mapping and gearing up: buy a Medium-cost, on-theme jewel that catches a couple of your best notables. Big value for modest currency.
- Min-maxing: chase a Large-radius, double-notable roll (or Against the Darkness) that lands over your densest cluster. This is where Time-Lost jewels become a defining power spike.
If you want to skip the grind and just slot the exact roll your build needs, funding it with trade currency is the fastest route.
Chasing a build-perfect Time-Lost jewel without gambling your stash away? timesaver.gg has the currency and services to get you the roll fast:
- Buy PoE2 Divine Orbs — fund the exact trade buyout, no drop-praying.
- PoE2 Currency (all orbs) — stock up on Vaal Orbs to gamble radius and trade currency to buy rolls.
- PoE2 Boosting & Farming Services — endgame farming so you can afford chase jewels without the grind.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you use more than one Time-Lost jewel at a time? The unique Against the Darkness is tagged "Limited to 1," so you can only equip one of it. Rare Time-Lost jewels (Emerald/Sapphire/Ruby) don't show that limited tag on their poe2db base pages, but in practice almost every build only has room and budget for one high-value radius jewel in a dense cluster — so plan around a single premium Time-Lost socket rather than trying to stack several.
Which Time-Lost jewel is best for my build? The best one is whichever base sits in the attribute region you want (Emerald for Dex, Sapphire for Int, Ruby for Str, Diamond for wildcard/Against the Darkness), rolls mods that scale your build's main damage or defense, and has a radius large enough to catch as many of your notables as possible. Color matters less than the actual rolled lines and the radius.
How do I roll or improve a Time-Lost jewel? Buy the roll you want on trade, or improve one you own: Ancient Liquid Emotions (Delirium jewel-crafting) can swap a random mod for a guaranteed one, and a Vaal Orb can corrupt the jewel for a chance at "Radius to Large." Corruption is permanent and can also brick the item into a defensive-only implicit, so only Vaal a jewel you're happy to gamble.
Do Time-Lost jewels work in Sinister jewel sockets? No. The special Sinister sockets granted by the unique Voices jewel hold regular jewels only and give them no passive-tree radius bonuses — so a Time-Lost jewel's whole radius mechanic does nothing there. See our PoE2 Voices jewel guide for how those sockets behave.
Why is my Time-Lost jewel worthless? Almost certainly because its mods don't match your build or its radius is small. A Time-Lost jewel with off-theme lines, or one placed where it only catches one or two passives, gives almost nothing. Read every mod, check what it catches in your specific tree position, and don't judge it by the color alone.
Are Time-Lost jewels the same as PoE1 Timeless jewels? No — don't confuse them. PoE2's Time-Lost jewels add bonuses to the passives in their radius. PoE1's Timeless jewels transform passives entirely. Different items, different mechanic.
