Synthesis League Guide

Welcome to our Synthesis Guide, Exile! This League Mechanic was introduced in Patch 3.6.0 (March 2019) and brought both Fractured Items and Synthesised Items to the game, which are still important today. It also introduced 5 new endgame bosses: Distant Memories (Augmented / Altered / Rewritten / Twisted Distant Memory) and Cortex, which is part of Maven's Invitation (Maven's Invitation: The Feared) and has an Uber version.

The theme of the League was about the forgotten memories of High Templar Venarius, who didn't recognise himself anymore. Map encounters teleported you into a collapsing memory that you had to clear before it fully faded (similar to an Incursion encounter with a shrinking area), which you could then use as a building block in the High Templar's Memory Nexus. This enabled you to create what was essentially a separate mini-Atlas of Maps to run. Inside, Venarius would offer you the ability to create new item bases by combining similar items in the Synthesiser.

After the League, ended both the Memory Nexus and the Synthesiser were discontinued. What remains today are the boss encounters, their unique item drops and Fractured/Synthesised items that can be acquired from various sources. Some Synthesised Items have incredibly powerful implicit modifiers that are best-in-slot for certain builds and can be extremely valuable in Trade Leagues because they are so difficult to find.

Fractured Items nowadays can drop randomly from certain League Mechanics such as Delve or appear in reward choices from Rituals.

Fractured Items are exactly like any other magic or rare item, but with one affix being completely locked in place. This Fractured mod can't be removed or changed in any way, such as using a Chaos Orb, Divine Orb or Vaal Orb (even bricking the item with a failed Corruption keeps the Fractured mod). These items can be identified by their light blue glow and the Synthesis influence icons next to the name. The Fractured mod itself is always at the top of the explicit affix list.

Fractured Items can never become normal (white) quality, as there's always at least one mod on them. This prevents certain crafting methods that require normal quality items from being used on them, such as Tiny's Trial in a Syndicate Safehouse. Fractured Items cannot be influenced by the Conquerors/Shaper/Elder, or be upgraded into unique quality (using Orb of Chance). However, Fractured Items with a great Fractured mod may be an amazing crafting base to get started for e.g. Essence spamming or Harvest rerolls.

Speaking of Harvest: Wild Patches can very rarely offer a craft from a Tier 4 Boss Seed (Wild Thornfruit) that allows you to fracture a random mod on an item of choice. The three possible outcomes of this particular Seed are:

All three of them have the same limitation: They can't be used on Influenced, Synthesised or Fractured items.

Synthesised Items are special bases that have new, typically unobtainable implicit modifiers (up to 3 at a time). The full list and their ranges are massive (check them for each base type here). They are not necessarily better than regular items - in fact, in some cases these implicits can even be a direct downgrade from the standard implicits of some bases. Synthesised Items have a distinct blue glow and cannot be upgraded into unique quality using an Orb of Chance because their new base types don't have any valid uniques.

There is no way to reliably target-farm a desired Synthesised base anymore. You have to rely on the law of large numbers and hope to hit the jackpot. The main sources of Synthesised Items are the Synthesised Maps (with the Atlas Passives allocated) and their corresponding Maven Invitations.

Here are some noteworthy high-end implicit modifiers that can be found on Synthesised Items:

The Synthesis Bosses (see below) each drop special Unique Items which come with Synthesised Implicits. With the Atlas Passives allocated, they can have up to three implicits, potentially making them a lot more powerful.

There are a total of 5 unique Synthesised Maps, each of which holds one special boss encounter at the end. They are always Corrupted and come with additional random Map and Synthesis modifiers. Synthesised Maps are always unique.

Due to the extra random Map modifiers, the boss encounters can vary greatly in difficulty, depending on how it rolled and how well your build handles them. The Synthesis modifiers increase rewards such as adding extra loot to defeated monsters by giving them a chance to drop Fossils, Breach Splinters, Currency, ... (click here for a full list). With the right Atlas Passives allocated, these Maps are also by far the best source of Synthesised Items.

The main way of acquiring Synthesis Maps is through Atlas Passives by giving defeated Map Bosses a higher chance to drop them. They can also rarely appear in Kirac Missions or as a reward from certain League Mechanics (Tujen's inventory, Ritual). Justified Ambition is a Divination Card that drops from Conquerors. Synthesised Maps are not part of the Atlas and don't grant completion bonuses on their own, but are part of Maven's Invitations that do.

Here is a concise overview of the 5 Synthesis Boss encounters. The Synthetes are way easier than Cortex, which is higher level and has a longer fight with multiple phases. Cortex also has a harder Replica version and an even harder Uber version.

Synthesis has one wheel with various Passives located at the very top left of the Atlas Passive Tree. If you are interested in farming Synthesis content, these are a must-have.