Recombination Guide
Last Updated:November 19, 2024|Changelog
The Recombination bench allows you to smash 2 items together to combine their mods at random, but there’s a trick to forcing the mods you want onto the final base. Recombination even allows you to force the lowest weighted mods in the game together, unlocking serious power for every build.
Recombination allows you to obtain crafted items like the example above, which have multiple high tier modifiers that cannot otherwise be so easily and cheaply obtained. Learning how to use this machine to your advantage opens up a world of better gear options that are realistic in budget, and provides you a path for gearing beyond the bare minimum.
How to Unlock the Recombination Bench
The Recombination bench is unlocked after progressing through the Kingsmarch quests and building Rog's Disenchanting building. Once unlocked it's time to get disenchanting Rare gear (eventually Unique gear) quickly to level up Rog because you need quite a bit of dust to unlock the full power of the Recombination bench. It's recommended to fully unlock the Recombination bench if you plan on crafting gear past the basic 3 Prefixes or Suffixes guide.
Recombination Machine Unlocks
Basic Recombination
For an easy and basic introduction to Recombination we're crafting a Physical One-Hand Royal Axe. This is an simple Recombination because you only desire 3 high tier Physical modifiers as your prefixes. This means you can use the Recombination bench for your 3 very low-weighted Weapon mods, saving a ton of currency since you don't need hundreds of Deafening Essence of Contempt or praying on a Veiled Orb removing the correct mod.
Preparation
You need 3 things prepared to use the Recombination bench. This brief example is a One-Handed Axe:
- The desired item base Royal Axe
- A few thousand Orb of Alteration to roll those bases
- A regex created to highlight only the desired high tier modifiers you wish to obtain, allowing you to roll an entire tab of the bases for the desired mods.
- For a Physical Axe this would look something like: "ictato|Emper|Merci|yranni|Flaring|Conq"
- Because these mods have such a low weighting, this highlights T1 and T2 % increased Physical Damage and the hybrid %increased Physical Damage modifier to save Orb of Alteration and your sanity.
- This regex was created using poe.re. Simply choose the gear slot and type, click your desired modifiers and their tier and it does all the work for you!
Recombination Rules and Rolls
Your goal is 3 high tier Prefixes. You're starting with 1 Prefix Magic bases, with the next step being to Recombinate them together. Looking at the table, you see this has a 33% chance of success. This is because you have 2 bases with 1 Prefix each giving you a total of 2 (Initial) Prefixes, and you desire 2 (Final) Prefixes on the final base.
This means you need 3 Magic bases on Average to land a single 2 mod Rare base. Looking at the table again, you see that combining two 2 mod Rare bases (4 Prefixes Initial) to obtain your final 3 mod base would be a 31% chance.
Recombination Quick Tips
The example below only cares about Prefixes. Recombination treats Suffixes and Prefixes (mostly) separately, so you don't worry about Suffixes for the example Axe. They don't influence the odds for or against you, and can be ignored EXCEPT before slamming 1 mod bases together! Slamming 1 mod (only 1 prefix, or only 1 suffix) bases together costs tens of thousands more in dust than if you craft any mod on the magic bases.
During these Crafts it may be beneficial to use an Orb of Annulment or Eldritch Orb of Annulment to remove a modifier than showed up midway through the Recombination process.
One more quick tip is using Recombination to obtain Item Level: 86 gear easily. Simply combine your desired base at Item Level 84+ with any other same slot base of Item Level 86+ and it's a 50/50 chance to upgrade the Item Level of the desired base to 86. This is especially useful for the new best bases added, as it can be difficult to obtain the many 86+ bases you otherwise need.
Recombination in Action
- Setup the Regex, obtain ~36 Royal Axe bases and get to rolling those 3 desired Physical mods.
- Slam on average six of your 1 mod starter bases together to obtain a single 2 mod base. (Making sure not to overlap mods yet)
- Repeat step 1 until you obtain six 2 mod bases with a variety of the Physical mods.
- Slam ~6 of the 2 mod bases together, making sure you have all 3 desired Prefixes between them.
- On average this should take 36 bases, but of course, because this is random, your results will vary.
Advanced Recombination Techniques
Advanced Recombination techniques revolve around the specific Exclusive modifier rules, and further understanding of exactly how Recombination works. mastering these rules and how to exploit them to your advantage unlocks gear with nearly any Prefixes AND Suffixes you want. Allowing you to have 5 perfect mods, and finishing your item with a Crafted mod.
Advanced Recombination Rules
There are a few rules you must understand to implement Advanced Recombination for your own gear.
- Prefixes and Suffixes are counted separately and share the same rules. The total number of Prefixes determines the number of and likelihood for obtaining those Prefixes on the final item.
- There is a 50% chance to choose either base as the donor or receiver base.
- There are specific modifiers on items that are “Exclusive”. There can only be one “Exclusive” modifier on the final item.
- Exclusive mods include: Essence, Beast aspects, Breach or Incursion mods, meta mods (Can have 3 Crafted Modifiers), Elevated-Influenced, Delve, or Veiled mods and unveiled crafts (“Chosen” or “of the Order”).
- Non-native natural mods are another type of mod to take advantage of. They're Pretty much any mod that can’t show up on your item normally by rolling Chaos Orb or Orb of Alteration.
- Influence mods can’t appear on non-influenced bases, Suppression cannot show up on bases without Evasion Rating, and Fractures cannot transfer bases but can stay on the original base if chosen. These are all the mods that are common sense to not transfer to the other base. Your pure Armour/Strength base cannot obtain Energy Shield mods.
- The donor base is determined, and the Prefixes OR Suffixes are chosen to be filled first. Then the number of Prefixes and Suffixes to be kept are selected based on the total of Prefixes or Suffixes from the 2 bases. Then it choses which modifiers are to arrive on the final base.
- If an Exclusive Prefix (or Suffix) is Chosen, then ALL other Exclusive Prefixes AND Suffixes are thrown out. If the removal of an Exclusive mod from the pool would cause the item to have less mods than was previously calculated, whatever mods are left in each prefix or suffix pool are assigned to the final base. If an NNN mod would be added to an incompatible base, other mods from the base pool will be chosen instead.
- This is where the magic happens! You can fill each item with 6 mods (2-4 of which are Exclusive), you guarantee that if an Exclusive mod is chosen, any modifiers that are left over arrive on the final base. Filling each item with modifiers also gives you a higher chance of retaining mods, according to the table above.
Advanced Recombination Exclusive Mod Example
Just like with the Basic Recombination, you need to use Orbs of Alteration on a few bases with a Regex to obtain the modifiers you want.
In this example, teaches you the craft for a Necrotic Armour base with Tier 1 flat, percent, and hybrid Evasion/Energy Shield alongside Tier 1 Suppression and Intelligence. This requires a final base with 3 Prefixes, and 2 Suffixes.
- Start by obtaining a few 2 Prefix, and 2 Suffix bases. Do this by slamming your 1 Prefix bases together to obtain a few bases with the 3 desired mods between them. And the same for your Suffixes.
- Now you deviate from the Basic Recombination method to introduce Exclusive modifiers. Craft 4 Exclusive mods on your Prefix base, and 3 Exclusive mods on your Suffix base.
- This should look like 2 desired Prefixes crafted with Can have 3 Crafted Modifiers, Chance to Block Attacks, +# to maximum Fortification while Focused, and a random Bestiary Aspect.
- The Suffix base should have Intelegence, Suppression, with crafted Can have 3 Crafted Modifiers, Chance to Block Attacks, +# to maximum Fortification while Focused
- Slam these together and you have a good chance at obtaining the 4 desired mods on the final base. Now you craft 2 Exclusive mods on the 4 mod base, and take a 2 (or 3 from failed crafts) mod base and add 4 Exclusive mods to it (3 Crafts and a Bestiary Aspect).
- It's important to make sure you have all 3 desired Prefixes split between the 2 bases. In this example that would mean Flat AND Percent Evasion/Energy Shield on base 1, with Flat OR Percent AND Hybrid Evasion/Energy Shield on base 2.
- Slam them together and pray all 5 arrive on the final base and you're done! If not, salvage the "failed" bases to use again. It's much easier to obtain the 5 mod bases if you combine with the "failed" bases, so don't give up hope just yet!
Advanced Recombination NNN Mod Example
Another quirk of Recombination you can take advantage of are the non-native natural mods (NNN). Remember, these are the "common sense" mods that can't appear on bases they shouldn't. You can't get Energy Shield mods on your pure Armour/Strength base for example. These can come in handy when you actually want to save an exclusive mod and can't use that ruleset, or you have a ton of bases from Rog you'd like to use.
- In this example, you are generating a ton of bases with Rog. Your desired Body Armour should have T1 Life, Armour + Evasion Rating, Suppression and Physical Damage Reduction.
- You can combine a Base you obtained from Rog with T1 Life and Physical Damage Reduction with another you've created with Recombination to have T1 Suppression and Armour + Evasion Rating. Since the Rog base has so many NNN mods (Intelligence, Faster Start of Energy Shield Recharge, Maximum Energy Shield) the odds of carrying the Life and PDR over are very high if your desired base wins the 50/50.
- Without having to spend any Divine Orbs, you've created an incredible Body Armour from a seemingly "Junk" piece of gear from Rog and some Orbs of Alteration.
Another great use of this is to keep an Exclusive mod on a piece of gear, like the unveiled increased Attack and Cast speed while focused on Gloves. You can obtain that mod on an NNN base, and combine it with another 3 or 4 desired mod base for a good chance at carrying over (if your desired base won the 50/50). There are countless uses for this technique, and tons of currency to be made once you understand these techniques.
REMEMBER that "failed" bases that still have desired mods can fill up with exclusive (or NNN) mods to be smashed again!
Summary
- Recombination is the best bang for your buck crafting in Path of Exile. Some Orbs of Alteration and patience can make you an incredible weapon, while adding a few Divine Orbs can create near BIS items for each slot.
- Thank you to /u/Butsicles who did a fantastic write up for the community, explaining the Recombination rules as they changed during 3.25.
- Basic Recombination techniques can easily create gear with any 3 Prefixes or Suffixes you desire.
- Advanced Recombination techniques can create gear with any 5 modifiers you choose.
- Taking advantage of the NNN rules allows you to keep "Exclusive" mods while doing Recombination.
- TLDR: Start with rolling 1 mod bases with Orb of Alteration, Recombinate into 2 mod bases, which can be slammed into 3 mods OR used alongside "Exclusive" mods to create 4, and then 5 mod bases.
Credits
Written by Tripolarbear.
Reviewed by Carn_, Spicysushi, Tenkiei.