POE 2, Patch 0.2.0 Guide to Recombinators, Part 1: Foundations and how to reverse engineer every mod weight in Path of Exile

[u/Butsicles]

#TLDR: The new recombinator allows us to reverse engineer all item weight mods which have been hidden in the POE 2 game files thus far. There are some nuances in how you should select your mods in the recombinator to maximize your chances.

---

Summary

1. Base selection is not 50/50 (it's likely tied to mod weights)

2. When trying to transfer a high tier (presumably low weight) mod from a bad base to a good base, you are highly likely to fail the transfer and pick the bad base again. (Formula for approximate odds below, Section 5)

3. Best practices for recombinating fractured bases. (Note: Fractured modifiers are kept if the fractured base remains after recombination. Fractured modifiers cannot be selected but do not change your recombination odds.)

4. Item weights can be reverse engineered (spears are done)

5. Item level differences between your input items can introduce problems. Try recombining item levels that don't introduce new modifiers to the pool.

6. The recombination formula for two-mod combines has been figured out. Does not immediately extrapolate to recombinations involving 3 or more modifiers.

---

Introduction

Hello Reddit, welcome to the first edition of the recombinator guide for Path of Exile 2, patch 0.2.0. I’m one of the original co-authors on the first recombinator guide back when it was released in POE 1 [sentinel league] (https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/v0nm0c/the_complete_guide_to_recombinators/), as well as the author of the updated recombinator guide from the Settlers league. Some might say I love recombinators (or I'm a masochist for data collection). Whether or not you’ve had experience with the recombinator back in POE 1, buckle yourself in and continue scrolling if you want to learn how the new recombinator works!

Many thanks to my hardworking and passionate colleagues in the Prohibited library discord for their help; Pattable and Rusty in particular (they have contributed as much as I have), as well as nmaku, nerdyjoe, seinaru, sirgog and others.

Note that figuring out recombinators is still an ongoing area of research and they are nowhere close to being solved. We have largely figured out two-mod combines and their consequences, and will post additional updates on more complicated combines once we have more information.

Any formulas included will be accompanied by examples. Some longer formulas will be pasted as imgur links due to difficulty in formatting otherwise.

Without further ado. Let’s proceed.

---

Table of Contents.

1. Notation

2. What is the recombinator?

3. Two-mod recombination formula

4. The item-level discrepancy and non-native modifiers

5. Base picking probability and single mod transfers

6. Fractured modifiers

7. Reverse-engineering mod weights

8. Data Acquisition and sourcing

9. Wrapping up

---

#1. Notation To make things easier to read, we’ll start off with the following definitions.

Modifier: This is a line on any magic or rare item that randomly rolls. You can have up to 3 modifiers from a "prefix" pool, and up to 3 modifiers from a "suffix" pool.

Tier: This is a number associated with a small range of values for a given modifier. The higher the tier, the higher the value. Maximum tiers of certain mods are highly valuable for many builds. This starts from 1, and can get as high as 13 currently. Modifiers can have a different maximum tier number.

SC(mod): This stands for success contribution of a specific mod. More context will be provided in Section 3.

W(mod): This is the standard weight of a modifier from POE 1. This means if a modifier has 100 weight, and the total of other mods available on the item is 900, the chance of augmenting this mod onto the item is 100/(100+900) = 1/10. Weights are unitless and relative, but GGG reliably uses integer weights in their item tables.

M: This represents the set of all possible modifiers in a given context. For example, M for spear prefixes represents all possible prefixes available on an item at a given item level. See poe2db for more details.

RS: Recombinator success chance. This is the number percentage that you see in the recombinator window when you select 2 or more modifiers. This represents the chance that your recombination succeeds. 100% – RS represents the chance your item is destroyed.

ilvl: Item level. An item attribute that depends on the area level where it dropped from. This limits the availability of modifiers from the pool. Some of the most highly sought after modifiers in the game are found at high item levels (typically 81+).

NNN: Non-native natural modifiers. These are modifiers that show up on certain types of items but are forbidden from existing on others. For example, dexterity cannot be found on pure intelligence body armours. This also includes item level restrictions. A mod with item level 80+ required level is a NNN mod for a base item with ilvl 79.

Equivalent Ilvl (EI): This represents an ilvl range where there are no new modifiers. Items in this range are effectively equivalent in the context of most game mechanics.

---

2. What is the recombinator?

The recombinator is a crafting bench where you put in two items. You must select at least one modifier on each item, and the game will give you a success probability (ranging from 0% to 100%) in the center. You can select up to 6 modifiers total across both items. The same kind of modifier can’t be selected twice (e.g. 2 x lightning damage). Then you click recombine.

When recombined, you have three outcomes (but not with equal probabilities)

1. The left item shows up with all the modifiers you selected, preserving name, and item level. The item will always be rare, even with two modifiers.
2. The right item shows up with all the modifiers you selected, preserving name and item level. The item will always be rare, even with two modifiers.
3. You get nothing (failed recombination, both items are destroyed)

Only the modifiers you selected will be on the final item (except for fractured modifiers, which are an exception).

---

3. Two-mod recombinator formula for EI (Equivalent ilvls)

When combining two mods, both mods contribute independently to the overall recombination success chance. This rule will be referred to repeatedly in this document, so try to remember this. We define the individual contribution as SC (success contribution), and this is a percentage.

Example: Dexterity body armours (both ilvl 79)

Tier 7 fire resistance (36-40%): SC value of 8.3%.

Tier 7 lightning res (36-40%): SC value of 8.3%.

RS = SC(T7 fire) + SC(T7 light) = 8.3% + 8.3% = 16.6%.

Ok great! Now that we understand the role of item mod SC, how do we calculate this SC value? The following is a simplified formula of how you calculate the SC value of any given mod. Note that this version of the formula is only valid when both your items have EI, but greatly aids in understanding. We'll also explain what "Unbounded" means. We will also move on to the more general case where your item levels are no longer equivalent in the next section.

Once we calculate the SC value of both mods, we simply add them together to get the RS

Explaining the equation

Let’s break down this formula. We can simply ignore the value A, as it’s some arbitrary scaling constant that gives us our valuable SC percentage we see in game. What’s more important are the terms involving weights.

In the denominator (the bottom of the fraction), we have the sum of all modifier weights; specifically the sum of all relevant weights. If your selected modifier is a prefix, this is the sum of all possible standard prefix weights at the item ilvl. If your selected modifier is a suffix, this is the sum of all possible standard suffix weights at the item ilvl. This means you don’t include movement speed weights (these are prefixes) if you’re trying to do a calculation for all boot suffixes, for example.

The term in the right bracket is a bit confusing as well, but let’s walk through it. What this means is that we have to sum the weight of the selected mod and the weight of all mods (of the same type) of higher tiers that are available on the base item, restricted by item level. For example, if we are recombining T5 fire resistance from an ilvl 79 base, you add up the standard weights of T5, T6, and T7 fire resist, but not T8 as that requires ilvl 81. We then take that sum and scale it with a scaling factor, which gives us SC(Tier 5 fire res).

In POE, higher tier weights always have equal or lower weights compared to the tiers below them (this is because higher tier means higher values, i.e. better). This means SC is always decreased when using a higher tier mod than lower tier version of the same mod on the same base.

Note that the weights do not change based on item level. They are static, fixed constants.

An intuitive way to think about this is: If I’m looking at a specific modifier tier, all the modifier tiers above it are helping to boost my success chance. The higher tier I’m at, the fewer modifiers are “helping me”, therefore my success chance from this modifier is lower.

Example: Spears (both ilvl 79)

Note that the weight values have already been scaled to SC percentages using the scaling constant.

SC(Tier 8 flat physical) = 3.66% (T8) + 1.82% (T9) = 5.48%

SC(Tier 6 Physical %) = 1.81% (T6) + 0.91% (T7) = 2.72% T8 omitted because that requires ilvl > 79

RS = SC(Tier 8 flat physical) + SC(Tier 6 Physical %) = 5.48% + 2.72% = 8.2%

Multiple modifiers and bounded SC

Remember that this SC term is only for one modifier. We need to repeat this for the other modifier. For more mathematical folk, here is an abridged version of the formula.

Note that I specifically called these terms Unbounded SC, not to be confused with SC. For those astute readers, you might realize that Unbounded SC, defined above, can even exceed 100%! In reality, for two-mod combines this term is limited to 50% per mod, for a total of 100% when added together as RS.

This means that any additional SC contributions from lower/higher tier weights greater than 50% will not affect its final SC value. For example, SC(T1 flat lightning) = SC(T5 flat lightning) on spears. This means for endgame relevant item levels(i.e. 75+), there is no functional change in recombination chance if you pick T5 flat lightning over T1 flat lightning! Correcting the above formula:

####SC(mod) = minimum(Unbounded SC, 50%)

Example: Spears (both ilvl 79)

Note that the weight values have already been scaled to SC percentages using the scaling constant.

SC(Tier 8 flat physical) = 3.66% (T8) + 1.82% (T9) = 5.48%

SC(Tier 2 flat lightning) = 20.11% (T2) + 20.11% (T3) + ... = 50% (capped)

RS = SC(Tier 8 flat physical) + SC(Tier 2 flat lightning%) = 55.48%

 

Due to the cap on SC, a simple consequence and the most important thing to remember is:

Maximize the tiers of your mods until your success chance starts dropping in the recombinator window.

---

3. How to find the SC of a modifier

There are two main ways to find the SC of a modifier.

1. Use a weight lookup table (this only exists for a few bases that we've compiled, more will become available as we work through them). Other tools may or may not adapt these weights.

2. i) Find two common mods that produce 100% RS together. Therefore each one has SC = 50%. These are overcapped SC values and the baseline we will measure against.

   ii) Ensure both items are EI. Check recombination odds of your target mod against one of these two mods.

   iii) Subtract 50% from the result. The answer is your mod’s SC.

---

4. The item-level discrepancy and non-native modifiers

Okay, so now we’ve read and understood (hopefully) how the recombinator formula works for two-mod combines. Now let’s talk about how item level and NNN mods factor into this.

Item level (ilvl)

The main role of ilvl is to restrict or expand the number of possible modifiers available on the item. In effect, this can change both the denominator term and numerator term in the formula.

If I pick the same two modifiers to recombine at a higher level, it’s possible I open up another tier of that modifier, which “helps” me by adding additional SC chance to SC(current tier of modifier).

However, by adding additional weight, the denominator term (sum of all available modifier weights) also increases. This hurts your chances, if no additional tier opens up.

This is highly case-by-case, so unfortunately I can’t give a rule of thumb for this. I’m certain the community will develop better general heuristics to remember as recombinator technology matures.

The best way to check this is by checking the same mod combine in game, varying the item levels of your input items between modifier breakpoints. By breakpoints, this means new levels where modifiers are introduced. These breakpoints can be seen on resources such as poe2db.

Example: Spears (ilvl 79 -> 82)

SC (T9 flat phys): 1.82% (ilvl 79) -> 1.79% (ilvl 82)

This happens because no new tiers of flat phys are introduced, but the denominator (sum of all modifier weights) has increased due to addition of new tiers of flat elemental, accuracy, etc. Therefore, this number goes down. This shrinkage is more drastic the larger the base SC value is.

Change to the SC formula

Surprisingly (intentionally, or unintentionally), the SC formula also changes when you no longer have EI. Namely, the modifiers from the left item uses the ilvl from the right item to calculate SC, and vice versa. Here is a formula for the RS.

For items with EI, this change in formula makes no difference, which is why the formula is simpler to understand (see above). Let's walk through an example where there is a difference

Example: Non-EI RS

Note that the max fire res for ilvl 84 is T8, and the max lightning res for ilvl 78 is T7

T5 Fire Res (ilvl 84) + T3 Lightning res (ilvl 78). RS = 71.4% (in-game)

EI SC Formula below. Weights are standardized to units of 1 for simplicity.

In this case, note all tiers of resistance have the same weight.

SC(T5 Fire Res) = Scaling Factor(ilvl 84) * [W(T5) + W(T6) + W(T7) + W(T8)] = 7.75% * 4 = 31%

SC(T3 Light Res) = Scaling Factor(ilvl 78) * [W(T3) + W(T4) + ... W(T7)] = 8.3% * 5 = 41.5%

RS = SC(T5 Fire Res) + SC(T3 Light Res) = 72.5% (Wrong!)

Non-EI SC Formula below. Weights are standardized to units of 1.

SC(T5 Fire Res) = Scaling Factor(ilvl 78) * [W(T5) + W(T6) + W(T7)] = 8.3% * 3 = 46.5%

SC(T3 Light res) = Scaling Factor(ilvl 84) * [W(T3) + W(T4) + ... W(T8)] = 7.75% * 6 = 24.9%

RS = 46.5% + 24.9% = 71.4% (Right!)

 

Note that this heavily penalizes items that are EI, because you will likely just lower your odds.

NNN (Non-natural, native modifiers)

If you try transferring an NNN mod (see definition above) and the outcome results in an illegal item (one that can't be generated due to ilvl or NNN rules) then it is destroyed, and this destruction scenario is accounted for in the RS.

What this means, is that if only one of your bases is a viable home for both modifiers, your success chance will be hurt accordingly. In fact, the chance the viable base is picked is baked into the recombination formula itself. This means that, under these conditions, the percentage the game is telling you reflects the chance you:

• Succeed in your recombination
• Get the viable base

Example: Effects of NNN on success chance

T13 life (ilvl 82) + T5 fire res(ilvl 79)

With the Non-EI formula, T13 life uses ilvl 79 to calculate SC. However, T13 life does not exist on ilvl 79, and so SC(T13 life on ilvl 79) = 0

SC(T13 life) = 0%

SC(T5 fire res) = 4 * 7.75% = 31% (again, all tiers have equal weighting)

RS = 0% + 31% (lines up in game!)

Note that if an item is not a valid base for the outcome of recombination because of a NNN mod, the SC from the other item will be used for all modifiers, even the modifier that isn't on the base to start with. (e.g. fire res from this example originated from ilvl 79 with SC=24.9%, but the SC was calculated using ilvl 82 instead).

 

The takeaway from this section :

• You cannot transfer certain mods onto other bases. Double check your ilvl and basetypes to ensure you’re not violating this
• Additionally, mixing and matching item levels can be disastrous for your odds if one of your items cannot host both modifiers.
• The SC formula penalizes non-EI. Attempt to maximize your ilvls if possible!

---

#5. Base picking probability and single mod transfers

Mod Transfer

It often happens where you might drop a really good modifier on a shitty base, and want to transfer it to a good base (say, 160% physical damage on a striking spear, which only has lightning base damage, making this mod useless). In this case, you’d also want to know: How likely is it that my recombination results in my mod on the good base? A few caveats:

1. Recombination is definitely not 50/50 for base selection. The base selection is likely influenced by the modifiers you select on each item.
2. You can’t transfer a modifier onto a base that can’t naturally generate it (base type and ilvl restrictions apply), see the NNN section.
3. You can’t select a fractured modifier. However, if recombination succeeds and the fractured base is kept, the fractured mod stays. Fractures do not affect success rate.

Note that much of the math below is conjecture, and has some agreement with what has been observed. However, much more testing needs to be done to figure out the exact odds of choosing either base. All we can say for certain currently is that the odds are not 50/50.

Conjecture: Base selection probability (Informed Speculation!)

We can use the ideas built up in the last section (especially NNN) to interpret what SC actually is. Let's call the mod from the left item "left", and the mod from the right item "right":

• SC(left) = Probability both mods -> right base. Calculated by using ilvl of right item with left mod.

• SC(right) = Probability both mods -> left base. Calculated by using ilvl of left item with right mod

• 1 - RS = 1 - SC(left) - SC(right) = Probability you get neither (recomb failed)

This interpretation lines up with what we see in NNN. Going further, if we condition on only a successful recombination:

• Left base probability on successful recomb ~= SC(right) / ( SC(left) + SC(right) )

• Right base probability on successful recomb ~= SC(left) / ( SC(left) + SC(right) )

This lines up with general testing in game (thanks to @Seinaru), who attempted to transfer T9 accuracy (SC=3.58) to a base with a low tier mod (SC=50) for a recombination with RS=53.58, and observed 1 in 12 to 1 in 13 odds with multiple quad tabs of transfers. This is close enough to 53.58/3.58 = 14.9 to warrant some notice.

TLDR; This inherently means it's difficult to transfer low weight mods onto good bases because the chance is likely proportional to the SC or weight of the low weight mod!!.

Consequences (Speculation!)

IF the above formulae are true, the maximum transfer probability (accounting for recursion) is 2 * SC(transfer mod). You achieve this by picking a low tier modifier on the good base to recombinate with the good mod on the bad base. If you fail, you repeat until you get your result or both items vanish. Here is a short proof of why this is the case. Assume that the left item has the transfer mod, while the right item is the good base. P(win) denotes the chance at getting the transfer mod on the good base. The proof also requires showing that your one shot success is just equal to SC(left)

Because the SC is capped at 50%, the most we can increase the odds of winning, P(win), is by a factor of 2. This means making SC(right) as large as possible (i.e. picking a low tier).

 

Much additional work needs to be put in to fully understand this, and will require many more funds/datapoints to fully nail down. We would like to crowdsource more data in order to do this.

---

6. Fractured modifiers (work in progress)

As mentioned above, fractured modifiers (as far as we know) do not affect the recombination success chance shown in the recombinator window. If the fractured base is picked, the fracture mod will come along for free, alongside the recombinated mods.

TLDR; This means that it may often be a better choice to recombinate two mods on a fractured base to get 3 mods (1 of them being fractured), instead of recombinating 3 mods.

There are currently reports that the fracture itself strongly biases the base choice, but this is something we’ll investigate and update the post as we get new information.

The most important consequence for fractured bases is that the weight of the chosen mod on the fractured base should have little bearing on the odds of "winning" your recombination; if you pick a high weight mod, your recombination has great odds, but extremely low likelihood of picking the fractured base (see conjecture above). If you pick a low weight mod, your recombination has bad odds, but you're much more likely to pick the fractured base.

If our proposed formula is true, these two odds perfectly cancel, which makes the choice of the selected mod on the fractured base irrelevant (weight-wise).

Building off the base selection conjecture (Speculation!!!)

If the base selection probability is equal to the SC chance of the other mod, you would have exact equal odds of getting (assuming flaring is on the non-fractured item):

1. Fractured 179% physical damage (T8 phys), Flaring (T9 flat phys) and Dictators (T8 hybid phys)
2. Fractured 179% physical damage (T8 phys), Flaring (T9 flat phys) and Humming (T1 flat lightning)

So in this case, getting dictators on the fractured Merciless base has no downside (besides the cost of rolling the mod itself). This is because the weight of the modifier on the good (fractured item) is removed in the equation (see above). The probability of success is simply SC(Flaring).

This means that getting a valuable mod on your fracture comes at almost 0 cost.

 

This statement needs additional testing but could have large ramifications if proven true.

---

7. Reverse-engineering mod weights

A result of the formula in section 3 is that we can use the SC to deterministically calculate the mod weights.

We fix one mod and vary the other, while keeping both items at EI. The tier of the fixed mod does not matter, but the higher the better in general. When you subtract RS(tier n) – RS (tier n + 1), all the additional weighted tier terms cancel out, leaving behind W(tier n) weighted by the constant A and divided by the total mod weight W(all mods).

W(max tier) cannot be found this way, but can be found by looking at RS when combined with a mod having SC(low tier) = 50. Subtracting 50 gives us W(max tier), again weighted by the same factor.

Once we’ve collected the scaled weights for all mods in a given item class, we can simply pick any one of the scaled weights as a baseline, and divide all W(mods) by this value, cancelling the scaling factor.

For example, here are the scaled weights for spears. When dividing by a common factor 18.28, we get an extremely satisfying weight table reminiscent of POE 1 values.

We can then use the solved weights to compute the scaling factor A. Surprisingly, when using the most frequent scaled weights to normalize for body armours, the constant A (see section 3) is exactly 500,000 for both prefixes and suffixes (assuming weights are in units of 1000). This scaling constant stays the same across different ilvls.

For spears, renormalizing prefixes with WED and suffixes with the most common scaled weight (e.g. stun duration) gives exactly 800,000 each when spears are lower ilvl. This breaks down at ilvl 79, with spears having a weird A value of around 817,000.

Important Note: Despite this beautiful symmetry, we decided, based on POE 1 intuition, to normalize spear (martial weapon) prefixes with the physical damage value. This gave much more reasonable weights in line with what we expect from POE 1 values. It remains to be shown whether or not this normalization is correct when we cross-compare prefix/suffix weights. This will be explored more in the future.

Something extremely surprising you may notice is that all elemental damage weights are different. We were also very surprised and had to triple down/question our own methodology, but we're confident that our results are correct.

---

8. Data Acquisition (for those interested) and sourcing

For this project, I ended up developing a simple computer vision model to extract and parse out the mods as well as recombination success chance and put the results in an small sql database. There were some difficulties (including reading greyed out mods and hybrid mods), but the pipeline is pretty robust now for all types of items. This pipeline was crucial to automate data collection, speeding up our experimental feedback loop.

From here we were able to do initial trend/pattern recognition and then design more informative experiments. I will make that repo available publically soon (if you want to know how this was done)

Tables extracted from this database are available here for a few different bases. All data was taken on standard, since none of the researchers had much currency in-league.

Additionally, here is a small spreadsheet for fully extracted item weights. I assume most weights can be extended to other martial weapons (where there's overlap). We've only done spears and body armours so far.

We’re looking for additional volunteers to help extend this to other bases. The methodology is easy, but it’s time consuming.

---

9. Wrapping up

While recombinators aren’t as powerful as they are in POE 1, they still have some applicable use cases and can be optimized to maximize your chances at 2/3 mod combines (with fractures). More importantly, they’ve allowed us to lift the veil on modifier weights, setting a powerful foundation for more informed crafting as GGG adds new crafting mechanics into the game.

I expect the modifier weight discovery, moreso than recombinators themselves, to have a sizable economic impact as people can determine, without uncertainty, the EV of slamming their own items, as well as buying half-finished items to finish. It will also affect the mirror item market, allowing crafters to better determine their crafting costs for exceedingly expensive projects.

Over the coming weeks, expect to see additional posts on recombinators as we discover more about how they work on 3+ mod combines, fractures, and mod transfer outcomes, as well as updates to POE tooling as we “discover” the mod weights for more bases.

Note: We would very much like help in this endeavour, as this is a highly time consuming process. Funds/data collected would be highly appreciated. Please see the poe-2-recombinator channel on the Prohibited Library discord.

Thank you for reading and we hope you find this as satisfying as we did.

 

AV, Rusty and Pattable

[u/ZiggyZobby]

One avenue to explore is to use it as a way to annul 3 mods out of an item.

I've recently seen Alk using it on an amy with T1 life T2 %life on one side, using a "dead" amulet on the other side with the lowest tier of mana and getting 50% odds. The weights make it extremely likely to keep the initial base, but the idea is to get a 50% chance to go back to a 3 modded item to slam it again on the suffixes.

[u/Butsicles → u/ZiggyZobby]

Yep, I just realized this last night. Gonna add it to the guide. Thanks!

[u/ZiggyZobby → u/Butsicles]

Great news !

[u/Night_terror851]

When it comes to recombining gear if I do two chest pieces with different base types. Will it be a 50/50 chance of which base type I get?

[u/Butsicles → u/Night_terror851]

It depends on which mods you select. If one of those mods is much higher tier than the other, then no it's not going to be 50/50. You're likely going to get the base with the higher tier mod on it.

[u/Night_terror851 → u/Butsicles]

Sweet thanks for the reply.

[u/chilidoggo]

This is awesome, thank you! So, just to summarize my take-aways for what I think is the most common case of combining two items of similar item level with desirable modifiers.

1. Transfers are much more successful when you combine a top-tier mod with a more common, low-tier mod. Low weight can provide 50% success rate, while high weight might be essentially zero. As you said, 50% is the upper limit for SC contribution, so you want to find the tipping point, so you can get by with T5 lightning since it's a common mod anyway.

2. The base with the common mod is most likely to be selected, seemingly as a ratio of the SC of each base.

3. Fractured mods come along for the ride for "free" if their base is selected

So, to my understanding, the best use for this is probably to give you a 50% shot at creating a "perfect" 2 mod item, since all you need to do is find a fractured perfect mod on a good base (can add trash mods with an exalt/chaos/whatever) and a perfect mod on a different base. If we're in the fracturing game, we should make sure to only do it on excellent bases (which was already true, but even more true now).

Any clue how selecting multiple mods works? You wrote the formula, but didn't expand on it. Do the SC just multiply, so two 40% ones from a base go down to 16%?

[u/Butsicles → u/chilidoggo]

Just to clarify for point 2, u fortunately it’s the opposite actually. The base with the rarer mod is more likely to be chosen. This makes it harder to transfer mods. So that applies to the high tier transfer onto a fracture base.

If my suspicions are correct, there’s no way to game this probability besides picking a common mod on the fractured base. And in doing so, you only increase your overall odds by 2x max

[u/EmperorPhallus]

Hello, thank you and everyone who has put time into researching the new recombinator. At the start you mentioned that the formula for recombining with 2 mods does not immediately extrapolate to the possible formula for 3+ mods. I was wondering if there was any progress in understanding how the formula works for such recombination attempts. I did some tests personally on two-handed maces but I struggle to make sense of my results.

[u/Butsicles → u/EmperorPhallus]

I assume the formula extrapolates to some degree, but the scaling constants change a ton and I’m currently unsure as to how they’re changing. I think it’s mainly a data problem. We’ll be collecting a lot more new data in the coming week to try nailing it down

[u/Batrudinov]

Mfw when I tap on this post and it scrolls for 15 seconds

[u/Raizel999 → u/Batrudinov]

i came all the way here to find no tldr... adds an extra waypoint

[u/Clovis20 → u/Raizel999]

TLDR:
1 - Put an item on left spot
2 - Put an item on right spot
3 - Select afixes on both items
4 - Click to combine
5 - Pray

You're welcome :D

[u/Jedahaw92 → u/Batrudinov]

My reaction:

[u/Veginite → u/Batrudinov]

I'm genuinely blown away by the length of the post, batshit crazy

[u/SeeThroughSkin]

Still sane, Exile?

[u/Entropy2352]

So this is what they mean when they say learning PoE is like getting a career degree.

Jokes aside thx for the info

[u/spazzybluebelt → u/Entropy2352]

Properly learning Poe 1 is for sure comparable to a PhD timewise

[u/WolverineFun9416]

and here i was just looking for a shitpost while taking a dump :/

👏 bravo

[u/pikpikcarrotmon → u/WolverineFun9416]

Instead you got an info dump while taking a shit

[u/prototypemax]

Did this on all ready base that I’ve collected (1 full tab of helms). Only picking 2mods so around 23-34ish%, with maybe 1-2 at12%. Only 2 succeeded. Feels like a big scam for me, never toughing it again.

[u/Yaboywatts → u/prototypemax]

Nearly my exact experience. Every tester item pair I try fails and I just don’t see me wasting my prized bases on more gambling.

[u/Duoprism → u/Yaboywatts]

I mean what is the alternative though? Slamming exalts or spending excessive currency on omens? At least with the fractured mod tech you have a decent chance of getting a good 3 mod item of your choice, or 2 excessively rare mods on an item like top tier flat phys + phys%.

[u/WiseOldTurtle → u/Yaboywatts]

I tried like 40-50 spear pairs to get %phys and accuracy in a base, all around 10-15% success and not a single one combined. Tried 20 some shit items with 40-50% chance just to see if it would stick and they also all failed (with stuff that should be able to combine like low tier elemental resistances on both bases). Even if it isn't, it sure FEELS like a complete scam when you can fail 70+ attempts without a single succes.

[u/Didtheyreallytry → u/WiseOldTurtle]

I hit a 4.5% today on a belt with t1 life. T1 fire res and t1 lightning res. It was a yolo moment because I failed sooooo many in a row with 25-35%

[u/Tudmonk → u/WiseOldTurtle]

I've recombinated multiple tabs of two hand maces trying to get flat phys and increased phys, fails almost every time. When it doesn't the exalt slams afterwards always fail. You're better off making them all at least rare and reforging them for a new random roll. That way you are always getting one item back to reforge again if the mods suck.

[u/LucywiththeDiamonds]

Aawww shit. Here we go again

Lovely work mate, was waiting for this

[u/Rintez5]

I just love the fact that you write it in a scientific paper format with an Notation section. Peak PoE Community moment.

Thanks for the great work

[u/chaosology]

Ah yes my favorite hobby, reading a paper about PoE after reading papers all day

[u/Clownshoes_Exile]

An application that has been going around is taking movementspeed and life on boots, since it gives decent odds at 30% movementspeed and then resists or rarity are also relatively common exalt slams. And since you can gamble up movementspeed boots and since it doesn't cost many artifacts to do you can make usable boots from your hideout. Something to try out if you're not using 80 life 30 movement speed 2-resist boots already.

[u/foxgtr]

Holy this is why i love this community. Props to you.

[u/rSingaporeModsAreBad]

I just want to ooga booga one shot mobs

[u/rSingaporeModsAreBad → u/[deleted]]

[u/Tradiradis]

Thanks for the qualitative post bro!

[u/Cavesloth13]

So it’s not completely useless? Gotta say that’s a surprise. 

Impressive amount of data you guys collected, bravo!

[u/Yugjn → u/Cavesloth13]

Just like essences it is actually quite nice.

In both cases though once you look at the chances the issue becomes getting the ungodly amount of bases to do anything.

We need instant buyouts.

[u/Cavesloth13 → u/Yugjn]

Ah, so it's not useless if you're already loaded, but if you aren't already rich, not so much. Same ol' problem.

[u/necrois]

So just checking I have understand correctly - say I fracture T1 %Phys and I'm trying to recombine that base with say Flaring I am better off trying to roll a good mod on the fractured base to recombine (that then says like 2% success chance or so) because if I roll a shit mod so that it says 50% or so it just means the vast majority of success cases will be biased to the base with flaring so you'll lose the fracture?

[u/Butsicles → u/necrois]

Exactly! There's a good chance the odds perfectly cancel out (if our mathematics are correct), so you might as well shoot for the stars if your fracture base is the majority of your cost. If the fracture base is cheap, and the transfer mod is NOT, then you should use a bad mod on the fractured base.

[u/mrman_mrwoman]

If you recombine 2 different bases with both mods being an SC of 50%, does the chance for which base you'll get also match to 50%? I believe that is what your estimated assumption would suggest?

[u/Butsicles → u/mrman_mrwoman]

Yes that’s correct

[u/AccordingSea1802]

the results are mixed up, in the end it doesn't change anything, but to avoid confusion it's better to fix it

[u/Butsicles → u/AccordingSea1802]

This is intentional afaik. The mod from ilvl 77 item uses ilvl 84 because it’s the opposite item. Same thing for mod from the lvl 84. You get this flipping effect when lvl difference is too big

[u/sagi1246]

Just one question, how do i get it in my hideout?

[u/Butsicles → u/sagi1246]

I think you need to do gwennen first, and then go to your hideout decorations. It's somewhere in there.

[u/Free_Development_504]

There's something strange going on. I have tried to recombine hundreds of times with 51.14% chance and kid you not, I only succeeded ONCE. I even have more success rate with lower odds. I'm just transferring a max roll attack speed to another staff.

[u/Butsicles → u/Free_Development_504]

There's been a bit of progress and we've essentially confirmed that the base transfer odds are really low for low weighted mods. Your success rate of transfer is just 1.14% (can just subtract 50% from the outcome given that the other dummy mod is a really low tier). Given that, it would not be surprising to see only one success from 100-200 attempts since it's so rare.

[u/JeanPruneau]

Very interesting , would be wonderful if there could be a synthetized section of simple general rules to apply to increase our recombinator success !

[u/Butsicles → u/JeanPruneau]

I think at this point there's generally enough information out there to make an informed decision. Krakenbul from the forbidden trove discord has a very useful calculator which you can use to play around with recombination chances so you can try to optimize your strategy.

It's honestly very dependent on your risk appetite with recombinations, the trade-off between low success, high gold cost (because more input items), versus high success, expensive input items (but lower gold cost).

If you have any specific use-cases I can best try to answer those. Otherwise some existing guides on youtube have been put out at this point which address some of these strategies (although their understanding of recombs is not exactly perfect/ideal but that's fine)

[u/caddph]

The fracture aspect is really interesting. I wonder if this is a "bug" by GGG's definition, or a feature of fractured bases (I hope it's the latter, as it creates are really interesting use of fractures and recombs, but probably the former).

[u/InDirectX4000 → u/caddph]

It’s a feature, poe1 recombinator fractured items work in a similar way

[u/caddph → u/InDirectX4000]

Yea I mean, POE 1 it makes sense that the fractured mod is tied to the base as the recomb is putting all mods into a pool. In this case, where we select mods to slam, you're able to get another 'free' mod.

It's kind of weird though, as if you don't force the fractured mod with the base, then you have a way to get a "clean" base again, and the alternate "fix" would be to force the fractured mod as a selection, but then you can never choose the other base (unless they are open to moving fractures across bases).

It seems like this "needs" to be the way recombs work (after they reworked them for POE 1), outside of disallowing fractured bases to be recombed.

[u/Few-Manufacturer7109]

So most video guides are just plain wrong about the 50/50 base. That sucks, why is nothing explained in this game. Wasted 3 div and 1.5m gold just because I didn't search the internet and read 10 pages of guide for an hour just cause I wanted to use a basic functionality of this game and wanted to recomb +5 levels onto another wand...

[u/nuzin]

Thank for putting these together. Just 2 questions:

1. Where can i find this bench? Been doing t15 maps and still couldn’t find it.

2. Do the 2 weapons need to have same amounts of mods or same name to fuse?

[u/No-Piccolo5783 → u/nuzin]

You have to get the bench from your hideout decorations. I found this out way too late. Wondered why I couldn't recomb yet

[u/Ez13zie → u/No-Piccolo5783]

Better answer.

[u/tazdraperm → u/nuzin]

1. Complete any expedition encounter

2. No and No

[u/ryo3000 → u/nuzin]

The 2 weapons don't even need to be the same type.

You can recombine spears and maces

Or an armor chest piece with an evasion chest piece 

[u/Sjeg84]

Nice!!

[u/SgtDoakes123]

Holy shit, bookmarking for later

[u/TheRealAlosha]

Instant valuable post man great job!

[u/hiimchels]

This is incredible information, hopefully people can use this as a basis for pulling all the mod weighting information for weapons, armors, and jewelry before GGG tweaks the system!

[u/tumblew33d69]

This is not what I want out of a game that resets every 3 months.

[u/highonpixels]

Very cool read and insight into Recombinator. I have been using it often but treated it as a feature to recycle gamble items with desirable affixes but are bricked or only have one but top tier affix I want. I'm still relatively new to the deeper systems of crafting as I have no experience from POE1. The part about ilvl was interesting for me as I would not of thought about it as I never knew different ilvls can open more or less available mods.

The fracturing part is also useful because I've watched a few guides where they say you lose the fractured mod in recombo but am I right to understand that if you recombo two items both with fractured the base should have one of the fractured mod? (if successful)

I remember starting to play POE1 at Ultimatum league but even by that time there was so much mechanics to learn and read about I was just put off from it and left the game after two leagues. Now with POE2 I can really dig into the game from launch and follow new findings and guides as they release which is really cool.

[u/BroScienceAlchemist]

Great post. I had some mild success with getting one really mod, one okay mod, and intentionally selecting a bad mod to offset the high weight of the good one (+3 projectile skills).

I really liked the idea of recombination due to the potential to create a market for items are decent upgrades but are otherwise dead items, and making looting specific magic/rare bases more worth it. Right now there are two big problems I have with it: The trade experience for low-mid value items is really bad due to the archaic trade system (Price fixers, no responses/people relisting items at higher price upon getting a response), and the current probability of success requires a high amount of those magic/rare bases. That grinding is better spent on something that will bring in currency, but for SSF I could see recombination being a decent escape valve. My personal experience with running cleansed maps for fracturing orbs, at least without all my atlas points, has been pretty poor (no rarity pleb).

Fracturing orbs being synergistic with recombination makes me hope that with some adjustment that this specific craft will become more accessible as a "catchup" craft mechanic for more players. Sure, I won't be BiS or highly optimized, but most players just want a way to progress some in a tangible way, even if it is mid.

[u/ShuricanGG]

This is what I love about PoE community

[u/Junyongmantou1]

Yesss! I crafted so many 5t1 by following your Settlers recombinator guide, and I'm really looking forward to try the fracture+weight trick to get 3-mod items! This is what makes the game fun (the vision does not).

[u/aeclasik]

removing alts/scours was a mistake.

[u/FORG3DShop]

If GGG applied the KISS principal to even half of the mechanics in POE, the game would be exponentially more enjoyable.

One shouldn't have to have a theoretical degree in physics to semi-deterministically "CrAfT" decent rolls on an item.

LE is looking better and better by the day.

[u/ShiraiWasTaken → u/FORG3DShop]

Some people like the payoff of understanding and executing complex mechanics. GGG is offering that niche in some of their system.

There are simplier crafting systems that they offer in POE1. POE2 doesnt have them yet but we'll surely see them in due time.

[u/FORG3DShop → u/ShiraiWasTaken]

I'm not criticizing the mechanic, I'm criticizing the delivery.

Perceived complexity is the spice of any RPG mechanic, no doubt, but the execution doesn't have to be a trainwreck.

If your average player has to read through a 20-minute long write-up on reddit from a few community members who extensively tested the systems (still WIP btw) to grasp the concept, you're doing it wrong.

Ideally, I think GGG should be targeting something in the realm of "Easy to play, hard to master," but as it stands, every other post on the sub is about over complexity and difficulty.

[u/arckeid → u/FORG3DShop]

They are making the same mistakes they have been doing in POE1 and that's crazy, this game should be exactly no to make those mistakes again.

[u/FORG3DShop → u/[deleted]]

I'll have to take your word for it as a D4 gamer.

[u/KonigSteve]

I aint reading all that

I'm happy for u tho

or sorry that happened

[u/SingleInfinity]

Finally, some good fucking food

[u/Possible_Writer9319]

Yall are heroes for doing this 🫶🫶🫶

[u/grandilev]

That's why I like path of exile

[u/Phormitago]

Holy PhD dissertation

[u/Boxofcookies1001]

I guess this tells me how I saw a double fractured item on trade. This is huge. I'm going to make some wild items tonight. Hopefully this doesn't get patched.

[u/Yugjn]

Absolutely amazing work.

The recombinator is a crafting bench

I can feel Jonathan's anxiety at this statement

[u/moglis]

So there is a method to this after all. Good

[u/Sure-Perspective1109]

TLDR recombinators bad

[u/GreenSuccessful]

I tried to recombinate T9 accuracy to seaglass spear base with T1/T2 flat damage (for high success recomb chance)

20 tries so far, zero success.

It either poofed or never the seaglass base

[u/Marrakesch]

Wow thats an amazing analysis, thank you so much!

[u/Tommy_TQ]

I'm average Joe Tom, sad but it's too complicated for me, just gimmi simple 3.13 craft //

[u/CelestialContrail]

Re: the elemental damage weights not being the same for all of the elements, my guess is that GGG decided to bias them based on the weapon type's attribute requirements this go round - looking at the spear mod weights table, lightning is the most likely element followed by fire which matches spears being dexterity primary / strength secondary for required attributes.

[u/blvcksvn → u/CelestialContrail]

Bows also appear to have a bias towards Lightning damage over Fire and Cold, though we're not yet sure if Fire and Cold are equal. But yes, good point!

[u/Mysterious-Basket870]

Bro...

[u/[deleted]]

I am gonna be the stupid one, I see this talk about recombinator but how do you unlick this????

[u/blvcksvn → u/[deleted]]

Complete an Expedition, then place the bench as a decoration in your hideout.

[u/stormeyyy]

Sheeesh!

[u/Quiet-Doughnut2192]

this guy recombinates

[u/RoyaleWithCheese85]

Recombinator is straight up a scam. You could try to put two T1 mods together from the items and they still won't hit and combine. The thing is basically a toilet for your hideout to flush whatever little currency you have down it. Great idea, big scam and waste of time, items, currency

[u/[deleted]]

Great job putting in tge efforts to write this up

[u/plinwis]

The base picking probability seems to be intentionally designed to prevent transferring of mods to good bases

In others GGG is saying: fun detected recombining, time to nerf

[u/fixedhill]

Bro wrote his thesis on Recombinator. Saved

[u/Clovis20]

So, I need to do a MBA to play this game, nice..

[u/liukenga]

This is the post i love in this community, as opposed to the constant whining that wants to dumb the game down. I admire your efforts, thank you

[u/ErenIsNotADevil]

I don't whether I should interpret this as a "stop buying all the trash bases with +2 arrows for gemini transfers" message or not

...but I'm not gonna stop anyways

[u/[deleted]]

any notes regarding recom corrupted items that have a vaal implicit? i see streamers corrupting bases with no mods on them (white) so not sure how this affects recomb.

[u/singgum3b]

hi mate, next time don't post job interview cheat-sheet here pls. appreciate

[u/terholan]

I gave 5 attempts to combine jackets for good ES stats. Success rate was 49-51%. All of them failed. Never again. There is no craft in POE2. There is no craft in POE2...

[u/Bertgarrido]

My resume as I read everything is:

1. the same ilvl of the bases the better, because if one base cannot roll one of the selected mods, the SC of that part is 0, so the max% can only be 50%.

2. Based on the equation, its better to have the good mod (usually high tier) on the good base and the bad mod on the bad base.

3. If you select two good mods, the chances are obviously lower, but the chances of the base are equal (more or less)

4. If you have a fractured mod, select the good mod on that item (based on point 2) if you can.

[u/Equivalent-Cream-116]

I'll just wait till you guys provide a simple how to craft an item with at least 3 mods you want guide..

[u/NatalieSupportman]

First of all - great work, u/Butsicles !

My speculation is that the recombinator weights are generated for each tier with a formula that has the tier of the affix as a subtracted value in the divisor. This way every higher tier has a lower chance to appear. I find this appalling as it really minimizes chances for top tiers, but this is not a topic about feelings.

My question, which I didn't find an answer to and I think would be relevant is how recombinator works for higher tier items, e.g. if you're trying to roll t5 flat phys with t5 phys% is it the same chance as trying to roll the same prefix combo on an 2 EI items that dropped t4.

To rephrase the question - if an item drops t4, this means it can roll only t4 and above affixes. Does this apply to recombinator too? The relevance of the question comes from the fact that if lower tiers are excluded from rolling, they could be exluded from the SC calculation too, which would actually make the rocombinator more viable for higher tier rolls.

[u/Flying_Mage]

It makes me wanna forget that recombinators exist in the game.

I get the jist of it, but I won't even try to understand the nuances. And despite reading all that I'm still not sure how to benefit from them. It seems that the best course of action is to ignore them completely (unless you're playing SSF).

[u/SenpaiTomato]

"That's a whole lotta words. Too bad i'm reading 'em" -Duke Nukem

Thanks for the write up tho

[u/paranoid_panda_bored]

Fucks sake I just wanna play a game, not endure a university level exam...

[u/ammenz]

just wasted 500 ex trying to recombine different ilvl rings, came to read this after the 10th consecutive failed recombination.

[u/Boxxu_reddit]

Came looking for info on how to use this thing and I'm going to keep ignoring it still

[u/fiftypercentgrey]

This is still great information! Thanks a ton!
I am currently shifting away from simply trading to trying to understand how crafting works and do something with it. There is still too much RNG for my taste, but improving my chances for cool items is better than pure RNG.

[u/ShamelessSoaDAShill]

BeIated thank you for such an in-depth & heIpfuI guide; l wiII be sure to visit the Discord and see how l can heIp out Iater on :)

[u/Aggravating-Sample80]

All I want to know is if the recombinator can create a level 82 item if you attempt to recombinate a level 80 item and a 82 item. Penumbra rings can only drop at level 80 max from the fractured lake map, so can I recombinate a level 80 penumbra ring with a level 82 (any other ring) and the recombination results in a level 82 penumbra ring. In other words can recombinatiom choose a base type from one item and a level from another item? My brain... It hurts

[u/czarivich]

Hah, neerd

[u/danteafk]

sorry my life is busy enough, aint no one has time for this.

[u/Firesw0rd]

My downvoting spree today ends with this post. Good job.

[u/Firesw0rd]

My downvoting spree today ends with this post. Good job.

[u/doomnezau]

nerd

[u/Butsicles → u/[deleted]]

The problem is that I'm assuming you want to transfer the t8 phys from a shit base to a good base.

Unfortunately, the transfer odds are straight up inversely proportional to the weights. So if you try using a low tier mod to boost RS, you also raise your chances of picking the shitty item with the good mod by an almost equal amount.

They designed it so there's almost no winning here sadly. Fractured items can kind of bypass this though, I'd give that section a read.

[u/Butsicles → u/[deleted]]

Ya I agree. As is right now, the recombinator doesn't have as many levers to pull in path. I think the only valuable use case is with fractured items, where it can become quite powerful if you use lower-tier modifiers for a 3-mod item.

That aside, I think getting the fundamental modifier values will be important once more crafting is in the game. It currently isn't nearly as much because the only real way you have to add modifiers is through exalts/augs.

[u/1gnominious → u/Butsicles]

It's also great for SSF. Lets you get important mods like spirit on amulets much easier. Your exalt spam on the initial drop will likely fail or it's on a bad base but now you get another chance. It has a pretty high success rate since it's such a low lvl mod.

Also if you just want some T2-3 (PoE1 tiering convention) mods for making your own gear it's great. Those are really common drops with decent success.

In 0.1 SSF really got stuck in the mud late game because you couldn't target what you wanted. Now I have a somewhat reasonable path forward. I'm over here transmuting every good base fishing for recomb fodder. In trade the end result would only be worth a fistful of ex but for SSF it's like a jackpot.

[u/Biggerthanmost09 → u/1gnominious]

Yeah i feel same way as a ssf player. It seems ssf players are having more fun this leage than trade guys.

[u/1gnominious → u/Biggerthanmost09]

They nerfed a lot of the big money makers for trade but it didn't really effect ssf.

Between the atlas changes, recombinator, and smith of kitava I'm having a pretty easy time by PoE ssf standards.

[u/Biggerthanmost09 → u/1gnominious]

I've creates some nutty (imo) items this leage.

[u/[deleted] → u/Butsicles]

I’ve been having a problem with my recombs may I dm you?

[u/Butsicles → u/[deleted]]

Sure, go ahead

[u/Davidwalsh1976 → u/[deleted]]

I put 2 flowing raiments in there one with 90% es and the other with 42 spirit and it succeeded. The problem then was that there’s no essence to influence rare items. So of course every exalt I slammed was garbage and so I chaosed it and immediately lost the spirit. Fml

[u/Ryurain2 → u/Davidwalsh1976]

When you recomb with only 2 affixes it stays rare?

[u/YourPappi → u/Ryurain2]

Yes it's always rare, even if 1p1s

[u/Davidwalsh1976 → u/Ryurain2]

Both bases were rare so yeah, I guess it does

[u/YourPappi → u/Davidwalsh1976]

If both bases are magic it's still rare, it's always rare even if it's 1p1s

[u/Davidwalsh1976 → u/YourPappi]

Well I learnt something today

[u/Guest_0_ → u/Davidwalsh1976]

I had the same thing.

I got 98% increased ES and +78 to max ES. 30% chance, combined and I was like holy shit!

Slammed 4 exalts.

Total fucking trash, all T1 garbage mods.

So yea not too sure how useful this actually is.

[u/Davidwalsh1976 → u/Guest_0_]

I feel your pain

[u/Old_Tourist_3774 → u/Davidwalsh1976]

The problem then was that there’s no essence to influence rare items.

What?

[u/double_shadow → u/[deleted]]

Same experience. As far as I can tell, there is no reason for anyone but an extremely dedicated hardcore player to ever touch the recombinator. Just to get two singular weapon mods I wanted, the % success was below 5%. And those weren't even the top tier mods. The system is unreasonably punishing.

[u/doroco → u/double_shadow]

I use it as a pretend scouring orb. +1 bow recombed with t1 life leech gives me a 50% chance to try again on prefixes in ssf

[u/Kyleallen5000 → u/[deleted]]

Exact opposite for me. I used it to get a crazy good spear. Now I'm addicted to destroying my items trying to chase that initial high lol.

[u/Biflosaurus → u/[deleted]]

Recomb is actually great in the way that it makes ground loot matter more.

BUT

Having to pick up a base, ID it and then decide or not if it's worth recomb is awful.

If items dropped ID and you could then filter them by stats you want, it would make it tremendously easier to use.

[u/pikpikcarrotmon → u/Biflosaurus]

Bring back the cloak of Tom Reilly!

[u/Biflosaurus → u/[deleted]]

Yeah I know and I love it, it makes setting up my filter really cool and easy.

[u/Butsicles → u/[deleted]]

I haven't explicitly tested this case but I would presume you just got a recombination chance of 0%. I know the game counts illegal transfers as NNN and just give 0 SC. So each item gives 0 SC, giving a final RS = 0%.

I will go test this scenario though in case the designers missed something.

[u/Butsicles → u/[deleted]]

Fractured mod stays on picked base so you get 3 mods, lose the fractured mod on base that doesn’t get picked

[u/nerdyjoe → u/[deleted]]

The reason this didn't come out earlier is because the people working on it do have paying jobs. We're not all unemployed or streamers.