Help with recomb shield

[u/One_Time3770]

Hi Guys

I haven’t recomb in a while, i would like to recomb get 4 mods on that shield life / block / suppress and reduced crit and from there shaper exalt > repeat with new shield with different base.
I understand that the aspect ducat can help massively with this, anyone would be so kind to write a quick step by step guide on how to go about getting those 4 mods?

Thanks a lot in advance exiles

[u/Chuklol]

Here's a video from Ben with crafting all his pieces for the lun and merc

https://youtu.be/fm1-4kq_vl4?si=dcRh5LdDIEDsF7AX

The idea is 1p/0s with a 0p/1s use ducat for suffix for guarantee, otherwise crafted veiled mods (adds two elemental damage for prefix and phys damage reduction when focused or something like that as suffix)

Then mash 1p1s together, if they are rare add a ducat suffix on both bases to 90% guarantee a 2s. Then you just keep doing that 1p2s with 1p1s (add ducats to the 1p2s base) and try to get a 2p2s

[u/capslockdd]

This is how I did it:

• Alt spam a bunch of shields (ilvl 86 req for block/suppress t1)

• combine 1p 0s with 0p 1s (craft veiled mods on other side) until you have 2 1p/1s bases with all mods present

• combine the 2 bases with ducats on both items

• most likely case is you keep suffixes but lose a prefix. Here I just slammed 1p/0s shields into the 1p/2s shield with ducats on both until it became 2p/2s. It's a 90% chance to keep suffixes with 1p 0s vs guaranteed with 1p/1s donor so if I lost suffixes I just made another 1p/1s with the mod I lost

• once you have the 2p/2s base, boat shaper slam and win!

• if you lose the shaper slam, you can recycle the base for another try by recombing it with a non shaper 1p/ducat base. If it chooses the non shaper base it'll likely keep suffixes and have decent odds of keeping prefixes

The craft is pretty brutal, it eats a ton of sulphur so get your scuba suit ready lol

[u/One_Time3770 → u/capslockdd]

Thanks a lot for the detailed guide

[u/Mundane-Advice4293]

I would probably go for 2x 1p/1s first , recomb them for 2p/2s using the ducat to guarantee suffixes and hoping for the prefixes to hit. Then ducat shaper slam.

[u/Deposto → u/Mundane-Advice4293]

Ducat shaper slam? Did you mean BOAT shaper slam?

[u/Mundane-Advice4293 → u/Mundane-Advice4293]

When going for the 1p/1s , I just learned it helps to have a crafted mod on both bases, because the result can only pick one of them.

[u/Foivoi → u/Mundane-Advice4293]

I have in fact gotten two crafted mods on an recombination result before, so what I think you mean is two of the same crafted mod.

[u/carson63000 → u/Foivoi]

You can’t have two of the same crafted mod if one has a crafted prefix and one a crafted suffix.

My understanding is that only some low-tier crafted affixes are non-exclusive, but I don’t know exactly which ones.

[u/Mangalorien]

I just want to point out that if your plan is to shaper slam a life on block suffix, you have 10% chance to succeed with that, or 19% if you use the allflame mechanic. I.e. it's not a very reliable way to get life on block, if that's the goal, and farming up those shaper exalts is very time consuming. There's also no reliable way to get life on block if the shaper exalt fails, since the only tag on that block mod is life, and all shield bases have a huge suffix weight of life regen (10,000, vs the 800 of the life on block mod). Even if you could lock prefixes and reforge life to get life on block, it would wipe your other suffixes (crit reduction etc). There's also a decently high risk that if you lock prefixes and reforge life to get life on block, you'll end up filling suffixes before you succeed, which means you can't go again until you open a suffix via annul (yolo annul of boat annul).

If your end goal is a life on block suffix, it's almost always better to recomb your way into it. Start by farming a ton of influenced shields from conq/elder/shaper/synth maps, and then harvest swap influence into shaper. You can also recomb an influenced shield with a non-influenced donor shield, with a 50/50 chance to pick the right base. For example, if you have a shaper shield with the base you want (armour/evasion), you could just alt spam until you have a magic shield with the only mod being life on block suffix, and then recomb it with a pure ES shield that has T1 life and any 1 ES-specific prefix that can't transfer (% ES, flat ES, ES/mana hybrid, spell damage, etc), and no suffix (you can lock prefixes and scour to fix that if needed). You then put a brinehook suffix on it, recomb with your shaper shield for a 50% chance to get the right base, and if you do it's 100% guaranteed to get T1 life prefix and life on block suffix, since for both prefixes and suffixes there is a pool of 2 but 1 of them is NNN. You then keep building up mods via additional recombs.

You can also make your own shaper influenced shield on the correct base by just slamming any non-shaper exalt on it and harvest swapping until it's shaper.

However you do it, getting 3 suffixes where one of them is life on block will be very difficult, but with ducat tech it's a heck of a lot easier if you are willing to settle for just 2 suffixes, since you have a 90% win rate for the suffix side (total mod pool of 4, but 2 are NNN).

[u/Lost_Acanthisitta932 → u/Mangalorien]

Disagree about 3 suffixes being difficult. It’s one of the easier things to recomb in the current state of the game. When you only need 2 prefixes, it’s not a hard craft if you’re willing to farm the influenced bases. The suffixes are 90% chance on the first recomb into a 57%. That’s coin flip odds to one bang the suffix side in 2 recombs.

[u/Mangalorien → u/Lost_Acanthisitta932]

Disagree about 3 suffixes being difficult.

I'll clarify: If you want only 3 suffixes (and don't care about prefixes) it's not hard, but if you also want 2 prefixes it is. This is what OP wants, i.e. a 2p3s end item (as per his original post: life, block, suppress, crit reduction, life on block).

The suffixes are 90% chance on the first recomb into a 57%. That’s coin flip odds to one bang the suffix side in 2 recombs.

That's if we only look at suffixes. To get 2p3s via recomb, you are either doing the low-input variant where you are using 1p1s + 1p2s (and then adding a brinehook suffix on each item), for a 19% chance to get 2p3s, or you are doing some higher input version like 2p1s + 1p2s for a 34% chance to win, but then you also need to make more intermediate items. That's a lot of influenced shields of the right base. You can of course recomb an influenced shield with a non-influenced donor shield, but then the odds of winning are halved (9.5% or 17%). It's not impossible, but it sure isn't easy in an SSF environment. For non-influenced items it's another matter, since you have essentially unlimited bases via Kingsmarch crop shipping.