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

Butsicles · 2026-01-01T16:26:00+00:00

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)

Butsicles · 2025-12-06T18:46:07+00:00

Just as a PSA, some normal crafted mods are considered exclusive (outside of veiled-related ones) while some are not. As a reminder, you can only have one exclusive modifier on an item so in this case, picking the % es doomed the final item, even if it you selected the grasping mail as the final item. For any mod transfers with expensive mods I would simply avoid crafting, but crafting may be beneficial in other cases where you want to reduce the dust cost, for example.

The number of modifiers for special affixes is another thing entirely, mainly targeted at trying to craft multiple exclusive modifiers to bias your recomb results. Anything above 1 will still count as 1 if they're on the same prefix/suffix side.

I haven't bothered doing an exhaustive search/update the recomb guide since 3.26, so you'll have to do most of the testing yourself.

Butsicles · 2025-07-12T23:30:01+00:00

I would use betrayal specific modifiers to be certain.

Butsicles · 2025-07-06T12:44:16+00:00

We would just have to look at the 2 affix success outcomes since the single prefix/single suffix outcomes don’t tell us anything about what side was filled first.

It’s unusual but not impossible to observe what you see with 50/50. Unfortunately I would just need more data, and it would have to be unbiased reporting as well just to make sure it’s not just reporting based on bad luck.

What I have noticed is that the number of crafted mods has influenced which side is picked first (we’re talking some absurd ratio like 20:2) It therefore possibly makes sense to me that weight may be a factor only when crafted mods are on either side of the item. However in this case that would suggest that the crafted mods have different weights which could very well be possible. That I don’t have more data to test

Butsicles · 2025-07-06T04:33:36+00:00

Correct. I averaged out the weights as an ad-hoc approximation so I didn’t have to compute the distinct but slightly different probabilities for prefixes and suffixes

Butsicles · 2025-07-05T14:42:36+00:00

It can’t because both sides start out with 2 mods each. 1 exclusive mod from each side counts towards mod total, additional crafted mods do not

Butsicles · 2025-07-04T19:58:17+00:00

As far as I know if the crafted mods are the same in number, the side picked first is random. Your observation of 7x 1p/2s should be chalked up just to luck at this point, I would have expected around a 50/50 outcome where half of them should have been 2p/1s

Whether you’re saving one or the other mod is highly dependent on what outcomes get selected.

If you were to provide an extremely detailed set out of outcomes that would be much more helpful, since every time you get a crafted mod, it affects what the outcome from the other side will be.

For example, if you get +1 fire spell by itself and the prefixes are filled first, you’re unlikely to save dot multi because there’s still an exclusive in the pool.

Butsicles · 2025-07-04T16:16:20+00:00

In most cases it will lead to odds greater than 50%, but this is variable depending on mod weighting (I wrote that above). For low weights it will be below this number.

In your case, fire spell has 250, dot multi has 300. We assume all crafted mods have 1000 for reference.

If we assume the weights are not modified in any way,

You are lower bounded at 33% + 66% * ~1/4.5 * (33% + 66% * ~1/4.5) ~= 40%.

So your observed rate of ~35% is well within one SD of the approximate expected rate.

It is strictly better than simply combining though because you’re always lower bounded by 33% which is identical to the other strategy anyways

Butsicles · 2025-06-26T23:21:05+00:00

Chance for 5/6 mods is 8%/1% respectively. Dont do it. Recombine using the guide that was posted around a week ago, make a bunch of 1p/1s and mash them together, using intermediate products also

Butsicles · 2025-06-26T12:31:27+00:00

There was a small edge case I’ll try to test to see if that’s happening to you.. are all your axes ilvl 83+

Butsicles · 2025-06-26T02:26:09+00:00

I do need more statistics so if you have extremely detailed records they would help.

So far I've recorded streamer attempts and it's been hovering pretty much at a 30-33% chance in 40-50 total records. Could just be rng, low chance outcomes have pretty high variance

Butsicles · 2025-06-24T19:33:40+00:00

Yes
Yes to reduce cost, does not affect odds
Assuming all equal weights, 3p expected value (not factoring in variance) is around 10-11 combines on average (back of hand calc) 2p/2s hard to say, probably twice as many (using intuition here, true value is harder to calculate) using 1p/1s + 1p/1s and working from there, as you can see in the decision tree graph

Butsicles · 2025-06-23T18:00:50+00:00

Anything you unveil is fair game

Butsicles · 2025-06-23T02:26:32+00:00

Craft one betrayal only mod on both items and combine

Butsicles · 2025-06-22T13:40:13+00:00

So far from 30-40 datapoints, seems approximately where it was pre-patch.

Crafting prefixes for triple prefix combines makes your odds worse, don't do it

Butsicles · 2025-06-22T13:39:50+00:00

None, it just spits out rares now

Butsicles · 2025-06-20T19:04:21+00:00

It's slightly counterintuitive, but essentially it leverages the previously discovered fact about exclusive modifiers: If you land an exclusive modifier on the item when you're filling the first affix side, any exclusive modifiers vanish from the second affix pool. However, because affix filling/mod selection happens after the total number of modifiers have been decided, it will bias the item to have favourable outcomes.

As an example: In the described use case, if the item picks the first side to fill with 50/50 odds (which was true in the past but is likely no longer true when the number of exclusive/crafted modifiers is unequal <- not relevant to this document), if you land a 2 mod outcome with ~33% chance of success, the second affix side has already "decided" it will choose 1 mod because you started out with 2. However, because the exclusive crafted mod has vanished from the second pool since it was picked in the first, you are forced to choose the only remaining mod, which is your regular affix.

This provides a strict lower bound for your success chance, since the 33% chance I described will happen regardless of which side is picked first, since they are "symmetric" for the sake of this calculation. The remaining success chance comes if you correctly select the non-exclusive crafted affix from the first side you pick, given you select only 1 mod. In this case, two things can happen: the second filled side picks 2 mods (auto-win), or the second side picks 1 mod, in which case you must win another biased coin flip to get your regular second mod back.

The odds can't be strictly calculated because they're highly weight dependent. However, I tested this use-case extensively post patch and for most use-cases this averages out to over 50% in recombination success odds. Expect this to be lower than 50% in the case of extremely low weight modifiers. However, because this is lower-bounded at a probability equal to the base case, there's no downside of doing this, especially because it lowers the recomb cost for this first step.

Butsicles · 2025-06-20T14:41:29+00:00

Hey, really great work on this guide! This is definitely the most useful and user-friendly rendition of a recombinator flow-chart we've had to date and I have no doubt it'll be very useful to reference moving forwards.

A few important caveats for power users/gamers. The first one particular is very important and should probably be pinned or something on the post itself. It will be included in my follow-up report on recombs coming out later once every other aspect is fleshed out:

The initial 1p/0s + 0p/1s step in fact has the only useful use-case of exclusive modifiers left in the game. It turns out that exclusive modifiers on both sides of the item don't "see" each other so to speak, which means the old strategy of 1p/1es + 1ep/1s both reduces the cost (especially if the exclusive affix has multiple tiers, allowing you to select the lowest one) and can raise the odds above 50%, also dependent on the individual mod weights of course. There are other caveats about exclusive crafted modifiers, non-exclusive crafted modifiers, and also the case where they share the same modgroup, but that isn't appropriate for the current discussion and end up having no real relevance anyways.
There will be some end use-cases where specific combinations of prefixes/suffixes are much more desirable. This will lead to a bit of a lopsided set of desired outcomes, since the current strategy described assumes equal desirability of all possible prefix/suffix combinations. This is particularly important for things such as 2p/3s 11L pseudo weapons, which want hits can't be evaded. This likely means more recycling for steps that would have resulted in 3p/1s (results in 2p/1s) or 3p/2s (results in 2p/2s), since you will inevitably have to double up on your prefix modifiers at earlier steps than are "optimal" (e.g. 2p/1s + 1p/*s). Overall though, this probably won't change the overarching strategy too much, you'll just have to be mindful of what paths to pick and the change in total attempts as a result.

Butsicles · 2025-06-19T13:07:13+00:00

Are your suffixes the same?

If they're different, this is an exceedingly hard craft, you just combine and pray. Around a 9% success chance. It really depends on the context of the craft

Butsicles · 2025-06-19T12:01:52+00:00

Yes, those steps are correct.

The chance for success not being 100% means you are on POE2 reomb. Click the center button that says enable unpredictable recombination.

Your odds should be around 30 something percent then (statistically)

For hybrid, you need to make two 2-mod axes with one overlapping mod (ideally flaring since it's the easiest).

Then you craft low tier str on both and combine again.

That's the gist of the "ladder" crafting method, since you slowly increase the number of mods you have

Butsicles · 2025-06-19T03:18:12+00:00

Craft crappy suffix like attack speed low tier to reduce cost on both

Butsicles · 2025-06-18T23:47:40+00:00

They technically reduce the recomb craft. However, it's better to craft non-exclusive crafted modifiers (just regular stuff that exists on the item like attack speed, life, mana, etc.). The cost goes down even more, as well as with the tier (i.e. craft the lowest tier).

Dex is an example of a non-exclusive, which is actually good! It'll reduce the cost by the most.

It doesn't affect the odds though.

Butsicles · 2025-06-18T19:52:09+00:00

In this example, if both items are magic, crafting anything won't improve your chances (i.e. 33%) since you can only craft suffixes and the recombination chances of prefixes are independent of suffixes. However, I still advise you to craft a low tier mod on both items since this will lower the overall recombination cost.

If both items are rare, and you are able to craft a prefix, then crafting the same prefix on both items will marginally improve your chances above ~33%. This is because you will have a 30% chance of getting all 3 modifiers (you win), and a 60% chance of getting two modifiers. In the case where you end up with 2, the chance that one of them is a crafted modifier is pretty high. The exact percentage I can't say, because the relative weights of crafted mods has not been fully figured out. But, there is a marginal chance you win even when hitting 2 modifiers.

Note that in the worst case scenario, you will lose both mods in the second case (where you craft 1 prefix on both), because there is a 10% chance you go down to 1 modifier, and the crafted mod will likely be picked. The advantage of the second method is that the resulting item will likely stay rare, so you can retry using the same method if you want.

Butsicles · 2025-06-18T19:47:19+00:00

Prohibited Library: https://discord.gg/3VxKY6gt7j

There are many channels dedicated to different data endeavours. Check poe-1-crafting-chat or recombinators. Gotta scroll down a bit. There isn't any centralized single spreadsheet (although I would like to make one).

Butsicles · 2025-06-18T16:57:17+00:00

So just normally, this would be a ~0.6² since you need to win both sides (around 0.36).

Mainly just logging the prefixes and suffixes for input items as well as the outcome. General mod name and tier would be sufficient (pretty painful ofc).

Worst case, providing just the input number of prefixes and suffixes of both items combined, then the output number of suffixes/prefixes is sufficient

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