How do Recombinators work in Path of Exile

Crush, meld, recombine!

Image via Grinding Gear Games

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As all Path of Exile players knows, the game has no shortage of weird currency. Every item does something and is used for some sort of crafting, trading, or combining. The more powerful the effect, the more expensive the currency item tends to be. The Sentinel League in Patch 3.18 introduced immensely powerful Recombinators to the game. These items allow players to combine two pieces of gear into one, transferring their modifiers to create very powerful items. Obviously, Recombinators were scarce and very expensive. If you’re wondering how they actually work, here’s all you need to know about Recombinators in Path of Exile.

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Recombinators working in Path of Exile, explained

Recombinators come in three distinct flavors in Path of Exile, each being responsible for one type of items. Those are:

  • Armor Recombinators — can be used on two matching pieces of armor (Body, Boots, Gloves, Helmets, Shields).
  • Weapon Recombinators — can be used on two matching weapons of the same type (Scepters, Maces, Axes, Swords, Bows, Claws, Daggers, Staves, Wands, Quivers).
  • Jewellery Recombinators — can be used on two matching pieces of jewellery (Rings, Belts, Amulets).
Image via Grinding Gear Games

Recombinators work by destroying two matching pieces of non-Unique gear, smashing them together to produce an item of the same class that retains a combination of their properties. However, Recombinators also sometimes produce unpredictable modifiers, which come from a unique modifier table exclusive to recombination.

The main issue with Recombinators is their price. That is because they were removed as drops from the game after the Sentinel League ended with patches 3.18.1f and 3.19. Any remaining Recombinators have been relegated to the permanent league, where they can be used or sold but can’t drop any longer. This makes them extremely expensive to find, though the non-competitive aspect of the permanent league means that any crafting with them doesn’t affect most relevant scoreboards.