Two Unique Recombinator: An Economic Tool for New Players

Hello Grinding Gear Games team,

I would like to share some feedback regarding the Recombinator, with a focus on the economic impact of allowing the recombination of two unique items.

Currently, many players—especially new ones—do not have access to large amounts of currency. The vast majority clearly do not own a Mirror of Kalandra to invest in a functional build, which creates a real progression barrier and makes many builds unviable without high initial capital.

Allowing two unique items to be recombined would help to:

Reduce reliance on Mirror-tier items

Lower price pressure on mandatory build-defining uniques

Give new players extra breathing room, allowing them to finish the campaign and enter early mapping more comfortably

Activate the economy, with a clear balancing proposal:
Recombinator cost of 1 Mirror of Kalandra and a 15% success chance

This cost, combined with significant risk, would encourage the active use of Mirrors within the game rather than passive hoarding, helping to maintain a healthier economy and reducing incentives for external practices such as real-money trading.

Even with this change, the Recombinator would remain a high-risk system, preventing guaranteed power creep and preserving economic balance.

I believe this approach aligns well with Path of Exile’s core philosophy: progression based on knowledge, meaningful risk, and a living economy that is accessible beyond only the highest-capital players.

Thank you for your time and for your continued work on the game.

So a tool for 'new players' would cost an average of 7 mirrors of kalandra for a successful outcome. Unless I am misreading this somehow thats just insane.

Also this is just not a good idea anyway. Uniques with multiple game altering mods would be a balancing nightmare and new players would never see the items anyway.

"

Luxaerta#7568 wrote:

Hello Grinding Gear Games team,

I would like to share some feedback regarding the Recombinator, with a focus on the economic impact of allowing the recombination of two unique items.

Currently, many players—especially new ones—do not have access to large amounts of currency. The vast majority clearly do not own a Mirror of Kalandra to invest in a functional build, which creates a real progression barrier and makes many builds unviable without high initial capital.

Allowing two unique items to be recombined would help to:

Reduce reliance on Mirror-tier items

Lower price pressure on mandatory build-defining uniques

Give new players extra breathing room, allowing them to finish the campaign and enter early mapping more comfortably

Activate the economy, with a clear balancing proposal:
Recombinator cost of 1 Mirror of Kalandra and a 15% success chance

This cost, combined with significant risk, would encourage the active use of Mirrors within the game rather than passive hoarding, helping to maintain a healthier economy and reducing incentives for external practices such as real-money trading.

Even with this change, the Recombinator would remain a high-risk system, preventing guaranteed power creep and preserving economic balance.

I believe this approach aligns well with Path of Exile’s core philosophy: progression based on knowledge, meaningful risk, and a living economy that is accessible beyond only the highest-capital players.

Thank you for your time and for your continued work on the game.

What? No. This isn't just a bad idea generally, it does absolutely nothing to solve the problems you're concerning yourself with here.

Also, just about every single thing said in the post is wrong... did Grok write this for you?

"

Luxaerta#7568 wrote:

Currently, many players—especially new ones—do not have access to large amounts of currency. The vast majority clearly do not own a Mirror of Kalandra to invest in a functional build, which creates a real progression barrier and makes many builds unviable without high initial capital.

Not owning+investing mirrors causes a progression barrier for new players? How so? What progression barrier is this supposed to be?

Not owning+investing mirrors causes a progression barrier for new players? How so? What progression barrier is this supposed to be?[/quote]

There are pre-made builds created by experienced players who deeply understand the game and have accumulated a lot of resources over the years. These builds end up being copied by new players, either because they don’t yet understand the game or because they don’t have enough financial resources to create their own builds.

This prevents new players from progressing. That’s why, in chat, we often see messages like “need carry for boss” or “need exp”. Wealthier players build extremely powerful characters because they’ve accumulated currency over many years or, in some cases, simply buy currency from third-party websites.

This should not be the case. Everyone should be able to progress into the endgame based on their game knowledge and RNG luck, not be blocked by an artificial economic barrier.

What GGG currently does is prevent new players from accessing good items. That’s why I suggested allowing unique items to be used in the Recombinator. This would help newer players escape the trap of inflated prices, created by older players.

If nothing changes, you, me, and everyone else will have to farm 100 Divines just to buy a pair of boots with something basic like 100 maximum life and chaos resistance. This blocks new players from reaching the endgame for purely economic reasons.

It’s the same logic as a poor person in Africa being unable to access healthcare or education: lack of resources....

the greed of people who inflate prices, even for simple things like a crafting orb.

New players not being able to afford things in Standard is no surprise and this isn't how you tackle that issue. You can't fix a knowledge gap by adding a recombinator feature that you need knowledge about, and even if you do it's a slot machine.

And even if we were to ignore how futile that is, why do you think this doesn't do anything but make the gap between new and old players worse when you can combine e.g. Headhunter and Mageblood, or combine the massive flat physical damage on a Kongor's with the insane %damage roll on Marohi Erqi?

Like, did you even think about the implications of a system like that? You're willing to throw the game's balance completely out the window for an issue you don't even fix.

If you want to help new players, point them towards available resources and guides that help them deepen their understanding of the game, its mechanics and how builds work. Essentially, you're trying to build a tower on sand, without foundations.

And even if we were to ignore how futile that is, why do you think this doesn't do anything but make the gap between new and old players worse when you can combine e.g. Headhunter and Mageblood, or combine the massive flat physical damage on a Kongor's with the insane %damage roll on Marohi Erqi?


I understand that recombining a Headhunter with a Mageblood could break the game’s mechanics.
But tell me: would you really risk putting a Mageblood + Headhunter, which together cost around 150 divines, just to try your luck with a 15% chance on the recombinator? be realistic!!!

Now, let me ask you this: would you risk two unique items that cost 1 chaos orb each on the same 15% chance? I bet you would. I would too.

So who would actually benefit from using the recombinator?
The rich player or the poor player?

The reality is that the system favors those who have little to lose, while rich players have little incentive to gamble extremely expensive items. Therefore, in practice, the recombinator does not widen the gap between new and veteran players; it actually tends to benefit those still building their inventory.

"

Luxaerta#7568 wrote:

I understand that recombining a Headhunter with a Mageblood could break the game’s mechanics.
But tell me: would you really risk putting a Mageblood + Headhunter, which together cost around 150 divines, just to try your luck with a 15% chance on the recombinator? be realistic!!!

Of course. I'm not a brokie after all.

"

Luxaerta#7568 wrote:

Now, let me ask you this: would you risk two unique items that cost 1 chaos orb each on the same 15% chance? I bet you would. I would too.

There are many cheap items that on their own are bad, or get outperformed by even average rare items. But when combined, they stack up in ridiculous fashion. Many uniques have drawbacks that, if they were lost in recombination, would absolutely break the game and make them always the best available choice.

People would abuse Ming's Heart to stack up ridiculous chaos resistance without the drawback of reduced max ES/life. People would use Ventors to add RMR on DPS rings like Taming. People would use Dex stacking from Hand of Thought and Motion on top of Accuracy stacking with Replica Last Resort.

The real kicker are unique weapons because some have very high percent damage while others have very high flat damage. Those become utterly broken with the right recombination making the (often) expensive crafting of rare weapons obsolete. I mentioned Kongors + Marohi Erqi before, but Atziri's Disfavour has a ridiculous amount of flat damage and if you combine that with even some random axe like Wideswing it turns into a 2000 DPS weapon. That's insane.

Many unique combinations exist that are broken beyond measure. You'd only further devalue unique items where the market only wants them as recombination fodder while the requirements for rare items to compete will be so steep that if they don't have near perfect rolls they'll be useless unless you need them for Eater/Exarch implicits or a few relevant influenced mods.

"

Luxaerta#7568 wrote:

So who would actually benefit from using the recombinator?
The rich player or the poor player?

1000% the rich people who have the knowledge and the capacity to create the most busted unique recombinations while poor players may attempt the casino a few times before settling for buying one of the shiny objects from the market.

"

Luxaerta#7568 wrote:

The reality is that the system favors those who have little to lose, while rich players have little incentive to gamble extremely expensive items. Therefore, in practice, the recombinator does not widen the gap between new and veteran players; it actually tends to benefit those still building their inventory.

Such is the reality of a game with a living economy. Games like PoE favor those with knowlegde, skill and total time invested. This is not a game for casual dad gamers. Your reasoning does not follow from your argument and as I have shown the opposite of what you say is true.

I want to believe that you make this suggestion out of a genuine interest to help new players, but it has become clear that you do not understand the implications of your proposal. Respectfully, you did not think this through and there's no way this gets picked up, ever.

You have good arguments and good ideas, but I don’t think you fully understood it.
That so-called 15% “luck” chance… honestly, I’d love to see you put a Mageblood together with a Headhunter into the recombinator and press Recombine knowing the success chance is only 15%.

But let’s be honest — you would never do that, right? I bet you’d rather just buy one already made, just to avoid the risk of losing a fortune.

I’ll end our discussion here on friendly terms, my friend. I won’t be replying anymore.

1. This feels like bait. OP starts by complaining about reliance on mirror tier items, then suggest a mirror fee recombinator.


2. There are plenty of budget builds


3. Uniques with new properties... what would we call this? Maybe foulborns? Oh, wait...


4. No. -1