Can You Craft Multiple Mods in Path of Exile? A Comprehensive Guide
Yes, you absolutely can craft multiple mods in Path of Exile (PoE), but it’s not as simple as slapping on an infinite number of modifiers. The game employs a structured crafting system with specific rules, limitations, and powerful techniques that allow players to enhance their gear in significant ways. While you typically can only apply one crafted mod at a time using the crafting bench, there are key exceptions and powerful mechanics that allow you to break this rule and add several crafted modifiers. Understanding these methods is essential to navigating the complex crafting landscape of PoE.
Understanding the Basics: Affixes and Mod Limits
Before we dive into the advanced crafting techniques, it’s crucial to grasp the basic building blocks of item modification in PoE: affixes. These are the modifiers (stats) that are added to an item. They’re divided into two categories: prefixes and suffixes. Most rare items (the coveted yellow ones) have a limit of three prefixes and three suffixes, for a total of six explicit modifiers. These are the base mods that you acquire by chance, through essences, fossils, etc.
This limit is the foundation of crafting in PoE. You cannot simply keep adding modifiers without hitting the limit. Magic (blue) items have a much lower limit, often only one prefix and one suffix. The challenge and depth of crafting lies in how you manipulate these affixes to achieve the ideal combination of mods for your build.
The Standard Crafting Bench: One Mod at a Time
The standard crafting bench located in your hideout allows you to add a single modifier of your choosing to an item. These crafts are typically cheaper and provide basic, straightforward stats. However, once you’ve used the bench to add a mod, that slot is generally filled. This means that, normally, after using the crafting bench you cannot add another standard bench craft.
Metacrafting: Breaking the Rules
This is where the real power and flexibility of crafting comes into play. Metacrafting, a term you will hear often in PoE, refers to crafting techniques using expensive modifiers also known as “Metamods” or “Metacrafts”. These mods, usually discovered in Unique Maps, allow you to manipulate and add specific modifiers while respecting existing modifiers.
Multi-Mod: The Powerhouse Craft
The most important metamod to be aware of, regarding crafting multiple mods is the “Can have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers” modifier, usually just called the multi-mod. This modifier costs 2 Divine Orbs and its unlock is located in The Putrid Cloister Unique map. This metamod uses up a suffix slot on your item and allows you to add an additional two crafted modifiers. This means you can technically have three crafted modifiers on your item at once using this modifier. This mod is widely used in endgame crafting due to its incredible utility.
This allows you, for example, to add three desired crafted stats that would otherwise be impossible. These metamod crafts are often combined with other special crafting methods to create extremely powerful, customized items.
Metacrafting Techniques
Metacrafting opens up a wide array of possibilities, such as the ability to:
- Remove Prefixes/Suffixes: Meta mods can be used in combination with scouring orbs to remove all prefixes or suffixes from an item while preserving the other affix type. This is crucial for crafting items where you want to build a certain type of affix.
- Isolate Affixes: You can lock prefixes/suffixes and reforge an item to target or eliminate specific affixes until desired rolls are achieved.
- Manipulate Harvest : Harvest reforges respect meta-mods which allows you to manipulate certain outcomes in a more reliable way than other methods. This can be used to add extremely powerful mods with less risk of destroying the entire crafting process.
These advanced techniques, while costly and complex, are fundamental to pushing the boundaries of item creation in PoE.
Other Important Crafting Mechanics
Beyond the regular and metacrafting techniques, several other mechanics can influence crafting in PoE, and that are relevant to crafting multiple mods:
- Essences: Essences guarantee a particular modifier, but do not respect metamods and generally reroll all affixes.
- Fossils: Similar to essences, fossils offer specific guaranteed affixes but do not respect metamods, meaning they will overwrite any meta mods when used.
- Veiled Mods: Items with two veiled mods can exist, but are rare and are typically found in Aisling Laffrey safehouses.
- Fractured Items: Fractured items have a single modifier that is locked in and cannot be changed, even by scour orbs.
- Split Items: Split items can be crafted normally but cannot be split further.
- Corrupted Items: Corrupted items cannot be altered using most crafting methods.
These mechanics each introduce different ways to influence or alter items. Understanding how these interact with each other is very important to craft effectively.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Can you craft two suffixes on an item in PoE?
Yes, on rare items you can have up to three suffixes. Crafting two suffixes is simply a matter of getting two suffix mods on an item without filling the prefix slots.
2. Can you have two essence mods on an item in PoE?
No, you cannot apply multiple Essences to the same item. Essences also do not respect metamods.
3. Can you only craft one mod in PoE?
Normally, you can only craft one modifier at a time using the standard crafting bench. However, with multi-mod meta craft you can add up to three crafted mods.
4. How many mods can a rare item have in PoE?
Rare items can have a maximum of six explicit modifiers: three prefixes and three suffixes.
5. What does C mean in PoE?
In PoE, “C” typically refers to Chaos Orbs, a common currency item used in trading and crafting.
6. Can you craft on split items in PoE?
Yes, you can craft normally on split items, but you cannot split them again.
7. How many suffixes can you have on an item in PoE?
A rare item can have a maximum of three suffixes.
8. Can you have two veiled mods on an item in PoE?
Yes, items with two veiled mods exist but are rare and often found from Aisling Laffrey safehouses.
9. Does quality affect crafting in PoE?
Yes, increasing the quality on items will make sockets and links 20% more likely at 20% quality, but it does not directly affect regular affix crafting.
10. Do essences respect Metamods?
No, Essences do not respect metamods. Using an Essence on a item with metamod will override it.
11. Do fossils respect Metamods?
No, like essences, fossils do not respect meta mods and will override them.
12. Does harvest respect Metamods?
Yes, harvest reforges do respect metamods, which can be crucial in advanced crafting projects.
13. Can corrupted items be modified in PoE?
No, corrupted items generally cannot be modified further using most crafting methods.
14. What is a pseudo mod in PoE?
A pseudo mod is a stat that does not care where it comes from, it can be from implicts, explicits, corruption or another stat.
15. How do you fracture mods in PoE?
Fractured mods can be selected by using right-click on the modifier you want to fracture when using certain crafting methods when the fractured toggle is enabled.
Conclusion
Crafting multiple mods in Path of Exile is a complex but rewarding process. While the standard crafting bench only allows for one mod at a time, metacrafting and its multi-mod allow players to push beyond those limitations. Understanding the interplay between affixes, metamods, essences, fossils, and other crafting mechanics is crucial for creating powerful, customized items. The key is to utilize the appropriate methods to achieve the desired affixes within the given constraints. The deeper you delve into the crafting system, the more potent your gear will become, thus allowing you to conquer the most formidable challenges in Wraeclast.