Balanced Ideas to Reintroduce Classic Harvest Mods (Reforge Keep Prefix, Augments, etc.)

Hi GGG & fellow Exiles,

One of Path of Exile’s core philosophies has always been:

🗝 "Players should craft their own gear using currency as intended — not rely on trade or mirror-tier services to get strong items."

But right now, that’s exactly what the game is pushing us to do.

Without powerful but fair options like Reforge Keep Prefix/Suffix or Augment Mod, crafting your own gear has become unreliable, RNG-heavy, and unapproachable. Most players either:

Buy fully crafted items off trade

Use external crafting services (TFT)

Or skip crafting completely

This not only goes against the spirit of PoE's crafting identity—it also disconnects players from learning how to build and upgrade their gear as they progress.

Bringing back a limited, balanced form of legacy Harvest crafting would help fix that.

✅ It would allow players to craft and upgrade their gear incrementally—from level 70 → 80 → 90 → 98 before going for perfection with expensive orbs like Exalts, Eldritch Chaos, or Ashes.
✅ It would shift game-play back toward gear progression, not just spamming live search.
✅ And it would feel similar to Rog from Expedition, except using the Harvest device—and tradable Lifeforce—as the engine for meaningful deterministic crafting.

This would support the core loop that many players miss: crafting as part of progression—not just something reserved for the ultra-rich or trade meta.

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Below are balanced suggestions that could help revive the most beloved parts of Harvest in a controlled and modern way:

🌿 1. Harvest + Tane Hybrid: Stored Crafting System

Concept:
Allow players to store Harvest crafts for later use, similar to Tane’s Lab or the Menagerie system.

Storage methods could include:

A new tradable item (e.g. “Essence of Reforge Keep Prefix”)

A beast in the Menagerie (e.g. “Craftbeast of Augment Fire Mod”)

A Harvest bench slot where a craft is saved for one-time future use

Why it works:

Adds flexibility and player agency to Harvest

Introduces valuable, tradeable chase items

Bridges Harvest with existing systems (Beastcrafting, Labs)

Balance Ideas:

Crafts decay if unused after X maps

Extraction requires Lifeforce + Blossom + map completion

Limit of 1–2 stored crafts at a time

🔁 2. League-Based Legacy Craft Rotation

Concept:
Bring back a small selection of legacy crafts each league, chosen and rotated by GGG. For example:

Reforge Keep Suffix

Augment Fire Mod

Remove/Add Influence Mod

How to access them:

Appears in Harvest at a high Lifeforce cost + Sacred Blossom

Unlock via Atlas passives or high-tier Grove content

Could also be weekly league goals or special vendor recipes

Why it works:

Lets newer players experience legendary crafts

Keeps the mechanic fresh each league

GGG retains control over power level and availability

Balance Ideas:

Cost scales with craft power

Rotation allows design flexibility and prevents long-term abuse

🔧 3. Harvest Crafting Bench Upgrade – Enhanced Reforge Options

Concept:
Evolve the current Harvest bench by upgrading base crafts into more advanced forms. Examples:

“Suffixes Cannot Be Changed” → “Reforge Item, Keeping All Suffixes”

“Reforge Chaos Mod” → “Reforge Chaos, Keeping Prefixes”

How it could work:

Costs raw crafting currency (e.g., Chaos, Exalted) + Lifeforce

May require a Sacred Grove key or Uber boss unlock to access

One-time use per craft or item

Why it works:

Adds endgame goals for crafters

Reintroduces deterministic options in a balanced, costly way

Keeps Harvest relevant without reviving the full garden system

🧱 4. Rog-Like Crafting Flow with Harvest – “Path of Perfection”

Concept:
Introduce a new deterministic crafting flow within Harvest, inspired by Rog from Expedition—but adapted for players who bring their own item and want to craft it step-by-step using Lifeforce + base currency.

Players interact with a special Harvest crafting node, and for each step, they get to choose one of several deterministic options:

“Upgrade lowest-tier mod to next tier”

“Replace a suffix with a related higher-tier mod”

“Add a random Fire mod”

“Replace a mod with one from a selected tag (e.g. Chaos, Crit, Influence)”

Each step costs Lifeforce + crafting currency and presents 2–3 clear choices. The item stays locked in the device during the process.

🙋‍♂️ Personal Take

Personally, I believe the Craft Rotation per league is the best middle ground.

It doesn’t disrupt the current crafting ecosystem or invalidate other systems, and it gives GGG full control over which legacy crafts are active at any given time. Since the mods would rotate each league, it keeps things fresh, costs balanced, and abuse unlikely—but still lets us experience some of that Harvest depth that many of us miss.

This would also fit right into the seasonal identity of leagues, just like how Kirac mods or Atlas passives shift league-to-league.