Items (or Gear) are a huge part of building your character and supporting your particular set of skills, especially once you reach the endgame and you have finished leveling your skills and your Paragon Boards are well on their way to being finished.
The tiers of items progress as follows.
- Common: 1 affix
- Magic: 1 to 2 affixes
- Rare: 2 affixes
- Legendary: 3 affixes and 1 Legendary modifier (aspect)
- Unique: 4 affixes and 1 Unique modifier
- Mythic: 4 affixes and 1 Unique modifier. Formerly called Uber Uniques these are the crème de la crème of Unique items.
There are two qualities of items within those item types listed above. First, there is the Basic item quality but once you enter Torment 1 Difficulty Ancestral items can begin to drop, and as you work your way up those Torment difficulties Ancestral items can drop more frequently but they are still rare. Ancestral items:
- Always have at least 1 Greater Affix
- Have two Tempering slots
- Can be Masterworked 12 times.
Magic Item Affix
Rare item Affixes
Legendary item Affixes
Unique item Affixes
Note: The small stars next to stats on the Legendary and Unique items denote a Greater Affix and the blue and yellow stats on the Unique show that the stat has received a major upgrade via Masterworking.
Greater Affixes
Every time an Ancestral Legendary or Unique (including Uber Uniques) item drops it is guaranteed to have at least 1 Greater Affix meaning it is 1.5x more powerful than the maximum normal affix range. Items with Greater Affixes can be easily identified on the ground with a star above their name. Greater Affixes can not appear on normal items.
These Greater Affixes can be further boosted via Masterworking. However, if you Enchant them at the Occultist they will just reroll in a regular affix range.
1 Greater Affix Drop on Ring
Greater Affix on Unique
2 Greater Affixes
Item Modification
Five systems in Diablo 4 enable you to alter your items.
| System | Description | Item Types | Who | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aspects | Add a Legendary Aspect to an item adding a unique power. | Rare Legendary |
Occultist | Crafting Materials |
| Enchanting | Reroll a single affix on an item. Can be done repeatedly but only on the same affix. | Rare Legendary |
Occultist | Crafting Materials |
| Masterworking | Slightly upgrade all affixes on item up to 12 times. A single random affix massively buffed on the 4, 8 and 12th upgrade. Ancestral only. | Legendary Unique |
Blacksmith | Crafting Materials |
| Socketing | Add 1 or 2 sockets to an item to add Gems or Runes | Magic Rare Legendary Unique |
Jeweler | Scattered Prism |
| Tempering | Add 1 or 2 new Affixes to an item. | Rare Legendary |
Blacksmith | Crafting Materials |
Aspects
Legendary Aspects are the special element on a Legendary Item, (in orange text). These Aspects can be extracted from the item and then imprinted onto either another Legendary Item replacing its Aspect or onto a Rare item changing it into a Legendary Item.
You will not benefit from equipping 2 of the same Aspect, only the better version of the two will be active, and the other will be greyed out and useless.
Some Aspects can also be target-farmed by completing specific dungeons that will reward you with an Aspect.
All Aspects rewarded from completing Dungeons or extracted are permanently stored in your Codex of Power however on the Seasonal realm this resets at the beginning of each new Season.
Masterworking
Masterworking is an endgame service enabling you to increase all the affixes on your Legendary and Unique items up to 12 times. This includes any affixes you have added via Tempering or Enchanting and any Greater Affixes too.
Non-ancestral items of item power 750 items can be upgraded up to 4 times.
From materials gathered in The Pit (Level 60 multi-level dungeon), you can visit the Blacksmith who will upgrade affixes each time by 5% however, upgrade numbers 4, 8 and 12 will give just a single affix a massive 25% boost. These three boosts could potentially land on the same affix. The stat will be coloured as follows:
- 1 x 25% Boost = Blue
- 2 x 25% Boosts = Yellow
- 3 x 25% Boosts = Orange
Masterworking doesn't fail and can be reset at any point, removing all Masterworking, to begin again but the materials aren't refunded.
As with any alterations to items Masterwoking renders the item account bound even if you reset but you can still sell or Salvage.
Socketing
Magic, Rare, Legendary and Unique items can have sockets added to them by the Jeweler in which gems and runes can be inserted to boost the item's bonuses. Bonuses range from elemental resistance boosts to damage improvements and from healing to giving you access to the skills of other classes.
With gems the level of bonus is determined by the quality of the gem. The gem guide has all those details and stats. Runes of higher qualities afford more powerful effects when you pair two together to form a Runeword.
Each socket added costs 1 Scattered Prism.
If a gem or rune has been placed in an item it can be removed at the Jeweler for a Gold cost and the gem, rune and item will remain intact. Not every type of gear can have sockets added and below is a table detailing which item type can and how many sockets.
| Amulet | Ring | Helm | Chest | Legs | Gloves | Boots | Weapon | Offhand | Shield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Enchanting
Enchanting is carried out at the Occultist who, in return for Crafting Materials and Gold, will reroll a single Afflix on your item.
You can see a list of possible Affixes that can be rerolled before committing by clicking the eye icon however which affix from the list on the right will be applied is completely random but you can keep rerolling as many times as you wish as long as you have the cold and crafting materials. The affix you are rerolling will also be on the list so you can reroll it to try to get a better stat on it.
You can not Enchant the Aspect of a Legendary Item nor can you Enchant a Unique item.
Tempering
Tempering enables you to add up to 2 Affixes to Legendary and Rare items.
Manuals with a set of 4 or 5 Affix themed 'recipes' can be found throughout the world and once learned these will be stored in the Codex of Power in 1 of 6 categories which you can browse at any point.
To Temper visit the Blacksmith to select which Manual has the Affix you want added to the item and they will apply a random affix from that Manual.
1 Affix can be added to normal items and 2 to Ancestral. If adding 2 they must be from different categories. Once your initial Affixes have been applied you can reroll Tempers another 5 times per item and once done that is it, the Tempers are set in stone. Kind of. The item can not be reset like it can in Masterworking however if you have a very rare Scroll of Retempering you can reset the Tempers on an item once.
You can't Enchant a Tempered affix into another affix at the Occultist but they can be Masterworked boosting their stats even further.
Tempering never fails but it will bind the item to your account.
Item Types and Classes
Diablo players will be familiar with the types of equipable items. The table below shows all the different item types and which classes can equip them.
| One-handed Axe |  |
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| Two-handed Axe | |
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| Bow | |
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| Crossbow | |
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| Dagger | |
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| One-handed Mace | |
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| Two-handed Mace | |
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| Off-Hand | |
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| Polearm | |
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| Scythe | |
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| Shield | |
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| Staff | |
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| One-handed Sword | |
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| Two-handed Sword | |
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| Wand | |
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Aquiring items and Smart Loot
Diablo 4 loot drops are tied to the player, only you can see your Diablo 4 items that drop. Other players in your group will only see it once you have picked it up and then dropped it. So there is no mad dash to grab the loot.
Smart Loot is feature of Diablo 4. This means a far higher percentage of drops will be specific to your class. This makes item farming more fruitful.
Affixes
Affixes (also known as Bonuses and Modifiers) are the special magical properties found on items in the Diablo games.
Understanding the Items and Tooltips
When viewing a tooltip it can be broken down into sections.
Item Power Section
Item power was changed in Season 6 (patch 2.0.3). Previously if maxed out at 925 but now it's as follows:
- Non-Ancestral 0 – 750
- Ancestral Legendary - 800 (Totment difficulty)
The Item Power will increase slowly as you level to 60 and when you hit 60 it will be at 750. At this point players are looming for the Ancestral items.
Item Power is the range in which stats will roll on an item. As a player levels, they will see an increase in Item Power on their items. This increase also applies to affixes players will see on items. The more items power, the better the affix values.
Base Characteristics Section
This section of the tooltip, which sits below the name and Item Power, are the base characteristics of the item. There is a dividing line on the tooltip to denote this section. These stats cannot be changed on that item, they are fixed.
Affixes Section
These are shown on the tooltip below the base characteristics and the dividing line. On Legendary items, this section will also show the Legensary Power in orange text.
Modifier
This applies just to Legendary and Unique items and is the bonus affix that makes these items some of the most coveted. These affixes can be useful to all classes or class-specific tailored to work with a particular skill or set of skills.
Sockets
Sockets are used to slot gems into. An item can drop with two sockets (if it's the right type) or with just one and you can add a second slot at the Jeweler.
Trading
Items can be traded with other players unless they have been altered in any way through Occultist#Enchanting, Tempering, Masterworking or adding a Legendary Aspect.
Other Items Types
Up to the release of Diablo 4 there were mentions of different kinds of items appearing but during development, they fell to the wayside for one reason or another. These are noted below.
Ancient Legendaries Removed
Diablo 4 will dispense with Ancient Legendaries as highlighted in the Systems Design update. The changes are described as follows and note that they are being replaced by a “new types of consumable item”.
We will be introducing a new type of consumable item (which we haven’t yet named). This item would be earned by killing monsters, just like other items. It would have one random Legendary affix on it, drops only in the late endgame, and can be used to apply that affix to any non-Legendary item.
This means a few things:
- We create an “elective mode for items” that is experienced after players have had time to experience Rare and Legendary items normally, as well as familiarized themselves with a variety of affixes
- This adds a way to introduce new methods of play without adding even more power to endgame items
- Rare items with the best affixes on them are always useful and retain value
Mythic Items
In the December 2020 developer update, Blizzard revealed they were removing Mythic items for the following reason: [1]
We still like the idea of Mythic items, but we don’t want to create an item quality that invalidates all others, so they’re out for now. One of the things we loved most about them was the promise of getting random legendary powers on an item, so we folded that into our baseline legendary design.
However, in Season 4: Loot Reborn Blizzard renamed Uber Uniques to Mythic Uniques. There were no other changes, just the name change to distinguish between regular uniques and the crème de la crème.
Set Items
- Set Item: Set items may appear at some point but they are not available at launch.
- Ancient Set: Set items may appear at some point but they are not available at launch.
Changes to Items
Expand the table to view general changes to items.
| + Expand to see changes to items | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Patch 2.3.0, October 8, 2024 Item power changed from the previous 925 max. Patch 1.4.0, May 14, 2024
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