Diablo 3 was heavily criticised for its itemisation which was eventually improved with the changes made in the Loot 2.0 update. Players can expect some changes with Diablo 4 items which will be welcomed. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that the item system is likely to change throughout the game’s development and only as we get closer to release will things start to get fully nailed down.
Loot System
Diablo 4 loot drops are tied to the player, only you can see your Diablo 4 items that drop. Other players will only see it once you have picked it up and then dropped it.
Smart Loot
Smart Loot is feature of Diablo 4. This means a higher percentage of drops will be specific to your class.
Item Types and Classes
Diablo players will be familiar with the types of equipable items. A list of the main types we know about can be found below.
| One-handed Axe |  |
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| Two-handed Axe | |
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| Bow | |
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| Dagger | |
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| Crossbow | |
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| One-handed Mace | |
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| Two-handed Mace | |
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| Polearm | |
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| Scythe | |
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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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Item Quality & Affixes
As item quality increases, an item’s affixes will improve and will allow players to dip into areas of their talents that they may not have focused on in their talent tree. This will allow players to create more diverse character builds.
- Magic: 1-2 Affixes
- Rare: 2-6 extra random modifiers
- Unique: 4 Fixed affixes and 1 class-specific
- Legendary: 4 affixes and 1 Legendary modifier.
Legendaries items have been designed to offer customised skills beyond the skill system.
Set Items Note
- 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.
Additional Tier
It is also noted that there is one additional tier of gear that will unlock at the very highest difficulty of the game where there will be specific Uniques that will only drop at that level of difficulty. This is similar to Diablo 2's Death's Web or Tyrael's Might.
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 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.
Item Power can also be increased at the Blacksmith by upgrading Rare or Legendary items. Each upgrade adds +5 to the Item Power. This meand a Rare item can have +15 (three upgrades) added to its Item Power and a Legendary +25 (five upgrades).
Base Characteristics Section
This section of the tooltip, which sits below the name and Item Power, are the base 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 characterstics and the dividing line. On Legendary items, this section will also show the Legensary Power in orange text.
Changing an Item's Affix
Affixes on items can be changed by the Occultist who can replace an affix on Magic, Rare, and Legendary items. The resulting value change is random and it may take some time re-rolling an affix to find something you really want.
Note: Prior to upgrading a Rare item to a legendary, you could re-roll it's affix at the Occultist before making the upgrade with a Legendary Aspect to make sure the upgraded item has the best possible stats.
Legendary Items
Legendary items are coloured orange as they were in Diablo 3. Most characters will end up wearing legendary and other items as they level up. This is the top tier currently in the game.
In Diablo 4, some Legendary items will also be able to modify skills adding more diversity to character builds. They can also give a player addtional skills that they have not invested a skill point in.
Set items could also hold equivalent power to Legendary items when they are added to the game. How your character diversifies will depend on how you use these latter tiers of items with your character build.
It's worth noting that should you have two Legendary items with the same affix, the stats won't stack, the one with the best roll will be the one in effect.
Removed Systems
Runes and Runewords
Runewords proved highly popular in Diablo II. Runewords were a way for players to combine runes with items to give an item exceptional attributes. In Diablo II there was a total of 78 different runewords that could be used on basic grey items. Blizzard had planned for runewords in Diablo III but the idea was dropped during development at the time citing that “led to a lack of equipment variety”. Blizzard has not decided whether they will added back into Diablo 4 after they appered in early development updates.
Ancient Legendaries Removed
Diablo IV 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 Removed
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.