Diablo 4 Itemization Guide

 

In Diablo 4 as you progress through the game you will obtain a lot of equipment which will make your character stronger and ready to face increasingly difficult enemies and quests. Getting high Item Power will be very important for your build in the long run. 

 

Equipment slots will roll specific stats based on the type of equipment, Weapons increase your damage, Armors your survivability and damage reduction, Boots increase your movement speed, Jewelry will have Elemental Resistances, other specific equipment will boost Skills level and so on. If you care about min-maxing stats then you will eventually take the time to figure out which stats to get from each slot, based on the build you play.

 

Once you will get access to the Occultist and you will have cleared some Dungeons, Legendary Aspects will be available to be imprinted in your Rares or Legendaries to improve your builds even further.

 

Players not upgrading their equipment regularly will eventually face progression walls at higher difficulties which will force them to upgrade or succumb to the enemies increased powers. Let’s take a look at the various stats & attributes found on equipment, to learn which will are the most valuable. 

 

Getting high Item Power will be one of the most important goals for your build in Diablo 4. The higher the Item Power

 

If you love the look of a particular gear piece, you can salvage it at the Blacksmith and transmog your new gear with the old look!

 

Equipment Stats & Overview

 

Just like in precedent Diablo titles, each Slot has a specific pool of stats to roll and also a specific set of Slot specific affixes, like Movement Speed on Boots or Potion related buffs from Pants slot.

 

Armors (Chest, Helm, Pants, Boots and Gloves) generally grant you main stat, defensive and utility stats such as +Max Life or +Skill levels.

 

Jewelry (Amulet and Rings) grant offensive, defensive and utility stats such as Resistances, Damage % and Attributes.

Elemental resistances decrease damage taken from specified Elemental damage and maintaining your Jewelry of an high enough level will be vital to get a proper amount of resistances, countering higher difficulties resistances penalties.

 

Weapons (1-Handed, 2-Handed, Focus) will have a base Damage and a base Speed value, which will contribute heavily to your final Damage per Second. You will also find damage multipliers tied to specific different sources and types, such as Close/Distant Damage  bonus, Basic/Core Skills Damage, Overpower Damage, Crit Damage or special procs tied to Lucky Hits chances and so on.

 

Helms and Gloves will give also +Skills to try to get the best ones according to the main Skills you use.

 

Sockets & Gems

 

You will be able to add Sockets with a currency you can sometimes drop from Boss Worlds Events, craft Gems for Gold to be socketed into your gear slots (for some very powerful overall bonus Stats), or unsocket them from the equipment for a small Gold cost. Here’s a quick recap of all the Gems you will find in game:

 

Amethyst – Weapon: + Damage Over Time, Armor: Damage Over Time Reduction, Jewelry: Shadow Resistance Bonus

 

Emerald – Weapon: Elite Damage Bonus, Armor: Thorns, Jewelry: Poison Resistance Bonus 

 

Ruby –  Weapon: Resource Generation, Armor: Life, Jewelry: Fire Resistance Bonus 

 

Topaz –  Weapon: Lucky Hit Chance, Armor: Damage Reduction while Control Impaired, Jewelry: Lightning Resistance Bonus

 

Diamond –  Weapon: Ultimate Damage, Armor: Barrier Potency, Jewelry: All Resistances Bonus

 

Sapphire –  Weapon: Critical Strike Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies, Armor: Damage Reduction when Fortified, Jewelry: Cold Resistance Bonus 

 

Skull –  Weapon: Life On Kill, Armor: Healing Received, Jewelry: Armor

 

This is instead the number of max sockets every item can have:

Helm – 1 Socket

Chest – 2 Sockets

Pants – 2 Sockets

Amulet – 1 Socket

Ring – 1 Socket

1H Weapon – 1 Socket

2H Weapon – 2 Sockets

Bow – 2 Sockets

Focus/Secondary – 1 Socket

 

Item Rarities

Common, Magic, Rare, Legendary and Unique are the possible item rarities of the loot you get. Rares, Legendary and Unique items can also spawn in their Sacred (lvl40+) or Ancestral (lvl80+) versions. 

 

Drop Rates

 

Common and Magic items drop less often than Rare and Legendary as you level up, while at the very beginning of your adventure they will be the majority of your drops, with Rare or higher being very uncommon. Unique items are extremely rare and their special powers cannot be extracted as you would do with Legendary items, so you will have to use Uniques as they are in this regard, because of their Unique effects and supposedly grind for good rolled ones, both in stats and legendary power roll.

 

Normal , Sacred and Ancestral drop rates change based on your level as you level up to 100

 

Common items have no affixes

 

Magic items have one affix

 

Rare item have always three to four affixes

 

Legendary items have four affixes plus a 5th stats that is called Legendary Aspect/affix/power

 

Once you reach max level and max paragon , you want to get the best Ancestral Legendaries/Ancestral Uniques mix ideally with the right stats for your build, while upgrading them to the maximum possible Item Power level.

 

Note that Ancestral Legendaries unlike Primals in D3 do not have perfect rolls, so you will have to grind or anyway be very lucky to get a perfect or almost perfect Ancestral Unique, while to get a perfect Ancestral Legendary you might as well find a perfect Ancestral Rare base, to imprint an extracted perfect (Ancestral) Aspect into it.

 

Lower rarity items such as Common, Magic and Rare are tradable while Legendary and Unique items get bound to your account.

 

Imprinting Equipment

 

Aspects can be extracted at the Occultist (NPC Vendor) into an Essence that can be then imprinted into Rare or Legendary items, thereby making that Rare item a Legendary item but with few limitations.

 

The rule is: same rarity Aspects can only be imprinted into the same rarity Rare or Legendary.

 

So you cannot extract Legendary Aspects from Sacred Legendaries and imprint them into an Ancestral or Normal Rare or Legendary, must be Sacred too.

 

Another way to imprint Rare items is by using the Codex of Power, only if you previously unlocked that specific Aspect by clearing the Dungeon tied to it.

 

You can use the Codex infinite times and without worry about item rarity categories but the disadvantage is that Codex will always give the lowest possible roll.

 

 

Item Power

 

Item Power determines the range of affixes the gear will have. As your level increases, the stats range on your gear also increases with Item Power. 

Item Power of gear that you get from drops can be increased further at the Blacksmith Vendor NPC with specific upgrade materials.

Upgrading gear raises Item Power by 5 per upgrade.

Low-level rares can be upgraded 3 times (+15 Item Power)

Legendary items can be upgraded up to 5 times (25 Item Power) 

By upgrading Item Power, you get increased affix range and stats. 

Legendary Aspects’ values cannot be increased this way.

 

Transmog / Wardrobe

 

In Diablo 4 graphics are incredibly realistic and the look of your character will be highly customizable, but also equipment will be able to be customized to your preferences.

 

In order to make a piece of equipment available in the Wardrobe, you need to Salvage it at least once at the Weaponsmith NPC Vendor, same applies to Trophies and similar cosmetic items you’ll eventually acquire.

 

“Transmog” only changes the look of the gear piece, the item’s stats or powers are excluded. Some players might not be interested in this aspect of the game, but for many similar online games such kind of customizations and player experiences have proven to be a very appreciated feature for games with a strong “Social” element. There will be Clans and various chat channels (also for consoles this time), so being able to further customize your hero will surely be a great feature for specific types of MMO players such as the role-players, but even for casuals it won’t pass unnoticed, as at one point being an Harlequin of different sizes and types of equipment might really look weird to the eye, and thus having access to such a deep and well designed array of good looking assets is really refreshing and complements the overall experience pretty well (also the various Tattoo choices are really amazing)