Gear Systems and Itemization Overview (Season 4) - Diablo 4 - Icy Veins (2024)

Introduction

In Diablo, looting plays an essential role throughout your journey. Various types of gear items can be looted, equipped, improved, and modified. The equipment worn contributes to the character’s power and customization, as well as the class fantasy. Obtaining high Item Power gear is an important activity in Diablo 4. The higher the item power, the stronger the stats and benefits you get from equipping said gear.

Equipment Slots

Every Character will be able to equip a total of 10 gear pieces. Except for Barbarians, who will be able to equip a total of 12 items because of the Arsenal System (e.g. switch between 1-Handed and 2-Handed Weapons). As well as Rogues, who can wear a total of 11 items to fit their melee or ranged playstyle. Characters will always be able to equip five Armor pieces and three Jewelry pieces (one Amulet, two Rings). Then on top of that, your character can either wear a 1-Hand Weapon and a Shield or Off-Hand, two 1-Hand Weapons, a 2-Hand Weapon, and a few other options, depending on the class.

Most gear pieces can also have different sockets on them, which will allow you to put any of the various gems in the game into them. Some items can have multiple gems socketed, while others, such as jewelry items, can have only one single socket.

Where to Get Gear

Loot can be found everywhere, whether through fighting a group of enemies in the open world, inside a Dungeon, or anywhere else. They will most likely drop some items or equipment. However, certain enemies have a higher chance of dropping specific item types than others. For example, if a Rogue needs a particular Bow, there is a higher chance to get it from enemies that use similar Weapon types.

The quality of gear that drops is directly affected by the difficulty of the world (tier) and the progression of your character. Items can drop in open-world content, in dungeons, or from World Bosses. Literally anywhere. Later on, however, after reaching Max Level (100), you will reach a sort of soft power cap. Afterwards, the only way to get better gear is to invest time and skill to find or craft better items, for example, through completing Nightmare Dungeons, farming Helltide chests, or completing The Pit. High-tier Nightmare Dungeons are much harder in their difficulty and require more skill, power, and patience to complete, but generally reward better loot drops than lower-tier dungeons. The same goes for The Pit and any other content in the game. The harder the challenge, the greater the reward.

During Endgame, you will also have access to higher world tiers (difficulties). These higher tiers will unlock additional loot drop options, like Sacred and Ancestral items. Certain unique pieces will also only drop in higher tiers, and Unique items will be much harder to find than Legendary Aspects.

Legendary gear can also be obtained through the Tree of Whispers, which is an endgame system. The Tree of Whispers is a giant tree located in the Hawezar region of Sanctuary. If these are completed, the tree can reward you with legendary gear, experience, crafting materials, and more. The tree will provide world objectives and bounties, called Whispers of the Dead. If these are completed, the tree can reward you with legendary gear, experience, crafting materials, and more.

Item Rarities

It is important to understand that items are classified according to their rarity. As previously described, the difficulty of the content (World Tier) affects the rarity of items. The gear rewarded in World Tier 3 are all Sacred, whereas items in World Tier 4 are all Ancestral.

In your leveling journey, you will reach certain phases at which gear will become more powerful. After level 28, 80% of the non-Legendary gear will be a Rare item. After level 50, the drop chances for Legendary gear will scale higher.

The different rarity categories are the following:

• Common
  • No special affixes.
• Magic
  • Rolls with one affix.
  • Can drop with socket.
• Rare
  • Generally better than Magic items.
  • Rolls with two affixes.
  • Can drop with sockets.
• Legendary
  • Rolls with three affixes and one Legendary Aspect power (randomly rolled.)
  • Can drop with sockets.
  • Can drop with Greater Affixes on Ancestral rarity.
  • Legendary Aspect powers can appear on fixed item types (e.g. certain offensive aspects might only roll on 1-Handed Weapons, Gloves, Rings, etc.)
  • Some Legendary Aspects have increased power on specific items (e.g. 50% more powerful when rolled on an Amulet.)
  • Different legendary types exist. Such as generic (can be used by most builds), category-specific (utility, resource), and skill-specific.
• Unique
  • Rolls with four fixed affixes and unique power.
  • Can drop with Greater Affixes on Ancestral rarity.
  • Special power cannot be altered or overwritten.
  • Rolls with very specific powers.
• Uber Unique
  • Rolls with fixed affixes and a unique power.
  • Special power cannot be altered or overwritten.
  • Rolls with very specific powers.
  • Have a higher chance of dropping from specific content. See our How to Farm Uber Uniques guide.

Gear Affixes

Each gear piece can roll from a certain pool of affixes. Boots, for example, give Movement Speed. Weapons can roll with higher damage modifiers, and Pants focus more on defensive rolls.

Generally speaking, every gear slot can have a set of stats on it. This means that certain items roll different stats depending on the slot (e.g. a Helmet can roll different stats than a Chest). Some items cannot roll with many different stats on them. Defensive stats mostly roll on Pants, for example. Because of this, it should not be too difficult to get the right combination of stats on these. This is because there are not a lot of special stats that can roll on pants, so the chance to find the right one directly, is much higher.

Greater Affixes

Ancestral Legendary or Unique from World Tier 4 has the chance to drop with up to 4 greater affixes. These affixes are 1.5x more powerful than normal affixes and are, therefore, widely sought after by everyone. The Obol Gambler will also have a chance to award you items with greater affixes once you are level 100.

When an item with a greater affix drops, you will hear a distinct sound and see an icon (both above the gear piece itself and in your inventory) indicating that the item that just dropped has a greater affix.

Make sure not to enchant a greater affix, as it will not reroll to another greater affix but will disappear instead.

Item Power

Is Item Power a reliable way to compare items? In many ways, yes. But it depends!

Higher item power allows for better rolls on gear. For example, there is a threshold of around 340 item power. If you have a 330-item power gear piece, it can roll between 2% and 5% attack speed (just an example!).

Generally, focusing on item power is a smart approach, especially for weapons, because weapon damage holds significant importance, as it often outweighs other effects unless an item with best-in-slot (BiS) stats is found, such as +1 to an important skill rank. However, it is important to keep in mind that for certain builds, the affix or aspect power that is rolled on an item may still be more important than the item power itself. Always check first before switching gear.

Legendary Gear that drops from monsters Level 95+ will always reward Item Power Level 925!

Finally, it might be good to know that endgame crafting systems such as Tempering or Masterworking can also drastically improve your gear and, subsequently, your item power.

Item Power Ranges

Sacred 625 – 750

• Sacred Items drop in World Tier 3.

Ancestral 780 – 925

• Ancestral Items drop in World Tier 4.
• Bosses in WT4 (Level 75+) drop Item Power Level 800 – 925.
• Uber Bosses (Duriel and Andariel) will always drop Item Power Level 925.
• Any content with monsters Level 95+ will always drop Item Power Level 925 Legendary items.

Legendaries

Legendaries are harder to find than Common, Magic or Rare gear pieces. Legendary items drop with powerful affixes, called Aspects, that can alter and empower the characters abilities in many different ways.

You can also go to the Occultist to imprint a Legendary Aspect to another piece of gear (e.g. a Rare item that rolled with amazing stats and to which you would like to add a specific Legendary Power, or a Legendary Item with the right stats on it but the wrong Legendary Power, so you can switch it out with the Aspect that you want).

Legendary Aspects that you have collected along the way will be saved in the Codex of Power. Additionally, each legendary item you salvage will register or increase the Aspect’s stats in the Codex. Later on, any Aspect can then be picked to imprint onto a new Rare or Legendary item. However, adding a specific Legendary Power through the Codex comes at a cost.

Endgame Crafting

You will be able to temper and masterwork the equipment of your character, as well as add gems and modify affixes. These upgrades can be done at the Blacksmith, Jeweler, and Occultist.

The Blacksmith lets you repair, salvage, temper, or masterwork items to add one or more affixes and increase the item power and stats on your items.

The Jeweler lets you craft powerful gems and socket them into gear in order to boost your character’s stats. The Jeweler also lets you add sockets to items or remove gems that are socketed into pieces of gear.

The Occultist lets you add legendary powers to another gear item of your choice (which has to be of Rare or Legendary rarity).

Now that you know about items and their rarity, spend time synergizing your gear with your build and finding the playstyle you enjoy the most.