What's new?

Season 4 is packed with many changes but focuses on improving the core itemization mechanics. These changes focus mainly on the item journey, enhancing player engagement with a more dynamic upgrade path and interaction possibilities.

All itemization changes are also active in the Eternal Realm.

Changes to Item Affixes and Drops

The mechanics of how affixes work on items have been drastically reworked this season.

The amount of items that drop from enemies has been lowered significantly. You will now only find Sacred items in Nightmare and Ancestral items in Torment.

The maximum number of Affixes an item can generate with has been reduced:

• Rare items: 2 Affixes
• Legendary items: 3 Affixes

In addition to the amount of Affixes, the types of Affixes that can spawn on an item have also been reviewed. Affixes have been made simpler and there is more logic to which Affixes can spawn together on an item. 

This makes item usefulness easier to interpret and makes it clearer to determine when one item is better than the other.

Lastly, Ancestral Legendaries and Uniques have a small chance to generate with one or more Greater Affixes, more on that below.

Greater Affixes

Greater Affixes are 1.5x more powerful than their normal counterparts. They can only appear on Ancestral Legendaries and Uniques items when they are dropped or gambled. This means that you can not Enchant or Temper into a Greater Affix.

Any affix of an item can turn into a Greater Affix, making it highly desirable, though very rare. When an item with a Greater Affix Drops, there is a special visual indicator. The name will show how many Greater Affixes the item has.

What Class Are You Playing in Season 4?

Tempering

The first step in the improved item journey is item Tempering. Tempering allows us to add specific and distinctive Affixes to our non-unique items.

Throughout your journey in Sanctuary, you will find Tempering Manuals. Consuming a Tempering Manual will add it to the Codex of Power, and makes it available for Tempering. You only need to find it once and can infinitely reuse it.

A Tempering Manual can be one of 6 categories: Weapons, Offensive, Defensive, Mobility, Utility, and Resource.

A Manual contains a set of Affixes. When you Temper an item using that Manual, one of the Affixes is put on the item. Tempering Manuals come in up to 3 tiers, determining the strength of the Affix rolls.

To Temper an item, go to the Blacksmith and select the item you want to upgrade. The item can be Tempered with one Tempering category. If it is Ancestral, you can Temper with 2 different categories. If you don't like the Affix that was chosen from the Tempering Manual, you can reroll up to the Tempering Durability.

It is required to first fill all Tempering "slots" before you can start Masterworking.

Masterworking

The second step in the item journey is Masterworking. Once you have Tempered your item (and optionally Enchanted), you can start the Masterworking process.

Masterworking improves the overall strength of the item's Affixes. There are 12 tiers of upgrades while Masterworking. Each normal tier upgrades all your affixes by 5%, and tiers 4, 8, and 12 upgrade one random Affix by 25%.

The Affix that receives the 25% bonus will turn Blue. If the same affix is improved again, it will change to Yellow, it will turn Orange if improved a third time.

You can reset your Masterworking progress if you're not happy with bonus upgrades. The Masterworking process can be repeated indefinitely, as long as you have the materials for it.

Materials for Masterworking can be obtained from The Pit of Artificers.