Diablo 4 Itemization - Types of items and How to get them (2024)

This comprehensive article covers everything you need to know about itemization in Diablo IV, such as the best weapons and armor, and how to prepare your build for End-Game PvE content.

This guide helps you understand why gear selection is important, the various traits of the gear pieces, and how to change and customize your gear to match your class and playstyle while also incorporating powerful legendary aspects.

Gear and itemization

The main difference between other games and Diablo 4, when it comes to gear, is that you don’t have to farm a specific mob or area to get powerful items. Diablo IV’s loot system is more flexible, the gear being re-rollable or imprintable with Legendary Aspects. You can also upgrade the gear to improve its item level and raise the core stats.

The key to gearing in D4 is understanding different pieces of gear that offer various stats and affixes while also combining them with Legendary Aspects if they don’t have them already.

When it comes to getting a build together, you will surely need to grind many items, which is very time-consuming and sometimes tedious, so a great option is to go for aDiablo 4 boost. This service can help you get to the endgame much faster and easier.

Gear rarity

In Diablo 4, gear comes in different rarities and drop chances. The chances of dropping a higher rarity item will go up with the world tier, while also new types of items will unlock.

Drop rates

Common and Magic items drop more 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.

Unique items are extremely rare, they have completely fixed affixes, and their special powers cannot be extracted as you would do with Legendary items. You will have to use Uniques as they come because of their special effects and supposedly grind for good rolled ones, as in stats and legendary power roll.

Normal items

These are the basic items that have no affixes.

Magic items

Slightly more rare, Magic items have up to two affixes added.

Rare items

The rare items are the next in rarity, with up to four affixes. These will be best to have in the early game, as they will be very powerful.

Legendary items

These are the most powerful items in the game, aside from Unique ones. These come with four regular affixes and a randomly rolled Legendary affix. The Legendary affixes that roll on these items can be extracted and imprinted on other items, but we’ll go into details later in the guide.

Unique items

Image source: Diablo IV Developer Update Live Stream – April 2023

The most powerful items in the game, Unique items come with completely fixed affixes, and roll with very class-specific stats and powers. The special effects cannot be extracted or rerolled. The Unique items also have more powerful versions called “Sacred” and “Ancestral”, which can only be obtained while on world tier 3 and world tier 4, respectively.

Gear Affixes

The gear affixes are divided into three categories:

• Regular affixes – found on items of any quality besides the normal ones. These are the most common affixes
• Legendary affixes – found only on Legendary items, and they are more powerful than the Regular affixes. These can be extracted into Legendary Aspects.
• Unique affixes – can only be found on Unique items and are by far the most powerful affixes.

Rerolling affixes

Having a modular system of items in Diablo 4, you can re-roll one undesired Affix using the Enchant function at the Occultist, into another random one for as many times as you’d like, as long as you can pay the gold and crafting material fees.

Legendary aspects

Image source: In-game screenshot

Legendary aspects are special powerful affixes found on Legendary items, as well as in the Codex of Power account-wide. The legendary affixes are highlighted on Legendary items with orange text.

The legendary aspects come from two main sources:

• Dropped legendary items
• Learned by clearing dungeons and rewarded in the Codex of Power

They are divided into five different categories:

• Offensive
• Defensive
• Utility
• Mobility
• Resource

Dropped aspects

The dropped aspects are more powerful compared to the codex of power aspects, the value of the affix being randomly chosen from a range it can possibly roll in (for example, a legendary item can offer 5-10 energy while damaging an elite enemy, the value between 5-10 being random)

While being more powerful, farming the item with perfect stats for your build, and also having a high value of the Legendary Aspect is very hard, so you can use the Codex of power aspects meanwhile.

Codex of power aspects

As we have mentioned, the codex of power aspects can be obtained in two ways: by clearing dungeons or by extracting them from legendary items. These aspects will always roll the lowest value when imprinted into an item.

Extracting and Imprinting aspects

Image source: wowhead.com

Imprinting legendary aspects into items might be the best way to easily obtain powerful enough items since imprinting will also upgrade a lower-rarity item into a legendary one.

While powerful items will be easier to obtain, imprinting a legendary aspect into them will completely remove the chance of getting a higher value of the legendary aspect, and will choose the lowest value possible. This method is recommended to be used until you are able to farm end-game build-related items.

Upgrading gear

Image source: In-game screenshot

Besides getting better gear, you can also upgrade the items to improve your character’s power. By visiting the Blacksmith, you can upgrade weapons and armor.

This is particularly good because you can increase the following stats:

• Weapon damage
• Armor Rating
• Item Affix percentages or values

You can also upgrade the Rings and Amulets in the same way, but you will need to visit the Jeweler instead. This will raise the item level, which also increases the item affix values.

Every type and rarity of an item can be upgraded. Depending on its rarity, the item will have either one or multiple upgrades. All the upgrades will cost Gold and materials.

Gems and socketing

Some of the items that drop in the game have sockets while others don’t. That doesn’t mean we can’t add sockets to items that dropped without one. The Scattered Prism is the item that can be used to add sockets to items that are eligible for socketing. Below we will list the number of sockets an item can have in Diablo IV:

• Gloves and Boots – 0 sockets
• Helm, One-Handed Weapons, Ring, Amulet, and Off-hands – 1 socket
• Chest, Legs, Two-Handed Weapons – 2 sockets

In these sockets, we can insert various gems that will provide additional bonuses to the gear piece. You will have a choice between Emerald, Ruby, Topaz, Diamond, Sapphire, Skull, and Amethyst, each giving a different bonus:

Transmog

In Diablo 4, the Transmog system can be accessed in the Wardrobe found in towns, and you can use the look of equipment that you have already salvaged at least once at the Blacksmith NPC. This will only change the look of the item and not affect any stat, bonus or affix the item has.

Final Thoughts

As we have approached the end of the guide, we surely hope you have a better understanding of the itemization found in Diablo 4, all the rarities of the items, and the types of affixes. Having all this information will help you get started in the game with an advantage while also helping you understand better how to create your build.

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