Diablo 4 Season 4’s huge itemization rework: Fewer drops but higher quality, Unique trades, more

Significant item changes will be rolling out across Sanctuary in Diablo 4’s Season Four, including massive loot drop and affix overhauls that should change the game.

During Blizzard’s latest Diablo 4 Campfire Chat, held on March 20, the developers shared many exciting announcements, including class changes and more long-awaited additions to the action RPG’s endgame. Perhaps the biggest news, however, was the extensive list of drastic item changes that are going to arrive when Season Four eventually land on live servers, which will hopefully significantly alter both quality of life and gameplay.

So what are all these gamechanging Diablo 4 item reworks?

All Diablo 4 Season 4 itemization changes

The Diablo 4 Season Four itemization changes can be broken down into changes relating to base items, additional items, tempering, affixes, master working, and the codex of power.

Base item changes

• Unused Affixes will be removed, and the total number of Affixes on gear will be lowered.  
• Only Sacred items will appear in World Tier Three.
• Only Ancestral items will appear in World Tier Four.
• All Legendary and Unique dropped items will be tradeable.
• While you will get higher-quality loot from drops, you won’t get as many items from these drops. 

Additional item changes

• Enemies over Level 95 will only drop gear of item level 925. 
• Gems can now be sold for more gold.
• The cost of enchanting items now has a gold cap.
• You will notice material consolidation.
• Forgotten Souls will have additional sources.
• World Tiers One and Two will see more Unique items drop.
• Uber Uniques can now drop from enemies level 55 or higher in World Tier Three. 

Greater Affixes

• Greater Affixes are 1.5 times stronger than their standard counterparts.  
• Greater Affixes can only be obtained from dropped Legendary or Unique items.
• Greater Affixes can be Enchanted off items. However, you can’t put them onto an item. Basically, you can only remove them.

Tempering (New crafting system)

• Tempering will allow players to add new Affixes to their gear.
• Tempering Manuals have been added. These Manuals may have four possible Affixes. One of these Affixes will be randomly applied to a piece of gear.
• Tempering Manuals will drop from most content, but you can’t farm for it. 
• Items will have limited Temper Durability, meaning there are only so many times a Temper can be rerolled.

Masterworking (New late-game crafting upgrade system)

• Masterworking will feature 12 upgrade ranks.
• For every four ranks, one of the affixes on the gear will be randomly chosen to get a substantial increase. So, this upgrade will happen three times. 

Codex of Power

• The Codes will feature all Legendary Aspects.
• If you salvage a Legendary item, it will upgrade the Aspect within the Codex of Power. And you won’t need to go to the Occultist to extract these aspects.
• The Codex of Power’s Legendary powers can be upgraded up to 16 times, meaning once it’s been upgraded 16 times, it will have reached its maximum level.
• These max Legendary Aspects will only drop from items in World Tier Four.

These item changes may seem daunting, but with better affixes, more customization, and improved item drops, Season Four is going to be an epic time to return to Diablo 4, and you can even test these changes on the PTR server soon.

Because these changes are so extensive, Season Four has been delayed.