In Diablo 4 Season 14: Season of Death Awakening, many things changed, including a major update to Hordric Cube system.
Now, the ultimate stats on equipment no longer rely solely on random drops; they can be reliably crafted using Hordric Cube. With the right techniques, all players can obtain high-damage and high-defense gear with a high degree of certainty.
If you also want to craft your best-in-slot gear using Hordric Cube, read on.
Gear Crafting Method
In Diablo 4 Season 14, increasing character damage through crafting equipment hinges on first crafting an amulet with +2 to All Skills affix, then maximizing other stats.
To achieve high defense, you need to stack high values of Resistance to All Elements on your chest armor, pants, boots, or helmet.
So, how do you do this? Primarily by utilizing Hordric Cube's rule that "no two identical affixes can exist on the same piece of equipment", and Tuning Prism.
Step 1
First, when crafting high-damage gear, take an Ancestral amulet without any affixes and use Adept's Tuning Prism three times in Horadric Cube to add affixes.
The first and second attempts will yield a primary attribute and a specific skill, respectively; the third attempt, since the skill affix pool has no other available options, will guarantee "All Skills" affix.
Crafting high-defense gear is similar. You need to use Protector's Tuning Prism to add your first resistance affix - the system will randomly assign a single elemental resistance.
Then, use Protector's Tuning Prism again to add your second resistance affix - since the single elemental resistance already exists, the system will only assign "Resistance to All Elements".
Step 2
When crafting high-damage gear, if you get +1 to All Skills, you can use Horadric Cube's Focused Reroll feature - this feature will only reroll the affix selected by the player and will not affect other attributes.
Continuously use Focused Reroll on +1 to All Skills until its value becomes +2. According to video testing, this process typically requires 5 to 10 rerolls.
Note that in Diablo 4 Season 14, Focused Reroll can only precisely target affixes if there are no multiple affixes of the same category on the equipment.
For example, if the equipment has both "Max Health" and "Armor" affixes (both defensive), using Protector's Tuning Prism for rerolling will not allow for precise selection between them, potentially accidentally changing the affix you don't want affected.
Therefore, before performing the second step, make sure the target affix is the "unique" option in its category.
When crafting high-defense equipment, if Resistance to All Elements value is low, you can also use Focused Reroll to increase its value individually, or directly use Remove Affix to remove both resistances and then re-add them - because the rules for re-adding are the same each time.
Step 3
After successfully rerolling +2 to All Skills and a high-value Resistance to All Elements affix, lock this affix and optimize the other affixes. This is the most crucial step in the entire technique.
You need to take the affix to Occultist, select either +2 to All Skills affix or Resistance to All Elements affix for Enchanting Reroll, and then choose "Keep As is" from the three pop-up options.
This operation will internally mark the affix as "locked". Afterward, whether using Focused Reroll in Hordric Cube or performing other operations at Occultist, the locked affix will not be accidentally replaced.
At this point, you can safely reroll the main attribute to its maximum value.
However, it's important to note that according to Hordric Cube's crafting rules, this method only applies to non-Legendary equipment or equipment that hasn't undergone final transformation. If the equipment has been Transfigured and becomes unmodifiable, it cannot be processed using Tuning Prism.
Material Acquisition
Implementing the above techniques requires a large number of Diablo 4 Tuning Prisms and various materials. In Diablo 4, the fastest way to obtain these materials is to farm Nightmare Dungeons, combined with War Plans Skill Points.
To enter this dungeon, you first need to craft Nightmare Sigil in Horadric Cube - a new recipe introduced in Season 14.
Simultaneously, you need to unlock Branching Pathways in War Plans Skill Tree. This allows you to choose the next level's reward type from three portals at the end of each dungeon.
If you prioritize Materials Reserve reward portal during your progression, you can obtain 20 to 40 Tuning Prisms after completing a run.
Other Tips
Besides this, here are some other techniques you might find useful for increasing your damage and defense using Horadric Cube.
First, Season 14 significantly optimized Gem system. You can now use Horadric Cube's Amalgamation recipe to combine 5 Grand Gems into 1 Horadric Gem, and then combine 5 Horadric Gems into 1 Flawless Horadric Gem.
Secondly, regarding Charms and Runes. For Charms, you can use Unique Power Reroll function to maximize their effect values.
For Runes, you can use Horadric Cube to combine 3 Runes of the same type into 1 random Rune of the same type, or use 5 Runes to perform an "upgrade" - upgrading Magic Runes to Rare Runes, and Rare Runes to Legendary Runes.
This is how to create high-damage, high-defense endgame gear using Horadric Cube in Diablo 4 Season 14: Season of Death Awakening.
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Try this method out in the game now! According to player testing, equipment crafted using this method can easily handle Torment 12 and higher difficulties.
