Legendary Items

Legendary Items are a class of item in Diablo Immortal, Diablo III, and Diablo IV, similar in terms of rarity to Unique Items from Diablo II. On many occasions, items of that quality are also called Legendary Items, or "Legendaries" (often abbreviated to "legos" or "legs", not to be confused with leg-slot pants). They are among the strongest and rarest items in Diablo III.

Diablo III[]

Legendary Items made their debut in Diablo III.

Unlike Rare Items, Legendary Items can have affixes that normally are not allowed on that type of item (for example, Increased Movement Speed on Chest Armor). Many of them have re-rollable or non-re-rollable affixes that are unique to that item (for instance, Azurewrath damages and periodically knocks away Demon and Undead enemies in close proximity of the bearer). Normal affixes on Legendary Items will roll significantly higher (and sometimes extremely high even compared to other Legendary Items) and amount to more than those on regular items of similar levels. However, still, some Legendary Items are a little bit more than glorified "Rares", able to boast no unusual stats nor affixes. Over time, such Legendaries are replaced, gaining new names, descriptions and properties, while older variants become Legacy.

Legendary Affixes on items are orange in color, with numbers that may roll in some interval (if any) highlighted in blue. Example (Winter Flurry):

• Enemies killed by Cold damage have a 15–20% chance to release a Frost Nova

Orange affixes are always Secondary, so they do not compete with Primary attributes of an item. Most of these affixes can be extracted into Kanai's Cube.

All legendary items dropped since patch 2.0 are Account Bound, to an extent. The item will be tradeable for the next two hours of gameplay to any player that was in the same game when the item was dropped. After two hours of gameplay, the item will be bound to the player's account permanently. Legendary items become account bound immediately if they are enchanted.

As of patch 2.0., a Legendary item can drop at any level equal to or above its minimum level, with stats corrected accordingly. Craftable Legendary items sometimes have two recipes (normal and max-level), each of which needs to be obtained separately. All items with minimum level of 61 or higher require access to Reaper of Souls, although players can trade them to classic players if these items roll an affix that lowers the level requirements.

Set Items are, essentially, Legendary Items which come with additional bonuses for wearing more than one piece of the same set. In return, Set Items very rarely have unique affixes.

Note that all Legendary Rings and One-Handed Weapons are Unique-Equipped, meaning that a character can only equip one item of each type at a time, and even if the player manages to find two Stone of Jordan Rings, the character can still only have one equipped. However the only exception to this is that a character can still equip a pre-loot 2.0 version of that same item along with a post-loot 2.0 version of the very same item. This restriction was done to prevent characters from being too powerful; to name an example, a Barbarian dual-wielding two Thunderfury Swords would cause massive Lightning Damage wherever the player went, especially if he or she was a fast-hitting character. The same rule applies to the Kanai's Cube "Powers Collection".

Legendary Gems and Legendary Potions exist in-game as well, in addition to Legendary Equipment, that is to say.

Acquiring[]

Legendaries can be dropped by monsters, chests, and destructibles. They cannot be found in shops (except Kadala's gambling store). Some can only be obtained by crafting, and only after finding/buying the corresponding jeweler or blacksmith plan. Some legendaries (typically those with minimum level of 70) can only be found in Torment, while others can only be found in Horadric Caches, and only if the cache was obtained from a specific Act. The Torment-exclusive legendaries cannot be found in Horadric Caches.

When a legendary is first found, it is unidentified. The player can identify it by right-clicking it. If the player has multiple unidentified legendaries, it may be quicker to travel to town and use the Book of Cain. The stats for the item are created at the time it is spawned, not when it is identified. It can have between six and seven magical properties, rarely more.

The first time a character level 1-59 kills an act boss, it is guaranteed to drop at least one legendary item. Once the game is completed with that character, they can choose to "Reset Quests". Doing so will again guarantee one legendary item for the first kill of each act boss. Once a character reaches level 60 or higher, only Malthael will drop a guaranteed legendary item. If the player does not have Reaper of Souls, this guaranteed drop moves to Diablo.

Each level of Torment difficulty increases the chance of a legendary to drop by 1.15^N, N being the level of Torment.^[1] Nephalem Rifts also increase the drop rate of legendaries, stacking multiplicatively with other modifiers.

As of the pre-expansion patch, Diablo III also provides a bonus to the legendary drop chance for players who have not found a legendary in a while. This has been intended for the unluckiest of players; without this, they might have been unable to finish their quest in an efficient timeframe, even on lower difficulty settings. This bonus requires that the player spend his/her time killing monsters, but it does increase over time, in an attempt to give all players at least some legendaries. The bonus is reset when a actual legendary item, not plans or material, is dropped for that player. The bonus is even reset if the player is not near it when it drops, such as when the player is in town selling items and another player in their party is out killing monsters.^[2]

Upon dropping, each Legendary item produces a distinctive sound and shows a star icon on the minimap. Each item will also be highlighted with a pillar of bright light, so it is really hard to miss it.

Crafting[]

When salvaged, Legendary items will award one Forgotten Soul each. Crafting level 70 Legendary items will require two Horadric Cache materials each.

Craftable Legendary items, unlike the normal Legendary items, award no Forgotten Souls, but rather one Reusable Parts, one Arcane Dust and one Veiled Crystal.

Ancient Legendary Items[]

Ancient Items are a special tier of items introduced in patch 2.1.2. These are identical to level 70 Legendary items, except that base attributes (damage or armor) and all affixes roll +30-33.3% higher values for both minimum and maximum possible rolls.

Any level 70 Legendary or Set item dropped on Torment I difficulty or higher from any source will have a chance to be an Ancient item, with the chance increasing on higher levels of Torment (roughly 10% at Torment X). An item gambled from Kadala, crafted by artisans or transmuted in the Kanai's Cube will always have a 10% chance to be Ancient, unless specifically stated otherwise.

The item interface will have a bright gold trimming to show that the item is Ancient.

Examples of affix stat ranges:

• 416-500 becomes 500-650
• 626-750 becomes 750-1000
• 981-1490 becomes 1200-1940

Ancient items are not a separate item tier; that is, Ancient Set items can be combined with usual Set items, and one cannot equip both Legendary and Ancient Legendary versions of the same one-handed weapon or ring.

An Ancient item's increased rolls only affect base values that are expressed as absolute numbers; values expressed in % (such as Critical Hit Chance or increased damage dealt by skills) are not improved. Values related to resources (such as increased maximum Arcane Power) or yards are also not affected.

When linked in chat, to distinguish them, Ancient items will appear as {[Item Name]} while an ordinary Legendary is displayed as [Item Name].

The Legacy of Nightmares Set gives a significant damage and protection bonus for each Ancient item the player has equipped, but only as long as no other set bonuses are active.

As of patch 2.4, one can empower an Ancient Item via Kanai's Cube: sacrificing a Legendary Gem of high rank will grant +5 primary attribute bonus per rank to the Ancient item of player's choice.

As of patch 2.5, salvage rewards 3 Forgotten Souls for each Ancient Item.

Primal Ancient Legendary Items[]

As of patch 2.5.0, each Ancient Legendary or Set item has a much lower chance to drop as a Primal item. This unlocks when any character on an account successfully beats a rank 70 Greater Rift in solo. Drops are unlocked for all characters of the same type, so Normal/Seasonal and Softcore/Hardcore characters must unlock them separately.

This does not count as different quality, and does not provide further increase to stat ranges of an item compared to Ancient items. Instead, all stats on the item (including variables in the legendary affixes) will gain perfect values: maximum possible numbers of the Ancient stat ranges. Salvaging a Primal item yields 55 Primordial Ashes.

Perfect rolls affect every affix including Primary, Secondary, and Legendary, putting them to ideal value (whether that means the maximum or minimum value). Items do NOT align affixes to better fit class or build (they are still random), however:

• They will always drop with the appropriate main stat for the character's class (100% chance to trigger Smart Loot)
• Armor items will always have the ideal number of sockets for that item (the maximum possible number, and guaranteed at least one, if any are available). However, to allow use of Ramaladni's Gift on a weapon, Primal weapons roll with no sockets.
• Options for Enchanting Primal items are also guaranteed to be optimal rolls.

Primal Ancients can drop from any source of Legendary item in the game, including Horadric Caches, Kadala, and Kanai's Cube, but only after having completed at least a level 70 Greater Rift. This requirement must only be completed once per game mode (Hardcore vs. Non-Hardcore, or Seasonal vs. Non-Seasonal), which means that for Seasonal characters it will reset with every Season. However, once that requirement has been met, all characters in that game mode will benefit from it.

Visually, a Primal item has a rich blood red ornament in place of the usual orange. As of Patch 2.6.4, Primal Legendaries are marked by a red beam when they drop and indicated by a red pentagram icon on the mini-map. They also have a red border and updated background on their icons in the player's stash.^[3]

Primal Items can be crafted through 100 Primordial Ashes.^[4]

Development[]

These items were added for the most dedicated players, so that there would be a clear progression track beyond augmenting Ancient Legendary items or completing the Season Journey.

Originally, Primal items were supposed to have stat ranges even higher than those of Ancient items; this idea was scrapped and replaced with perfect rolls.

Before Patch 2.7.5, salvaging Primal items yielded 15 Forgotten Souls.

Diablo Immortal[]

Legendary Items return in Diablo Immortal. They alter the player's skills.^[5]

Players can obtain Legendaries through bounties, Rites of Cleansing and the first Horadric Bestiary quest completed each day will grant a Legendary.^[6] Ancient Monsters are also guaranteed to drop a Legendary upon death.

Each Legendary grants a random Combat Rating bonus, 2-3 random attributes, 1-3 random magic attributes, and a Legendary Gem Socket. They also alter a single skill, either by adding a buff to it, or unlocking a variant of it.

Some events reward a Mystery Legendary Item, which is an item that appears in the last page of the inventory, and turns into a random unidentified Legendary Item when used. The level of the resulting item is determined when using the Mystery item, not when identifying the result. Mystery Legendary Items are stackable.

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Cursed Items[]

Essence Transfer[]

As opposed to salvaging as for normal items, legendary items can have their essence extracted using the Essence Transfer NPC. If not extracted already, the essence will be added to the player's extracted essences, which can be inherited into any legendary item for the same slot. When an item with an inherited essence is extracted, the original essence of the item will still be extracted if not owned already.

There is also a loyalty bonus for extracting essences that allows players to specify an essence to obtain. One point is added for every legendary item extracted, with a chance to get 5 or 25 points instead. Once the meter reaches 400 points, the essence chosen for the loyalty bonus is awarded as an extracted essence. This way essences for other classes can also be obtained, to help players who are considering changing classes.

Extracted essences also contribute to Essence Mastery. Extracting an already obtained Essence increases a counter on that Essence, and when it fills up, it gives a point of Essence Mastery. Once the Essence Mastery bar is filled, it increases the character's Essence Mastery, which boosts the effects of all Essences. Essence Mastery has a maximum level of 4, after which the extraction counters stop being shown. Just like Essences themselves, Essence Mastery is tracked separately for each class.

History[]

Originally Mystery Legendary Items didn't stack, and they could take up considerable space in the player's inventory. In the October 16, 2024 update, the Mystery items were changed to be stackable.

Diablo IV[]

In Diablo IV, Legendaries have an equal or even greater power level compared to that of Set Items from previous games.^[7] Sub-types include "Sacred Legendary" and "Ancestral Legendary."^[8] Legendaries grant buffs to the player.^[9] A Legendary's property can be transferred from one item to another by removing its "aspect" (this destroys the original item) and transferring it. This can only be done once. However, the Codex of Power allows players to choose buffs for their Legendaries at will.^[10]

Sacred and Ancestral Legendaries only drop towards the end-game. Legendaries cannot be traded.^[10] In the game's mini-map, Legendaries are represented by an orange star.

Gallery[]

A legendary item in its tradable state

References[]