Masterworking is an endgame system that allows you to improve the current affixes of your gear. Special crafting materials found in the Pit of the Artificers are used to apply Masterworking on your items at the Blacksmith. This system is extremely important at endgame and when trying to push through the hardest content in Diablo 4.
What is Masterworking?
Masterworking, like Tempering, is a crafting system that will upgrade all the affixes on an item. Only Ancestral Legendary items that have two Tempered affixes or Uniques can be masterworked at the Blacksmith.
Masterworking can be used to upgrade an item a total of 12 times. Each time, the Masterworking rank upgrades as well as the affixes of the gear piece. Most ranks will increase all affixes by 5%. However, ranks 4, 8, and 12 will increase one random affix by 25%. This could give you the chance to have a piece of gear with one affix increased by 75%. However, it is more likely that three random affixes will be increased by 25%.
How to Unlock Masterworking
Similar to Tempering, you will unlock Masterworking at the Blacksmith after you run through The Pit of the Artificers for the first time and find any of the base materials needed to improve an item through Masterworking.
The Pit unlocks after you clear a Tier 46 Nightmare Dungeon.
The Pit GuideHow to Masterwork
In order to use this system, you will need specific materials that you can find inside The Pit, as well as gear that can be masterworked, such as tempered Ancestral Legendary items or Uniques.
Head to the Blacksmith, open the Masterworking tab, insert the gear item you want to improve, and then confirm the upgrade.
The upgrade will cost you:
- Gold
- Base materials such as:
- Veiled Crystal
- Rawhide or Iron Chunk
- Coiling Ward, Abstruse Sigil, or Baleful Fragment
- Forgotten Soul
- Unique crafting materials found within The Pit:
- Obducite Cache
- Ingolith
- Neathiron
How to Get Masterworking Materials
The unique crafting materials needed for Masterworking can all be dropped inside The Pit of the Artificers.
After completing a run inside The Pit, you will be rewarded with an additional chest, which will contain one of the following materials:
- Obducite (The Pit Tier 1-29)
- Ingolith (The Pit Tier 30-59)
- Neathiron (The Pit Tier 60-200)
Depending on The Pit level, you will obtain one or the other. Higher difficulty will reward you with rarer crafting materials. Nevertheless, Obducite Cache and Ingolith Cache caches are also available to craft at the Alchemist. As for needing lower-tier materials, players can also transmute legendary material into these lesser materials at the Occultist.
We recommend farming The Pit for a decent amount of materials first before attempting to Masterwork, as well as making sure you are using your materials on a perfect or close-to-perfect item. Depending on your luck, Masterworking can take quite a lot of materials to upgrade your item to rank 12, with interesting 25% boosts on specific affixes.
Masterworking Ranks
You can upgrade your affixes a total of 12 times. Any affix on the item will be improved by Masterworking, including Greater Affixes. Additionally, the Occultist can Enchant (reroll) these Masterworked affixes to a new affix with the same increased Masterworking rank. Moreover, re-tempered items will also retain their previously obtained Masterworking rank.
With significant stat increases at ranks 4, 8, and 12, the item tooltip will clearly highlight the upgraded affixes through distinct colors:
- Blue: 25% increase
- Yellow: 50% increase
- Orange: 75% increase
A Masterworking upgrade never fails. The table below includes a description of each rank, their effect, and costs (which are still subject to change).
| Rank | Upgrade | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Rank 1 | All affixes increased by 5% | • 10 Obducite • 10 Rawhide / Iron Chunk • 3 Veiled Crystal • 100,000 Gold |
| Rank 2 | All affixes increased by 5% | • Obducite • Rawhide / Iron Chunk • Veiled Crystal • Gold |
| Rank 3 | All affixes increased by 5% | • Obducite • Rawhide / Iron Chunk • Veiled Crystal • Gold |
| Rank 4 | One random affix increased by 25% | • Obducite • Rawhide / Iron Chunk • Veiled Crystal • Gold |
| Rank 5 | All affixes increased by 5% | • 20 Ingolith • 25 Rawhide / Iron Chunk • 6 Veiled Crystal • 450,000 Gold |
| Rank 6 | All affixes increased by 5% | • Ingolith • Rawhide / Iron Chunk • Veiled Crystal • Gold |
| Rank 7 | All affixes increased by 5% | • Ingolith • Rawhide / Iron Chunk • Veiled Crystal • Gold |
| Rank 8 | One random affix increased by 25% | • Ingolith • Rawhide / Iron Chunk • Veiled Crystal • Gold |
| Rank 9 | All affixes increased by 5% | • 50 Neathiron • 20 Veiled Crystal • 10 Abstruse Sigil / Coiling Ward / Baleful Fragment • 3 Forgotten Soul • 2,000,000 Gold |
| Rank 10 | All affixes increased by 5% | • Neathiron • Veiled Crystal • Abstruse Sigil / Coiling Ward / Baleful Fragment • Forgotten Soul • Gold |
| Rank 11 | All affixes increased by 5% | • Neathiron • Veiled Crystal • Abstruse Sigil / Coiling Ward / Baleful Fragment • Forgotten Soul • Gold |
| Rank 12 | One random affix increased by 25% | • 250 Neathiron • 50 Veiled Crystal • 20 Abstruse Sigil / Coiling Ward / Baleful Fragment • 10 Forgotten Soul • 10,000,000 Gold |
The material needed for Masterworking depends on the rank and the type of armor (armor, weapon, jewelry). For example, weapons and jewelry require Iron Chunk for rank 1 to 8.
Can You Reset Masterworking?
Yes! Once an item has been improved through Masterworking, you have the possibility to reset all Masterworking ranks on the piece of gear, but be aware that the materials used in the process will not be refunded. This can help if you are aiming for a specific 25% or 50% roll on an affix.
The following items are required to reset masterwork ranks from Rank 12 to 0:
- 30 Rawhide / 30 Iron Chunk
- 20 Veiled Crystal
- 5 Forgotten Soul
- 5,000,000 Gold
