Uniques, sets and runewords

Rarities

• Normal items are plain bases, and the only ones a runeword accepts.
• Magic items carry a prefix, a suffix, or both.
• Rare items carry several affixes and a name of their own.
• Unique items are fixed designs with rolled lines.
• Set pieces belong together, and light more bonuses the more of them a hero wears.

Uniques

184 uniques sit in the main loot table, each with its own look on the hero who wears it. Some are wards against a single element, some change how a skill behaves, and a few are earned rather than found. Deeper places hide more: grave-goods and relics that drop nowhere else.

Sets

Thirty-four sets. Twenty-seven are built for one calling each, three pieces around one of its builds: the Red Harvest for the Warbringer's Whirling Reaver, the Black Rain for the Huntress's volleys, the Ashen Sermon for the Stormwitch's fire. The other seven are jewelry sets any hero can wear.

A full calling set gives what no other gear can: a More damage multiplier and changes to its skills. Wear all of the Red Harvest and Whirl of Iron reaches 20% wider and hits 20% harder, Ravage returns 20% sooner, and melee blows can strike again.

Set pieces rise. When you find a stronger piece of a set, the pieces you already hold climb toward its item level, so an early find is never wasted.

Runewords

91 runewords. Each asks for a normal base with exactly the right number of sockets, and the right runes in the right order. Socket Bone and then Ash into body armor, a helm or a shield and you have Kept Word. Rust, Gall, Thorn and Ash in a two-handed sword, great axe, war hammer or spear spell Butcher's Psalm, which puts four elements on every swing and makes corpses burst.

Runes drop from the tier they belong to, or can be bound from three lesser ones in the Crucible. The runeword book lists every recipe, and the Runesmith can chase the words you pick as the runes come in.

Sockets, gems and charms

Gems come in five grades, from Chipped to Perfect, and refine at the Crucible. Charms work from the bag: small, large and grand, each taking room that could hold loot.

Sigils

Sigils are a kind of item of their own. Each sits in a socket under a skill in the skill book and bends that skill. Lesser sigils add one line: more missiles, a wider reach, a faster cast. Greater ones add a twist, such as an echo or leech. 29 named sigils bend a skill for a price, such as one minion five times as strong or chains that fork. Sigils drop from Nightmare on, from champions, unique monsters and act masters; the named ones come from the Shades, the keepers and the deep bosses. A seated sigil stays for good: seat another over it and the old one breaks.

Making a drop better

• The Forge hones gear from +1 to +10, then Exalts it.
• The Crucible refines gems, binds runes, opens sockets and reforges gear, adds an affix where there is room, and rerolls every line's numbers within its tier.
• The Market gambles.
• Salvage turns gear you do not need into essence.

The Grail

Every unique and set piece you find is marked in the Grail. Runs on the Ascension ladder forge their loot deeper, and the Grail keeps an Ascendant column for it.