Diablo 4’s endgame content tends to boil down to three main activities: Lair Bosses, Infernal Hordes, and the Pit of the Artificer.Diablo 4Season 9 adds a new activity for players to undertake once they hit Torment 1 in the form of Escalating Nightmares. However, even with all of these challenges forDiablo 4players to put their skills to the test against, successfully Masterworking a piece of gear remains the game’s toughest activity to date.
A core part of buildcrafting inDiablo 4’s endgame is optimizing gear through features like Tempering and Masterworking. WhileDiablo 4’s Paragon Board, Runes, and Gems play an important part in fine-tuning an endgame build for a given season, even more critical is finding powerful pieces of gear with multiple Greater Affixes and Masterworking them to be as strong as they can be. Unfortunately, Masterworking inDiablo 4can be very hit-or-miss due to its randomized nature, potentially leading to player frustration if they can’t improve their desired affixes.
Diablo 4’s Toughest Endgame Boss is its Masterworking System
Diablo 4’s Masterworking Relies on RNG for Success
OnceDiablo 4Season 9 players obtain enough Obducite, they can take their gear to any Blacksmith to begin the process of Masterworking. By spending resources like Obducite, Forgotten Souls, Abtruse Sigils, Baleful Fragments, and Coiling Wards, Masterworking allows players to improve the affixes on their gear with each rank attained. Each rank increases all of an item’s affixes by 5%, but every fourth rank of a Masterworked item increases a random affix by 25%, meaning players can significantly improve the effects of their gear with this system.
Ancestral and Unique items below level 800 only have 8 Masterworking ranks, but level 800 gear has 12 total Masterworking ranks.
Given the random nature of this 25% increase every four levels, players are taking a big risk when starting toMasterwork an item inDiablo 4. This gamble can have a huge payoff if the desired affix gets Masterworked, since a piece of level 800 gear can potentially have its best affix increased by 75% on top of the guaranteed 45% increase all affixes will receive when all is said and done. However, for players looking to optimize their gear, getting stuck on Masterworking and potentially blowing through tons of resources looking for the right Masterworked affix can be costly and time-consuming.
A Failed Masterwork Can Be a Huge Barrier to Diablo 4’s Endgame
Even with how rare some essential components ofDiablo 4’s best buildsare, the grind for a perfectly Masterworked item can take as long, if not longer, if players get unlucky. Taking time to invest in farming Mythics like the Shroud of False Death or Heir of Perdition from Lair Bosses is already a big ask for manyDiablo 4players, and then having to gamble on Masterworking feels like a huge letdown if it takes forever to perfect a Masterworked item. However, the payoff when Masterworking succeeds can take a build to the level it needs to be at forDiablo 4’s toughest endgame content, so it is definitely worth the time and resource investment.
Diablo 4players can reset a Masterworked item at the Blacksmith if they are unsatisfied with their improvements, but doing so removes all Masterwork ranks.
With how random Masterworking can be, it stands as arguably the biggest hurdleDiablo 4players need to overcome late into the endgame. It can be hard to find the motivation to keep playing a season after finding the perfectUnique or Mythic forDiablo 4’s meta builds, only for the Masterwork grind to be potentially another grind. WithDiablo 4looking to improve its endgame and make it more accessible for all players in the future, overhauling the Masterworking system should be a high priority to make this activity less intensive and more reliable.
