Masterworking Guide

Masterworking is an endgame system available at the Blacksmith that allows players to improve the quality of the affixes (including Tempering Affixes) on their equipment. By providing a Blacksmith with materials obtained from endgame content like Nightmare Dungeons, players can significantly improve their Rare, Legendary, Unique, and Mythic Unique equipment.

Masterworking requires a specific material called Obducite. This special material can be found in Nightmare Dungeons, the Undercity with Tribute of Refinement, and the Infernal Hordes. You usually get these at the end of the activity, but in Nightmare Dungeons, they also drop from killing enemies, opening chests, completing events, and more. These sources vary in efficiency depending on your build, but the rough estimates are listed in the table below.

In addition to Obducite, Masterworking requires other materials, such as Gold, Iron Chunk, Veiled Crystals, Abstruse Sigils, and Forgotten Souls. Click the accordion below to see what materials you need to Masterwork your gear.

Masterworking Cost per Rank

Legendary and Unique equipment can be masterworked to rank 8, while Ancestral Legendaries, Uniques, and Mythic Uniques can be masterworked to rank 12. Increasing the Masterworking Rank of equipment increases all affixes by 5%. However, at Masterworking Rank 4, Rank 8, and Rank 12, only one of the item's affixes receives a bonus, but the bonus is 25% instead of 5%. This more significant bonus is called "critting" an Affix and is referred to as an MW: Crit for the rest of this guide.

All Masterworking bonuses and the 50% bonus from a Greater Affix are additive to each other. To use a practical example, an affix with GA and upgraded to rank 6/12 with one MW: Crit would be increased by
5% x 5 + 50% + 25% x 1 = 100%. Affixes with whole-number values are rounded down after their bonuses are applied.

A single affix can receive the MW: Crit bonus multiple times. Affixes that receive this bonus once are Blue, twice are Yellow, and three times are Orange. At Rank 12, an item has a guaranteed total of 45% (5% times 9 upgrades between 1-3, 5-7, and 9-11). This means that a Rank 12 Affix would have the following total bonus, depending on how many times it received a MW: Crit:

• 0 MW Crits: 45%
• 1 MW Crit: 45% + 25% x 1 = +70%
• 2 MW Crits: 45% + 25% x 2 = +95%
• 3 MW Crits: 45% + 25% x 3 = +120%

Using Heir of Perdition as our example, it has the following base stats:

• 20% Critical Strike Chance
• 20% Lucky Hit Chance
• 20% Movement Speed
• [2] to Core Skills

At Masterworking 12/12, we would expect these stats to increase in the following way:

• 20% x (100% + 50% + 5% x 9) = 39% Critical Strike Chance
• 20% x (100% + 5% x 9) = 29% Lucky Hit Chance
• 20% x (100% + 25% x 1 + 5% x 9) = 34% Movement Speed
• [2]x (100% + 25% x 2+ 5% x 9) = 3.9 to Core Skills

However, as we can see, the last part is not following the expected formula. The expected result would have been +4 ranks to Core Skills, but we ended up with +5. This is something called the "30% rule" in the community. This is covered in the Masterwork Skill Ranks section below.

Masterworking has a specific pattern for increasing skill ranks based on MW: Crits and GA rolls on the item. The pattern may seem random, but it is consistent across all skills, whether the item is a Legendary amulet, skill ranks on gloves, or even Unique and Mythic Unique items! You get a skill rank each time you reach a 30% increase to a Skill Affix. This means there are specific patterns to be aware of depending on when you crit with Masterworking. Disclaimer: This system is inconsistent for items that start with a base of +4 ranks to a skill or higher. You can find out what Masterwork ranks these Unique items have their Passive/Skill upgrades using our Planner.

As shown in the table, you will not get more than one skill rank upgrading from rank 0 to rank 12 without a MW: Crit. This upgrade occurs at Rank 7 specifically. This means you can get cheap skill rank upgrades early in your progression by upgrading your gear to these specific breakpoints.

Remember that a Greater Affix on a Passive does not necessarily imply that you will deal more damage when you have finished Masterworking. Based on the table above, you would go from rank 6 to 7 by hitting GA on a passive. Using the rogue passive Malice, going from rank 9 to 10 would net you a 1.3/1.27 = 1.023 = 2.3% damage increase while hitting GA on Dexterity % with 2272 dexterity would make you deal (1+2272 x 1.307/900) / (1+2272 x 1.228)/900) = 1.0486 = 4.86% increased damage. These gains are small, but if you optimize your character, every bit matters!

You can reset an item's Masterworking Ranks back to Rank 0. Players may want to reset an item's Masterworking Rank if the MW: Crit bonus received at Rank 4, 8, or 12 was applied to a less valuable affix. If getting a MW: Crit bonus on one particular Affix is vital, then a player may want to reset Masterwork Rank at Rank 4 if they didn't get the proc they wanted. Dedicated players may reset their item at Rank 8, which could be extremely costly. Resetting at Rank 12 is not recommended unless you are overflowing in materials, as resetting puts the item back at Rank 0.

Cost of a Masterwork Reset:

• Iron Chunk or Rawhide x30
• Veiled Crystal x20
• Forgotten Soul x5
• Gold x5,000,000

Summary

• The Masterworking menu can be accessed by interacting with the Blacksmith.
• You can Masterwork Legendary, Unique, or Mythic Unique equipment. Additionally, the item must be fully tempered to Masterwork Legendary equipment.
• Obducite is obtained through Nightmare Dungeons, the Undercity with Tribute of Refinement, and the Infernal Hordes by opening its material cache.
• The maximum Masterworking Rank is 8 for ordinary Legendary and Unique items and 12 for Ancestral Legendary, Unique or Mythic Unique items.
• Most Ranks give every Affix a 5% bonus. Ranks 4, 8, and 12 instead provide a 25% bonus to a single random affix.
• You can reset an item's Masterworking ranks.

Credits

Written by Avarilyn