Crafted Items in D2

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Does anyone know how these really work, and whether or not they're worth making? From what is saw at diabloii.net, they seem like they can potentially be great. The blood items, for example, are guaranteed to get three pre-set modifiers, plus up to three other randomly generated modifiers. And the pre-set modifiers seem pretty good. For the blood weapon (which must be an axe evidently) you get guaranteed life leech, bonus to life, and enhanced damage. That already makes for a pretty decent weapon, but then you go and throw another 3 randomly generated modifiers on top of that, which would seem to me to make the weapon potentially godly.

So my questions are, how are the modifiers determined, and which modifiers are possible? Does it matter where the weapon was found? Where you bought the weapon? Your character's level? I mean, if all modifiers are possible, is it theoretically possible to get cruel and grandmaster's modifiers which would take the damage to dizzying heights? Of course, I suppose it's also possible to get the bonus modifiers "of light" and "of craftsmanship" (+1 to light radius and +1 to damage) which would not make for an overly impressive weapon.

I know that for rare items, some of the highest possible modifiers are not available, because so many modifiers are present on the item. Magical items on the other hand have all modifiers available (provided you are high enough level) but have a maximum of two modifiers per item. What this generally means is that great rares will out pace magic items because even though their individual modifiers aren't as great, they can get 5 or 6 per item, whereas magical items are limited to two modifiers. However, even if the limits placed on rares apply to crafted as well, since you are already getting bonus damage as a pre-set modifier, it still seems like the potential for greatness is there if bonus damage on top of that is available.

From what I understand, modifiers have levels just like all characters and monsters, and the modifiers on items you purchase or find are typically at or below the level of your character. That's why you never see items with powerful modifiers early in the game. As your level increases the potential pool of modifiers also increases. If this is how the modifiers are determined for crafted weapons as well (based on your character's level), it seems like you should always have the potential to get some decent stuff, as I can't see how you could craft an item until you get to around level 30, just because you wouldn't have the necessary components before that.

To use the blood weapon again, you need a magical axe of any type, a jewel of any kind, a Perfect Ruby and an Ort Rune. Unless you happen to get lucky with an early Ort Rune drop and find a few gem shrines to upgrade your rubies, chances are you won't have either an Ort Rune or a perfect Ruby prior to Act 5, Normal. Can anyone help me out here?

 

I don't know about random modifiers too much. I made a small mod with new crafting recipes once and I've tried both my new recipes (mostly overpowered ) and normal recipes in my tests. I've found normal crafting recipes crappy. Blood generally gives %1 or %2 life leech to me. IMHO it's not worth wasting a perfect gem+rune for it. Just add that perfect ruby and a perfect skull (if you have one) to a normal or magic socketed weapon and you have a better weapon.

Edit: Once I've crafted an amulet (probably caster's) and it had shimmering (+x to all resistances) mod. It was my only good result.

 

Check out what the FAQs say at www.gamefaqs.com (search for Diablo 2 or click HERE).

Crafted Item FAQ:

 

OK, I found out some more information on crafted items. First off, the level of your modifiers are based soley on the level of your character - specifically the modifier level cannot exceed your character level -1. Nothing else matters. Whether the items was purchased or found makes no difference, the creature dropping the item doesn't matter, and the modifiers on the jewel used to craft the item also have no impact. Therefore, a level 30 character can craft an item that can have any of the possible modifiers of level 29 or less. This is capped at level 70, so you can never, regardless of level, acheive modifiers greater than level 69. This means that the top level modifiers unavailable on rares will be similarly unavailable on crafted items. So, for blood weapons, you can get the master's modifier, but not the grandmaster's modifier.

The whole thing is pretty random after that. Blood weapons give 1%-4% life leech, and your odds are 1 in 4 for which one you get. The enhanced damage is 37%-78%, and again, all of those numbers have the same odds of showing up. About the only other restriction is that you cannot get more than one modifier from the same "family" of modifiers. For example, "shimmering", "rainbow", "prismatic", and "chromatic" are all modifiers that give a % resist all. The only difference is the range that they cover. Shimmering is the least % resist all, and chromatic is the most % resist all. If one of those modifiers are randomly selected, none of the other modifiers in that family can be selected for that item. Similarly you wouldn't be able to get both "soldier's" and "king's" on the same weapon.

What all this means is that the odds of getting a good crafted item are pretty long - about the same odds of landing a really good rare item. About the only difference between crafted and rare is that you control what the base item is, and you have the potential to get more modifiers that you would from a rare. Theoretically, blood weapons can have the highest damage output of the game, due to having the enhanced damage modifier as one of the guaranteed mods. All are cumulative, so you could get up to three other damage enhancing mods on top of the one that's guaranteed. For example, you could get "master's", "massive", and "of butchery" all on the same weapon. Those mods on top of the the +37%-78% that you are certain to get could give you the most damaging weapon of that type available. You could then further customize it by adding a socket to it.

The bottom line here is that you have the potential to make great items using crafted recipes, but, just like everything else in D2, there's no way to consistently produce great items. Yes, you might get a godly weapon, but you might also get the minimums of 1% life leech, +37% damage, and +10 life. Then you might only get one or two bonus modifiers instead of the 5 potential modifiers, and those bonuses might be "of light" and "of craftmanship".

Well, I don't think it's that bad. For starters, it's not like pgems are all that uncommon. Not many creatures will drop a pgem, but flawless ones drop with a fair degree of regularity from nightmare on up. With 3 flawless = 1 perfect, none of the gems are in short supply. Plus, I don't have a use for a lot of different kind of gems. I use topaz, skull and diamond, and about the only thing I use the other ones for are making prismatic amulets, so this is another use for some of them. Runes are a bit tricky, because their drops are extremely unpredictable. However, most of the crafted recipies use low-level runes. I think the highest rune required for a recipe is Amn, which is either #11 or #12. About the best I can say about crafted items is if you are unhappy with one piece of equipment, and you can't seem to find a good rare/unique/set item for that item slot, there's no harm in taking a chance on a crafted item. If you find a magical elite item and have the proper runes and jewels, the crafted item is almost always going to result in something better than what the blue magic item was. That having been said, you will be limited in how many of these items you can make based on the number of pgems, runes, and jewels, you can acquire.

 

Actually Aldeth, the crafted item has the following ilvl:

ilvl=int(0.5*clvl) + int(0.5*ilvl)

Both character level (clvl) and item level (ilvl) matters.

The jewel, does not matter.

The resulting ilvl is what determines the number of affixes. 70+ gives 4 affixes + the fixed ones.

To determine input ilvl:
ilvl for a found item = mlvl = area level (+2 for champs, +3 for boss packs)
ilvl for a shop item = clvl +5.

Good crafting options are:

1) FCR ammies -> can get up to 20fcr and +2 skills. (NOTE: +2 crafted ammies have a level req of 89, so not all that great).
2) Knock back gloves.
3) Mana boots.

Anything else you can think of really, though those three are the most common.

I crafted a belt with 9frc, life, str, mana and light res Best belt I've got until I can use Arach on a caster, and I only have two of those.

 

Hmmm... It appears the info I got from a friend was inaccurate - or perhaps I misinterpreted what he was saying. Although that does bring up some noteworthy differences. For starters, he said that it was capped at level 70. Maybe he meant that you have to be level 70 to get the maximum number of bonus modifiers. That for level 70+, you get the most potential modifiers.

The ilvl brings up some interesting possbilities. Depending on where you are, and what level you are, it may be better to buy a magic item for crafting rather than get it from a drop, but it really depends. For example, if you start hell difficulty around level 70, you're probably going to be better off going with a dropped item, as even in Act 1 there are area levels well into the 80s. However, once your character gets to be 80-something level, you're almost always going to be better off buying the item from a merchant for the clvl +5. I suppose unless you are of very high level or are slumming in an area that is easy for your character that it is better to use drops than purchases from merchants.

What about potential modifiers? Was he correct in saying that mods restricted to rares are also restricted to crafted?

 

Hmmmm.

On the ilvl:

I agree. Unless you have a higher level shopper char, you are pretty much better off in terms of levels finding stuff than shopping.

However, you have to consider that most of these things are at the top end looking towards B-net with muling etc, not SP without.

The only chance of getting ilvl 99 items as an example is Hell Baal. Or of course shopping with a lvl 94 char. NOT that getting to lvl 94 is a doddle!

Also remember that the lvl req of your crafted item is a LOT higher than it would be on a rare item. +2 class skill on a rare is req 67. On a crafted item it is 89........ That is a big difference. (I can't remember the exact formula, but it's not pretty). Consider that a +2 ammy can either take you from late NM Baal runs or never be used until you've finished the game and you're ready to retire the char.

(I'm finding that most of my later - albeit rather well twinked - toons are killing Hell Baal around 80-82, so 89 is completely pointless).

Crafted items can only spawn with rare affixes. However, I think that the max will turn out to be 8 rather than 6. -> 4 fixed and 4 random. Which I guess will be whatever the fixed are + 2 prefixes and 2 suffixes.

 

I agree that level requirement beyond the mid 80s are pretty pointless. I haven't completed Hall Baal with every single character class, but my experience is similar to yours. Generally speaking, I'm hitting the ancients and Baal slightly higher than what you mentioned. I'm usually in the range of 83-85. Of course, given the experience penalties at higher levels, you're looking at exponential increases to advance to new levels. So it's not like level 85 is *that* much closer to 89 than level 82.

In fact, given the near impossibility of getting a character to level 90, I have steered away from builds that don't get finished until you are level 80-ish. The thing that's great about the conc barb build is you finish around level 70. After that the only thing you do is pick a weapon mastery and build that for the rest of the game. The weapon mastery is a rather linear progression, and it doesn't synergize with anything, so it's the least important thing to max out.

I wasn't really considering making crafted amulets for the +2 skills anyway. That takes waaaay to much patience for me. Even if you get lucky and get the +2 skills modifier, there's still only a 1 in 7 chance that the modifier is from the class you want. Besides I think +2 skills ammies are over-rated for most character classes, particularly melee builds. For magic based builds where the most important thing is maximizing your spell levels, they're great, but for melee builds a +2 ammy is only going to raise your damage output by a few percent, and the amulet slot can be better utilized with a rare or a unique.

If that's the case, then where you get the weapon is moot (provided you're on Hell difficulty), and my friend is right in that it doesn't matter once you hit level 70. From my chart the highest rare modifier is level 68 (King's). Modifiers beyond that are only available on magic weapons. Given that reality, it is worth it getting to level 70 for the maximum bonus affixes, but a character who is level 90 should have the same pool of potential modifiers that a level 70 character has.

Isn't there some variablility in the number of modifiers on crafted items (somewhere between 3 and 5)? That would indicate the maximum is anywhere between 7 and 9 depending on what type of item you are crafting. Also, I don't think there is any crafting requirement that says the prefixes and suffixes have to be balanced (in this case, 2 of each). If there is, then crafted items are the only type of item that follows this rule. Rares, sets and uniques don't have this requirement, and obviously, magic items often spawn with just a prefix or just a suffix.

 

The balance thing was based on the way rares work and may be wrong for crafted items.

For rares you can have up to 6 affixes, but the max is 3 prefixes and 3 suffixes.

I will delve a little further.

By the way, you need to be careful how you extrapolate those levels:

For example +2 skill has a level req of 67 to wear, but ilvl req of at least 86, maybe even 90 to spawn. Again I will check, but I know that the first level at which you can gamble them is about clvl 86.

[clvl 86 gives ilvl 81-90 for gambled items iirc]

 

I understand that ilvl isn't the same as the level required to wear the item. IIRC, there's also something called qlvl for item quality. I'm not sure how that factors in either. I also am aware that the calculation for determining what level you need to be to use an item is also a little funky.

My example before of King's being the highest affix that can appear on a rare was in regards to being able to purchase it or gamble for it. Given the five potential level difference, the earliest you should be able to gamble a King's or find a King's available for purchase is level 63. Since there are no rare affixes above level 70, then as soon as you hit level 70 you should be able to craft the best potential items.

 

Aldeth, I will investigate further on this.

However, there are plenty rare affixes that exceed ilvl 70. I also have a hunch that I may have been wrong about the availability of magic affixes.

I'll get back to you with more definitive answers.

EDIT:

http://diablo2.ingame.de/spiel/expansion/itemdb/affix_info_en.php

These guys just know so much more than me about this

[ November 15, 2006, 19:05: Message edited by: Viking ]

 

I can't access the site you posted, because I'm at work, and it's blocked as a "game site". There very well may be rare affixes that go beyond 70. My statement was talking specifically about weaponry. The list I have does have some affixes above 70 on weapons (for example, hibernal, shocking and condensing), but those aren't available on rares.

 

You can get Masters too Not Grandmasters though.

Now Masters with a Fools Mod would probably not be too shabby!

I think the main reason I was eluding to other that melee mods is that I've never really come accross crafted weapons before. There are plenty uniques, rune words and rares that kick butt, so people rarely craft weapons I guess.

 

Here's something I found d2.net and it was as of v1.11:

This is interesting for a couple of reasons. Instead of expanding the maximum number of affixes as you increase in levels, it's actually the minimum number of affixes that increase. Regardless of whether your level 1 or level 69, the chance to craft an item with 4 affixes is 20%. So it does appear that you ideally wait until you are level 70 for crafting purposes. I wish I saw this chart last night, because I just crafed blood armor with a character who was level 29. I only got one bonus affix, and if I had simply waited to level 31, I was guaranteed no fewer than 2 affixes.

Furthermore, this builds on what you were saying:

So clvl is the sole deterimining factor for number of affixes, but the item effects what types of affixes will be available.

Here's the formula for required level:

Which explains why come crafted items have ridiculous level requriements. A crafted item with 4 modifiers would have 19 added to the rlvl of the highest affix. This tells me somthing else too - since I have seen crafted items with required levels in the 90s, then it means that affixes above level 70 must be available, as 70 + 19 = 89.

Finally some closing comments:

EDIT: You don't see crafted weapons? Blood weapons have guanteed life leech, enchnaced damage and open wounds - all good mods. The only problem is you have to use the magic axe class as the base item.

[ November 16, 2006, 18:40: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

I wish it were only so.

The formula above is correct, but your interpretation is wrong.

The two ilvls in the formula are two different things:

Let's take the formula: ilvl = int[clvl/2]+ int[ilvl/2]

What this formula actually gives is that the ilvl of the resulting crafted item = int[clvl/2]+int[ilvl of original item going into the craft/2].

It is the ilvl of the resulting crafted item that determines the number of random affixes it will have, so the weighting is equal for character level and original item ilvl in determining how many affixes you will get.

It gets worse

The available affixes are determined by the alvl of the item, not the ilvl. They are not necessarily the same because: if {ilvl<{99-qlvl/2}} then {alvl=ilvl-qlvl/2} else {alvl=2*ilvl-99}

I will link or clarify this further, but what basically it means is that the qlvl of the base item has a bearing on the alvl of the item for crafting purposes. The practical implication is that crafting is best done with normal [lower q lvl] items than exceptional or unique versions which have higher quality values for this calculation.

My head hurts now.

Just to clarify one thing x+10+4*3 = 22 which is the number of extra levels required for a 4 affix craft. Sorry to nit.

 

I understand what you mean. The only problem is that it is impractical to use normal items (considering you're going to be doing most of your crafting at higher levels) because chances are you aren't going to be using normal items (even magical) at that point. Obviously, the point is moot when dealing with rings and amulets that don't have exceptional and unique versions. I can even accept the possibility of crafting boots, gloves and belts (and possibly helms) out of normal items, because the only real difference between the normal and better versions is about 50 points worth of armor class, which doesn't make much difference. However, you'd never craft a normal weapon or armor at higher levels.

While your math is correct, you have the formula a bit wrong:

So a four affix item would have three other affixes beyond the highest affix. In the example shown in my initial post, a 3 affix item was 3*2, so a 4 affix item is 3*3. So we're looking at x+10+3x = x+10+3(3) = x+19.

 

I see what you mean. There is only one small problem with that though: They are wrong.

It actually is 3/affix + 10 above highest affix. It refers to the total number of affixes (random ones), max 4 not the 3 'others'

Quick demo: rlvl for a magic, rare or set [Tal's] +2 skills ammy is 67.

Add 10 to highest affix -> 77
Add 4*3 for 4 affixes -> 89 which is the rlvl for crafted +2 skill ammies.

I agree with what you say about crafitng normal armours and weapons = pointless. Also the alvls you need are not all that high on these anyway.

The other exception may also be belts. You really want to craft with belts that give 16 boxes.

Gloves and boots I would craft with normal items.

Having said all that, provided the ilvl is high enough it really doesn't matter anyway.

 

OK, I've been doing some more research on crafted items since I started my sorceress build, and I've concluded that these things are definitely worth trying.

First of all, they are relatively cheap to make. Other than a magical version of a given item (which can typically be quite easily acquired) all you need is a jewel (and any kind will do, so hold onto all of them, even if it's some crappy jewel you find in act 1), a perfect sapphire (hitpower), ruby (blood), amethyst (caster) or emerald (safety), and a specific rune.

The hardest thing to find on the list is the rune, but because all of the recipes use the more common types of runes that isn't much of a restriction either. The highest rune any recipe requires is Sol (#12), and there's only one of them. There are a few requiring Amn (#11), and a few requiring Thul (#10), but the majority use one of the first 9, with some as low as Tir (#3). The most common required runes are Tal (#7), Ral (#8) and Ort (#9) and you're guaranteed to get at least one of each of them every game.

Now there are a few other things to consider. For starters given that:

This means that you probably want to wait until you are at least level 31 to guarantee at least two additional mods. The best thing about crafted items is that they make use of the four gem types that I typically don't have much use for. I already use diamonds, skulls, and topazes to boost resists, leech, and magic find, respectively, but I don't have much use for emeralds, rubies, amethysts, or sapphires.

Of the four classes of crafted items (blood, caster, safety, and hit power) only hit power seems to be rather lackluster. Two of the three guaranteed mods of hit power, regardless of the specific item type are 5% chance of casting level 4 Frost Nova when hit, and attacker takes 3-7 damage. The third modifier varies with what type of hit power item you're making.

Of the other three, blood items seem to be very good for any melee build (life leech and bonus life, as well as some other damage enhancing mod like open wounds, crushing blow, etc.), caster items are good for magic builds (bonus mana and mana regeneration rate as well as some other mana boosting effect such as mana leech, +mana per kill, etc.) and safety items could be useful for any class for bonus resistances. The safety items are a little strange in that the preset mods include damage reduction and increase in defense rating. The final preset mod is variable depending on what type of item you're making, but it gives a %resist to a particular elemental attack; helms give lightning resistance, body armor gives cold resistance, boots give fire resistance and belts give poison resistance. So they can be useful if you are lacking in a particular elemental resistance. Also of interest is the safety amulet increases your chance to block (up to 10%), so that's good for any shield-using characters to save some dexterity points.

Of course, the real bonus comes in the bonus modifier section. You can already have a decent item that becomes great, especially considering you can get modifiers on crafted items that are normally not available for items of that type (an amulet increasing your chance to block for example).

 

I'm a bit of a D2 modder, and I've looked around at crafted recipes etc.

First, you will never get masters or grandmasters appearing on a crafted item with enhanced damage. this is because masters and grandmasters prefixes appear in the same group as enhanced damage prefixes, so the two will never occur on the same item.

Also, as is mentioned above, the crafted items ilvl is made up of half your level and half the original level. I dont see anything about level 70 modifiers, I dont think there is a limit to what modifiers can occur.

In general I dont think crafted items are that great - by the time you get the items needed to make them, they are too weak to be useful. thats why I made a mod that addresses several issues like that. pm me if you want the latest version, or go to the phrozen keep and check out the rapid progress mod for an older version. its not a major mod or anything, just changes a few things.

 

That's pretty much true. In fact, grandmasters cannot appear on any crafted weapon at all, as it is a magic-only prefix. It is also true that you can't get more than one affix from any family of affixes on a single crafted item. However, there are some exceptions to this. First of all, if enhanced damage is a pre-set mod, like it is for some of the blood items, then it can still get affixes like "kings", "lords", etc. I know this because I have crafted blood items with ED in addition to the preset one.

Additionally, "savage", "brutal", etc are in a different family than "kings" and similar. The best affix from this family is "cruel" but again, that it magic-only, so it won't show up on crafted items. Finally, there are damage enhancement mods on weapons with suffixes like "of butchery", "of carnage", etc., that are from a completely different family of affixes than both the "masters" and "savage" families. So it would be possible to craft a weapon with two different damage enhancement affixes, provided they are from different families.

The thing with crafted items is sometimes you can make good items simply because they can get up to eight affixes on the item. With so many modifiers you are almost certain to get some that are good, and some that are crap.

I started this thread months ago when I was a newbie to crafting. My first few items I crafted I did not know the particulars and so I got very mixed results. I'd say of the first 10 or so items I crafted, I only got two that were better than my existing equipment. I feel that now that I know more about how crafted item affixes are generated, I can only improve my chances.

The main problem is that as new affixes become available, the odds of getting the highest level affix from a given family actually get lower. For example, "kings" is a level 68 affix. However, even if the "kings" family gets selected, it doesn't necessarily mean that you will get "kings". In the same family as "kings" there is also "soldiers", "knights", and "lords", all of which are already available by the time "kings" becomes available, and your odds are pretty much even as to which one you get even if it does pick from the correct family.

I have found that I get my best results from crafting by using exceptional and elite magic items. Rare and unique exceptionals and elites are exceedingly difficult to come by, but magic is not nearly as bad. If you find an exceptional or elite magic item and you meet all the requirements to use it, it behooves you to cube it, as the resulting crafted item is almost always going to be considerably better than what you started with.

On my last play through with a concentrate barbarian, my end-game armor was crafted blood armor made from a magic templar coat. The initial affix on the templar coat was "of dexterity", which is crap, but seeing as how a crafted templar coat had a chance to be much better than what I currently was using, I took a chance and it worked well, mostly because one of the random mods I got was from the "sturdy" family and gave me a pretty decent % increase to defense.

I guess my main point is that crafting items is a low-risk, high-reward proposition. I hold on to every crap rune and jewel I find, no matter how worthless, because the rune and jewel have no impact on the resulting craft (other than the rune is specific to the craft - you can't use the wrong rune in the recipe). In my current game I have several jewels already, one of which is "rugged" (+5 to stamina) and that's definitely going to be the first jewel used in whatever my first crafted recipe will be.