How to temper your gear in Diablo 4 — and why you should always use Tempered gear (even while leveling)

Diablo 4 added a new feature in Season 4 that has since become a core part of the game, but it’s easy to miss if you’re not informed about its importance: I’m talking about Tempering, the ability to ask your friendly local Blacksmith to add extra affixes to your gear. New players or players who only dip in for the beginning of a season might ignore Tempering as an end-game activity, but it’s a big power boost that will help you all the way to max level.

Tempering is something that you should always be doing even while leveling characters and using gear that you’re going to replace anyway. But it’s also something you’ll keep doing as you reach endgame and begin tackling the game’s hardest content, where Tempering gives you the edge you need to clear difficult bosses and high-level dungeons.

So read on to learn all about Tempering — and why you should be using it even at low levels.

What is Tempering in Diablo 4?

Ever since loot was redesigned in Season 4, every piece of Rare or Legendary gear — that’s yellow and orange — comes with fewer affixes than it did before because the game now expects you to Temper that gear to add those extra affixes. That’s a good thing because you get to choose which kind of affix you want on your items, meaning that you’re always customizing your gear to do what you want it to do.

Are you playing a character that deals lots of Vulnerable damage? Add Tempering effects that boost that. Are you running Minions as a Necromancer or Dust Devils as a Barbarian? Temper your gear with effects that boost those things! And so on.

The result is that your gear is always fine-tuned to whatever build you’re playing, synergizing with your other choices — and in turn making you much more powerful at whatever it is that you want to do. The price of Tempering your gear is, frankly, negligible: there is no gold payment attached to it, and the cost in materials is something that will be very easily covered simply by salvaging your gear at the Blacksmith.

How to use Tempering in Diablo 4

The Blacksmith is the NPC you need to go to for Tempering — your Tempering options are in the fourth tab at the top of his interface on the left hand side of your screen. Once you’re in the Tempering window, right click an equipped item (or drag it manually to the main item slot on the left), and the game will display which of the six Recipe Categories are available for the item. These categories are determined by the item type:

• Helms and Chest Armor:
  • Defensive and Utility
• Gloves and Pants:
  • Offensive and Utility
• Boots:
  • Utility and Mobility
• Weapons:
  • Weapons and Offensive
• Rings:
  • Offensive and Resource
• Amulets:
  • Offensive, Defensive, Utility, Mobility, and Resource

Once you select a Category, several recipes will be displayed and you’ll have to pick one. Mousing over a recipe will show you the possible affixes contained in it — once you pick that recipe, one of those affixes will be selected at random.

When you start playing, you’ll only have a handful of recipes within each Category, and all your recipes will be of the lowest possible quality (Magic). But as you keep playing, you’ll come across Tempering Manuals in the world that expand your options. Loot those items and right click on them to learn new and improved recipes, all the way to Legendary quality.

What limitations does Tempering have in Diablo 4?

Rare items can be tempered once — so you’ll pick only one of those Categories. Legendary items, on the other hand, can be tempered twice — so after you pick one Category and Temper your item, you can do it again on a different Category. Remember that Unique Items cannot be Tempered!

Finally, if you aren’t satisfied with the affix you got, you can temper it again — up to a limit. The maximum number of temper attempts on an item is displayed at the bottom right corner of the item window. While you’re still leveling or first dabbling into endgame, you’ll rarely hit this limit, but when you’re trying to acquire the best items in the game, this limit can be annoying. Thankfully, Season 6 introduced an item called Scroll of Retempering which can be used to reset the number of Tempers an item can have. This scroll is limited, however, so use it wisely!

So whenever you pick up a new piece of Rare or Legendary gear that’s deemed an upgrade and you find yourself in town, look for a nearby Blacksmith and make sure to add an affix or two to it that works with your build. It may seem like a small power boost, but these affixes really add up — we recommend taking all the advantages you can get to survive in Sanctuary.