Masterworking & Obducite Farming

Learn how to masterwork your gear in Diablo IV by boosting stats and understand the best methods for farming Obducite, the key material for upgrades.

Enchanting and tempering allow you to customize your gear's affixes in Diablo IV. Masterworking is a further enhancement process that strengthens gear by improving its stats. To masterwork an item, visit any blacksmith, navigate to the “Masterworking” tab, and select an item. Unlike enchanting and tempering, you can even masterwork unique items, but they cannot be tempered and thus have a different masterworking requirement. Every item can be masterworked twelve times. Most of the time, every stat will be increased by 5%, but at masterwork tiers 4, 8, and 12, one random stat will be increased by +25%. Masterworking boosts any affix that can be enchanted or tempered, excluding base stats, legendary aspects, and unique properties. For example, a helm's base armor won't be boosted, but +Armor affixes will be.

Masterworking Stat Boosts By Rank:

• Rank 1-3: +5% all stats
• Rank 4: +25% one stat
• Rank 5-7: +5% all stats
• Rank 8: +25% one stat
• Rank 9-11: +5% all stats
• Rank 12: +25% one stat

The random nature of the +25% stat boosts means there's inherent risk. There are no rerolls or take-backsies. It's advised to only extensively masterwork items with true endgame potential: ancestral items with at least three good stats (post-enchanting) and two worthwhile affixes added via tempering. Prioritize rings and amulets with useful defensive and offensive stats over uniques worn primarily for their property.

The primary limiting material for masterworking is Obducite. While other materials like Rawhide, Veiled Crystals, legendary materials, Forgotten Souls, and gold are also required, Obducite is the bottleneck. The final upgrade can cost over 2,000 Obducite, with thousands needed to max out one item.

Obducite can be acquired from Nightmare Dungeons, though this is slow. Faster methods include Kurast Undercity runs using Tributes of Refinement, which significantly increase the Obducite yield from the reward chest. A Nightmare Dungeon might yield around 100 Obducite, while a Kurast Undercity run with a Tribute of Refinement can yield several hundred. Tributes of Refinement are random drops from World Bosses and Kurast Undercity runs, so you might need to complete many Nightmare Dungeons if Tributes are scarce.