Diablo 4 Item Power
Item Power, also known as item level, is a crucial stat in Diablo 4 that affects a variety of aspects including affixes. Every weapon, armor piece, and jewelry item in the game has an item level range along with base stats and affix ranges that are affected by breakpoints. Understanding Item Power is essential for building a successful character and obtaining the best gear.
How Item Power Works
Item Power is the number that influences all character statistics, from base DPS and Armor rating to HP and Thorn metrics. When you acquire a new item, its Item Power determines its base stats and affixes.
Affix magnitudes increase at specific intervals known as breakpoints, which occur at certain Item Power values. For example, a shield might have a base stat of 100,000 and an HP affix range of 450-900. The breakpoint at Item Power 525 will increase both the base stat and the affix range by a fixed value. You can check the Item Power of your items in the Character Info tab, where you can also view base stats, affix values, and whether any perfect affixes have been obtained.
The highest affix rolls can be found on Ancestral items with Item Power 725+. Sacred gear in World Tier 3 and Ancestral gear in World Tier 4 usually drop around the last three breakpoint thresholds. Normal and Sacred gear can reach around 35% of the overall breakpoint intervals.
Base DPS, Armor rating, HP, and Thorn affixes do not follow the breakpoint system and instead increase linearly with Item Power, meaning you gain more per point with higher values.
Increasing Item Power
To increase your item level and reach breakpoints, you can either craft new gear or upgrade existing gear. The Blacksmith and Jeweler offer options for upgrading your gear at the Crafting and Enhancement Stations, respectively. Upgrading gear requires crafting materials (Blacksmith) or gold (Jeweler) and will increase the Item Power score and magnitude of all affixes.
When you upgrade an item to hit a breakpoint, all affixes on the item will be rerolled, resulting in a significant boost to their stat values. This explains why affixes may differ from those shown on vendor webpages.
However, reaching the final affix breakpoint through upgrades in World Tier 2 or 3 may require keeping your items at Item Power 700 with perfect affixes or spending a significant amount of gold. If you prefer to farm at a lower Item Power level to find the perfect roll or a legendary level-up, you can keep your high-Item Power items and further improve their affix ranges.
Obtaining flawless Sacred gear with Item Power levels of 490-540 is advantageous, as reaching better breakpoints will allow for massive stat value increases through upgrades, such as dexterity and strength values of 120.
Increasing your character's DPS will not only improve their offense but also enhance their survivability in the action-RPG game.
