How to unlock Masterworking in Diablo 4 plus all Masterwork ranks list

Masterworking is a crafting system and a central part of Diablo 4’s endgame, introduced as part of season 4, Loot Reborn.

With Masterworking, you can tinker your gear to make it the perfect fit for your build. The process is not easy, since it involves exploring dangerous dungeons, looking for specific materials, and a little bit of luck. However, the end result is completely worth it if you have the determination to face this devious challenge.

In this Diablo 4 guide, we’ve prepared a complete rundown covering all you need to know about how Masterworks work in Diablo 4, including a list of all Masterwork ranks.

How Masterworking works in Diablo 4

Image: Blizzard Entertainment via Polygon

The Masterworking system is a new endgame crafting system as of season 4 that allows you to improve a piece of equipment. You can Masterwork an item up to 12 ranks, with each rank at a specific cost of materials and gold.

Different from Tempering, the Masterworking system raises the affix numbers already in the item, rather than adding new ones. In most Masterwork Ranks, the item receives a 5% increase in all affixes. But for ranks 4, 8, and 12, one affix is increased by 25%. Since the process is random, you can’t decide the affix that is receiving this massive upgrade.

On the other hand, albeit out of luck, there is a chance of the same affix receiving more than one upgrade. The game indicates how many upgrades an affix has received through a color system, going from blue (one upgrade) to orange (three upgrades).

You can only apply Masterworking upgrades to Ancestral Legendary items that have been fully tempered, which means having two Tempered Affixes, or to Unique items. In other words, this is the final phase of a process that involves the Tempering system as well.

How to unlock Masterworks in Diablo 4

Image: Blizzard Entertainment via Polygon

Before you can start powering up the loot from hell, there’s only one prerequisite you must meet to unlock the Masterworking upgrades. Your character needs to be on World Tier 4. This is the highest World Tier in the game, as of this writing, and is intended for characters above level 75 — although it’s not impossible to reach World Tier 4 before that.

With a character on World Tier 4, the game will automatically add the “Pit of the Artificer” quest to your journal. Completing this quest is mandatory for you to get access to The Pit, a new endgame dungeon. The Masterwork menu becomes available only after you have completed the first run of The Pit.

The possibility to Masterwork your items is softlocked behind a new type of dungeon, The Pit, the only location where you can find three materials — Obducite, Ingolith, and Neathiron — required to Masterwork an item.

How to use Masterworks in Diablo 4

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

After you have unlocked the Masterworking system, using it is pretty simple. To access it, you need to talk to a Blacksmith NPC and open the Masterworks menu, which gives you the option to choose one of the pieces of gear — fully tempered Ancestral Legendary or Unique — to upgrade.

In the menu, it’s possible to know to which rank you’re upgrading the item, the type of upgrade it will receive, and the cost. While some of the materials required are considerably common in the late game, The Pit is the only location where you can find three special materials — Obducite, Ingolith, and Neathiron — you need to upgrade your item.

With all the materials in hand, you can hit the upgrade button. Since part of the process is random and you can’t control which affixes are upgraded in rank 4, 8 and 12, you might end up not liking the results. If this is the case, you can simply reset the Masterwork rank to zero. You don’t recover the materials spent in the process up to that point — you actually have to spend more resources and gold to reset it. On the other hand, the reset is necessary if you want to maximize the right affixes for your build.

All Masterwork ranks and upgrades in Diablo 4

Below you find what you need for each Masterwork Rank in Diablo 4.