In Diablo 4, upgrading gear is an important part of character progression. During your adventures, you will come across a variety of items that may be improved in several ways, one of those being Tempering!
What is Tempering?
Tempering allows you to add affixes to your non-unique gear. This is done by using Temper Manuals, which are items that provide a list of potential affixes that can be applied to your gear. Once a Temper Manual has been used, it will register as a recipe inside the Codex of Power and can be used for Tempering gear at the Blacksmith.
You should focus on tempering Legendary items, as Rare items are not worth the resources you would lose for tempering them. Legendary items have three base affixes, with the ability to add two more through tempering. You will be able to select from a variety of affixes based on what is needed for the build you are playing. Tempering your gear will be important not only during the endgame but also while leveling, as it will help you progress more quickly.
How to Unlock Tempering
Tempering becomes available as soon as you unlock the Blacksmith and get one or more Tempering Manuals. You will then be able to use the manuals to register them as recipes inside your Codex of Power and start tempering items.
How to Get Temper Manuals
Temper Manuals can be obtained from various types of content and in-game activities across Sanctuary, such as:
- The Pit
- Helltide Chests
- Whisper Caches
- Nightmare Dungeons
- World Bosses:
- Boss Ladder Bosses:
After looting a Tempering Manual, it will be located in your inventory. Temper Manuals can drop in three rarities: Magic, Rare, and Legendary. The rarity will depend on your level and the world difficulty you are in. The affixes will not change, but the values of the affixes will be better in a legendary manual. After acquiring a legendary manual, the increased values will be updated in your Codex of Power and overwrite the lesser magic or rare values you had registered inside the codex before.
How to Temper
When you have a Temper Manual in your inventory, you can use it to add the recipe to your Codex of Power. Similar to Legendary Aspect Powers, once the Temper recipe is saved in your codex, you can use it indefinitely.
Rare items can only be tempered once, and Uniques cannot be tempered. However, you can add up to a total of two affixes to a Legendary by tempering it, but only one can be applied at a time. This means that you must first select one of your chosen tempering recipes to apply to the item you are tempering, then temper the item, and then repeat the process for the second affix you wish to add through tempering.
Additionally, keep in mind that you cannot use the same temper recipe twice. For example, you can add 1x Utility and 1x Offensive, but not 2x Utility, to the same item. Two tempered affixes must come from different Tempering recipes. To temper:
- Go to the Blacksmith
- Open the Tempering tab
- Insert the item you want to upgrade
- Choose the Temper recipe you want to apply
- Temper the item
You can temper a total of two affixes on a single Ancestral item, while other items can only have one tempered affix, and tempering will cost 
Iron Chunk, 
Veiled Crystals, 
Baleful Fragments, or 
Abstruse Sigils. The required amounts and materials will depend on the rarity of the item and recipe type.
Rerolling Tempered Gear
A gear item that has been tempered will display new affixes based on the Temper recipe used. These newly added tempered affixes are then highlighted in the item tooltip with a small anvil icon next to them, indicating which affixes have been tempered.
You can add tempered affixes to all your gear using the different Temper Manuals found during gameplay. However, it is possible to reroll a tempered item up to 5 times. You receive an additional reroll for each Greater Affix on the item. This information is displayed at the bottom right of the tooltip. Once you reach the maximum attempts, the item will be locked with the last tempered affixes rolled. Re-rolling tempered affixes affects both affixes for Ancestral Legendary items; you cannot choose to keep one affix over the other. Furthermore, locking an item will prevent you from adding a second affix if you have not done so before.
If an item is locked, use a Scroll of Restoration to reset its Tempering Charges. These scrolls can be purchased at the Dark Citadel or obtained in the Infernal Hordes. Two scrolls have also been added to the season journey.
Tempered gear can be improved with Masterworking, and you can also reroll tempered affixes on a gear item that has already been masterworked. The new tempered affix will automatically gain the same Masterworking rank.
Greater Affixes
Once you reach Torment 1, search for items with your preferred Greater Affixes and temper them to create more powerful items.
Greater Affixes are more powerful affixes that will drop on Ancestral Legendaries and Unique items starting in Torment 1. An Ancestral item will have at least one Greater Affix. They are 1.5x more powerful than normal affixes. Moreover, any Ancestral Legendary or Unique item can have up to 4 greater affixes.
When an item with a greater affix drops, you will hear a distinct sound and see an icon (both above the gear piece itself and in your inventory) indicating that the item that just dropped has a greater affix.
It is important to know that you cannot enchant an affix into a greater affix; they can only be discovered either from dropping randomly during gameplay or from gambling at the Purveyor of Curiosities.
Tempering Recipes
Learning Manuals (right-clicking on the item) will register it inside the dedicated Tempering tab within the Codex of Power. Within the codex, you can then browse and find the perfect Temper Recipe to improve your gear.
The Codex of Power Tempering tab is sorted into 6 different categories:
| Category | Can Be Applied To | Example Affixes |
|---|---|---|
| Weapons Weapon damage and attack speed. | Weapons | Lucky Hit: Up to a x% chance to deal additional physical damage |
| Offensive Offensive stats like critical hit chance and damage. | Weapons, Amulet, Gloves, Rings | +60% Damage to Close Enemies |
| Defensive Defensive stats such as armor and elemental resistances. | Offhand, Helm, Chest, Pants, Amulet | +38% Lightning Resistance |
| Utility Utility affixes such as cooldown reduction and resource cost reduction. | Offhand, Helm, Chest, Pants, Amulet, Gloves, Boots | 20% Increased Cooldown Reduction [to specific Skills] |
| Mobility Movement-related stats like movement speed and dodge chance. | Amulet, Boots | +12% Movement Speed for 4 Seconds After Killing an Elite |
| Resource Resource management, like increased resource generation or reduced resource costs. | Amulet, Rings | +10% Resource Generation |
Note that the Tempering Affix, which increases the maximum size for various skills and effects, such as Dust Devils or 
Bone Spirit, is capped at 100% so that the skills do not cover the entire screen.
Once you have upgraded your gear by tempering two additional affixes, the next step is to Masterwork your items. This advanced crafting option unlocks at the Blacksmith only during the late stages of the endgame, specifically after reaching Torment 1. Check out our Masterworking Guide for more information on how to further improve your gear.
Masterworking Guide
