Contents :

1 - Basic informations on imbuing quest
2 - What items should be imbued ?
3 - Boots, Belts and Gloves
4 - Helms, Body armors and Shields
5 - Javelins, Bows and Melee weapons
6 - Staffmodable Items
7 - Classic section
8 - Credits, acknowledgements

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Section 1 : Basic informations on the Imbuing quest
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Act I, Quest V : Tools of the Trade


When Charsi fled the Monastery she left behind her Horadric Malus, an enchanted smithing hammer.
If you can retrieve it for her, she will use its magic to strengthen one of your items with magical powers.
The Malus is guarded by the Smith.

Reward : Charsi will create a new rare item from a given base item.

Tip : any player, with level 8 or more, in party when the Horadric Malus is given back to Charsi will recieve the quest reward.



Notes : the item that you give to Charsi for imbuing is used only to determine the item-type and the ethereal flag. Superior, damaged items will make no difference.
The input level of your item does not affect the imbued item. Any properties - except etherality - of the old item are lost when the new rare item is created :
base defense, staffmods (bonus to specific skills), automods (on paladin or necromancer shields, amazon weapons, sorceress orbs) will be rerolled.

FAQ :

Is their any difference between normal / nightmare / hell imbue ?
No, only char level matters.

What item can be imbued ?
Any unsocketed non-magical weapon or armor.
Low Quality, cracked, crude, damaged or superior items will make no difference.
An etheral item will remain etheral when imbued.

What is the difference between an imbued rare and a rare ?
There's no visible difference (except if it's a Wirt's leg).

The difference lays in the item generation :

- an imbued item will have an internal level of Char lvl + 4, capped at 99, regardless of its previous ilvl.

- staffmods generation - for eligible items - works differently.
Both number of skills and bonus to skills will increase with your char level.
In short, you will have much more chances to recieve good staffmods when imbuing.

At what level should I imbue ?
It will entirely depend on what you're trying to imbue.
Though there's no difference between char lvl 94 and 99.

Will I really get good items when imbuing ?
Of course it's totally random. You will resell to Charsi probably 99% of your imbued items...
But this guide will help you to optimize your odds when using imbuing quest.
You will see that imbuing leads to significant better chances to create a good rare item rather than just dropping it.
Each level 8 char has 3 quests to do - assuming he has reached Hell act 1.
Try to get the best from them !

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Section 2 : What items should be imbued ?
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Since Charsi will give you a rare item, the question is :

What rare items do a Diablo player usually use ?

- rare rings / amulets / jewels.

Of course ! But they cannot be imbued.

- rare circlets / coronets / tiaras / diadems.

(LoD only)
Diadems are probably the most common items chosen for imbuing.
Due to its high Quality Level and Magic level, any Diadem can be turned into a godly item with a level 8 char.

- rare etheral items.

(LoD only)
Imbuing is a good way to produce etheral rare items.
About 5% of each drops will be etheral ( 7 / 128 as far as I know).
Imbuing etheral items will produce less good items (most results without self-repair or replenish quantity will be wasted) but the good ones will be better.
It's up to you.

- rare gloves / belts / boots.

Can be used over unique or crafted items.

- Low level items.

This is probably the main interest of imbuing.
Be carefull when uping them.

In the next sections, I'll examinate many items and I'll try to give an idea of the optimum char level to use.

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Section 3 : Boots, Belts and Gloves
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Table 3.1 : Affixes for boots




Table 3.2 : Char level for boots


Table 3.3 : Affixes for belts


Table 3.4 : Char level for belts



Many crafted gloves (blood or hit power) will seduce players more than rare gloves.
Fcr Gloves (mages/trangs) are the only option for many builds, and Bloodfists can be used for low level.
Still, you can have some interesting results.

Table 3.5 : Affixes for gloves




Table 3.6 : Char level for gloves

not again

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Section 4 : Helms, Body armors and Shields
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Rare Helms are mainly used for low levels, or with high defense and visio-mod.

Table 4.1 : Affixes for helms




Table 4.2 : Char level for helms


Rare circlets are of common usage. Diadems can be imbued with any char level.

Table 4.3 : Affixes for circlets


Table 4.4 : Char level for circlets


Body armors are hardly used, with enigma available for high level, Viper or Shaftstop for MLD and 3/4 soc armors for LLD.
But Zealots or Barbarians may enjoy some.

Table 4.5 : Affixes for body armors




Table 4.6 : Char level for body armors


Rare shields are mostly used for MLD / (V)LLD :

Table 4.7 : Affixes for shields




Table 4.8 : Char level for shields


An etheral Sacred Targe with 45 all res would be nice to use for Exile.
But if you find an etheral 10 all res Sacred Targe, you can try your luck either at imbuing or at bugging.
Remember that automods will be rerolled when imbuing or bugging.

This post was edited by feanur on Apr 20 2011 06:58pm

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Section 5 : Javelins, Bows and Melee weapons
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Table 5.1 : Affixes for etheral javelins




Table 5.2 : Char level for etheral javelins



Table 5.3 : Affixes for Bows




Table 5.4 : Char level for Bows


Table 5.5 : Affixes for etheral melee weapons





Table 5.6 : Char level for melee weapons


Table 5.7 : Char level for level 99 melee weapons

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Section 6 : Staffmodable Items
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Staffmodable items are :

• Scepters, that can recieve bonus to paladin skills,
• Wands and Shrunken heads, that can recieve bonus to necromancer skills,
• Orbs and staves, that can recieve bonus to sorceress skills,
• Primal helms, that can recieve bonus to barbarian skills,
• Pelts, that can recieve bonus to druid skills,
• Claws (not all of them), that can recieve bonus to assassin skills.

When imbued, those items will recieve more and higher bonuses, with increasing chances with your char level (see section 8).
Usually, level 94+ will give you the best results when imbuing a staffmodable item, as shown on the following tables :

Table 6.1 : Better chances for +3 to a skill (best Char level to imbue with)

(*) actually, this refers to "tiers" - see section 8 for more details. Apart for Barbarians, tiers will match level skill.

Table 6.2 : Better chances for +3 to two skills (best Char level to imbue with)


The gain of imbuing is still higher for +3 to three skills :

<+3 Tornado / +3 Hurricane / +3 Summon Grizzly> Pelt is 2,282 times more likely to spawn when imbued (with char level 94+) than when dropped or rolled. But still, only 1 in 4,496 !

Same thing with <+3 Battle orders / +3 iron skin / +3 whirlwind> Primal helm, and odds dropping to 1 in 251,300.

Notice that Forbidden skills (as Whirlwind on Primal helm) may slightly change the given figures in Tables 6.1 and 6.2.



Rare orbs will probably be desired for LLD / MLD.
Using char level 94+ to imbue will damage your chances to get LLD/MLD affixes, but the gain on skill bonus is much more higher.

Table 6.3 : Affixes for Orbs




Table 6.4 : Affixes for Primal Helms




Table 6.5 : Affixes for Pelts

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Section 7 : Classic items
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This will be only an overview of commonly used Classic items.

I won't develop any issue regarding LLD or MLD.

Diablo glitch is probably the main source of rare items generation at classic.
But again, as far as Staffmods are concerned, imbuing shouldn't be forgotten.

Table 7.1 : Classic Gloves


Table 7.2 : Classic Belts


Table 7.3 : Classic Boots


Table 7.4 : Classic Shields


Table 7.5 : Classic Helms




Table 7.6a : Classic affixes for Body armors


Table 7.6b : CLvl to imbue Body armors




Table 7.7 : Classic Weapons


Table 7.8 : Classic Staffmodable items

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Section 8 : Credits, Acknowledgements
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The Arreat Summit :
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/

Eywa's Staffmods handbook :
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=43780372

Most screenshots from :
http://forums.d2jsp.org/forum.php?f=103
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=51128831&f=143


Thanks to CriCri@d2jsp, who helped me out with a dramatic failure in the previous post.

Thanks to all of you for reading.

This post was edited by feanur on Apr 20 2011 06:45pm

So if I wanted a +2 Cold Skills +3 Blizzard +3 Cold Mastery orb, you're saying that it's better to imbue with a lvl 94+ char than a lvl 49 char? Interesting.

Good guide. Tracking for relevance

Yes. Gain from imbuing on Staffmodable items is just unbelievable.

Thanks.