Contents :1 - Basic informations on imbuing quest
2 - What items should be imbued ?
3 - Boots and Belts
4 - Gloves
5 - Helms
6 - Body armors
7 - Shields
8 - Javelins
9 - Bows
10 - Melee weapons
11 - Staffmodable Items
12 - Choose your level to imbue
13 - Credits
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Section 1 : Basic informations on the Imbuing quest____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
- affix generation for imbued items is the same as if the item had a positive magic level (as any circlet, orb, normal/exceptionnal wand).
Therefore, any affix will recieve a new weigth equal to the product of its previous weigth and its affix-level.
In short, high affix-level have increased chance to spawn.
- staffmods generation - for eligible items - also 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.
And no difference between char lvl 83 and 99 as long as you dont try to imbue staffmodable items.
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 ?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Since Charsi will give you a rare item, and since in this post Classic items are not of my concern, the question is :
What rare items do a LoD player usually use ?- rare rings / amulets / jewels.Of course ! But they cannot be imbued.
- rare circlets / coronets / tiaras / diadems. Those items have already a positive magic level, and they cannot recieve staffmods.
Hence, Charsi will produce exactly the same random rare Circlet that you can Gamble for ~ 800K ingame gold ( 83K each gamble with level 92 char and -30% reduced price, 10 tries before getting a rare).
You can still go for diadems with your level 8 mules, if you have no better idea.
- rare etheral items.Imbuing is a good way to produce etheral rare items.
About 5% of each drops will be etheral (I didnt succeed to get a precise value).
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 benifit of imbuing.
A "+200% gain" means that you'll get 3 times more good rare items from imbuing, assuming both imbued and rare have the optimum iLvl to get the desired affixes listed.
"Gain imbue/eth rare" is a comparaison between imbue and etheral rare drop.
"Gain imbue/rare" is a comparaison between imbue and rare drop (etheral or not).