With Season of the Infernal Hordes now upon us, do you often feel helpless against waves of enemies? Are you eager to gain more power to turn the tide in Infernal Hordes? If so, mastering Tempering can help you solve this problem.
In this guide, we will explain how Tempering works, the new Tempering Manuals added in Diablo 4 Season 5, how to find and use them, and some new tips and tricks to help you better understand Tempering mechanics and get better gear.
How Does Tempering Work?
Tempering is a gear upgrade system that allows you to apply specific Affixes from Tempering Manuals from around the world.
This crafting system is available in both leveling and endgame content, allowing you to tailor gear to support specific builds and play styles by adding Affixes to Legendary and Rare items, giving them more power or increased duration, reduced cooldowns, and more.
You’ll unlock Tempering at level 15, and it’s based on finding and learning Tempering Manuals, which have Weapons, Offensive, Defensive, Utility, Mobility, and Resource Recipe categories. Each Diablo 4 item has up to two slots that can hold Tempered Affixes.
New Tempering Manuals
A host of new Manuals have been added to Diablo 4 Season 5, and here are Legendary Tempering Manuals for each class that are worth your attention:
- Generic Tempering Manuals: Worldly Finesse
- Barbarian Tempering Manuals: Slayer’s Finesse, Barbarian Innovation
- Druid Tempering Manuals: Ultimate Efficiency — Druid, Nature Magic Innovation
- Necromancer Tempering Manuals: Necromancer Wall
- Rogue Tempering Manuals: Subterfuge Expertise, Rogue Innovation, Rogue Persistence
- Sorcerer Tempering Manuals: Conjuration Augments, Conjuration Fortune, Elemental Control, Shock Augments — Discharge
Once you find and learn each Manual, they can be applied to gear infinitely. You can view all learned Tempering Manuals in Codex of Power.
When you find a Tempering Manual, right-click it immediately to study it. If you don’t read it right away, you’ll start getting a bunch of the same Manuals. You don’t want this to happen, so read it every time a Manual drops to you.
Each Tempering Manual has three tiers, Magic, Rare and Legendary. Magic quality drops in World Tier 1 and 2, Rare quality drops in World Tier 3, and Legendary quality only drops in World Tier 4.
Note that most Manuals or Affix Sets are class specific, with only a few applicable to all classes. The same Affixes are offered across tiers, but the higher the tier, the better the roll range of Affixes. Tempering Manual itself has no tier requirement, but can only be applied to Rare and Legendary gear. So if you want the most out of Tempering, don’t be stingy about investing your Diablo 4 Gold in your gear.
How To Apply Tempering?
To apply Tempering, go to Blacksmith and select the third tab, then select Manual of your chosen class in Tempering menu. You cannot decide which Affix in Manual to apply, as Blacksmith will randomly select it for you.
Sacred Legendary Items can only be Tempered with one Affix, but Ancestral Legendary Items can have two Affixes, but they must be Manuals from two different classes. For example, one from Offensive and the second from Weapon, not two Manuals from Weapon class.
You can reroll these up to 5 times. Note that it is not 5 times per Affix, but 5 times per item. When you reroll an Affix, it randomly selects one of Affixes from the same Manual to have better properties, however, it does not reroll Affixes you already have.
This is a gamble. Because once the first Tempering is applied, you can only reroll 5 times per item. Once you have used up your 5 rerolls, Tempered Affixes are fixed and cannot be restarted like Masterworking.
However, when you perform Masterworking, these Affixes will be increased along with the other Affixes on the item. So make sure to Temper the item before Masterworking to get the full buff.
How To Farm Tempering Manuals?
So where is the best place to farm Tempering Manuals? Tempering Manuals drop from most game content, so you will find them as you play. But if you are looking for a faster way to farm these Manuals, it is recommended to farm during Helltide Event, where the monster density in this area is very high, especially in Accursed Ritual location where Blood Maiden spawns. Not only does this have a high chance of dropping high-level Manuals, it is also a great place to farm Diablo 4 Gold.
You just need to collect 3 Baneful Hearts and put them in Altar to summon Blood Maiden. Of course, you don’t need to place all 3 yourself, just 1 is enough. It will increase the reward for the next time you kill a Blood Maiden and then wait for other players to pop the remaining 2 Hearts.
At the same time, the area will start to spawn a lot of monsters before Blood Maiden spawns, and defeating her will give you a bunch of equipment and Tempering Manuals.
Besides Helltide, locations like Infernal Hordes, Nightmare Dungeons, World Bosses, Uber Bosses, and Pit will also give you Tempering Manuals. And as you level up in the game, the chances of getting Legendary Manuals increase.
After unlocking Tempering at level 15, Temper all your equipment in time so that every time you get new or better equipment, you don’t need to roll for the best Affixes. Even if it’s just a small increase, it’s better than nothing, and D4 Gold cost you need to invest is not much, and only requires very few crafting materials.
Tempering Manuals Variants
While you’re unlikely to see many variants of the low-end Tempering Manual in the early to mid-game, if you’re lucky enough to find them, some of them can be very useful, especially Natural Motion, Natural Resistance, and Worldly Endurance.
- Natural Motion: Particularly great for Mobility it provides, easily gaining Movement Speed and Mobility Skill Cooldown Reduction.
- Natural Resistance: Can easily fill in the gaps in Resistance that our Rings and Gems can’t cover.
- Worldly Endurance: Great for boosting our Maximum Life and Armor.
As for the late to endgame, once you reach World Tier 3 and 4, you’ll have access to Legendary Manuals, which are your key to getting the most out of this gear upgrade system. If you’re looking for Tempering Manuals that support the build you’re playing, these alone can greatly improve their skills.
Anyway, that’s our complete guide to Tempering System in Diablo 4 Season 5. By following this guide, you’ll be able to optimize your gear and build faster to achieve unstoppable success in Infernal Hordes!
