Diablo 4 Season 11 isn't just another balance patch. It's a complete transformation of how power progression works in Sanctuary. With a full rework to masterworking and tempering Diablo 4 Items, Blizzard has introduced an entirely new endgame system called Sanctification-a final step that can supercharge your gear with brand-new legendary powers, multiplicative bonuses, or even greater affixes that push your stats to wild new heights.
Let's break down exactly how the new masterworking, tempering, and sanctification systems work, what players can expect from Season 11's progression, and how these changes are going to completely reshape endgame itemization.
The New Endgame Loop: Masterwork → Temper → Sanctify
At the core of Season 11's overhaul is a new three-step item upgrade process:
1.Masterworking: Increases the rank and strength of your item's affixes.
2.Tempering: Adds powerful conditional stats or skill-based bonuses.
3.Sanctification: Applies one of five randomized "holy" transformations that can elevate your gear into true endgame status.
Each step feeds into the next, creating a loop of crafting, farming, and fine-tuning that gives players more control-and more reasons to care about every item drop.
Masterworking 2.0-Cheap, Repeatable, and Rewarding
Players can now upgrade their gear all the way to rank 20 using a new resource system that's far less punishing than before.
Each upgrade costs 50 Obols, one soul, and two fragments, with costs barely increasing per rank.
Every few ranks, one of your affixes (AIX) has a chance to upgrade into a Greater Affix (GA), giving it a bold gold highlight and a massive stat boost.
In short: you no longer need to pray for a perfect 4/4 Greater Affix item drop. You can build one yourself.
A single "1GA" item-one with one Greater Affix-can become a powerful endgame weapon through smart tempering and sanctification. As Rob puts it, "You do not have to find a perfect four out of four Greater Affix item. You can make one."
Tempering-The Customization Layer
Tempering works hand-in-hand with masterworking, allowing players to add one specialized affix to their gear from a curated list. These can include effects like:
Chance for Dust Devils to spawn twice (Barbarian)
Multiplicative Lightning Damage (Sorcerer)
Cooldown reduction after using five basic skills
You can re-roll tempers as many times as you want, but the smart play for Season 11 is to focus on turning your tempered affix into a Greater Affix through masterworking. When you hit rank 20, there's a chance the system "promotes" that tempered affix into a Greater Affix-giving it the highest possible numerical value.
This trick means you don't have to perfect your temper manually with endless rerolls. You can instead upgrade it into greatness through gameplay-an elegant loop of effort and reward.
Sanctification-The New Endgame Gamble
And now we arrive at the wild part. Sanctification is a new, final crafting step where you imbue your item with the power of the angels using a special material earned from high-level content.
When you sanctify an item, one of five possible outcomes occurs:
1.Gain an additional Legendary Power-Adds a brand-new effect from a special pool.
2.Turn a normal Affix into a Greater Affix.
3.Gain a Sanctified Affix (multiplicative damage bonus like "+8x Lightning Damage").
4.Make the item indestructible (a "meme" result that does nothing gameplay-wise).
5.Brick the item by removing its temper or altering stats negatively.
It's a true high-risk, high-reward system. A sanctified item can become god-tier… or completely unusable.Why Sanctification Brings Back Loot Excitement
For the first time in a while, every drop might matter again.
In Season 10, once you had a few BiS (best-in-slot) pieces, loot became meaningless. There was no reason to pick up a sword with only one Greater Affix when you already had a 3GA or 4GA version. Season 11 changes that.
Now, even a mediocre 1GA weapon might be worth keeping-because if it rolls the right sanctification later, it can outclass your current best weapon.
That means:
You'll be collecting duplicates of good uniques like Rotting Lightbringer.
You'll have reasons to target farm bosses like Vashan and Urava again.
You'll experiment more, because RNG sanctifications might turn junk into jackpots.
Power Progression: From Gradual to Grandiose
One of the biggest differences between Season 10 and 11 is when you feel powerful.
Season 10: You became strong quickly once you unlocked seasonal perks.
Season 11: You'll start weaker but end much, much stronger-assuming you master the new systems.
This slower climb makes every upgrade feel earned. It also lets endgame players express more creativity. You'll have to think strategically about where to use your sanctifications-for example, prioritizing amulets or two-handers that offer 150% aspect efficiency.
Stack that with multiplicative sanctifications, and you're looking at theoretical numbers that dwarf even Season 10's peak builds.
The RNG Factor-And Why It Might Be a Problem
Of course, with great power comes great randomness. The sanctification pool is massive. Some slots, like amulets, might have over 100 possible outcomes. That means hitting the exact legendary power you want could take dozens-or hundreds-of attempts.
Players are understandably nervous about that level of RNG, especially since sanctification can brick items. If Blizzard doesn't provide a way to target or narrow down specific pools, frustration could easily outweigh the fun.
What This Means for the Meta
Season 11 could reshape how players approach builds:
Barbarians could run up to 13 extra legendary powers thanks to weapon slots and sanctified effects.
Sorcerers can scale multiplicative elemental damage like never before.
Druids regain top-tier status with high-value multipliers from Retaliation and Rotting Lightbringer setups.
Necromancers and Rogues will benefit from being able to turn underwhelming drops into strong items through greater affix upgrades.
The result? Less reliance on perfect loot luck early on and more reward for persistence and experimentation.
Final Thoughts-A High-Risk, High-Reward Future
Season 11's Sanctification system might be Diablo 4's boldest step yet. It blends the thrill of gambling from Path of Exile with the deterministic progression Diablo fans love buy D4 materials. While RNG will always be a double-edged sword, this system at least ensures that every item has potential.
You'll be chasing not just the best stats, but the perfect combination of affixes, tempers, and sanctifications-an endgame loop that promises months of experimentation.