Diablo 4: How and when to Sanctify Items

Diablo 4 Season 11 brings one of the most meaningful changes to the game’s crafting mechanics with the new Sanctification system. This acts as a final, irreversible upgrade that pushes the item to its limit. As such, it can potentially create new and powerful meta builds in Season 11.

However, since the change is permanent and can’t be reversed, it's crucial to know when exactly to Sanctify your items.

Diablo 4: What is Sanctification?

Once an item is Sanctified, it can't be reverted to its original state (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Sanctification is a new gear upgrade system that will be introduced in Season 11 of Diablo 4. It is a one-time celestial infusion that grants transformative bonus stats to your gear. Once a gear is Sanctified, it becomes unmodifiable, meaning you will no longer be able to Temper, Masterwork, or Enchant it. The only things you will be able to add at this point are socketable Gems and Runes. This makes Sanctification the final stage of gear development in Diablo 4.

Upon Sanctification, an item/gear can:

Apply a bonus Legendary power
Upgrade an already existing Affix into a Greater Affix
Add a bonus Affix from a pool of special Sanctification affixes
Replace an existing Affix with a random Sanctification Affix
Add a random amount (5-25) of bonus Quality
Rarely, grants your item a Unique or a Mythic Power

While the chances of getting a rare roll of Affixes were not balanced during the recent PTR tests, Blizzard has increased the odds of getting a rare roll, meaning you can now easily get higher-value Affix and power rolls while Sanctifying an item in Diablo 4 Season 11.

How to Sanctify gear/items in Diablo 4

In rare cases, Sanctification can grant you Unique and Mythic Affixes (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Primarily, there are two methods for you to access Sanctification:

1) Pre-torment

In the early game, you can get access to the Sanctification process at the Heavenly Anvil by defeating a Lesser Evil in some of the activities involving them, like the Helltide Events. This will give you a chance to use the Heavenly Anvil to Sanctify an item.

If you decline the opportunity, you will not be able to access the Heavenly Anvil until you defeat another Lesser Evil.

Also read: Diablo 4: Best Companion Druid endgame build guide

2) Post-torment

Once you have passed into the Torment difficulty of Diablo 4, you can Sanctify your gear by acquiring Heavenly Sigils (seasonal currency). These Sigils can be obtained by defeating bosses like Astraroth, Belial, Bartok, etc. You can also get them by completing seasonal content and events.

Overall, the Sanctification system is tied to the endgame loop of Diablo 4 Season 11. It is a high-risk, high-reward system that can either give you a stupendously strong gear upgrade or a mediocre one. That said, getting one with a powerful Affix is almost guaranteed to redefine any meta build in the game.

What are the potential Sanctification buffs you can get in Diablo 4 Season 11?

Sanctification can easily break an already strong item by replacing Affixes, so make sure you have a backup (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Adds an Affix: Adds a new stat like [+] to All Skills, Increased Attack Speed, or Cooldown Reduction (CDR).
Add an Aspect: Your gear (even Unique Ancestral and Mythics) can get an additional Legendary Aspect.
Affix upgrade: A chance to upgrade an existing Affix to a Greater Affix.
Replace an existing Affix: This is the caveat of the Sanctification system and can potentially break your gear by replacing a crucial Affix.
Eliminating durability: This no longer counts as negative.

Tests in the PTR revealed that Affixes have a very low probability of getting replaced, but having a backup item will be optimal if your item gets bricked.

Also read: D4: 5 best Rogue builds to try in Season 11

When should you Sanctify your gear in Diablo 4?

Since the Sanctification process is irreversible, the timing of the upgrade is crucial. Before attempting to Sanctify an item, you will need to Temper, Enchant, Masterwork it, and imprint your choice of Aspect.

Additionally, always have a backup of the item you are Sanctifying, especially if it is of higher value; this will allow you to replace the item with the backup if it gets bricked by a bad roll.

Sanctification opens up the door for build diversity, allowing you to craft new and more specialized builds in Diablo 4 Season 11.

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Edited by Niladri Roy