Horadric Cache

Horadric Cache with tooltip.

Horadric Caches (AKA "goodie bags") are awarded by Tyrael for completing all 5 randomly-selected bounties in each Act. This feature is only available in Reaper of Souls, and only in Adventure Mode. These "goodie bags" are much sought after since they have a chance to drop some special legendary items that can not be obtained any other way. The most popular is the Ring of Royal Grandeur, which drops only from Act One Horadric Caches, and ways to fix the prevalence of players endlessly farming Act One just for that item makes for spirited debates.

The legendary items from Caches are grouped by Act, with the full list below. Early in Reaper of Souls the best strategy was to harvest as many caches as possible, which led to the rise of split farming in Normal difficulty. A later patch largely ended split farming (at least on Normal difficulty) by boosting the chances of a legendary from each cache when earned on Torment 2 or higher, up to a 100% chance on Torment 6.

Each Horadric Cache contains a semi-random assortment of crafting materials, gems, Nephalem Rift Keystone Fragments, and may also contain Blood Shards, crafting plans or designs, and 1-3 rare items. There may be random legendary or set items aside from the preset Cache legendaries, but these are random and quite rare drops.

Cache Contents Determined

The items that drop from a Cache roll at the level and the difficulty set by the character who earned the cache, while the items in the cache smart loot for the class of the character that opens it. This makes it possible to farm caches with your main character, then open them with an alt of another class, who will find all the items themed appropriately for them.

This system was some time evolving.

Initially caches did not snapshot on the difficulty they were earned on, and players soon learned to farm up caches on a lower difficulty and then open them on Torment 6 to get better drop odds. There were also rumors about exploiting the Legendary pity timer to increase cache quality, though they were ultimately debunked. The whole system was much improved in Patch 2.0.5 when the legendary drop rate of caches farmed on Torment 2 or higher began to scale up, increasing to 100% for caches from Torment 6. This rewards players who earn caches on higher difficulty levels, rather than split farming them on easy settings.

A common way of sharing caches within clans or friend lists is for one player to complete the bounties, then announce in chat that players can join his game for the free cache. Every character in the game gets a Cache when the reward is claimed from Tyrael, whether they were in the game or not while the bounties were completed.

Horadric Cache-only Items

Reaper of Souls launched with twenty-one legendary items that could only be found from Horadric Caches, all sorted by acts. There is no other way to obtain these items other than via Horadric Caches, and many players spent much time farming all the bounties in specific acts in an effort to find one or more of these special legendary items. (Though suggestions to make the Ring of Royal Grandeur more easily-obtained are a perennial point of debate.)

Act One

Loot from 10 caches in one spot.

• Golden Gorget of Leoric
  • Amulet: After earning a massacre bonus, 4–6 Skeletons are summoned to fight by your side for 10 seconds
• Mad Monarch's Scepter
  • One-Handed Mace: After killing 10 enemies, you release a Poison Nova that deals 1050–1400% weapon damage as Poison to enemies within 30 yards.
• Pauldrons of the Skeleton King
  • Shoulders: When receiving fatal damage, there is a chance that you are instead restored to 25% of maximum Life and cause nearby enemies to flee in fear.
• Ring of Royal Grandeur
  • Ring: Reduces the number of items needed for set bonuses by 1 (to a minimum of 2).
• Sanguinary Vambraces
  • Bracers: Chance on being hit to deal 1000% of your Thorns damage to nearby enemies.

Act Two

• Cloak Of Deception
  • Cloak: Enemy missiles sometimes pass through you harmlessly.
• Coven's Criterion
  • Shield: You take 45–60% less damage from blocked attacks.
• Gloves of Worship
  • Gloves: Shrine effects last for 10 minutes.
• Illusory Boots
  • Boots: You may move unhindered through enemies.

Act Three

Act Three is perhaps the slowest act to farm Caches in, and the number of legendary items makes finding one specific of these items the most challenging. The Pride's Fall helm is the one most sought, as it's a BiS item for the powerful and popular Cold Cluster Demon Hunter builds.

• Avarice Band
  • Ring: Each time you pick up gold, increase your Gold and Health Pickup radius by 1 yard for 10 seconds, stacking up to 30 times.
• Boots of Disregard
  • Boots: Gain 500 Life Regeneration per second for each second you stand still. This effect stacks up to 8 times.
• Burst Of Wrath
  • Two-Handed Axe: Killing enemies and destroying objects has a chance to grant 20% of your maximum primary resource.
• Envious Blade
  • Dagger: Gain 100% Critical Hit Chance against enemies at full health.
• Overwhelming Desire
  • Amulet: Chance on hit to charm the enemy. While charmed, the enemy takes 35% more damage.
• Insatiable Belt
  • Belt: Picking up a Health Globe increases your maximum Life by 5% for 15 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.
• Pride's Fall
  • Helmet: Your resource costs are reduced by 30% after not taking damage for 5 seconds.

Act Four

No legendary items are specially tied to Act Four Caches, and Caches earned in this act will randomly contain a legendary item from one of the other acts. This essentially gives a 1/21 chance of finding any specific legendary item from Act Four.

Act Five

Horadric Caches in bag form, from the RoS beta test.

• Pandemonium Loop
  • Ring: Enemies slain while Feared die in a bloody explosion and cause other nearby enemies to flee in Fear.
• Death’s Bargain
  • Pants: Gain an aura of death that deals 750-1000% of your Life per Second to enemies within 20 yards. You no longer regenerate Life.
• Salvation
  • Crusader Shield: Blocked attacks heal you and your allies for 20–30% of the amount blocked.
• Helltrapper
  • Hand Crossbow: 7–10% chance on hit to summon a Spike Trap, Caltrops or Sentry
• Soulsmasher
  • Two-Handed Mace: When you kill an enemy, it explodes for 450–600% of your Life per Kill as damage to all enemies within 20 yards. You no longer benefit from your Life per Kill.

Horadric Cache Contents

Horadric Caches are limited in what they can drop, and fairly predictable. Each Cache will always hold 5-10 materials (a mixture of white, blue, and yellow), 1-4 gems, 2 Nephalem Rift Keystones, an occasional small stack of Blood Shards (random in number), 1 or 2 Rare items, and a very occasional legendary item.

A thorough study was undertaken by Diablo.IncGamers.com in early April 2014, when 102 bags gathered on Normal difficulty were opened (on video) and the contents recorded.

• Marquise Gems: 255 (2.5 per bag)
• Materials:
  • Reusable Parts: 347 (3.47 per bag)
  • Arcane Dust: 255 (2.55 per bag)
  • Veiled Crystal: 30 (.3 per bag)
• Rift Key Fragments: 202 (2 per bag)
• Health Potions: 154 (1.54 per bag)
• Blood Shards: 25 (1 per 4 bags).
• Rare Items: 127 (1.27 per bag)
• Legendary Items: 11 (1 every 9 bags)
• Crafting Plans: 0 (Very rare drop, depending on how many plans your Smith doesn't already know.)

Development

Horadric Caches were seen during the Reaper of Souls beta test. Initially they were awarded for every single Bounty, as well as finishing an Act of Bounties. Caches were also awarded from completing a Nephalem Rift (at that time the Rift Guardian only dropped a couple of items, like a random Elite, with the main reward coming in the bag back in town).

In those early days, Caches looked like bags, and came in two sizes, with Lesser Horadric Caches awarded for each bounty and Greater Horadric Caches for a full Act of bounties or a Nephalem Rift.