Kanai’s Cube

Kanai's Cube

Kanai’s Cube (the KC or Cube) is a new item coming to Diablo 3 in Patch 2.3, set for release in August 2015. It harkens back to the Horadric Cube of Diablo 2, giving players the ability to convert or break down legendary items and gain bonuses from their special properties.

Functions

The Cube many functions, mainly having to do with crafting

Extract Legendary Power: Destroy a Legendary item to add its power (shown in orange text) to a catalog of powers. Players choose one Weapon, one Armor and one Jewelry power, assuming they could equip the item it came from
Reforge a Legendary Item: Reroll a Legendary Item as if it dropped for the first time. This removes Mystic enchanting as well. There is a 10% chance that the item will become Ancient.
Upgrade Rare Item: Change the quality of a Level 70 rare item to Legendary. The item created will be a random item of the same base type (Pants, Boots, Mojos etc)
Convert Set Item: Change a set item into a random item in the same set. Good for dealing with duplicates.
Convert Gems: Change Gems from one type to another, 9 at a time.
Convert Crafting Materials: Convert normal, magic and rare crafting materials from one type to another, 100 at a time.

All information on this page is tentative until Patch 2.3 goes final.

Cube Recipes

The Cube had 7 documented and 2 undocumented recipes when it opened for testing on the PTR in July 2015. Tweaks to some of the recipes were confirmed almost from the first day, so expect these to change over time and more recipes to be added, as necessary.

Precise quantities are not required, and the cube will automatically subtract the correct recipe amount from larger stacks. For instance, a stack of 330 Death's Breaths for a recipe that requires 25 will return 305 DBs to your inventory.

Extract Legendary Power

This recipe destroys the legendary item and adds its legendary affix to the cube, enabling a character to enable that power through the cube and enjoy it without equipping the item. This can be done on any legendary or set item with a legendary affix (shown in orange text). Only that orange text power is extracted, not any other properties from the item, and the cube always imparts the property at its highest possible roll.

Archive of Tal Rasha

1 Legendary item with a legendary affix.
1 Khanduran Rune
1 Caldeum Nightshade
1 Arreat War Tapestry
1 Corrupted Angel Flesh
1 Westmarch Holy Water
5 Death's Breath

"All agreed that the cube was necessary if the hunt for the thre was to be successful. They thought htey understood the dangers."

--fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls.

Reforge Legendary Item

Archive of Tal Rasha recipe.

This recipe rerolls any legendary item, completely resetting all stats as if the item had just dropped for the first time. The odds to roll Ancient are 1/10.

Law of Kulle

"For weeks the fires burned, the smiths hammered and the mages changes. Those who spent too long in the forge wandered, wide eyed and unblinking, in the daylight. They did not sleep."

--fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls.

Upgrade Rare Item

This recipe allows a player to turn any level 70 Rare item into a random legendary or set item of the same type. Items purchased from vendors or gambled can be used, as well as found from drops. Best used on items that are expensive to gamble, like Amulets, or to hunt for specific legendary weapons, such as two-handed maces to attempt to create The Furnace.

Hope of Cain

1 Rare item (level 70)
25 Death's Breath
50 Reusable Parts (white material)
50 Arcane Dust (blue material)
50 Veiled Crystal (yellow material)

"When the physical material of the cube was forged, the real work began. Ten Horadrim took it deep into the cave, to a place that should never have been disturbed."

--fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls.

Convert Set Item

Skull of Nilfur.

This recipe changes a set item into another random item from the same set. Intended to help players get that 5th or 6th item to complete a set when they keep finding the other items in the set, but not the one they need. Can also be used to hope for an Ancient upgrade of an item in the set.

This recipe was overpowered when the recipe went live, with very low material costs of just 10 Death's Breath and 10 Forgotten Soul. The easiest exploit was to use it on two-item sets, such as the Focus/Restraint rings, where the item would just change from one to the other repeatedly, making it very easy to roll until a perfect item was created. Blizzard vowed to modify the recipe to stop such easy rerolling the first day the PTR testing began.[1]

Skill of Nilfur

1 Set Item
10 Death's Breath
10 Forgotten Souls

"...of the cave, ten Horadrim channeled powers arcane and mystic. Ten felt their sanity slipping away. And nine averted their eyes as the cube came alive."

--fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls.

Remove Level Requirement

This recipe lets players entirely remove the level requirement from any item, just as the Gem of Ease does when socketed into a weapon. Of little use to Softcore players, but this will make twinking even easier for Hardcore players, who could put an entire six piece item set on at level 1 and play through the entire game on Torment 10, going from 1-70 in just minutes.

Work of Cathan

1 item (any type)
1 Gem of Ease, rank 25 or higher.

"...was done, and the scars would remain forever. And so it was time for eh final step, the one each of them had secretly hoped would not come to pass.""

--fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls.

Convert Gem Type

This recipe lets a player convert 9 gems into any other type of gem. It can be used on any level of gem, but only in quantities of 9. Gem Essences are purchased from Squirt the Peddler in Act Two, for 500,000 gold each.

Darkness of Radament

9x any gem (same type/quality)
1 Gem Essence (of the gem type you want)
5 Death's Breath

"...in time, the cube became the center of the Horadric works. Every initiative or action required it, and those who survived its creation became increasingly haunted by its presence."

--fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls.

Convert Crafting Materials

This recipe lets players convert 100 of any type of crafting material (white, blue, or yellow, but not Death's Breath or Forgotten Souls) into 100 of white/blue/yellow material. This is helpful to offset imbalances in material quantity, such as a player who has many more Veiled Crystals (yellow) and wants to convert them into blue or white materials for crafting purposes.

To craft, insert at least a 100 stack of the materials you want to change + 1 item (white, blue, or yellow) of the quality you want to change the 100 materials to. For instance, 100 Veiled Crystals + 1 magical item = 100 Arcane Dust (blue). You do not need to insert exactly 100 stack into the cube; any stack larger than 100 the game will automatically subtract 100 from.

Anger of Iben Fahd

100 stack of white, blue, or yellow material
1 item of the quality (white, blue, or yellow) you want to change the materials to.
1 Death's Breath

"He called the nine together, and declared that the cube must be put away, hidden even from them. Perhaps from them most of all. Seven of the nine concurred, and so the cube was taken under cover of darkness, entrusted....""

--fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls.

Portal: Not the Cow Level

An undocumented recipe, this one opens a portal to the Not the Cow Level, a bonus area first introduced for Diablo 3's third anniversary. Only one per game.

1 Bovine Bardiche (legendary polearm)

Portal: The Vault

An undocumented recipe, this one opens a golden portal to Greed's Domain, a bonus area where fabulous golden riches await. Slaying Greed is the only way to obtain a first Boon of the Hoarder legendary gem each new season. (Once one has been found, additional Boon of the Hoarder gems may drop from Rift Guardians, same as other Legendary Gems.

Only one portal to The Vault may be opened each game, so if one is found randomly from a Goblin, this recipe can not be used in that game. (Presumably using this recipe means no random Goblin will open one out in the world, either, though this is difficult to verify.)

1 Puzzle Ring (legendary ring)

Kanai's Cube History

The initial details came from Blizzard's Patch 2.3.0 preview on June 23, 2015:[2]

New Artifact: Kanai’s Cube Those who played Diablo II might remember the Horadric Cube, a unique device which allowed you to combine items. Useful as it was, it was easily surpassed in power by the item from which it originated, Kanai’s Cube. In Patch 2.3.0, players will be able to discover this powerful ancient relic and utilize its incredible potential, including the ability to break down Legendary items and equip their special effects as passive skills (which are separate from your other passive skills), convert crafting materials from one type to another, and so much more.

Additional details were added in a reply by a community manager:[3]

How many passives can we use at same time? Does it take a passive skill slot to equip?

Tyvalir: There’s been some confusion about how these passives work, so let me clarify.

With the current plan, the passives you get by breaking down Legendary items with special effects in Kanai’s Cube do not replace passive skills on your character, but are instead part of a separate set of passives that are specifically stored within the cube. You can store as many special effects as possible in the cube, but only a limited number can be active at a given time (currently, this is three: one weapon effect, one armor effect, and one jewelry effect).

Theorycrafting Kanai's Cube

The concept of adding three "free" legendary powers thrilled the community, and theorycrafting ideas flooded forth.[4] A few of the main ideas:

Getting the RoRG property from the Cube grants much more item variety while still getting six-piece set bonuses. (Which is a big buff since the RoRG stats are generally much worse than other rings.
This partially fixes the "Ancient weapon problem" since players can add the special legendary property from the ultra-rare weapon required for their build without having to find that item in Ancient form.
Defensive buffs abound:
- Wearing an immunity Amulet + getting a second immunity from the Cube.
- Gaining CC immunity from Ice Climbers.
- Gaining full time double Unity buff without having to wear the ring.