Legendary (AKA "leg") items are the (potentially) highest quality items in Diablo 3 and Reaper of Souls. Legendary items are orange in color and announce themselves when dropped by 1) creating a loud *clang* sound effect, 2) sending up a beam of orange light, and 3) creating a star icon on the minimap. Set Items are another type of legendary item and act just the same, except their beam coloration is green.
Legendary gear (legendary or set or crafted) is designed to be[1] the top quality of gear in Loot 2.0 (the system operational in D3v2 and Reaper of Souls). Back in Diablo 3 vanilla, Rare items were equivalent to legendaries in many slots and could be better with a very good roll. This is no longer true and Legendary items now always better at the top end, though it can be difficult to find or craft legendaries with great rolls.
Most characters wear a mixture of rare and legendary gear while leveling up, but once they reach the end game at level 70, the goal becomes finding or crafting legendary or set items for every slot, since legendaries have higher potential stat rolls, special legendary affixes, and set bonus properties that make better than any Rare items can possibly be.
Legendary items in Reaper of Souls and D3v2 are all Bind on Account and can not be traded, sold, or given away except to other players in the game when the item was found. (The legendary trading exception.)
Contents
Legendary Items List
There are many hundreds of legendary items, including Set Items and Crafted Items. See all of them in the huge, multi-tab navigation box at the bottom of this page. A listing of just the Legendary items by type for quicker reference:
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Legendary Armor:
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Legendary Weapons:
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Legendary Scaling
During Diablo 3 vanilla, Legendary items had tightly-designated stat ranges, and thus fell into a clear hierarchy of quality. Players in the end game could find legendaries of level 60, 61, 62, or 63, and in almost every case the 61 legendary was better than the 60, the 62 was better than the 61, and so on. This created a system where well-geared characters knew that 90% of legendaries were "trash" even before identifying the item, since most legendary items could not roll with top level stats, and in many cases good Rare items were better than Legendaries. (And 9.9% of the remaining 10% were also trash, if they didn't roll with good random modifiers.)
Loot 2.0 reworked Legendaries in several ways, improving them across the board. (These changes all apply to Set items and crafted leg/set items as well.)
- Legendaries roll with bigger/better stats than Rares. The numbers are simply larger.
- Legendary affix values scale to your character level. Thus a legendary that can first drop from a level 30 target will be a great item (random rolls permitting) if you find that same item at level 50, or level 70, since the numbers scale to be appropriate for your character.
- Many legendary items (including all of the best and most scarce) have legendary affixes, specially-powerful orange text properties inherent to the item that can not be obtained on other items.
The result of these changes, especially the scaling, is that all legendaries you find, whatever your character's level, have a very good chance to be an upgrade at the time.
It also means that legendary items of the same level are equivalent in value, aside from the luck of the roll and if they have a legendary affix. All the items of the same type pull from the same pool of primary and secondary affixes, with numbers in the same range, so which item is best generally depends on the luck of the RNG on which affixes spawn. And enchanting allows the player to change one affix (though not the legendary affix) to customize the gear to their purpose.
New Legendaries in D3v2 and RoS
Loot 2.0 added some new legendary items to Diablo 3, but the main change was the legendary scaling, which made every legendary that dropped potentially a top quality item, better than any Rare could be.
Reaper of Souls was where the real expansion of Legendary and Set Items took place though, with dozens of new items added, most of them Item Sets that can only drop at level 70, with the most powerful set as Torment-only, where they only drop on the Torment1-6 difficulty levels.
In addition to new legendaries and sets and every type, Reaper of Souls also added legendary follower items for followers, and even legendary potions with special bonuses on top of their normal healing function.
The full list of Legendary and Set items in Reaper of Souls is too large to be easily read on one page, so see it in the navigation box at the bottom of this page, where multiple tabs can hold all the content without becoming a massive scrolldown.
Legendary Drop Rates
Legendary drop rates as of Patch 2.0.5 Reaper of Souls and Diablo 3. The increase is 15% per difficulty level above Torment 1; the actual numbers are larger than 15% since it is a cumulative bonus and is factored into the overall legendary drop rate equation.
These figures are no longer accurate, since the D3Y2 buff was made permanent. We do not yet know the exact new figures, but add +100% to everything, at a minimum. See details below:
- Normal: 0% Legendary drop bonus, 25% bonus in Nephalem Rifts.
- Hard: 0% Legendary drop bonus, 25% bonus in Nephalem Rifts.
- Expert: 0% Legendary drop bonus, 25% bonus in Nephalem Rifts.
- Master: 0% Legendary drop bonus, 25% bonus in Nephalem Rifts.
- Torment 1: +15% Legendary drop bonus, +44% bonus in Nephalem Rifts.
- Torment 2: +32% Legendary drop bonus, +65% bonus in Nephalem Rifts.
- Torment 3: +52% Legendary drop bonus, +90% bonus in Nephalem Rifts.
- Torment 4: +75% Legendary drop bonus, +119% bonus in Nephalem Rifts.
- Torment 5: +101% Legendary drop bonus, +151% bonus in Nephalem Rifts.
- Torment 6: +131% Legendary drop bonus, +189% bonus in Nephalem Rifts.
These numbers were increased by a special community buff during Diablo 3's week-long Second Anniversary event. The buff added +100% to legendary drop rate, though Blizzard declined to explain just what that meant, and where in the item drop formula the 100% fit.
Due to popular request, Blizzard decided to make the +100% buff rate the new normal drop rate for legendaries, once the community event ended. [2]
Josh Mosquera: I come bearing exciting news. Due to the overwhelming popularity of our Anniversary buff we have decided to keep the increased Legendary drop rate once the Anniversary celebration ends. Once the buff is disabled tomorrow morning, you will find that the new base line drop rates for Legendary items will be the same as those you have all enjoyed for the last week.
Magic Find
Magic Find is present in D3v2 and RoS, but much decreased in value, post-D3v. Only 10% of a character's Magic Find value is applied to the legendary drop rate, so a character with 50% Magic Find would only gain a 5% boost to legendary finding. Furthermore, in the Loot 2.0 system, Magic Find is very rarely found as an item bonus, is no longer granted by leveling up or via Paragon Points (it was in the Paragon 2.0 system during development, and during the Reaper of Souls beta test)
This is a major change from the first 2 years of Diablo 3, when Magic Find was of huge importance. During D3v, most players felt that 300% Magic Find was required for a decent legendary drop rate, and well geared characters with high Paragon levels aimed for 400% or more. This was not hard to obtain with sufficient play time, since each Paragon level granted a 3% bonus to Magic Find and Gold Find. The total Magic Find from equipment + Paragon levels was hard capped at 300%, but additional Magic Find added by Monster Power, Fortune Shrines, multiplayer bonuses, and Nephalem Valor added to the gear bonus with no hard cap limitations.)
- See the Magic Find article for more details on changes to that property over time.
Legendary Drop Weighting
Some items drop more often than others. This was true in Diablo 1 and Diablo 2, and it's always been true in Diablo 3, though the developers have never shared the exact stats or weighting. That changed to a considerable extent in early May 2014 when Diablo.IncGamers.com revealed the weighting for each legendary item. The stats were allegedly leaked by a Korean site and while they were not confirmed by Blizzard, most players felt they reflected the in-game reality of which items they found more or less often.
The full list of more than 500 items is far too large to include in this page but can be viewed in forum posts:
- Legendary Drop Rates: Normal-Master + Gambling.
- Legendary Drop Rates: Torment.
- Legendary Drop Rates: Smart Loot
Diablo 3 Legendary Archive
Information about Legendary items during Diablo 3's development and then after release.
2008: Unique to Legendary
The top tier of items in Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 were called "Unique." Diablo 3 changed the term to "Legendary" and this prompted some debate and
Bashiok gave some explanations for the item name change in a forum post in October 2010: [3]
- Why else would they rename the Unique items to Legendary?
- Bashiok: Unique items in Diablo II were only “unique” in that only one of them would drop per-game. Using the term “unique” to describe them implies many things, none of which are likely to be true.
- World of Warcraft uses the word a bit more intelligently in that it is indeed unique in that your character can only ever have one of them.
- Because they will be using the same “Unique” setup that WoW uses
- Bashiok: We have no plans to have such a system.
- World of Warcraft uses unique and unique equipped for character balance, so that the designers know what items a character can have equipped at any one time. Balance is important to us, but probably not to the same degree that we would want to restrict use of dual-wielding two of some awesome legendary sword. For instance.
- ...I guess I would probably follow that up with the usual, ‘but nothing is set in stone’. I guess if we were to hit a point where dual wielding the most awesome sword in the game completely broke everything, we’d have to do something like unique-equipped.
- But even then, you could still find them, pick them up, and trade them off… so I’m not even sure how unique-equipped kills hoarding.
Fan reaction to this change has been negative to indifferent. Diablo players have come to love Unique items and the golden text that identifies them. The first dictionary definition of "unique" does mean "one of a kind" but the other meanings just mean "special," so it's not that misleading of a term.
The name is created by the usage in the game, and everyone playing soon knows what unique means. Besides, if they're going to be literal, doesn't this mean that they need a whole lore story for every "legendary" item, or else that name is no more accurate than "unique?" In regards to that question, there still remains many legendary items which, via their description, should be unique, such as Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye (db). In the end, however, this is merely semantics and nostalgia at work.
Legendary Item Appearance
Most legendary pieces of armor do not have a unique model, but are rather a re-skinned version of an existing normal armor piece (most often the "balor" item set, or otherwise the "warlord" item set). Sometimes an item, such as Ice Climbers, will simply be colored blue, and that is the only way to signify their difference from a standard, non-legendary item. This includes set items, as well.
Other legendary items do have unique appearances. All helms, weapons, off-hands, and shoulders will have a unique look that distinctly shows in-game.
2009: Fans Suggest Legendary Names
Blizzard asked for fans to suggest names for Diablo 3 Legendary Items via their @Diablo twitter account in 2009. The contest rewarded 100 of the best Unique name suggestions with a Diablo pin, with five of the best names promised to be used in the game. They never confirmed which five were chosen, but some of the suggestions were:
- Havenrow Skin Peeler, by KarlGrande
- Belial’s Wrath, by Kastrien
- Staff of the Sightless Eye, by Frostblind
- Elzix’s Misfortune, by ChrisEngine357
- Deckard’s Cane, by ClakyDruott
- Archivist’s Scroll, by Maelnison
- Axe of Assimilation, by ScottGallupe
- Que Hegan’s Zeal, by forbrukerombud
- Crown of Divine Right, by MShaneman
- Lord Telrandan’s Hand, by Erignmatic (Reworked to Telranden's Hand in the game.)
- Skull Crusher of Demise, by ravenneangelle
2011: Early Legendary Examples
Early legendary: Armor of Lucien Tooltip.
Early legendary item examples were shown off at GamesCom 2011. They were basically just stat sticks in those early iterations, with offensive stats like +damage and +Attack Speed on most of the items previewed.
Armor of Lucien, Legendary Chest Armor 624 Armor
- +0.37 Attacks Per Second
- +23% Damage
- +269% Armor
- +25 Cold Resistance
- +45 Attack
- Requires: Level 60
- Durability: 25
- Sell price: 1,405
2011-2012: Diablo 3's Early Legendary Disappointment
Legendary items were badly designed, underpowered, and boring in Diablo 3, in the opinion of most players. The developers eventually came to agree, at least judging by the total system overhaul and improvement in Loot 2.0. The problem with underwhelming legendaries was obvious from the early going, with fans pointing it out as soon as the official game guide went live in early 2012. The issue grew more dramatic shortly after Diablo 3's launch May 2012, as the first players into Inferno began finding blue weapons that had considerably higher damage than the best of the legendary items.
The screen below is from shortly after D3's launch and it compares a legendary weapon from the database vs. an actual blue item, and weapons with over 1000 damage were not uncommon in that time frame.
Bashiok, the Diablo 3 community manager defended this system as a feature, not a bug. [4]
Bashiok: Intended design is for an end-game characters to have a mixture of set/legendary, rare, and crafted items.
Legendary items are commonly not going to be the best items. It’s a title that denotes a named item, with set stats, and a unique model. It does not mean they’re the best items. Completely random rares will be the best items in the game if they roll up the right stats.
The problem is legendary items are complete garbage currently. It was fun to find a great legendary in D2. It is no fun to find rares. It isn’t hard to understand, legendaries should be much, much better then they are, and there should be more of them.
Common, Blue weapons having double the damage on them then the “best” legendary weapons is a broken design, if your goal is to make a fun game.
I will take that feedback. Thank you.
As to the “more of them”, Diablo III at launch has more Legendaries than Diablo II had at launch. I’m sure we’ll add more as time goes on, but I do not agree that we don’t already have a lot.
Loot is messed up, period. This is carrot on a stick gameplay. It’s a simple idea. If most of the time you finally catch a carrot and it’s rotten, eventually you just stop giving chase.
If you’d like to give any specifics I’d be happy to write them down.This philosophy changed over time and was completely removed during the run up to D3v2 and Reaper of Souls. By then, the theory was that legendary and set items were always going to be BiS and Rares were merely stopgap equipment used during leveling and gradually replaced with higher quality gear once a character reached level the maximum level.
Reaper of Souls Beta Test
Fans were keenly-interested in the legendary and set items found during the Reaper of Souls beta, after legendary items has proven so lame during the early days of Diablo 3, and been greatly improved in Loot 2.0 leading up to Reaper of Souls. For the most part the items did not disappoint, and fans poured over image galleries.
- Legendary Gallery #1: November 24, 2013.
- Legendary Gallery #2: November 27, 2013.
- Legendary Gallery #3: December 4, 2013.
- Legendary Gallery #4: January 31, 2014.
Media
Millions of images of legendary items can be seen online, with many galleries posted during the game's development.
- Legendary items equipped (pre-beta).
- Weapons and off-hands equipped (pre-beta).
Reaper of Souls:
- RoS Beta Legendary Gallery #1: November 24, 2013.
- RoS Beta Legendary Gallery #2: November 27, 2013.
- RoS Beta Legendary Gallery #3: December 4, 2013.
- RoS Beta Legendary Gallery #4: January 31, 2014.
Legendary ring from Leoric.
Legendary set plan dropped in Reaper of Souls.
| Items of Diablo III [e] Item Basics Normal Items Crafting Legendary Armor I Legendary Armor II Legendary Weapons 1h Legendary Weapons 2h Item Sets |
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