A Guide to the Basic Terms of Item Generation

The purpose of this guide is to act as a quick reference to help newer players learn some basic terms that influence item generation. For the sake of simplicity, I will not cover treasure classes, which is a subject that would warrant an entire post of its own.

If you want to explore the more complex mechanics of this topic in greater detail, please refer to this extremely informative article: https://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Item_Generation_Tutorial

Terms & Abbreviations

cLvl: Character Level
iLvl: Item Level
qLvl: Quality Level
mLvl: Monster Level
aLvl: Area Level
ALvl: Affix Level
MLvl: Magic Level

Container = Interactive static objects, such as barrels, chests and weapon/armor racks.

Item Level

A value that is usually equivalent to the level of the monster or container that dropped the item. In order for powerful affixes to have a chance to appear, the item must have a level that meets or exceeds the affix levels of these properties (assuming the item type is allowed to spawn with the desired modifiers). Item level is the most important variable, especially for crafting purposes.

Item level is not relevant for Unique/Set items, as they always spawn with fixed properties.

There are additional caveats when dealing with NPCs:

Vendor Shopping: iLvl = cLvl +5
Gambling: iLvl = cLvl -5 to +4 (varies)
Imbuing: iLvl = cLvl +4

Socket Quest Reward: # of sockets = based on iLvl and item type (e.g. iLvl 41+

Berserker Axe receives 6 sockets, whereas iLvl 1-25 receives 4 sockets)

Quality Level

Every (applicable) item is assigned a static value that never changes. Item levels, at a minimum*, are equal to the item's quality level. Base items have quality levels separate from their Unique/Set versions.

Example:

Chain Mail has a qLvl of 15. The mLvl of a target must be at least 15 to have the possibility of dropping it (not accounting for treasure class).

Sparking Mail — the Unique version of

Chain Mail — has a qLvl of 23; the same rule applies.

Note: When comparing qLvl and iLvl, the higher number is always used in calculations.


* There is one exception to this rule: if you use the Cube to upgrade a Cracked, Low Quality, Damaged, or Crude item to Normal quality, then its iLvl will be set to 1 regardless of the item's quality level.

Monster Level

Fairly self-explanatory. Each monster and container has a level, and for containers this is typically shared with the area in which they reside. However, weapon and armor racks, in particular, have their mLvl subtracted by 1; this means they can't drop anything higher than qLvl 84.

Champions: mLvl + 2; Berserker is mLvl + 3
Uniques and Minions: mLvl + 3

Remember: only act bosses, monsters in normal difficulty, Putrid Defilers (coded as act bosses) and some Super Uniques (e.g.,

Griswold,

Radament, etc.) have predetermined levels. The rest use area level plus any of the applicable bonuses listed above.

Area Level

Each location has a level that varies based on the difficulty setting.

A common misconception is that monsters are always mLvl = aLvl, which can be misleading in some cases. Always refer to the monster's level to determine ideal drop conditions.

aLvl 85 spots, such as Worldstone Keep, The Pit and Ancient Tunnels, are some of the most popular locations for magic finding, as every item is able to drop in them.

Affix Level

The level of prefixes and suffixes (modifiers) that show up on Magic, Rare and Crafted items. A few things to note:

• Arreat Summit says the cLvl required to be able to equip a modified item is 75% of the highest affix level; however, this is not always the case. As an example, the "Amber" prefix that spawns on small charms has an ALvl of 40 and a cLvl of 32, so 40*0.75 = 30 is incorrect.

• While Magic items can have their prefixes and suffixes easily identified by their name, Rare and Crafted item names, on the other hand, are completely random.

• Staffmods and automods, which appear independently from magical affixes, can stack with similar modifiers on the same item.

Staffmod Example: + 3 to Warmth (Sorceress Only) on Staves

Automod Example: + All Resistances on Paladin Shields


You can use this master list that contains all prefixes/suffixes and their requirements: https://diablo-archive.fandom.com/wiki/ ... Diablo_II)

Magic Level

A simple value that only applies to Staves (1), Orbs (1), non-elite Wands (1), Circlets (3), Coronets (8), Tiaras (13) and Diadems (18). Basically, the MLvl is added to the iLvl, allowing higher level affixes to spawn earlier than normally allowed.

Conclusion

Now, let's put all of these variables together into a hypothetical scenario:

You enter the Blood Moor in Hell difficulty and kill a regular Fallen. It drops a Platinum (+ 101 to 120 Attack Rating)

Circlet of Quality (+ 7 to 8 Max. Damage).

Blood Moor (Hell): aLvl = 67
Fallen: mLvl = 67

Circlet: qLvl = 24

Circlet: MLvl = 3
Final iLvl = 70

Platinum Prefix: ALvl = 22
Quality Suffix: ALvl = 30

Let's assume that the Quality suffix landed on 8, which is the maximum roll. Unlike the Platinum prefix, Quality (on Circlets) has multiple level ranges that are based on the roll's strength. Since the latter will have a greater level than the former, it will supersede the "weaker" affix in further calculations.

Therefore, the character level required to wear this item is (30 x 0.75) 22.5, truncated to 22.

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* There is one exception to this rule: if you use the Cube to upgrade a Cracked/Low Quality/Damaged/Crude item to Normal quality, then its iLvl will be set to 1 regardless of the item's quality level.

........... if i had known this... i could've had 10 Enigma bases ready for trade right now.... fml...

At the risk of reviving a dead thread, I just want to double check my math and thought it best to do it here.

Say I'm hunting for tri-res

Boots with 30% FRW. I'm trying to see at what level I should be gambling

Boots to 1.) maximize my chances to get those affixes and 2.) minimize my costs in gold per roll.

For gambling,

iLvl = cLvl -5 to +4 (varies)

Covering my basis, I assume the worst possible roll always, so iLvl = cLvl-5

From the page on Item Generation, I know that:

if (iLvl<(99-qLvl/2))
then {ALvl=iLvl-qLvl/2}

All numbers are rounded down to complete integers in the above equation.

Boots: qLvl = 3

So: ALvl = (cLvl-5)-(3/2) = cLvl - 5 - 1 = cLvl - 6

Here's where I'm not sure, because the Affixes Wiki lists ilvl in the table, but aren't they really showing minimum ALvl? At Diablo Wiki They match the same values to ALvl, so I assume the first link contains a typo or differing variable naming.

From the table, the minimum ALvl for the stats I like are:
The maximum ALvl from the table is 37, so my gambling character buying

Boots would need to be level 43.

Furthermore at level 43, the highest iLvl that could roll, would be 43+4 = 47. With

Boots specifically, ALvl = 46.

That means that it would be impossible for me to roll any rare armor/boot affixes that require ALvl 47 and above, such as "Shock" (ALvl =50).

Did I do this right?

Edit:

I forgot to factor in the chance that the

Boots become exceptional or elite versions, which inflates their qlvl changing the affixes in the pool:

exceptional = 1 + (ilvl – excep qlvl) * 90 / 100

Demonhide Boots = qLvl = 36
min chance = 1 + (38 - 36) *0.9 = 2.8%
max chance = 1 + (47 - 36) *0.9 = 10.9%

elite = 1 + (ilvl – elite qlvl) * 33 / 100

Wyrmhide Boots = qLvl = 60
chance = 0%

Breaking it down:
Even at level 43, I'm not guaranteed the stats I want, because if the

Boots upgrade to

Demonhide Boots their ALvl will be insufficient to generate the desired FRW affix.

If we take the average chance to roll

Demonhide Boots (~7%) and the chance to roll rare into account, then at level 43, my chance to gamble rare

Boots with the potential to be tri-res with 30% FRW is:

(1-0.07)*(0.1) = 9.3%

Sorry for the double post, but I was sick of editing the above one.

For giggles, let's consider the next tier of

Boots,

Heavy Boots.

qLvl=7

ALvl = (cLvl-5)-(7/2) = cLvl - 5 - 3 = cLvl - 8

ALvl(30FRW)=37

So cLvl=45

At 45, my chance of

Heavy Boots becoming

Sharkskin Boots is:

min = 1 + (40-39)*0.9 = 1.9%
max = 10%

At max iLvl, the

Sharkskin Boots will have ALvl = 49-(39/2) = 30

So again, if they upgrade, I lose my chance at FRW. This only happens on average 6% of the time.

So my chance to gamble is slightly better, but at a higher level and better type of shoes, the gold cost will be higher too.

I ran the calculations for

Chain Boots,

Light Plated Boots and

Greaves.

To ensure ALvl 37+, you need to be cLvl 48, 52 and 55 respectively. The nice thing is though, that the chance to upgrade to exceptional is roughly 5.5%, 4% and 2% for their iLvl brackets.

So they might be more expensive, but have a higher chance to roll rare's with the right ALvl to get the tri-res 30frw combination.

So, if my math is right (big if)

Then the tl;dr for tri-res/30frw

Boots is:
The last step would be to find the costs of these items at the ideal cLvLs and the factor them in. Then we would have the answer to the ideal cLvl and item type pairing to min/max trires-30frw

Boots.

Edit:

Don't know why I tried to reinvent the wheel, but all of the above is available over at The Basin. Seems my math was right though!