Upping Uniques

Hey all,

I have two questions about "upping uniques".

1st: Are the properties that were rolled at random rerolled when upgrading? Yes/no?
2nd: What's with open sockets in the item given from

Larzuk? Do I have to add the sockets again after upgrading or do they still remain?

Thank you and happy new year!!
Zoe

No they wont reroll and the item will keep sockets. Now idk about in D2R but in D2:LoD IIRC it did reroll the base defense on some items w/o Enhanced Defense.

IIRC it was troublesome with some items able to lose defense making the increased cost more of a burden than a benefit.

Thank you for the fast reply

np GL out there

Upping uniques ups the base. (Almost) Nothing more and (almost) nothing less.

As a result, none of the "not part of the base item" properties (e.g. sockets, ED, resistances, whatever it may be) are rerolled. They stay as is. That's why folks tend to prefer finding solid rolls before bothering to up them.

Upping the base however may include a reroll of base properties:

For weapons, the range is generally pre-defined so it just gets whatever the base weapon dmg range of the higher version is.

For armor, this is typically not the case as the actual armor value is picked from a range from x to y with that range being defined by the base item and the actual armor value then being a random roll within that range. As you upgrade an armor, the range increases to whatever the range of the higher item is and the game then does a fresh random roll to pick a new defense value from within that range. As such, while you care about ED rolls on your starting item, you don't care about the actual base item defense if you plan to upgrade anyways as that gets lost. Do keep in mind that certain items have overlapping defense ranges between the lower and higher version of themselves which is why you can get unlucky and actually end up with less defense after upgrading.

There is a special addition of note to the defense reroll:
As a core rule of item generation, an item that rolls with % enhanced defense (regardless of whether that's superior, magic, unique, whatever) will always have a base defense value of the maximum of the item's range + 1. That rule is ignored (presumably bugged..for 20 years) when upgrading an item and even if you have %ED on the item, the new base defense will still be a random roll from the higher range, not the max of the higher range + 1 as it presumably should be.

And while we're on the topic of bugs with upping..ethereal item durability gets all sorts of messed up.
First, the

Eth max durability penalty gets lost, increasing the durability max to that of the non-

Eth base item, rather than /2+1 as it should be for ethereals.
Second, the current durability then gets a random roll (much akin to normal non-

Eth item drops) to figure out the actual current value.
Basically, it treats it as though it just dropped as a new non-

Eth item of the higher quality.

So if you go in with say an ethereal

Vampire Gaze at a full 21/21 durability and upgrade that, you'd expect to stay at 21/21 as that should be accurate for an

Eth.

Bone Visage as well. But what you end up with is something like 27/40 or 21/40 or the like with no way to ever get it back to actually max durability, thanks to it being ethereal. Effectively, you can actually end up with more current durability than you had before but you won't end up at your new max which is really not the most OCD-friendly of outcomes, despite potentially actually being a net positive.

Schnorki as usual with a very interesting and comprehensive reply. Upgrading Uniques is actually one of my favorite things to do in D2R. To me it simply makes items that were already good, better. I upgraded my Assassin's

Shaftstop to

Boneweave and added an

Um rune, now it's viable end-game armor. Yes, it's not better than Enigma, Fortitude, etc, but it's perfect for a merc, and just really cool imo. One thing to note is that you should watch the strength/etc requirements for the upgraded item, as it may no longer be usable. I normally just check this site to see what the new requirements will be and whether or not it's actually worth upgrading.

Schnorki wrote: 10 months ago

Upping uniques ups the base. (Almost) Nothing more and (almost) nothing less.

As a result, none of the "not part of the base item" properties (e.g. sockets, ED, resistances, whatever it may be) are rerolled. They stay as is. That's why folks tend to prefer finding solid rolls before bothering to up them.

Upping the base however may include a reroll of base properties:

For weapons, the range is generally pre-defined so it just gets whatever the base weapon dmg range of the higher version is.

For armor, this is typically not the case as the actual armor value is picked from a range from x to y with that range being defined by the base item and the actual armor value then being a random roll within that range. As you upgrade an armor, the range increases to whatever the range of the higher item is and the game then does a fresh random roll to pick a new defense value from within that range. As such, while you care about ED rolls on your starting item, you don't care about the actual base item defense if you plan to upgrade anyways as that gets lost. Do keep in mind that certain items have overlapping defense ranges between the lower and higher version of themselves which is why you can get unlucky and actually end up with less defense after upgrading.

There is a special addition of note to the defense reroll:
As a core rule of item generation, an item that rolls with % enhanced defense (regardless of whether that's superior, magic, unique, whatever) will always have a base defense value of the maximum of the item's range + 1. That rule is ignored (presumably bugged..for 20 years) when upgrading an item and even if you have %ED on the item, the new base defense will still be a random roll from the higher range, not the max of the higher range + 1 as it presumably should be.

And while we're on the topic of bugs with upping..ethereal item durability gets all sorts of messed up.
First, the

Eth max durability penalty gets lost, increasing the durability max to that of the non-

Eth base item, rather than /2+1 as it should be for ethereals.
Second, the current durability then gets a random roll (much akin to normal non-

Eth item drops) to figure out the actual current value.
Basically, it treats it as though it just dropped as a new non-

Eth item of the higher quality.

So if you go in with say an ethereal

Vampire Gaze at a full 21/21 durability and upgrade that, you'd expect to stay at 21/21 as that should be accurate for an

Eth.

Bone Visage as well. But what you end up with is something like 27/40 or 21/40 or the like with no way to ever get it back to actually max durability, thanks to it being ethereal. Effectively, you can actually end up with more current durability than you had before but you won't end up at your new max which is really not the most OCD-friendly of outcomes, despite potentially actually being a net positive.

Yo. If we are in upgradage topics///
Tell me somthing more a'propose upping rare circlets... i never try this myself. I see that in recipes exists repice for up rares to exeptional vers... i have so many coronets in last days
i need details about possibilites ,about sockets in option when socket was made ,was rune or jewl inside before upped and need get sure about what happend with prfixes. Or dont
Master i belive only in You..