Diablo 4 Season 9's Greatest Endgame Challenge: Masterworking

When it comes to Diablo 4's endgame, players are spoiled for Diablo 4 Items choice-between Lair Bosses, Infernal Hordes, the Pit of the Artificer, and the newly introduced Escalating Nightmares, there's no shortage of tough encounters and rewarding content. But amid all the slaying and grinding, the true final boss of Diablo 4 isn't a demonic beast or a hellish wave-it's the game's most punishing and RNG-heavy system: Masterworking.

What is Masterworking in Diablo 4?

At its core, Masterworking is the high-stakes upgrade system designed to improve the affixes on your endgame gear. It's available only once players hit World Tier 4 (Torment) and acquire the rare crafting materials needed to fuel this system. Those materials include:

Obducite (from Escalating Nightmares)
Forgotten Souls (from salvaging Legendaries )
Abtruse Sigils, Baleful Fragments, and Coiling Wards (from higher-end content)

Once a player has a piece of Ancestral or Unique gear they want to invest in, they can take it to the Blacksmith and begin Masterworking. The first few ranks (up to 12, if the gear is item level 800+) will enhance all affixes by 5% per level. However, every fourth rank gives a +25% bonus to a single, random affix.

That's where the risk begins.

Why Masterworking is Diablo 4's True Endgame Threat

Masterworking represents the pinnacle of RNG frustration. Unlike Tempering, where players choose the affix group to add and can reroll within reason, Masterworking locks its 25% bonus into a randomly chosen affix every four ranks-and there's no going back.

Let's break it down:

Total Affix Bonus: +45% to all affixes by rank 12.
Special Bonuses: +75% to one lucky affix across ranks 4, 8, and 12.
The Risk: You have no control over which affix gets that +25% boost each time.
The Problem: A "wrong" Masterwork hit can ruin an item-especially one with Greater Affixes or a rare Mythic Unique.

This creates a build-breaking scenario where the most powerful gear in the game-like a Shroud of False Death, Heir of Perdition, or a god-tier rolled Diablo 4 Items with triple Greater Affixes-can be effectively ruined by three unlucky clicks.

Why Players Are So Frustrated

For players grinding the game's toughest content to assemble their perfect build, Masterworking feels like a cruel lottery.

You farm for hours to get the right drop.
You optimize it through Tempering.
You save up your rare materials to Masterwork it.
You hit that Rank 4 bump… and the wrong stat gets boosted.

Worse yet, there is no way to reroll, reset, or undo that outcome.

This makes Masterworking feel more punishing than rewarding. For a system that's intended to be the ultimate reward for dedicated players, it instead becomes a system many fear engaging with-because they know they might destroy the perfect piece of buy D4 materials gear they spent the entire season chasing.