Crafting Orbs

#Changing your gear after it drops

A drop doesn't have to stay the way it fell. Four rare materials let you change an item after the fact. You can use them anywhere: open your bag, tap an item, and choose Use orb….

Orb	Action	Works on	Risk
Chaos Ember	Reforge	Magic and rare items	Every property is re-rolled. You might get worse.
Ashen Shard	Corrupt	Magic, rare and unique items	A gamble. Can add power, do nothing, or damage the item. Locks it forever.
Ashen Ichor	Temper	Magic, rare and unique items	None. It can only improve the item.
Emberstone	Empower	Magic, rare and unique items	None, but it costs gold as well.

None of them work on plain Normal items, and all of them need the item to be identified first.

#Reforge (Chaos Ember)

Reforging throws away every property on a magic or rare item and rolls a completely new set, as if it had just dropped: same base, same item level, same rarity. The item gets a new name to match.

• Use it on: an item with a great base and item level but the wrong properties for you.
• The risk: the new rolls can be worse than the old ones. There's no undo. If the item is already good, a reforge is more likely to make it worse than better.
• Can't use it on: uniques, rune words, or anything corrupted.

Where to get Chaos Embers: monsters of level 12 and up drop them now and then, champions and pack leaders more often, and bosses very often. Spirits carry a few extra, and world bosses and Ember Rift guardians pay them out too. Every daily bounty pays one. See Bounties.

#Corrupt (Ashen Shard)

Corruption pours raw ash into an item. It's a gamble with four possible outcomes:

Corrupted bonuses are shown in red. Which bonuses can appear depends on the slot (weapons might gain damage, attack speed or critical chance; boots might gain movement speed, life or magic find), and they grow with the item's level.

• Use it on: an item that's already good enough to wear, when you're chasing that one extra bonus. Or on a spare copy.
• Price Check tells corrupted items apart from clean ones, so a lucky Exalted item can be worth a great deal.

Where to get Ashen Shards: monsters of level 8 and up drop them now and then, champions and leaders more often, and bosses very often. World bosses and Ember Rift guardians drop them too. Lair bounties pay one, and finishing all three bounties in a day pays another.

#Temper (Ashen Ichor)

Tempering finds the weakest property on an item and re-rolls it at the best tier the item's level allows. If the new roll is better, it replaces the old one. If not, nothing changes. On a unique, it pushes the weakest property up toward the top of its range.

• Use it on: your best items, to fix the one property that's dragging them down.
• The risk: none. Tempering never makes an item worse.
• Can't use it on: rune words (their properties are fixed), or anything corrupted.

Where to get Ashen Ichor: The Ashen King drops one every time, at the top of the Ember Throne, and the guardians of high-tier Ember Rifts very rarely carry one. It's the rarest orb in the game.

#Empower (Emberstone)

Empowering strengthens every property on an item. Each level adds 10% to every property, up to +5, and the item's name shows its level (Kingsbane +3).

• Cost: each level costs Emberstone and gold, and each one costs more than the last: from 1 Emberstone and 2,500 gold for +1 up to 5 Emberstone and 12,500 gold for +5. The item's menu shows the exact cost before you commit.
• The risk: none. It always works.
• Works on: magic, rare and unique items and rune words, including corrupted ones. Empowering a summon-granting unique makes its summon stronger too.

Where to get Emberstone: Nightmare lair bosses, The Ashen King, the Echoes of the Warden deep in the Ashen Depths, Skarn, the Glacier Titan and Ember Rift guardians, the daily bounty bonus from combat level 40, and some achievements.

#In what order?

If you're planning to do everything to one item, the order matters:

1. Reforge until the properties are the ones you want (magic and rare only).
2. Temper to lift the weakest one.
3. Corrupt last, if at all, because it locks everything above.
4. Empower whenever you like. It works before or after corrupting, and it multiplies whatever the item ends up with.