Sanctification is a new seasonal mechanic introduced in Diablo 4 Season 11. Initially, its function was somewhat similar to Vaal Orbs in Path of Exile series, but its negative effects were nerfed after the PTR.
Now, Sanctification can significantly boost gear power. If you want to improve your ranking in The Pit or the Tower, you must understand how to utilize Sanctification to compete with other players.
How To Reach Sanctification Area?
You can go to a major city and click on a specific portal, or directly click on the consumable item Heavenly Sigils in your inventory to instantly teleport to a Sanctification area. This method is faster than town portals and can even allow you to leave Helltides directly.
Additionally, random portals will occasionally appear during your leveling process. Entering one will grant you a free Sanctification opportunity.
Before level 60, you can use this opportunity every time, regardless of whether the equipment will be replaced. This is because you might gain extremely powerful Sanctification attributes, even allowing your lower-level equipment to be used directly up to level 60.
Preparation Before Sanctification
Once you reach level 60, you need to be more careful. At this point, you'll need to craft the strongest items for your build, but each piece of equipment can only be Sanctified once.
After Sanctification, you will be unable to perform the following operations: socketing, changing aspects, masterwork, adding temperers, or enchanting.
Therefore, before using Sanctification on your equipment, you must remember some steps to ensure they are at their best.
- Socket: First, socket the equipment.
- Temper: Add the correct temperer attributes to legendary items according to the build guides.
- Enchant: Reforge an attribute at an Occultist.
- Aspect: Ensure you attach the correct, ideally maxed-out, Legendary Aspect.
- Masterworking: Masterwork your equipment to level 25.
Note that Unique and Mythic Unique items cannot be tempered or enchanted, so you can skip this step, but remember to max out Masterworking.
At level 25, a Masterworking crit will trigger, randomly increasing one attribute by 50%. You can use Neathhiron to reroll the target attribute of this crit until you get the desired attribute.
All of the above steps must be completed before Sanctification. While you don't need to strictly follow the order of visiting each vendor, Socket is the most easily forgotten step and must be completed first.
How Does Sanctification System Work?
Once your equipment has the attributes and maxed-out Aspect you want, and you've completed all the steps, you can consider using Sanctification on it. The only items you actually need are Heavenly Sigils; other materials like Forgotten Souls, Neathiron, and Obducites are mainly used for preliminary steps.
If you want to craft the ultimate gear, the rewards from Strongholds or Goblin Board alone are far from enough; the required materials far exceed your expectations. If you find farming materials and Diablo 4 gold troublesome, you can also directly buy these items from the reliable and fast D4gold, and enjoy a 10% Christmas discount using the XMAS code before December 31st.
The current Goblin March event is also the best time to farm materials in large quantities, while Treasure Breach Nightmare Dungeons are the best place to obtain Neathiron and Obducites.
Sanctification Strategies For Different Gear
Legendary Gear
Sanctification will replace one of the original attributes on a Legendary item. The replacement result is random and may cause good gear to become worse. Therefore, always prepare a spare before sanctifying any Legendary equipment, as an unsatisfactory result will irreversibly damage the original item.
However, it's still worth the attempt because it may grant an extremely powerful sanctification attribute or an additional Legendary Aspect, both of which can significantly enhance the equipment's power.
Unique And Mythic Unique Items
Sanctification does not replace the fixed attributes of unique and mythic items; it only adds an additional sanctification attribute. Therefore, you can sanctify with confidence, as there is virtually no negative risk. Even if the resulting sanctification attribute is not optimal, the equipment itself remains fully usable and will always offer a slight improvement.
You may also gain a new Legendary Aspect, or upgrade one of its affixes to a Great affix; at worst, you will receive a quality upgrade.
Stacking Rules For Sanctification
Generally, a maximum of two identical Legendary Aspects can be active simultaneously. However, if the same power appears on a necklace (75% increase), a two-handed weapon (100% increase), and a Sanctification affiex, they are theoretically stackable since they are considered different sources of amplification, resulting in a significant boost.
But mythic items like Melted Heart of Selig typically only have one base item and one Aspect power provided by Sanctification, for a total of two sources.
Therefore, if you want to obtain the same power from another piece of gear through Sanctifyon the unique Melted Heart of Selig mythic necklace to stack the effects and greatly increase your tankiness,
you can choose the lowest-cost legendary gear type, trade large quantities of materials with Murmuring Obols, and then repeatedly Sanctifyuntil you get the desired legendary power. This process requires a large amount of materials and gold, and most importantly, luck.
Sanctification in Diablo 4 Season 11 is not mandatory, but if you can use this mechanism well, the boost it provides can even exceed that of Masterworking and Tempering.
