How To Farm Legendary and Set Items Guide (2024)

Last updated on Nov 20, 2019 at 05:01by Deadset8 comments

Like the vast majority of items in Diablo 3, legendaries and set items canonly be found through chance, and cannot be target-farmed. That means killingmonsters, elites and bosses, opening chests, gambling at Kadala and upgradingrare items at the Cube.

You can increase your chances at obtaining legendaries and set items by doing thefollowing.

• Set Items only — Check if your desired set is the current Haedrig's Gift — youreasiest source of a set can be simply participating in a Season. Completion ofchapters II, III and IV of the Seasonal Journey (a list of tasks accessible fromthe main menu or upper right corner in-game) yields Haedrig's Gifts, acache-like reward that drops two pieces of a predetermined class-specific set.Haedrig's Gift guarantees you a complete set, but not necessarily a well-rolledone. This is a once-per-Season reward, and the gifted set rotates from Season toSeason.
• Spend Blood Shards at Kadala — killing Rift Guardians (in both Normaland Greater Rifts) yields theBlood Shard gambling currency, which can be spent at the vendor Kadala in anytown. Gambling allows you to target a specific slot, cutting out some of therandomness of farming.
• Upgrade rares via the Hope of Cain recipe in Kanai's Cube —Upgrading Rares is a very potent recipe, especially in early Seasonal play. Atthe cost of 25 Death's Breaths and 50 of each of the generic materials (ReusableParts, Arcane Dust and Veiled Crystals), you can turn a Rare (yellow) item intoa random Legendary item of the same item type (i.e. a rare Mighty Belt will onlyturn into a legendary Mighty Belt). The upgraded item will get completely brandnew stats, including the potential for it to roll with Ancient or Primalquality. This recipe can produce both legendary and set items. In order to usethis recipe properly, make sure that you are upgrading rare items of the itemtype of the legendary you require; while the recipe is vastly more efficientwith smaller, class-specific pools of legendaries (i.e. Barbarian MightyWeapons), it can also be used for more generic slots with reasonable efficiencydue to its cheap price.
• Set Items only — Convert duplicate or redundant set pieces via the Skill of Nilfur recipein Kanai's Cube — it is common in early character progression that youstumble upon two same legendaries or two pieces of the same slot of a desired set, i.e. two set pants.Using this recipe, you can use your worse rolled duplicate and transform it intoanother piece of the set, either to complete or improve your set of choice. Notethat this recipe cannot produce Ancient or Primal rolls.

Note that you can use D3 Plannerto check for your chances of getting the item you want through Gambling at Kadala orupgrading rares in the Kanai's Cube.

Ancient and Primal tier items are stronger versions of the base legendary andset items, dropping at a lower rate (10% and 0.2%, respectively). Ancient itemsare roughly 30% stronger than base legendary and set items, and only drop tolevel 70 characters in Torment difficulties or GRs; they are recognizable bytheir golden border once identified. Primal items are essentially the same asAncients, but with maximized stats, and are recognizable by their red drop beamand item border. Primals can come from any farming activity in the game, butonly after having successfully completed at least a level 70 Greater Rift solo.Besides efficient farming of standard and Greater Rifts (sub-5 minute runs), youcan maximize your chances at obtaining Ancient and Primal gear by doing the following.

• Reforge with the Law of Kulle recipe in Kanai's Cube: this costly recipe(5 of each act-specific materials and 50 Forgotten Souls) is your only source oftargeted farming in the game. It grants you a complete reroll of a legendary orset item; the reforged item will get completely brand new stats, including thepotential for it to roll with Ancient or Primal quality. By allowing you toreroll a specific item over and over, cutting out every other alternative fromthe drop pool, this is by far the best source of a well-rolled Ancient, or evenPrimal, item that you desire. You should note that the reroll will not retainthe ancient or primal property of the original item, and all of your(potentially desirable) rolls from the original items will be gone as well. Beprepared for the whims of RNG by rerolling a spare item, rather than one thatyou are actively wearing.
• Upgrade rares with the Hope of Cain recipe in Kanai's Cube: a second— less efficient, but far cheaper — alternative to obtain Ancientsand Primals is upgrading rares. This recipe will cost you 25 Death's Breaths and50 of each of the generic materials (Reusable Parts, Arcane Dust and VeiledCrystals), and is a reliable source of early Season Ancients, particularlyweapons. It works best with class-specific items.