Diablo 4 Season 11: How the New Gear Progression System Works

Season 11 has arrived in Diablo 4, and it’s shaking up the game in a way that players have been waiting for. For the first time, players can take full control over their equipment progression. With three major systems—Tempering, Masterworking, and Sanctification—your gear journey is now a mix of strategy, planning, and personalization. No more leaving your power level up to RNG luck.

Tempering: Forge Gear Your Way

The first step in this new system is Tempering, also known as forging. In previous seasons, upgrading your gear often felt like rolling the dice. Do you get the stat you want, or waste resources on something useless? Season 11 fixes this problem. With Tempering, you choose which attributes to enhance, giving you a level of control that’s completely new to Diablo IV.

Imagine you’re playing a Barbarian who wants to maximize physical damage. With Tempering, you can boost Strength and Critical Strike while ignoring stats like Intelligence or Elemental Damage that are irrelevant. Or maybe you’re a Sorceress focused on elemental mastery—you can funnel upgrades into Intelligence and Spell Damage, making every piece of gear fit your build perfectly.

The best part? Tempering doesn’t just affect early progression. The choices you make here set the foundation for the next stages of gear evolution—Masterworking and Sanctification. This means strategic thinking early on pays off big later. Every stat you pick has a ripple effect on your endgame potential, giving the early-to-mid game a surprising depth of strategy.

Masterworking: Boost Gear Quality

Once your gear has been tempered, the next step is Masterworking. If Tempering is about choosing direction, Masterworking is about powering it up. This system focuses on improving the overall quality of your items, boosting core stats like damage, defense, and health. Suddenly, the armor or weapon you picked up at the start of the season becomes significantly stronger.

Masterworking also amplifies the stats you carefully chose during Tempering. If you’ve been building your Barbarian for high critical damage, Masterworking will make that stat hit even harder. For competitive players or those chasing high-level content, this step is essential. It’s what turns carefully curated gear into a tool that can handle Capstone dungeons, elite world bosses, or high-level Nightmare difficulty.

Essentially, Tempering is your blueprint, and Masterworking is your construction phase. Miss a step early on, and you’ll feel it later—but get it right, and your gear evolves into something that’s both strong and specialized.

Sanctification: The Ultimate Enhancement

At the pinnacle of Season 11’s gear system lies Sanctification. This is for players who want to push their gear to its absolute limit. If Tempering is your plan, and Masterworking is your build, then Sanctification is your ultimate execution.

Sanctification lets you:

Unlock extra legendary attributes, giving your equipment powerful new effects

Upgrade existing affixes, multiplying their impact and boosting your overall output

Gain special bonuses, offering perks and quality increases you can’t get anywhere else

This is endgame content in a nutshell. It’s designed for perfecting equipment and tackling the toughest challenges the game offers. High-level Capstone dungeons, elite bosses, and competitive scenarios all demand gear refined through Sanctification. For those chasing the ultimate power spike, this is the system you can’t ignore.

Why Season 11 Changes Everything

Season 11’s new gear progression system is a game-changer for Diablo IV. For the first time, players can take full control of their growth, with a clear path from early game to endgame.

RNG is no longer your master: You pick the stats you want, not the game.

Strategic decisions matter: Your early Tempering choices influence Masterworking and Sanctification, giving weight to every upgrade.

Long-term goals are clear: With Sanctification, you have a tangible, rewarding endpoint to work toward.

This system also opens up new ways to experiment with builds. Want a Barbarian who’s all about bleed damage, or a Sorceress who dominates with Frost spells? Season 11 isn’t just a minor update; it’s a full-scale evolution of how Diablo 4 handles gear. It rewards planning, encourages experimentation, and gives players long-term goals that are both satisfying and challenging.