loot-mechanics · September 20, 2026
How to Grade Your Diablo 4 Loot in Season 15
Learn to read Item Power, Greater Affixes & Ancestral rolls in Season 15. Or skip the math — scan your gear at Stat Verdict for instant grades.
Loot grading in Diablo 4 has always been part math, part instinct. But Season 15 — Season of Hell's Legacy — piled on enough new systems that even veteran players are second-guessing what to keep and what to shatter. Soul Splinters carry hidden liabilities, Mythics come stamped with Crafted tags, and resistance math got flipped on its head. This guide walks you through how to actually read a drop this season, step by step. And if you'd rather skip the arithmetic entirely, that's what we built Stat Verdict for.
Start With Item Power (The Caps Still Matter)
Item Power (IP) is your first filter, and the two thresholds that mattered last season still apply now. Non-Ancestral gear caps at 850 IP. Ancestral and Mythic items cap at 900 IP. That gap isn't cosmetic — it determines the ceiling on your affix rolls and whether an item is worth investing Masterworking materials into.
A few things changed in 3.2.1 that affect how you read IP:
- All Uniques now drop at level 1 in any difficulty. A low-IP Unique isn't garbage — it's a candidate. Any Unique at 850+ IP can be crafted into a Mythic Unique through the Horadric Cube, and the output always lands in the same gear slot.
- All Uniques now roll with 2 guaranteed affixes. That baseline consistency means you're grading the roll quality, not gambling on whether it has usable stats at all.
So when you're staring at a fresh drop, don't just check the number. Ask whether it's Ancestral, whether it clears 850, and whether it's a Unique worth a Mythic conversion later. IP tells you the ceiling — the affixes tell you if you should chase it.
Reading Greater Affixes — And Why They Save Magic and Rare Bases
Greater Affixes (GAs) are the single most important thing to spot on any drop. They roll higher than a standard affix and are marked with that distinct upgrade icon. One GA is good. Two is excellent. Three is a keeper you build around.
Here's the part a lot of players still miss in Season 15: Magic and Rare items with Greater Affixes are crafting candidates — never salvage them. The Horadric Cube's Affix Value Reroll rerolls an item's base affixes while protecting Greater Affixes. That means an item with two great GAs and a trash base roll isn't dead — it's recoverable. You reroll the bad base stats and keep the GAs locked in.
This flips the old salvage reflex. That Rare ring with a Greater Affix on Critical Strike Chance but a mediocre base? Keep it. Cube it. It might outperform a "clean" item once you fix the base roll.
Not sure whether a GA combination is worth the Cube investment? Scan your gear at statverdict.com — it flags Greater Affixes automatically and tells you whether an item is a crafting base or a salvage.
Build Priority Beats Raw Stat Totals
The most common grading mistake is adding up big numbers and calling an item great. Raw stat totals lie. A chest with a huge All Resistance roll looks impressive until you realize your build doesn't need it — and in Season 15, that math changed anyway.
Resistance Got Revalued
This is a big one. A Single Resistance affix is now worth roughly seven times an All Resistance affix — on equipment, Charms, and Tempering alike. All Resistance is no longer strictly better than one element. If your build is dying to Fire in a specific pit, a single Fire Resistance roll does far more work than a spread-thin All Res roll. Grade accordingly.
Match Affixes to Your Class
What counts as an S-tier affix depends entirely on what you're playing:
- Barbarians want Strength, Overpower Damage, and weapon-specific damage over generic offense.
- Sorcerers chase Intelligence, Critical Strike Damage, and their damage-type multipliers depending on the current Splinter of Evil.
- Rogues prioritize Dexterity, Critical Strike Chance, and Vulnerable Damage.
- Druids and Necromancers lean on their core stat plus cooldown and resource affixes that keep their rotations flowing.
Also watch for slot traps among this season's nine Legacy Uniques. Nemesis Bracers occupy your GLOVES slot, and Squirt's Blouse is a CHEST piece — equipping either means giving up the affixes you'd normally get from those slots. That's a build decision, not a raw-power decision, and it's exactly the kind of thing a stat total won't tell you.
Special Cases: Soul Splinters and Always-Max Mythics
Soul Splinter Liabilities — Always Name the Downside
Season 15 introduced Soul Splinters: eight new socketables for jewelry sockets, with up to three equipped at once and upgraded via Amalgamation in the Cube. Every Soul Splinter carries a boon and a liability. You cannot grade one on its boon alone.
Before you socket a Soul Splinter, name its downside out loud. A splinter that boosts your damage but slashes your resource generation might wreck a spender-heavy build while being perfect for a proc build. The liability is the whole story — a "great" splinter in the wrong build is a C-tier mistake.
Mythics Roll at Maximum
Two Mythic details reshape how you grade high-end gear this season:
- Enchanting now works on Uniques and Mythic Uniques, and any affix you add to a Mythic is max-rolled. That removes the roll-quality gamble at the top end — you're grading the affix choice, not the number.
- The 'Upgrade Direct Item to Mythic' craft is a 1:1 transfer that keeps affixes, Tempering, and Masterworking — but it stamps a Crafted tag, and only one Crafted Mythic can be equipped at a time. Jeweler and Blacksmith Mythics carry no tag and are unlimited. Spend your single Crafted slot on the item that gains the most from the upgrade.
Since 3.2.1, you can even reroll the powers of Unique items and Unique Charms in the Cube, so a Unique with the right stats but the wrong power isn't a lost cause anymore.
Let the Numbers Grade Themselves
All of this — IP caps, GA protection, resistance revaluation, splinter liabilities, Crafted-tag limits — is a lot to hold in your head mid-farm. That's the pitch: skip the spreadsheet. Screenshot any drop and statverdict.com returns an S–D grade, a plain-language verdict, and build-specific advice in seconds.
Quick Recap
Grade in this order: check Item Power against the 850/900 caps, spot Greater Affixes (and never salvage a Magic or Rare that has one), weigh affixes against your actual build rather than raw totals, remember that a Single Resistance now beats All Res roughly sevenfold, and always name the liability on any Soul Splinter before you socket it. Do that consistently and your stash stops filling with junk.
Or do none of that and let us do it for you — scan your gear at Stat Verdict and get your verdict before the loot beam even fades.