Note this is a community written guide by DiabloHub member Ecocd. If you want your own guide or article spotlighted simply post it on the forums or send me a message directly. However not every community written piece will be accepted.

Some of this information is now outdated, use this as a reference

There have been some questions that have come up on the forums a few times recently regarding item values. I feel this guide will provide new and experienced players information about the relative value of certain stats. This isn’t meant to try to evaluate the values themselves or recommend patterns for buying or selling. It’s an informational guide to help explain why items are selling for the price they do.

I learned my basic information from simple experience and my advanced knowledge from D3Inferno item mods section. None of this is “secret” information so I see no problem with sharing it. The goal is to make our community more efficient in their item evaluation in game and within the Auction House.

I have the most experience with the Demon Hunter so I encourage veterans of the forum with other classes to add their input in the comments section and the forum. This guide doesn’t contain full information on class-specific mods and this is a place whether the community can add value. For instance, how important is Max Arcane Power or Max Fury at clvl 60?

Beginner’s Guide to Value Information

I think there are 4 topics all new Traders should know: Mod basics, Base Stats, Available Important Mods on each piece of equipment and Highly Valuable mod Combinations

[b]You’ll find a better roll on a Chromatic armor Of Omens only about 1.5% of the time[/b]

What is a “mod?”

“Mod” is short for modifier. These are the prefixes and suffixes you see on Magic Items that “modify” the base item. These are known as Magic Properties on the official Diablo 3 site. “Chromatic,” for example is a prefix that generates a range of 51 to 80 Resist All. “Of Omens” is a suffix that indicates an added Intelligence a range of +102 to +169.

You can find a fully comprehensive Patch 1.03 list at d3inferno.com. The author hasn’t updated 2-handed Affixes, unfortunately, but the vast majority of the rest of the information is still accurate.

Rare items have a random combination of between 4 and 6 mods from the list of Magic Properties. I haven’t determined if it’s always an equal number of suffixes and prefixes (and 2/3 split for 5-affixes). Unlike Diablo 2, there are no limitations on which mods can generate on a rare item. Legendary items do, however, have limitations on which mods can spawn as the “Random Magic Properties.”

Base Stats

Base stats all have their own relative value since they have both offensive and defensive characteristics. The offensive properties are tied to a class and the defensive properties are universal to all classes, though each class values them differently. The relative value of each stat fluctuates with the popularity of character builds.

Intelligence

Dexterity

Strength

Vitality

The offensive properties tend to be more valuable up through Hell difficulty, while the defensive properties increase in importance in Inferno.

Available Important Mods

There are a few mods that are more important than others and can only appear on certain pieces of equipment which alters the relative value of those pieces of equipment. For instance, an elite set of Pants are never going to be worth as much as an elite set of Gloves, because Pants simply don’t have the possibility to roll with very important mods (this incidentally increases the importance of having Resist All on Pants). Base stats can appear on all equipment; Resist All and Magic Find can appear on all armor. If a weapon does not have very high damage it generally will have little value regardless of the quality of the mods on it. I’ll list the information by mod and then by equipment.

• Attack Speed: Weapon, Gloves, Ring, Amulet
• Critical Hit Chance: Gloves, Bracers, Helm, Offhand, Ring, Amulet
• Critical Hit Damage: Weapon, Gloves, Ring, Amulet
• Life On Hit: Weapon, Ring, Amulet
• Max Discipline: Cloaks, 1H Crossbows, Quivers
• Arcane Power on Crit: Wizard Hat, Wand, Source
• Sockets: Chest Armor (3), Pants (2), Helm, Ring, Amulet
• Resist All: Belt, Boots, Chest Armor, Pants, Shoulder, Ring, Amulet

• Amulets and Rings: Attack Speed, Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Life on Hit, Gold Find (all bots use GF Rings and Amulets)
• Boots: Movement Speed (worth substantially less without this mod)
• Bracers: Crit Chance
• Chest Armor: 3 sockets
• Cloaks: 8+ Max Discipline, 3 Sockets
• Gloves: Attack Speed, Crit Chance, Crit Damage
• Helm: Socket, Crit Chance
• All Offhand: Crit Chance
• Weapons: Crit Damage, Socket
• Melee Weapons: Life on Hit
• Wizard Hat: Crit chance, Arcane Power on Crit

As you can see, Amulets and Rings have the most flexibility and hence the most potential value. Glove armor is surprisingly a close 2nd since it can have the 3 most important offensive mods and high offensive base stat which makes it potentially extremely valuable. This is no secret as Exalted Grand Vambraces crafting plans are worth nearly 4 times more than any other Exalted Grand plans.

Valuable Mod Combinations

Just about any combination of the above Important Mods will increase the value of the item, sometimes dramatically. Keep an eye out for good rolls on the following combinations for the possibility of a big sale:

• Gloves and Jewelery: Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Attack Speed (any 2 of 3) – every class loves these, but many elite Wizards and Demon Hunters, in particular, live and die with their Crits
• Armor: 71+ Resist All & 51+ Single Resist – many Monks specialize in a single resist to take advantage of the One With Everything passive skill (these are the highest affix levels only available on ilvl 63 armor)
• Weapons: 66%+ Crit Damage & Socket – the socket is worth up to 100% Crit Damage with a Radiant Star Emerald so these make for very good weapons, even with only modest damage (again, 66% Crit Damage is only available on ilvl 63 weapons)
• Wizard Hat: Crit Chance & Arcance Power on Crit – if you also roll a socket and you’ll like find a sale price in 7 figures
• Helm: Socket & 15%+ MF – Double dip on MF with a Topaz adding MF

[b]Yours for only 500,000,000 Gold![/b]

The most valuable items in the game are rings and amulets with Attack Speed, Crit Chance, Crit Damage and good rolls on a Base Stat or Resist All. Gloves can also spawn those mods, but the existence of the Exalted Grand Sovereign Vambraces crafting plans dilutes the market. Perfect amulets have gone for over 1 billion gold (~800-1000 USD). Not that as of right now, rings and amulets can only drop up toe ilvl 62 so the very best mods still cannot roll on jewelry

Addendum for Experienced Players

In this section, we’ll get into the underlying mechanics of how mods spawn on items in Diablo 3. We’ll be pulling very heavily from d3inferno.com here. In particular, a forum member named Azraeil crafted 150 Exalted Grand Sovereign Mails and recorded the stats on every single one in a Google spreadsheet. I want to thank him immensely for this contribution to the community that I feel has gone nearly entirely unrecognized. Perhaps there is other extensive information out there, but I haven’t been able to find it. Check it out here.

Why ilvl 63 items so much more valuable than ilvl 62 items

Everyone knows that ilvl 63 items have the potential to be far better than their ilvl 62 counterparts, but may be surprised at how much better. It only takes a quick glance at the mod tables to realize there’s a systematic substantial jump in the maximum potential quality of mods from ilvl 62 to ilvl 63. This seems to be more pronounced on weapon mods than armor mods.

The most egregious example on weapons of this disparity is Critical Hit Damage. ilvl 62 weapon mods max out at 65% Critical Hit Damage while ilvl 63 maximum mods range up to 100%. Life on Hit maxes out at 657 on ilvl 62 weapons and 959 on ilvl 63.

On the armor side, the biggest differences are on Health Regeneration (410 vs. 599) and Health Globe Bonus (5977 vs. 12,794). Resists, however, don’t follow the same pattern. Resist All maxes out at 70 for ilvl 62 items and 80 for ilvl 63 items. Chest armor’s Bonus Armor mod maxes at 360 and 397 for ilvl 62 and 63, respectively. This is why you’ll see a curiously large disparity in prices between armor with 500 Health Regeneration and armor with 400 Health Regeneration. There is over twice as much armor out there with 400 Health Regeneration than 500.

Another trend that I noticed from Azraeil’s table is that some rolls skew towards the upper end of a mod’s range while others do not. For his ilvl 62 chest armor, Resists and Melee Reduction are heavily biased towards the upper end of the potential mod range. The maximum Resist All mod for ilvl 62 is ResistAll VI ranging 61-70 Resist All. Of approximately 94 chest armors he rolled with Resist All, 37 rolled ResistAll VI (39%), 19 rolled ResistAll V (20%) and the remaining 40% rolled about evenly between ResistAll II, III and IV. Rolling a Resist All 61 is actually more likely than rolling a Resist All 51 on ilvl 62 chest armor.

Meanwhile, Life % on armor (Life Secondary) does not appear to be as skewed towards the upper end. Of the 49 chest armors that rolled with Life %, 16% of them rolled Life II Secondary, 29% rolled Life III Secondary, 22% rolled Life IV Secondary and 33% rolled Life V Secondary. It still looks like it’s biased towards the upper end, but not as steeply.

I suspect each mod has its own roll distribution on each piece of equipment. I don’t have the 17 million Gold it would take to roll 150 Exalted Grand Sovereign Vambraces or the 12.5 million to roll 150 Exalted Fine Sovereign Vambraces, but I have thought about spending 850k Gold to roll 450 Magic ilvl 58 gloves. I will be sure to include this information in a forum thread if I gather these data. Of course, if someone is already crafting Exalted Grand Sovereign Vambraces for profit, I’d be interested in getting my hands on the raw data including the trash crafts.

[b]AH hasn’t had a better roll in 3 weeks and it was available for only 500,000 Gold[/b]

If you have read this far, you get one bonus fact that could be worth some Gold far down the road. One thing many players may not be aware of is that Cold Damage on weapons maxes out much lower than all other elemental damages. For example, the minimum bonus cold damage on hand crossbows and ceremonial knives maxes out at 143 while every other element maxes it’s minimum damage at 250 (ColdD 14 Fast, Damage_Weapon_Min). Unlike all other elemental damages, cold damage retained its additional effect of Slow on Hit through all beta versions and patches. I tested this and it looks like it’s about 30% slow and snares on 100% of hits.

This has the potential, at least, to be particularly relevant to PvP. A skill-free way to slow opponents could be very valuable, if not necessary, in the Arena. It could also prove not to be worth the decrease in damage. A low-risk investment in godly affixes, but not-so-godly dps (because cold damage caps lower), could be worth something extra when they announce the PvP release.

I encourage readers to share their recent experience in selling items in the comments section and in the Forum. One area to expand upon would be Legendary and Set item pricing. While much of the above applies to Legendaries and Set items, there are always going to be some differences in their valuation rules.