Items and mechanics connected to them are one of the mechanics in Diablo 2 and, frankly, every game in the Diablo Franchise. Each item dropped has special properties that allow for that certain item to be further customized and enhanced. This is where imbuing and socketing come in, and the general rules might be a bit confusing for new players and veteran players returning to the game after a long break. Due to that, we’ve decided to put together this guide to answer all your questions regarding item upgrade systems. Now, let’s see can you reroll and imbue socketed items in Diablo II?

You cannot reroll sockets in Diablo 2. Once the item has been dropped with a certain number of sockets, there’s no way to add more sockets to it. Socketed items also cannot be imbued. Imbuing is the process that can be done only once on a white non-socketed item. Already imbued items also cannot be re-imbued.

Now that we’ve covered that socketed items cannot be imbued and that the number of sockets is fixed, it’s time to analyze it in a bit more detail. If you’re interested in socketing and imbuing rules, stay with us and keep reading!

What are sockets in Diablo 2?

Sockets are in their base form placeholders for other “socketable” items. Sockets are holes on your items where other items might be inserted, such as runes, gems, and jewels. Sockets are represented by gray circles in the user interface, and the number of circles directly corresponds to the number of items you can socket into that specific item.

Sockets can greatly improve the quality of your items (depending on what you decide to socket, of course) and are a great way to diversify and improve your item in the areas you feel that it’s lacking. And even though the socket system works great and it’s highly useful, there are some rules attached to it.

A single item in Diablo 2 cannot have more than six sockets. The number of sockets that your item will drop depends on the difficulty of the boss that dropped the item. For example, at Normal difficulty, the highest number of sockets that your item can have is 3. This number goes up to a maximum of 5 sockets at Nightmare difficulty and reaches the maximum number of 6 at Hell difficulty. The number of sockets is also related to the number of inventory blocks that the item occupies, as the number of sockets cannot surpass it under no circumstances.

This means that every type of item in Diablo 2 has a different maximum number of sockets unrelated to the difficulty at which it was dropped. For example, weapons that take up the most inventory space can have up to 6 sockets, armors and shields can have up to 4 sockets, and helms can have up to 3 sockets and no more.

Can you add more sockets to items in Diablo 2?

You can’t add more sockets to an item. As you can see, the maximum number of sockets that you can have is strictly defined by both the space that the items occupy in the inventory and by the difficulty on which a specific item dropped.

If you are, however, unsatisfied with your initial choice of items that you’ve decided to socket, you can always extract the gems, jewels, and runes and replace them with new socketable items. This is done via Horadric Cube, and the process can be repeated as many times as you like. Keep in mind that extracting old socketed items to replace them with new ones will result in the loss of your items. Extracted jewels, runes, and gems cannot be salvaged, at least not in Diablo 2.

Can you imbue socketed items in Diablo 2?

Imbuin is a process of turning your common (white) item into a rare one. Imbuing will add different bonuses depending on your level and the level of the item that you wish to imbue. Generally, it is not possible to imbue socketed items in Diablo 2. This is because socketed items are already considered to be magical and have a set of bonuses due t previous upgrades.

You also cannot re-imbue already imbued items. Imbuing is available once per difficulty only, which means that you can imbue three items per character, one on each difficulty. Imbuing a certain item is definitely not something that you wish to do without rethinking the item in question several times. Since imbuing is extremely limited, it’s best to put it off at late levels. The higher the quality of your items, the better bonuses, and stats it will get after imbuing is complete.

How do you imbue items?

Imbuing is not something that you absolutely need to do, but the service becomes available relatively early in the game; during Act I. tools of the Trade, the quest which makes imbuing available, is easy to miss due to being non-essential. Because of this, you should be careful when you explore Monastery Barracks since it’s easy to miss the local smith Charsi that gives you both the quest and the opportunity to imbue your items. You will need to recover Charsi’s Horadric Malus, her “tool of the trade.” If you manage to defeat the mini-boss and retrieve her hammer for her, she will give you a chance to imbue a single item.

Don’t feel pressured to imbue the item right then and there. You can always return to Charsi with the right after, even at max level, and she will imbue it. This is probably the best course of action since imbuing weak items will result in slightly stronger items but not by much.

And that’s it. As you can see, the number of sockets on an item cannot be rerolled, and socketed items cannot be imbued. There are plenty of mechanics that allow you to further improve your items, but those two are definitely off-limits for socketed items.

A majority of your success in Diablo 3 will depend on your items. Items are at the core of every Diablo game, so there it doesn’t surprise us that there are many mechanics and systems in the game associated with them. We’ve recently covered socketing in Diablo II, and now it’s time to explain this mechanic in Diablo 3 as well. One thing, in particular, is of interest to many returning and new players, and that’s adding sockets to items. Before we begin with the analysis, let’s answer the base question first, can you add sockets to items in Diablo 3?

You can add sockets to items in Diablo 3. You can use Ramaladni’s Gift to add a socket to a weapon that already doesn’t have one. You can also use the services of a mystic, Myriam Jahzia, added with the Reaper of Souls, to transform the primary property of other socketable items into an empty socket. The sockets created cannot exceed the maximum limit for sockets on any item. 

Now that we’ve covered that you can, in fact, add sockets to items in Diablo 3, it’s time to analyze how. If you’re interested in more about socketing and under which circumstances sockets can be added, stay with us and keep reading!

What are sockets in Diablo 3? 

Sockets are holes in your items that serve as placeholders for gems, runes, and jewels. By empowering your items with gems, runes, and jewels, you can greatly increase the stats of your weapons and other types of gear. The number of grey circles you see on your user interface corresponds to a single socket. A single socket can hold only 1 item (for example, a single weapon socket can only hold one gem). Socketing can make your items extremely powerful, and this is why there are certain limits implemented. 

The maximum number of sockets that you can have on a certain item was greatly reduced in Diablo 3 when compared to Diablo 2, but this balanced itself out with the fact that several new types of items can have sockets, such as jewelry. The maximum number of sockets that an item can have depends greatly on the type of item. Weapons, Helms, Shields, Off-Hand items, Amulets, and Rings can have only a single socket. Pants can have two sockets, and Armor can have a maximum of 3 sockets. Under the best circumstances, the most sockets you can have is 11, and this number cannot be changed. 

You can replace the gems, runes, or jewels in the sockets at any time by visiting the jeweler. The items extracted from the sockets can be salvaged (one more change when compared to Diablo 2). 

Can you add sockets to items? 

You can have sockets to items, but only if the item doesn’t have one, but it could have. For example, you can add a single socket to a weapon that doesn’t have a socket, but you can’t add an additional socket. The same goes for any other item type. Sockets can be added only if they don’t go over the already established limit. You can add sockets to items in Diablo 3 by using Ramaladni’s Gift or visiting an Artisan. In the rest of this post, we’re going to explain both approaches. 

Adding a socket to an item via Ramaladni’s Gift

Ramaladni’s Gift is a torment-only random world drop that allows you to add a socket to a weapon that already doesn’t have one. Additionally, you can use Ramaladni’s Gift to modify a weapon with a socket, but the socket has to be removed prior to the attempt through enchanting. 

You cannot use Ramaladni’s Gift to add a second socket to your weapons since it’s impossible for a weapon to have two sockets. 

Ramaladni’s Gift is a single-use item that will be destroyed after you use it. It can be used on a single weapon twice only if the first socket has been removed.

Adding a socket to an item by visiting Mystic Artisan

You can add a socket to an item that already doesn’t have one by visiting Mystic Myriam Jahzia. Myriam Jahzia was added to the Reaper of Souls expansion, and she offers transmogrification and enchanting services. Through enchanting, you can select one primary property to re-roll into a socket. The number of sockets you acquire through enchanting cannot exceed the maximum limit of sockets that an item can have. You cannot re-roll legendary special properties. 

Re-rolling property is not free, and it usually costs gold and certain materials. The more powerful the item is, the rarer the material needed will be, and overall the cost of enchanting will be higher. You cannot use enchanting services to re-roll additional affix into a second socket (if the item cannot have two sockets), and once the item has been modified through enchanting, it cannot be traded to another player. It becomes account-bound. 

You can find Mystic Artisan in all major times if you have completed Act 5. As of patch 2.2.1, you don’t have to own Reaper of Souls expansion to have access to Mystic Artisan. This was a welcome change as originally, Diablo 3 Vanilla players did not have access to her services.

Summary

As you can see, players can add sockets to items in Diablo 3, and they have two ways of doing it. First, you can use an item called Ramaladni’s Gift to add a socket to a weapon that doesn’t have one but only once. The item also works only on weapons, so don’t attempt to use it on jewelry or other types of items. Second, you can visit Mystic Artisan in towns to re-roll a single primary property of an item into a socket, but only if the item doesn’t have a socket already. Special legendary properties cannot be re-rolled, and it will cost you. The cost depends on the quality of an item. You can likewise employ enchanting services to remove a socket for an item.