While Diablo 4‘s Legendary gear often steals the show, Unique gear is actually the rarest class of items in the game. In fact, Unique gear is so rare that you could easily spend dozens of hours playing Diablo 4 without finding a single piece.
However, there are many things you can do to increase your odds of finding that incredibly rare (and often quite powerful) class of gear. Here are some of the best Unique farming locations and methods in the game.
Diablo 4: How to Get Unique Items
To find Unique items in Diablo 4, you need to be playing the game on World Tier 3 or World Tier 4. To unlock World Tier 3, you need to complete the Cathedral of Light Capstone Dungeon after beating the campaign. To unlock World Tier 4, you need to complete the Fallen Temple Capstone Dungeon while playing on World Tier 3.
From there, a Unique item can technically drop from any enemy in the game. It’s just that the odds of a Unique item dropping are much higher in certain circumstances. For instance, Unique items not only have a higher chance of dropping in World Tier 4 than in World Tier 3, but World Tier 4 features unique…err…Unique items that can’t be found in World Tier 3.
Beyond that, it seems like you have a higher chance of finding Unique items in specific circumstances. Based on what we know, here are the events, encounters, and circumstances that have the highest chance of dropping Unique items:
– Nightmare Dungeons
– Helltide Events
– World Boss Fights
– Boss Fights
– Elite Enemy Fights
Furthermore, it seems that there are some Unique items that can only be dropped by specific enemies. For instance, The Butcher is the only enemy that can drop The Butcher’s Blade, and Lilith is the only enemy that can drop Mother’s Embrace. The full list of items specific to specific enemies that drop specific items is currently unknown, but it seems like the majority of Unique items can be found in any eligible locations/encounters.
Diablo 4: Are Unique Items More Powerful Than Legendary Items?
As a rule, Unique items are not necessarily more powerful than Legendary items. In fact, many of them can be significantly weaker depending on when you find them. Furthermore, you can only have one Unique item equipped at any time, whereas you can equip as many Legendary items as possible. That makes it much easier to stack beneficial Legendary effects.
However, the power of Unique items is found in their name. They offer abilities and benefits that can not be acquired through any other means. The Diablo 4 team says that you’ll be able to build your character around those Unique abilities, though that hasn’t really been the case in my experience. It’s possible, but it’s far more likely that you’ll choose a Unique that enhances your preferred playstyle.
So far as that goes, though, most endgame builds will utilize a Unique item. Unless you’re pursuing a kind of build that demands a full set of complementary Legendary gear, it’s hard to replace the abilities you get from a Unique item on a piece-by-piece basis. They’re also a ton of fun to play with.
Diablo 4: Can You Extract A Unique Item’s Ability?
At this time, you can not extract a Unique item’s ability in the same way that you can extract a Legendary item’s ability. If you’re ready to get rid of a Unique item, your options are to salvage it, sell it, or store it. There is no way to insert the Unique item’s ability into another item.
Most importantly, Unique items are subject to the same “roll” chances as other items. So let’s say that you find a pair of Penitent Greaves that deal 7-10% more damage to Frozen enemies. The best possible pair of those boots will deal 10% more damage, and the worst will deal 7%. The same is true of all other items, but this is where the limitations of Unique items can become so important. You not only have to get lucky enough to find a Unique item in the first place, but you need to be lucky enough to find the best possible version of that Unique item. The difference probably won’t be that great to most people, but by the time you reach Diablo 4‘s highest levels, you might need the best of the best to survive.
It’s also worth noting that Unique items are not bound to the same “Sacred” and “Ancestral” rules that other items are. In other words, while you can find better Unique items at higher levels, there are no subclasses of Unique items that are inherently better than others.
Diablo 4: How to Farm Unique Items
With the exception of Lilith, there is no enemy in Diablo 4 that is guaranteed to drop a Unique item. Your odds of getting one are entirely based on currently unconfirmed drop percentages. That’s another way of saying that they are entirely based on luck.
However, you can increase your odds of finding a Unique item by exploiting what we do know about drop odds.
For instance, the best places to farm Unique items at the moment are World Tier 4 Nightmare Dungeons. That’s simply because your odds of getting better loot increase at World Tier 4, in Nightmare Dungeons, and when fighting the Elite and boss enemies that Nightmare Dungeons are filled with. They’re the perfect storm of loot odds, and that extends to Unique items. World Tier 3 Nightmare Dungeons are also probably one of your best bets, but…well, we’ll get to that in a second.
So which dungeons should you farm? In my experience, the best farming dungeons are short, filled with mobs, and have easy boss fights/objectives. The boss fight piece is an overlooked part of the equation. Bosses have high loot drop odds, so finding one you can kill quickly is a nice bonus.
Here are some of the best Unique farming dungeons in Diablo 4:
– Iron Hold
– Champion’s Demise
– Maugan’s Works
– Anica’s Claim
Please note that you don’t really have control over which Nightmare dungeons you run as that is dependent on which Nightmare Sigils you get. If you happen to get a Sigil for one of the dungeons above, so much the better. Otherwise, Nightmare dungeons take priority over regular dungeons (unless you find a loot cave glitch).
If you’re playing on World Tier 3, Helltide events and Nightmare Dungeons are probably tied for the best ways to farm Unique gear. Helltide events are arguably the best source for some of the rarest gear in the game regardless of tier, and you should run them whenever you can. While your odds of finding a Unique item don’t seem to necessarily be greater in the open-world portion of a Helltide event (beyond the increased number of Elite enemies you’ll fight), the chests you unlock as part of that event are your most reliable sources for high-quality gear in the game. Mystery Chests, in particular, seem to almost always offer an abundance of Legendary or better gear.
Finally, there are World Bosses. While you should definitely fight World Bosses whenever possible due to the exceptional gear they almost always drop, they’re not exactly a reliable farming method. They only appear a few times a day, they can take quite some time to defeat, and you often rely on help from other players to actually take them down. Fight one when you can, but Helltide events and Nightmare Dungeons are the better farming spots by some distance.