Slots and stats
Your hero wears four pieces: Helm, Chest, Gloves and Boots. Each slot has its own three stats, and every affix on a piece rolls from that slot's list. The only exception is a cursed affix, which can be any of the 12 stats.
| Slot | Stats it can roll | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Helm | Magic Find of Magic Find | Tower Range of Tower Range | Tower Health of Tower Health |
| Chest | Player XP of Player Experience | Tower Damage of Tower Damage | Tower Kill XP of Tower Kill Experience |
| Gloves | Gold Pickup of Gold | Hero Tower Damage of Player Tower Damage | Companion Tower Damage of the Beastmaster |
| Boots | Boss Damage of Boss Damage | Movement Speed of Movement | Ability CDR of Alacrity |
Every bonus of the same stat adds together across all four pieces. Ability cooldown reduction stops at 75%.
What each stat does
| Stat | Slot | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Magic Find | Helm | Raises the level of the gear that drops for you, so higher rarities show up more often. |
| Tower Range | Helm | Towers reach enemies from further away. |
| Tower Health | Helm | More maximum health for every tower you build. |
| Player XP | Chest | More experience for your hero from everything that grants it, so you level faster. |
| Tower Damage | Chest | More damage from every tower you build. |
| Tower Kill XP | Chest | More tower experience when one of your towers lands the killing blow on an enemy. |
| Gold Pickup | Gloves | More gold from every gold pickup, including shared drops in multiplayer. |
| Hero Tower Damage | Gloves | More damage from the tower your hero is standing on. |
| Companion Tower Damage | Gloves | More damage from the tower your companion is slotted into. |
| Boss Damage | Boots | More tower damage against bosses only. It stacks with Tower Damage. |
| Movement Speed | Boots | Your hero moves faster around the map. |
| Ability CDR | Boots | Shorter cooldowns on your hero's abilities. It adds to set bonuses like the Arcanist set, up to the cap. |
All of these are percentages. A piece showing "+12% Tower Damage" makes your towers deal 12% more damage.
Item level and the level cap
Characters and items both cap at level 50. You can equip an item up to 5 levels above your character's level, so a level 20 hero can wear level 25 gear. An item's level sets its rarity, how strong its primary affix is, and how many secondary affixes it has.
| Rarity | Item level | Secondary affixes |
|---|---|---|
| Common | 1–9 | 0 |
| Uncommon | 10–19 | 1 |
| Rare | 20–29 | 2 |
| Epic | 30–39 | 3 |
| Legendary | 40–50 | 5 |
Primary affix
Every piece has one primary affix, one of its slot's three stats. It is worth +0.5% per item level, from +0.5% at level 1 up to +25% at level 50, and it grows every time the item levels up. You can change which stat it is at the Forge.
Secondary affixes
A piece gains a secondary affix at each of item levels 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50, so a level 50 piece has 5. Each one rolls one of the slot's three stats at +1% to +5%. Secondaries don't grow with level. The tooltip shows the level each one unlocked at, for example "Secondary (Lvl 10)".
Cursed affixes
A Cursed Shard adds one extra affix to a piece, marked Cursed in red on the tooltip. Unlike the others, a cursed affix can be any of the 12 stats, from any slot, at +1% to +5%. That lets you put, say, Boss Damage on a helm.
Cursing is a gamble. Spending a shard flips a coin:
- 50% success: the item keeps everything it had and gains the cursed affix.
- 50% brick: the item is reforged into a random new piece of the same kind (hero gear stays hero gear) with a new level, new primary and new secondaries, and no curse. It is taken off if you were wearing it.
An item can only carry one curse, so a cursed item can't be cursed again. A bricked item comes back uncursed and can be tried again with another shard. Cursed Shards are a rare drop and also come from event rewards. Each character has its own shards.
Upgrading gear
Upgrading spends Rift Gems to raise an item one level at a time, up to 50. Each level adds +0.5% to the primary affix, and reaching level 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 adds a new secondary affix. You can upgrade an item to at most 5 levels above your character's level. You can upgrade during a rift, but the new level takes effect from your next rift.
The cost goes up by one gem every five levels:
| Current item level | Rift Gems per level |
|---|---|
| 1–5 | 1 |
| 6–10 | 2 |
| 11–15 | 3 |
| 16–20 | 4 |
| 21–25 | 5 |
| 26–30 | 6 |
| 31–35 | 7 |
| 36–40 | 8 |
| 41–45 | 9 |
| 46–50 | 10 |
Taking a piece from level 1 to 50 costs 265 Rift Gems in total.
Rerolling at the Forge
Blacksmith Zapan's Forge rerolls an item's primary affix into one of the other two stats for its slot, picked at random, for 25 Rift Gems. The item's level and secondaries stay the same.
Junking
Junking recycles an item you no longer need into Rift Gems: half its level, rounded up, and at least 1. A level 1 item gives 1 gem, a level 25 item gives 13 and a level 50 item gives 25. A junked item is gone for good, so only junk what you will never wear. Hover the Junk button in the inventory to see exactly what you'd get.
Enemy gear
Some gear is made for enemies rather than your hero. You equip it on an enemy type, and it rolls from its own stat list with the same primary, secondary and curse rules. A cursed affix on enemy gear rolls an enemy stat.
| Slot | Enemy stats it can roll | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Boots | Movement Speed | Health | Arrow Resist |
| Helm | Stun Reduction | Slow Reduction | Cannon Resist |
| Chest | Dodge | True Resist | Poison Resist |
| Gloves | Fire Resist | Ice Resist | Lightning Resist |
What the enemy stats do:
- Movement Speed: Enemies walk faster.
- Health: Enemies have more health.
- Dodge: Enemies have a chance to avoid a hit completely.
- Stun Reduction: Stuns on enemies wear off sooner.
- Slow Reduction: Slows on enemies are weaker and wear off sooner.
- Arrow, Cannon, Poison, Fire, Ice and Lightning Resist: Enemies take less damage of that type.
- True Resist: Enemies take less true damage, the type most defences don't reduce.
Set bonuses
Wearing all four pieces of one set turns on its bonuses. The lowest-level piece decides how many are active: one at level 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50. The level 20 and 40 bonuses power up your class's abilities, so they only work on the class the set was made for. The Cinder King set works on any class and gives that class's own level 20 and 40 bonuses.
| Set | Lv 10 | Lv 20 | Lv 30 | Lv 40 | Lv 50 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windrunner's Regalia Archer | +4 Starting Gems | Kill Zone deals 5% max HP every 2s | x2 Arrow damage | Marked Prey kills always drop a gem | Poison towers always crit |
| Forgemaster's Arsenal Engineer | +500 Starting Technology | Blueprint Swap can also swap traps | x2 Cannon damage | Optimized Construction builds a Cannon | Cannon towers 10% chance to stun 1s |
| Ironguard's Bulwark Knight | +250 Starting Gold | Hold the Line deals 5% max HP every 2s | x2 Ice damage | Emergency Repairs builds a Research tower | Ice towers gain AOE attack |
| Arcanist's Vestments Mage | -25% Ability Cooldown | Arcane Surge picks up all items in your maze | x2 Fire damage | Mana Infusion grants 200 XP | Fire towers 10% chance to stun 1s |
| Cinder King's Fury Any class | x2 Arrow & Cannon damage | Your class's Lv 20 bonus | x2 Fire & Ice damage | Your class's Lv 40 bonus | Fire aura: burns enemies within 1 cell of you |