Farming/Upgrading Legendary Gems and Crafting Normal Gems

Commonly looted from slain monsters and in-game rewards such as bounties, the so-called standard or normal gems (Amethysts, Diamonds, Emeralds, Rubies, and Topazes) slot into equipment with sockets. Items that can roll sockets as a stat include headpiece equipment, amulets, chest armors, rings, pants, weapons, shields, and class-specific off-hand items. However, you should only use them in jewelry until you obtain legendary gems, which provide more powerful bonuses. We need to place a specific type of gem into equipment depending on the build and stats of our items. The information below will help you decide what gems to use in your spec.

To briefly go over the different stat bonuses provided by these gems when socketed into the different item slot types, refer to the table below. We delve into the stat gains from these specific normal gems further on in this article.

The Amethyst is a gem that strictly provides defensive stat increases that boost health and life restoration.

• Amethysts are most commonly considered for socketing into a headpiece, where they give a percentage-based Life increase, scaling with the quality of the gem used (up to 23% for a Flawless Royal Amethyst). Amethysts are the default headpiece gem to fall back to for builds that do not aim for specific Cooldown Reduction or Resource Cost Reduction breakpoints or where player preference is given leeway for the specs’ focus, such as the Immortal King Raekor Furious Charge.
• Amethysts are also used in weapon sockets in support builds — e.g., Support Barbarian, Support Monk, Support Demon Hunter, etc. When socketed into weapons, Amethysts scale the Life per Hit restorative bonus (up to 28,000 Life per Hit for a Flawless Royal Amethyst). Support builds do not require the damage scaling that other gems provide and should focus entirely on maintaining their survivability, making the use of this gem preferable.
• Amethysts are rarely considered for armor sockets, where they provide Vitality increases (up to 280 for a Flawless Royal Amethyst). Except for statistical outliers of poor Vitality rolls across gear, other forms of mitigation coming from the other gems are preferred for the armor sockets.

The Diamond is a multi-purpose gem that significantly varies in the provided bonuses between the possible slots you can allocate it to.

• Diamonds are most commonly considered for socketing into a headpiece. They provide a percentage-based Cooldown Reduction increase, scaling with the quality of the gem used (up to 12.5% for a Flawless Royal Diamond) — one of the best sources of CDR in the game. A vast number of builds require either pure CDR stacking or reaching a specific Cooldown Reduction breakpoint, which means accumulating enough CDR for a specific in-game gain (i.e., the overlap of the uptime of a certain skill, thus allowing for a permanent effect). Others use the Captain Crimson's Trimmings set, whose 3-piece bonus scales damage dealt by the percentage of the character’s cooldown reduction.
• Diamonds are often considered for socketing into armor pieces (chest, pants, or both) on Strength and Dexterity-based classes (Barbarians, Crusaders, Monks, and Demon Hunters). The main attributes of these classes scale their Armor, making the All Resistance provided by Diamonds (up to 78 for a Flawless Royal Diamond) socketed into armor the preferable form of mitigation as a rule of thumb.
• When socketed into weapons, Diamonds provide a percentage-based increase of damage against Elite enemies (up to 20% for a Flawless Royal Diamond). Due to superior sources of this particular stat and more universal sources of damage in this particular slot, socketing Diamonds into weapons is not a viable choice.
• As a final side note, you can socket a Diamond in your follower’s headpiece, but note that the Templar’s Heal is the solitary follower skill that can make use of CDR across all companions.

As one of the mainstat gems, the Emerald splits its bonuses evenly between utility, offense, and defense.

• Emeralds are commonly used across all classes and damage-oriented builds when it comes to weapon sockets, where they provide an increase to the Critical Hit Damage stat (up to 130% for a Flawless Royal Emerald). The only exception to this rule are support builds, which are strictly there for the utility of the group and are not meant to deal any damage whatsoever, and Thorns builds — i.e., Bombardment Crusader. Thorns damage cannot deal critical hits, rendering Emeralds useless in this slot.
• Dexterity-based classes (Demon Hunters, Monks) can use Emeralds in armor piece sockets (chest, pants) as they scale their main stat in these slots (up to 280 for a Flawless Royal Emerald). Main stats provide a damage multiplier to their respective classes, and the gains coming from gems socketed into armor will be sensible during the initial character progression, during speed farming, and in rare circumstances during Greater Rift group play and GR solo progression. Note that due to Paragon scaling, maintstat gems will be inevitably be outclassed by damage mitigation gems, especially when it comes to solo GR pushing.
• Intelligence-based classes (Necromancers, Witch Doctors, Wizards) can use Emeralds for toughness scaling during GR progression. The main attribute of these classes scales their All Resistance, making the Armor provided by Emeralds socketed into armor the preferable form of mitigation as a rule of thumb.
• Emeralds are rarely — but viably — considered for socketing into a headpiece, where they provide a bonus to the Gold Find stat (up to 41% for a Flawless Royal Emerald). Additional Gold Find can be valuable when you farm up gold for augmentations, whose prices ramp up quickly, or when trying to complete the Avarice Conquest.
• Emeralds should be socketed into your Scoundrel follower’s chest armor, pants and jewelry. Starting from Patch 2.7.0 onwards, Dexterity (the Scoundrel’s main attribute) scales the effect of his abilities, making it an important inclusion in gearing. Note that followers gain 2.5 times more attributes from items and gems.

As one of the mainstat gems, the Ruby splits its bonuses evenly between utility, offense, and defense.

• When socketed into headpieces, Rubies will provide a percentage-based increase in experience gain (up to 4.1% for a Flawless Royal Ruby at level 70). Socketing headpiece Rubies is almost universally considered on support characters only and does not take precedence over reaching cooldown or resource cost reduction requirements or having enough toughness to survive. Note that the additional experience will be divided between group members, making for a marginal difference on a run-by-run basis, but one that builds up over time.
• Strength-based classes (Barbarians, Crusaders) can use Rubies in armor piece sockets (chest, pants) as they scale their main stat in these slots (up to 280 for a Flawless Royal Ruby). Main stats provide a damage multiplier to their respective classes, and the gains coming from gems socketed into armor will be sensible during the initial character progression, during speed farming, and in rare circumstances during Greater Rift group play and GR solo progression. Note that due to Paragon scaling, maintstat gems will be inevitably be outclassed by damage mitigation gems, especially when it comes to solo GR pushing.
• Intelligence-based classes (Necromancers, Witch Doctors, Wizards) can use Rubies for toughness scaling during GR progression. The main attribute of these classes scales their All Resistance, making the Armor provided by Rubies socketed into armor the preferable form of mitigation as a rule of thumb.
• Rubies are commonly used in weapon sockets during the 1-to-70 leveling process since they provide a flat damage increase, and leveling characters usually do not have enough Critical Hit Chance to benefit from the Crit Damage offered by Emeralds.
• Rubies should be socketed into your Templar follower’s chest armor, pants and jewelry. Starting from Patch 2.7.0 onwards, Strength (the Templar’s main attribute) scales the effect of his abilities, making it an important inclusion in gearing. Note that followers gain 2.5 times more attributes from items and gems. As a final side note, you can socket a Ruby in your follower’s headpiece for up to 0.82% experience increase (or 20% of the amount you would gain from wearing it yourself), provided you do not need a Diamond for Templar’s cooldown reduction benefits.

While it is one of the mainstat gems, the Topaz is a multi-purpose gem that significantly varies in the provided bonuses between the possible slots you can allocate it to.

• Topazes are most commonly considered for socketing into a headpiece. They provide a percentage-based Resource Cost Reduction increase, scaling with the quality of the gem used (up to 12.5% for a Flawless Royal Topaz) — one of the best sources of RCR in the game. Some builds require either pure RCR stacking or reaching a specific Resource Cost Reduction breakpoint, which means accumulating enough RCR for a specific in-game gain (i.e., the care-free spam of a certain skill, allowing you to focus on positioning — such as the SWK Tempest Rush Monk). Others use the Captain Crimson's Trimmings set, whose 3-piece bonus scales damage reduction by the percentage of the character’s resource cost reduction.
• Intelligence-based classes (Necromancers, Witch Doctors, Wizards) can use Topazes in armor piece sockets (chest, pants) as they scale their main stat in these slots (up to 280 for a Flawless Royal Topaz). Main stats provide a damage multiplier to their respective classes, and the gains coming from gems socketed into armor will be sensible during the initial character progression, during speed farming, and in rare circumstances during Greater Rift group play and GR solo progression. Note that due to Paragon scaling, maintstat gems will be inevitably be outclassed by damage mitigation gems, especially when it comes to solo GR pushing.
• Topazes have a specific weapon socket use since they provide an increase to the Thorns Damage stat (up to 38,000 for a Flawless Royal Topaz), making them the mandatory weapon socket gem for Thorns builds — i.e., Bombardment Crusader. Thorns damage cannot deal critical hits, rendering the usual recommendation for Emeralds useless in this slot.
• Topazes should be socketed into your Enchantress follower’s chest armor, pants and jewelry. Starting from Patch 2.7.0 onwards, Intelligence (the Enchantress’s main attribute) scales the effect of her abilities, making it an important inclusion in gearing. Note that followers gain 2.5 times more attributes from items and gems.

While you will find and frequently swap between lower-tier gems as you level up from 1 to 70, we do not recommend that you save them up or try to upgrade them into the baseline gems for a max level character, the Marquise tier. The leveling process and the progression through those early gem tiers (Flawless, Square, Star) are too quick to make pre-70 gem crafting viable or meaningful.

At Level 70, the most basic gems you can find are Marquise gems, for example Marquise Emerald. You can upgrade these gems all the way to Flawless Royal Emerald. All the gem types follow the same upgrade patterns, which we describe below for Emerald gems.

• 1x Imperial Emerald costs 3x Marquise Emerald + 200,000 Gold.
• 1x Flawless Imperial Emerald costs 3x Imperial Emerald + 300,000 Gold.
• 1x Royal Emerald costs 3x Flawless Imperial Emerald + 1x Death's Breath + 400,000 Gold.
• 1x Flawless Royal Emerald costs 3x Royal Emerald + 1x Death's Breath + 500,000 Gold.

This means that to craft a single Flawless Royal Emerald, you will need a total of 81x Marquise Emerald, 4x Death's Breath, and 9,800,000 Gold. Imperial gems do sometimes drop at Level 70, so having a few of those will lower the cost, but the overall cost is extremely cheap compared to the amount of gold you will find at Level 70.

You also need to find the Jeweler's patterns for these gems, which can be found in the Bounty Cache you obtain from completing five bounties in a single act.

Note that you are able to convert gems from one type to another (i.e. Topazes into Rubies) via the Darkness of Radament recipe in Kanai's Cube. This is a quick and simple way to attain the highest tier of the gem type you need early in a Season, since it only requires the purchase of an essence of the gem type you need from the Act 2 merchant Squirt the Peddler and nine gems of a single type you do not need, which are then converted in the Cube. Said essences are under the Miscelaneous tab of the vendor and only require 500k gold, which is a trivial amount in the Diablo 3 endgame. If you wish to learn more about the recipes of Kanai's Cube and how they can allow you shortcuts into endgame optimization of your character, follow the link below.

Legendary gems are obtained from Greater Rifts. You are guaranteed to get one every time you kill a Greater Rift Guardian.

Unlike normal gems, legendary gems can only be increased in power by upgrading them through Greater Rifts.

Each time you complete a greater rift, you will be able to upgrade the gem by a single rank, with 3 guaranteed chances at an upgrade if you complete the rift in time. Additionally, you will get an extra chance if you do not die during the rift or if you empower it when starting the rift using gold. By doing both, you can have a maximum of 5 upgrade chances per Greater Rift.

Each upgrade is given a percentage chance to succeed, dependant on the level of the gem and the Greater Rift level you completed. Currently, the chances are as follows:

• 100%: Greater Rift Level higher than or equal to Gem's Rank + 10;
• 90%: Greater Rift Level ≥ Gem's Rank + 9;
• 80%: Greater Rift Level = Gem's Rank + 8;
• 70%: Greater Rift Level = Gem's Rank + 7;
• 60%: Gem's Rank + 6 ≥ Greater Rift Level ≥ 0;
• 30%: Greater Rift Level = Gem's Rank - 1;
• 15%: Greater Rift Level = Gem's Rank - 2;
• 8%: Greater Rift Level = Gem's Rank - 3;
• 4%: Greater Rift Level = Gem's Rank - 4;
• 2%: Greater Rift Level = Gem's Rank - 5;
• 1%: Greater Rift Level = Gem's Rank - 6;
• 0%: Greater Rift Level ≤ Gem's Rank - 7.

All legendary gems can be upgraded to give them better stats (or rather, more powerful effects). When you first loot a legendary gem, it has a rank of 0 and its special Rank 25 effect is locked.

There are currently 23 legendary gems in the game, with 22 readily available at any time and 1 seasonal gem.

• Bane of the Powerful — grants 20% increased damage for 30 seconds after killing an elite pack. Each upgrade increases the duration of the effect by 1 second.
  • Rank 25 bonus — gain 15% increased damage versus elites and take 15% reduced damage from elites.
• Bane of the Stricken — each attack you make against an enemy increases the damage it takes from your attacks 0.8%. Each upgrade increases the damage increase by 0.01%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — gain 25% increased damage against Rift Guardians and bosses.
• Bane of the Trapped — increases damage done to enemies under control-impairing effects by 15%. Each upgrade increases the damage increase by 0.3%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — gain an aura that slows the movement speed of enemies within 15 yards by 30%.
• Boon of the Hoarder — 25% chance on killing an enemy to create an explosion of gold. Each upgrade increases the chance by 1.5%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — gain 30% movement speed for 3 seconds after picking up gold.
  • Note: this gem cannot be upgraded past Rank 50.
• Boyarsky's Chip — Adds 16000 Thorns. Each upgrade increases the amount by 800.
  • Rank 25 bonus — taunt the first enemy hit by Primary skills for 2 seconds.
• Enforcer — increases the damage of your pets by 15%. Each upgrade increases the damage by 0.3%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — your pets take 90% less damage.
• Esoteric Alteration — gain 10% non-Physical damage reduction. Each upgrade increases the damage reduction by 0.5%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — while below half Life, your resistances to Cold, Fire, Lightning, Poison, and Arcane are increased by 75%.
• Gem of Ease — monster kills grant 500 additional experience. Each upgrade gives an additional 50 experience.
  • Rank 25 bonus — the level requirement of the weapon this is socketed into is set to 1.
• Gem of Efficacious Toxin — poison all enemies hit for 2000% damage as Poison over 10 seconds. Each upgrade increases the damage dealt by 50%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — poisoned enemies also take 10% increased damage from all sources and deal 10% less damage with all attacks.
• Gogok of Swiftness — on each hit, gain 1% increased Attack Speed and 0.5% Dodge chance for 4 seconds, stacking up to 15 times. Each upgrade increases the dodge chance per hit by 0.01%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — also gain 1% cooldown reduction per stack of Swiftness.
• Iceblink — your Cold skills now apply Chill effects and your Chill effects now slow enemy movement speed by an additional 5%. Each upgrade increases the additional movement speed reduction by 0.4%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — you gain 10% increased chance to critically strike Chilled or Frozen enemies.
• Invigorating Gemstone — each hit done increases healing received by 1% for 5 seconds, stacking up to 10 times. Each upgrade increases the additional healing by 0.02%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — become immune to control impairing effects.
• Legacy of Dreams — while you have no set bonuses equipped, every Legendary item you have equipped increases your damage by 3.75% and reduces your damage taken by 2%. Each upgrade increases the additional damage by 3.75%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — this bonus is doubled for Ancient items.
• Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver — 15% chance on hit to smite a nearby enemy for 3000% damage as Holy, healing the character for 3% of maximum Life. Each upgrade increases the damage by 60%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — Smite a nearby enemy every 3 seconds.
• Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard — regenerates 10,000 Life per second. Each upgrade increases the amount by 1,000.
  • Rank 25 bonus — after not taking damage for 4 seconds, gain an absorb shield for 200% of your total Life per Second.
• Moratorium — 35% of all damage taken is instead staggered and dealt to the character over 3 seconds. Each upgrade increases the stagger duration by 0.1s.
  • Rank 25 bonus — 20% chance on kill to clear all staggered damage.
• Mutilation Guard — gain 10% melee damage reduction. Each upgrade increases the reduction by 0.5%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — while below 50% Life, you may move through enemies unhindered.
• Pain Enhancer — Critical hits cause enemies to bleed for 2,500% damage as Physical over 3 seconds. Each upgrade increases the damage by 50%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — gain Blood Frenzy, granting 3% increased Attack Speed for each bleeding enemy within 20 yards.
• Simplicity's Strength — increases the damage of Primary skills by 25%. Each upgrade increases the damage bonus by 0.5%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — Primary skills heal for 4% of maximum Life on hit.
• Taeguk — gain 2% increased damage for 1.5 seconds for each tick of a channelled skill, stacking up to 10 times. Each upgrade increases the damage bonus by 0.04%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — gain 2% increased Armor for every stack.
• Wreath of Lightning — 15% chance on hitting an enemy to gain a Wreath of Lightning, dealing 1250% damage as Lightning every second to nearby enemies for 3 seconds. Each upgrade increases the damage amount by 25%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — while under the effect of the Wreath, gain 25% increased movement speed.
• Zei's Stone of Vengeance — damage dealt to each enemy hit is increased by 4% for every 10 yards between you and the enemy hit, with a maximum increase of 20% at 50 yards. Each upgrade increases the damage bonus by 0.08% per 10 yards and increases the maximum bonus at maximum range by 0.4%.
  • Rank 25 bonus — 20% chance on hit to Stun the enemy hit for 1 second.

There is 1 legendary gem that is not listed above, which is the Anniversary Event gem, Red Soul Shard. You can learn more about this in our Darkening of Tristram guide for the 20th Anniversary Event.

Gems are a vital component of multiple recipes in Kanai's Cube, including gem type swapping and augments.

You can find out more about both in our overview of Kanai's Cube below.