by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

Hot on the heels of today’s announcement of Patch 2.3.0 and the new Kanai’s Cube feature, there have been some communication to clear up what was really a brief description of what the Cube is and how it will work.

To review from the notes:

Those who played Diablo II might remember the Horadric Cube, a unique device which allowed you to combine items. Useful as it was, it was easily surpassed in power by the item from which it originated, Kanai’s Cube. In Patch 2.3.0, players will be able to discover this powerful ancient relic and utilize its incredible potential, including the ability to break down Legendary items and equip their special effects as passive skills (which are separate from your other passive skills), convert crafting materials from one type to another, and so much more.

In the comments for the patch notes themselves, Tyvalir mentioned the following to clarify how the cube will work:

@PardalBR: There’s been some confusion about how these passives work, so let me clarify.

With the current plan, the passives you get by breaking down Legendary items with special effects in Kanai’s Cube do not replace passive skills on your character, but are instead part of a separate set of passives that are specifically stored within the cube. You can store as many special effects as possible in the cube, but only a limited number can be active at a given time (currently, this is three: one weapon effect, one armor effect, and one jewelry effect). Hope that helps!

Crow’s Response: This raises a question with legendaries like Leoric’s Crown, where the passive has a variable rate within a certain range. If you had two crowns with two different rates and melted them both down, would you have the selection of both rates or just the higher rate?

In response to a question about whether you could double up the effects of legendaries like the Royal Ring of Grandeur, CM Nevalistis offered this response:

It would be similar to what happens if you attempted to equip two Ring of Royal Grandeur — you can only benefit from one. In short, powers that originate from the same Legendary don’t stack.

Think of it this way: Equipping a power from a Legendary power via Kanai’s Cube is just like equipping the item itself, only it does not take up an equipment slot. There are a lot of little nuances to explain regarding this new feature, and we’ll have a more focused, in-depth blog on it in the (near) future.

Crow’s Response: This is one of those things that probably shouldn’t have to be said (because being able to double-dip certain legendary passives would be overpowered), but it’s good to have it made clear.

Grimiku added this in a different thread.

The armor slot for Kanai’s Cube currently encompasses every slot except weapons and jewelry. So, for example, the cube could give you the Legendary power from Lut Socks, or Leoric’s Crown, but not both.

Crow’s Response: At face value, this doesn’t feel cool because there are so many passives you can pick up from armor pieces that choosing just one will be difficult. On the other hand, you’ve still got all of the passives from the gear you have equipped, and Kanai’s Cube is letting you add three more. That’s definitely not nothing.

The Community team has promised a blog that’ll go into this feature in greater depth, and I imagine we’ll see it iterated upon a great deal while the PTR is active. For now, start thinking about what awesome legendary passives you’d love to use but don’t want to sacrifice your current loadout to get, because Kanai’s Cube promises to be the answer to your prayers.

Stay tuned.