How to use Diablo 4 Legendary Aspects and the Codex of Power
Visit the Occultist to imprint Diablo 4 Aspects and improve Legendary gear
Diablo 4 Legendary Aspects are special modifiers for you gear that improve your character's Skills and abilities, or add entirely new benefits. There are over 100 Aspects to unlock in Diablo 4 but you won't be able to use all of them as each class gets its own specific Aspects. There are also two ways of obtaining them, with the traditional method being through Legendary items that you get as loot in combat, The Codex of Power is the other method, allowing players to collect Aspects more easily through guaranteed unlocks in dungeons. Either way, once you've got your Legendary Aspects you'll need the services of an Occultist to unleash their potential, so here's how to access that particular vendor and use Aspects in Diablo 4.
How to unlock the Diablo 4 Occultist
To unlock the Diablo 4 Occultist, you need to obtain your first Aspect by completing a dungeon, as outlined below. This will then add the Extraction and Imprinting priority quest to your Diablo 4 quest log, leading you to interact with an Occultist so you can find out about the services they offer. If you manage to progress all the way to Level 25 without getting an Aspect, which is actually quite an impressive feat, then that quest will automatically be unlocked anyway to point you in the right direction to learn more about this system. You'll find an Occultist in each of the five major towns.
How to get Diablo 4 Aspects
There are two ways to get Legendary Aspects in Diablo 4. The first way is to clear dungeons as you'll receive one Legendary Aspect as a reward for your first completion. If you hover your cursor over a dungeon icon on the Diablo 4 map, you can see which Aspect you'll get for completing it, but pay attention to the description – while some Aspects are universal and can be used by all characters, the majority of them are tied to a specific class so will be useless to others. Each Legendary Aspect you get from a dungeon will be added to your Codex of Power, and can then be used as many times as you like, but be aware that codex Aspects always offer the minimum benefit of the Aspect.
The second way to get Diablo 4 Aspects is to get an Occultist to extract them from Legendary gear. Any Legendary gear you find on your travels will have an Aspect attached to it, and you can see this in the items' descriptions as well as all the benefits it provides. By paying an Occultist to extract an Aspect from a Legendary item, the Occultist must destroy the original item, leaving only the Legendary Aspect in your inventory (not your Codex of Power) for future use. Aspects obtained in this way are generally more powerful than those unlocked in the Codex of Power, but they can't be used repeatedly as with codex Aspects. Regardless of how you get your Legendary Aspects, you'll can only use them by imprinting them onto items.
How to imprint Aspects in Diablo 4
However you get your Aspects, they are integral to some of the best Diablo 4 builds:
Diablo 4 Barbarian builds
Diablo 4 Druid builds
Diablo 4 Necromancer builds
Diablo 4 Rogue builds
Diablo 4 Sorcerer builds
To imprint Diablo 4 Legendary Aspects with an Occultist, you need to have at least one available in your Codex of Power or inventory, along with a Rare or Legendary item of the correct type to receive it - imprinting an Aspect onto a Rare item automatically increases its rarity to Legendary. Each piece of equipment can only be imprinted with one Legendary Aspect, so you can't stack up the effects using a single item, though of course you can have multiple items equipped with different Aspects spread across them.
Imprinting an Aspect will cost you gold, along with the rare Veiled Crystal crafting material, which is generally obtained by collecting Diablo 4 salvage from rare weapons and armor. Note that while it costs 10 Veiled Crystals to imprint an Aspect from the Codex of Power, you only need two to imprint an Aspect from your inventory, so this process is slightly easier and less costly in terms of materials if you're using an Aspect you previously extracted.
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Iain originally joined Future in 2012 to write guides for CVG, PSM3, and Xbox World, before moving on to join GamesRadar in 2013 as Guides Editor. His words have also appeared in OPM, OXM, PC Gamer, GamesMaster, and SFX. He is better known to many as ‘Mr Trophy’, due to his slightly unhealthy obsession with amassing intangible PlayStation silverware, and he now has over 550 Platinum pots weighing down the shelves of his virtual award cabinet. He does not care for Xbox Achievements.