D4 All Character & Build Customization Systems

If you're wondering how can I customize and my build and power up my character in Diablo 4, you've come to the right place. Here, I give a summary on EVERY way in which your character or build can be customized! However you wanna call 'em - features, mechanics, systems or otherwise.

I hope to have links for more reading into each subsystem in the future, and also let me know if I missed something!

Class, Class Systems & Mechanics

Well, might as well state the obvious! Your selected class is the absolute baseline of your character. Any and all builds, and therefore build customization, pretty much stem from this choice.

There are currently five classes in Diablo IV: Barbarian, Druid, Rogue, Necromancer, and Sorcerer. Each class obviously has things unique to them such as their Skill Tree, Paragon Boards, and most unique of all would be their build-in unique class mechanics.

Passive Skill Tree

D4's skill tree is a major part of customizing your character. I'd imagine I don't have to explain exactly what this is…

Where do you get skill points? Each level up gives you points, but you can also get points from the Renown system.

Notably, you have to invest / upgrade points here to actually unlock active skills as well.

Key Passives

Not all skillpoint investments are created equal. In Diablo 4, the Key Passive nodes are super impactful when it comes to build customization.

While also costing 1 point, like any other node in the skill tree, the effects they provide are unimaginably powerful compared to the rest of ‘em! Key Passives are can be extremely powerful build-arounds, or can empower your build in many different ways.

Key Passives in D4 really should be considered a facet of your build, almost equal to the entire other skillpoints combined.

Paragon Levels / Points / Board

This wasn't out in the BETA, so I'll update more after release. But here's what we know so far:

At max level, you unlock the Paragon System. Each Paragon Level gives you points to traverse the Paragon Boards. You can also get Paragon Points from Renown.

Imagine a grid you can rotate, then you can choose which “entry point” you wanna start from. Then you can connect and rotate other boards to this. Each class has unique paragon boards (I'm guessing 4).

Items & Item-based sub-systems

It wouldn't be Diablo without loot and D4 is no exception. Items are an integral part of D4 character customization and power. No complete build can be spoken of without mentioning items!

Here's the relevant item-based systems in D4.

Legendary Items (Aspects, Extracting, Imprinting, Codex)

All Legendary Items have “powers” that affect you in special ways - these are called Aspects. An example of an aspect would be:

Rapid Aspect: Basic Skills gain x% increased attack speed.

You can also “extract” these Aspects and “imprint” them onto a non-legendary item (upgrading them into a legendary with the imprinted aspect). There are a few restrictions though - such as Each Aspect “type” can only be placed on certain kinds of gear.

The Codex of Power is like a database of “free to imprint” aspects to your items. These are unlocked via dungeons and other accomplishments. However, the Codex only has the weakest possible version of the aspects - which is fine, it acts like a backup anti-rng way to make sure you always have access to them.

See: List of All D4 Aspects.

Unique Items

This wasn't out in the BETA, so I'll update more after release. But here's what we know so far:

These are basically a level higher than Legendary Items. Uniques also have “aspect-like” Unique Powers - but they (presumably) CANNOT BE EXTRACTED, IMPRINTED, and presumably NOT PART OF THE CODEX OF POWER.

To quote one of the developer videos, “If a unique power is on a certain chest piece, it's forever on there”. Or something to that effect. As I see it, it's basically a less flexible version of Legendary Items.

Honestly, I think this is just to help out with balance via “forcing” people to use certain gear slots to ensure you can't double up on certain OP combinations.

Stats, Enchanting (Rerolls) & Upgrading

Of course, each item has stats. Surprise!

Rerolls (called Enchanting?) are back. You can change one stat on an item into another stat via "rerolling" until you get a desirable one. This (presumably) has some limitations of which stats can roll on what items.

Upgrading an item increases it's item power which, in practical terms, increases baseline armor or weapon damage, as well as improve the amount of substats they have.

There are also “intrinsic” stats that are unique to each gear slot. For example, Boots can have “Gain an extra Evade charge”, among other boot-specific intrinsics.

Gems & Socketing

You've seen this system before! Or something very much like it I'm sure, haha. Summary is Gems are items that give stats depending on the GEM you use, WHERE you socket it, and what TIER it is..

For example, a Ruby would give you Overpower damage if socketed on Weapon, Max Life if socketed on Armor, or Fire Resist if socketed on an Accessory. The amount would vary depending on the tier of the Ruby.

You can, thankfully, add sockets to items which didn't have them (without taking up a reroll)! It seems as if each item can have a maximum of two sockets.

Summary and Outro

Well, that's about it for now! I'll be adding and refining this as I play the game, but this should give you a good idea what are the "vectors" of build and character customization systems in D4. Learn about the systems, and then of course power up your character!