We’ve got the Diablo 3 Legendary drop rates for all set and legendary items in the game. Thanks to site reader Childe for helping us assemble them, via a Korean site where they first leaked. These are the *weighted* item drop rates, much like the old Diablo 2 Treasure Classes. These figures do not tell you your chances of finding a legendary item. What they tell you is IF the game rolls a legendary or set item for a given slot, WHICH of the possible items will appear.

We’ve got all the data in three forum threads, and you’ll want to spend some time crawling over them, since it’s a huge trove of useful data. Note that 15% of item drops are un-Smart Drops, which is why your characters will sometimes find items “only” for other classes. (Including legendaries.)

The different threads for difficulty level are due to the odds changing with Torment-only gear. For instance, there aren’t any Torment-only Fists, or Spears, or Swords, etc, so the drop odds for the legendary items of those types are the same on all difficulty levels. Most types of armor though have several Torment-only items, though.

For example, there are five legendary helms that can drop for five classes (Barb is the exception), on all difficulty levels. They are the Broken Crown, Leoric’s Crown, Blind Faith, Andariel’s Visage, Mempo of Twilight, and the Deathseer’s Cowl, and all have a 16.67% chance of dropping. (That’s 1/6, even odds for each.) The Barbarian is different, since the Skull of Resonance can only drop for him. Thus his odds are 15.38% for the other 6 helms, and 7.69% for the Helm of Resonance. (That’s 2/13 for the first 6 and 1/15 for the Skull of Resonance.)

Things get more complicated when you take your Barbarian into Torment+, since then the basic 6 helms can still drop (11.76% each), or the Helm of Resonance (5.88%), but you might also get one of the Torment-only helms: Immortal King’s (5.88%), Raekor’s Will (5.88%), Crown of the Invoker (5.88%), or Eyes of the Earth (5.88%). The odds for the normal helms drop since the total odds have to equal 100%, and there are more Torment-only helms being added into the chances. The other classes see their odds for the different helms change in Torment as well, but somewhat differently than the Barb’s since they all have a different number of possible set/leg helms to choose from.)

Again, those are the percent chance that a given set/leg helm will drop IF THE GAME ROLLS A LEGENDARY OR SET HELM for your drop. (Just to emphasize that point again, since it was always misunderstood when we were talking about Diablo 2 unique drop odds back in the ago.)

Now I Understand!

Looking over the numbers, I had a number of light bulb moments. Now I see why Blackthorn’s Set items are so damn common! They’re weighted the same as legendary items, while most Set Items are weighted half as common. Blackthorn’s Jousting Mail (pants) are 30.3% chance to be the set/leg pants you get if you are playing a Barb/Crus/Monk/Wiz. Or 23.62% if you’re a DH or WD, since those classes have Swamp Land Waders dropping, which changes the odds for all pants.

And now I know why I’ve found every other bow in the game but not a Kridershot. If the game decides to drop a legendary bow (there are no set bows) the Uskang, The Raven’s Wing, Etrayu, Cluckeye, or Windforce all have a 19.61% chance of rolling, while the much-coveted Kridershot is down at 1.96%. (The bow weighting odds odds are the same on Torment+, since there are no Torment-only bows.)Hand Crossbows do the same thing to the Calamity. On Normal-Master you’re looking at 17.86% odds for the Izzuccob, Balefire Caster, Danetta’s Spite, or Danetta’s Revenge, with the K’mar Tenclip at 8.94%, and the Calamity at 1.79%. Yes, that’s 1/10th as likely to drop. It’s even worse on Torment+, when Natalya’s Slayer starts to drop. All the others shift to 16.4%, Nat’s and K’mar Tenclip get a 8.2% chance, and Calamity decreases to 1.64%. Good luck with that!

Most other weapons and several types of armor have similar weighting issues, where the one or two items you really want in that slot are MUCH less likely to drop. That’s not a surprise of course, but seeing the actual figures can put the “I’ll never find X” into a harsher reality.

Conclusion

These figures may not be final, as the info is still being correlated from the Korean info leak and some of the items listed (all with 0% drop odds) aren’t enabled in the game. There may be additional factors to consider as well. For instance, the whole thing with the game assigning 5-7 items of each slot to drop in each game. That’s a real thing, confirmed by a lot more testing results I’ve seen since we posted that article, but it’s not known how those items figure in with these drop odds.

Also, I’m skeptical about the figures for Set Items. They are listed as weighted at 1/2 the frequency of legendary items (in most cases) but my experience and that of other players I’ve talked to is that sets are *much* less common that that. Maybe 1/3 to 1/5th (to 1/10th?) as frequently found as legendaries. That’s partially explained by the fact that many sets are Torment-only, and the fact that there are zero set items in many weapon slots, so all those times you find a spear or a bow there’s a 0% chance of it being a set item. That said, it’s possible that other code in the game sets limits that impact these drop odds.

This appears to be the master weighting list, but there may be other lists in the code that further cut the odds of set items, or raise or lower specific items in frequency for all classes, for all monsters, for some specific monsters, etc. We know that sometimes classes with a 0% listed rate for certain items will find them anyway (violating their Smart Drop). And we know that legendary items get a drop bonus in Nephalem Rifts, and Blizzard said they’re about to buff legendary drop rates from gambling. They could just as easily put in buffs for specific items or item types, from certain monsters, etc. For instance, bow-using monsters had special weighted odds to drop legendary bows in Diablo 2.

That said, it’s great info and I enjoyed poking through it. What do you guys notice that seems surprising, or that’s not balanced correctly, or that confirms your darkest suspicions?

Update: By request, here are the ultra-rare items, most of them set to drop at 1/10th the standard rate:

Armor:

Weapons:

5 May List updated

As many of you have pointed out there were some omissions in the tables and they have once again been updated with the following additions on all three lists.

Update: The DiabloNut Armory has now been populated with :