The new Occultist NPC in Diablo 4 grants players access to the Codex of Power and the associated aspect imprinting system, as well as the enchantment of items, and the crafting of Nightmare Sigils.
How To Unlock The Occultist
The simplest way to gain access to the Occultist is to clear a Dungeon for the very first time. Doing so grants you a Legendary Aspect for the Codex of Power, which can then be viewed and used at the Occultist. The alternative method is to wait till your character levels up to 25, at which point a quest to do so will automatically be granted.
How To Extract A Legendary Aspect
Although the Codex of Power contains many Legendary Aspects, it does not contain every single possible Aspect available in the game. Moreover, imprints from the Codex will always roll the lowest possible stats when applied to equipment. This is where Legendary Aspect extraction comes into play. Legendary Aspects can be stripped from Legendary gear using the services of the Occultist. This requires gold to accomplish and leads to the irrevocable loss of the item in question. The extracted Aspect will mirror the item’s affixes exactly. Once imprinted, extracted Aspects, cannot be extracted a second time.
How To Imprint A Legendary Aspect
Items of Rare or Legendary rarity can have a Legendary Aspect imprinted upon them. Rare items will be upgraded to Legendary rarity, while Legendary items will simply have their affix swapped out for that of the Aspect. There are two potential sources for imprinting an Aspect onto an item: the Codex of Power, and your own inventory’s Aspect collection where Legendary Aspects that you have extracted will be stored. The Codex of Power will start off bare, and will need to be populated by clearing various Dungeons for their particular Legendary Aspect drop, often class-based.
The downside to Codex-sourced Aspects is that they will always roll their stats as low as possible. The upside is that they have unlimited use, unlike extracted Aspects which are single-use imprints only and cannot be extracted a second time. Gold and resource costs vary greatly and are based primarily on the item power of the equipment in question. Beginning at 400 Item Power, much rarer crafting materials will be required to perform imprints.
Weapons
Gold
Veiled Crystals
Baleful Fragments (specifically for 400+ Item Power)
Armor
Gold
Veiled Crystals
Coiling Wards (specifically for 400+ Item Power)
Jewelry
Gold
Veiled Crystals
Abstruse Sigils (specifically for 400+ Item Power)
Additionally only certain Aspects can be imprinted upon certain types of equipment. This is easily determined by the type of affix being imprinted by the Aspect.
Offensive Affix
Amulets
Gloves
Rings
Weapons
Defensive Affix
Amulets
Chest Armor
Helms
Pants
Shields
Resource Affix
Rings
Utility Affix
Amulets
Chest Armor
Helms
Pants
Shields
Mobility Affix
Amulets
Boots
How To Craft And Scrap Nightmare Sigils
As part of the endgame, Dungeons can be made much more challenging by transforming them into Nightmare Dungeons through the use of Nightmare Sigils. Sigil Powder is the specific crafting material required for this process. Initial Nightmare Sigils are acquired by completing Whispers of the Dead, which itself only unlocks on World Tier 3: Nightmare. After clearing your first Nightmare Dungeon, the Occultist will unlock both Craft and Salvage Nightmare Sigil tabs in their menu. Crafting is done over several tiers in a randomized range.
Sacred Sigils
- Tiers 1 through 5
Requires 3 Sigil Powder
4,000 Gold
- Tiers 6 through10
Requires 6 Sigil Powder
6,000 Gold
- Tiers 11 through 15
Requires 11 Sigil Powder
8,000 Gold
- Tiers 16 through 20
Requires 20 Sigil Powder
10,000 Gold
Ancestral Sigils
- Tiers 21 through 25
Requires 50 Sigil Powder
13,000 Gold
- Tiers 26 through 30
Requires 80 Sigil Powder
16,000 Gold
- Tiers 31 through 35
Requires 125 Sigil Powder
19,000 Gold
- Tiers 36 through 40
Requires 190 Sigil Powder
22,000 Gold
- Tiers 41 through 50
Requires 275 Sigil Powder
26,000 Gold
- Tiers 51 through 60
Requires 350 Sigil Powder
30,000 Gold
- Tiers 61 through 70
Requires 375 Sigil Powder
35,000 Gold
- Tiers 71 through 80
Requires 400 Sigil Powder
40,000 Gold
- Tiers 81 through 90
Requires 425 Sigil Powder
45,000 Gold
- Tiers 91 through 100
Requires 450 Sigil Powder
50,000 Gold
If dissatisfied with the Nightmare Sigil produced, the Occultist can also salvage a Nightmare Sigil for a return in Sigil Powder. Once salvaged, the Nightmare Sigil and its particular affixes are irrevocably lost. However, this is the only way to acquire the Sigil Powder required to craft further Nightmare Sigils.
How To Enchant Equipment
Restricted to Rare and Legendary quality items, Enchantment allows you to change any single affix, as indicated by bullet points, of a particular item by essentially re-rolling them, if they are lacking in some manner. This is a randomized process and does have some caveats. To begin with, the crafting material requirements are different for Rare and Legendary gear.
Rare
Requires 1x Veiled Crystal
Gold
Legendary
Requires 1x Veiled Crystal
Requires 1x Fiend Rose
Gold
Next, once the enchantment is initiated, you will be presented with three options, two of which are a randomized choice of new affixes to be applied to the item, replacing the affix you wish to be rid of. If neither one appeals to you, you can select the third option and not change anything. However, the cost in materials and gold will be claimed no matter what. You may then attempt a different roll for another deduction of resources. If you do go ahead with the enchantment, you can enchant the item again at a later time, but only the affix that you swapped earlier. Any other affixes will not be modifiable in future enchantments.
That is every service the Occultist offers players in Diablo 4.