Median XL - Game Guide - Cube Recipes

Cube Recipes

CUBE RECIPES

Far from being the interesting magical gimmick you may be used to, the Median XL cube is a powerful weapon of war.

Reagents

Catalysts
These reagents can be found by killing the appropriate monster:
Catalyst of Disenchantment: kill Andariel on Normal difficulty
Catalyst of Learning: kill the Summoner on Nightmare difficulty

Oils
These reagents can be bought from a vendor in each town, except Oils of Greater Luck, Augmentation, Intensity and Conjuration which must be found in the respective Act side areas.
Oil of Greater Luck: found within the Cave, the Hole and the Pit on Hell difficulty.
Oil of Augmentation: found within the Stony Tomb, the Halls of the Dead and the Ancient Tunnels on Hell difficulty.
Oil of Intensity: found within the Arachnid Lair, the Swampy Pit, the Flayer Dungeon and the temples which stand in Kurast on Hell difficulty.
Oil of Conjuration: found within the portals and the optional caverns in Act 5 on Hell difficulty.


Arcane Shards
This reagent is obtained by disenchanting unique items.

Arcane Crystal
This reagent is created by cubing Arcane Shards in sets of five.

Arcane Cluster
This reagent is created by cubing an Arcane Crystal with an Oil of Craft.


Shrines
Orange crucifixes that drop in late Nightmare and in Hell difficulty. They enable you to create and bless items, see below.

Mark of Infusion
This reagent is obtained by killing Shenk, the Overseer on any difficulty.


DISENCHANTING
DISASSEMBLE ITEMS INTO RESOURCES

Arcane Shards, Crystals and Clusters

Destroy up to 10 spare unique items to create Arcane Shards and combine those into Arcane Crystals, which are required for other cube recipes.

Any unique item + Catalyst of Disenchantment → Arcane Shards + Catalyst of Disenchantment

Arcane Shards x5 → Arcane Crystal

You can also create an Arcane Cluster for easier Arcane Crystal safekeeping:

Arcane Crystal + Oil of Craft → Arcane Cluster

Arcane Cluster can be right-clicked to collect all Arcane Crystals from the inventory, cube and stash.

Signets of Learning

Destroy up to 25 spare sacred unique or set items to create Signets of Learning. Click the signet to gain 1 attribute point permanently.

Any sacred unique/set item + Catalyst of Learning → Signet of Learning + Catalyst of Learning

Each character can use a maximum of 400 Signets of Learning.


ITEM QUALITY RECIPES
CHANGE THE QUALITY LEVEL OF YOUR ITEMS

Upgrade to Non-magical Item

Upgrade any item to regular quality or a regular item to superior. This also rerolls the socket count on the item to the maximum or 0. You cannot use this recipe on already Superior items.

Any quality weapon/armor + Oil of Renewal → reroll item as superior

Reroll Magic or Rare to Honorific

Honorific items are blank items that receive a double bonus from Mystic Orbs. This enables you to create your own custom items from scratch, provided you have some money to spend on the ingredients and the Mystic Orbs.

Magic or Rare weapon/armor + Mark of Infusion → return item as honorific

Honorific items have no modifiers, but have maximum sockets and receive a double bonus from Mystic Orbs.

Reroll any Item to Unique

This powerful recipe uses the reagents obtained by disenchanting other uniques to turn any tiered item of your choosing into a unique. But choose wisely, because the crystals are precious and costly to replace.

Any non-sacred item + Oil of Enhancement + Arcane Crystal x2 → reroll item as unique

Upgrade to Rare

With the Oil of Augmentation (not sold by vendors), this recipe upgrades magic items to rare quality.

Magic weapon/armor + Oil of Augmentation → return item as rare

Rare Downlevel

This recipe allows you to create yourself some baseline items. These items can be helpful to craft low-level items with space for Mystic Orbs.

Rare weapon/armor + rare amulet + rare ring → reroll item as level 1 rare item


UPTIER RECIPE
UPGRADE ITEMS TO THE NEXT HIGHER TIER

Uptiering an item increases its base statistics and maximum sockets but also increases requirements. These recipes cannot create Sacred items.
This recipe works for tiered items of all qualities. If the item is unique, its stats will be upgraded to match the next tier on the Tiered Uniques page.

See THIS PAGE for more information about item tiers.

Non-sacred weapon/armor + Arcane Crystal → reroll as next higher tier


AFFIX RECIPES
ENHANCE YOUR ITEMS WITH EXTRA MAGICAL BONUSES

Socket Punch

Use this recipe to add extra sockets to an item. The more jewels you feed this recipe, the more sockets it will create.

Non-socketed item + jewel x[1-6] → returns item with [1-6] sockets

Warning! This recipe will not go over the max natural sockets an item can have. Lower tier items have a lower socket count. Excess jewels are wasted. You also cannot add more sockets to an item that already has some.

See THIS PAGE for more information about maximum sockets.

Lucky Bonus

This recipe grants one chance to add a minor extra bonus to an item. Any item that has been transmuted with this recipe will show up as "Already upgraded!". Items marked as such cannot be used for this recipe.

Any item (except regular/superior and honorific quality) + Oil of Luck (or Oil of Greater Luck) → returns item, may add bonuses

This recipe has 20% (40% with the Oil of Greater Luck which is found in all Act 1 side areas) chance to add any of the following bonuses:

Weapon: +20% Enhanced Damage and/or 100% Bonus to Attack Rating
Elemental Weapon: +20% Attack Speed and/or 100% Bonus to Attack Rating
Armour: +20% Enhanced Defense and/or Damage Reduced by 1%
Amulet: +1 to All Skills
Ring: +5% to Spell Damage
Quiver: 5% Bonus to all Attributes
Jewel: +2 to Strength and/or +2 to Dexterity and/or +2 to Energy and/or +2 to Vitality

Magical Bonus

In some of the more powerful areas, you might find the Oil of Conjuration, which is a concoction highly sought after by many mages. Any item that has been transmuted with this recipe will show up as "Already upgraded!". Items marked as such cannot be used for this recipe.

Any weapon + Oil of Conjuration → returns item, may add bonus

This recipe has 40% chance to add the following bonus:

Weapon: +10% to Spell Damage

Adventurers say they have heard of powerful evil monsters creating these in locations such as the Icy Cellar, Abaddon, Pit of Acheron and Infernal Pit.

Lottery Bonus

This recipe works exactly like the lucky upgrade one, but it has only a 3% chance of adding the bonus. Any item that has been transmuted with this recipe will show up as "Already upgraded!". Items marked as such cannot be used for this recipe.

Any Unique/Set Weapon + Legacy of Blood
Any Unique/Set Armor + Idol of Vanity
Any Unique/Set Amulet + Moon of the Spider
Any Unique Ring + Spirit Trance Herb
Any Unique Quiver + Azmodan's Heart
Any Unique Jewel + Sunstone of the Gods
→ returns item, may add bonuses

This recipe has 3% chance to add any of the following bonuses:

Unique/Set Weapon: Ignore Target's Defense
Unique/Set Armour: Increase Maximum Life 2%
Unique Amulet: Magic Resist +5%
Unique Ring: +1 to All Skills
Unique Quiver: 50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Unique Jewel: All Resists +10%


SHRINES AND CRAFTING
CALL ON DIVINE FORCES TO CRAFT YOUR OWN ITEMS

In Nightmare and Hell difficulty, you may find blessed relics from the ancient labyrinth beneath Tristram, stolen before its collapse.

During those dark days the holy shrines in the cathedral's catacombs offered salvation to some adventurers and damnation to others; removed from their sockets, the enchanted crosses cannot permanently affect humans anymore, but their divine powers can be applied to items.

There are 16 types of shrines with eldritch names. Beware, results may vary depending on divine will.

The following shrines exist:

Abandoned Shrine
Creepy Shrine
Eerie Shrine
Enchanted Shrine
Fascinating Shrine
Hidden Shrine
Intimidating Shrine
Magical Shrine
Ornate Shrine
Quiet Shrine
Sacred Shrine
Shimmering Shrine
Spiritual Shrine
Tainted Shrine
Trinity Shrine
Weird Shrine

Each shrine comes with 10 charges. Each use in the cube will drain one charge. When you use up the last charge, it disappears.

Experiment, learn and create some of the most powerful items in all of Sanctuary.

Shrine Vessels

Carrying many holy relics can be a burden. Store your full shrines into a corresponding holy vessel that can hold up to 1000 shrines:

Shrine (10) + Oil of Craft → Shrine Vessel
Shrine Vessel + any amount of Shrines (10) → Shrine Vessel (adds shrines)
Shrine Vessel → Shrine Vessel (-1) + Shrine

Shrine Vessels can be right-clicked to collect all Shrines of the same type from the inventory, cube and stash.

Shrine Crafting

Use a shrine to turn any sacred item into a powerful crafted item. The crafted item comes with several random rare modifiers and additional preset modifiers based on shrine type. The preset modifiers may stack with the rare modifiers, creating some very powerful items.

Rare/Crafted Sacred item + Shrine → reroll item as crafted + Shrine (-1 charge)

Crafted items always have maximum sockets.

See THIS PAGE for more information about preset shrine modifiers.
See THIS PAGE for more information about random rare modifiers (affixes).

Shrine Blessing

A variant of shrine crafting, this recipe allows you to impart the blessings of the shrine unto an existing sacred item. This adds to the item the same preset shrine modifiers as the shrine crafting recipe and also subtracts 1 charge. You can only use this recipe once per item, so choose your shrine wisely.

Rare/Crafted/Honorific Sacred item + Shrine + 2x Arcane Crystal → add shrine bonuses + Shrine (-1 charge)

Intensity Blessing

Combined with an Oil of Intensity, you can craft/bless an item with stat rolls in the higher range (see Shrine Bonuses page). A shrine with full charges is required and will be consumed.

Rare/Crafted Sacred item + Shrine + Oil of Intensity → reroll item as crafted with higher stats
Rare/Crafted/Honorific Sacred item + Shrine + 2x Arcane Crystal + Oil of Intensty → add shrine bonuses with higher stats

Shrine Reroll

Cube 5 Positronic Brains to create the Catalyst of Transference which can be used to change the type of Shrine.

Catalyst of Transference + full Shrine → reroll Shrine as output Shrine
Catalyst of Transference → reroll output Shrine on the Catalyst
Catalyst of Transference (0 charges) + any amount of Positronic Brains (10) → Catalyst of Transference (adds 10 charges)


JEWELCRAFTING
CREATE YOUR OWN JEWELS

Jewelcrafting

You can craft jewels as well, for an even higher degree of customizing your items. The crafted jewel comes with a few random rare modifiers and always gets all preset modifiers chosen on the Catalyst of Jewelcrafting, which you can acquire by defeating Izual on the Nightmare difficulty. The preset modifiers may stack with the rare modifiers, creating some very powerful jewels.

You are able to charge it up with 10 Arcane Crystals, but you must charge it with at least 1 Arcane Crystal before being able to use it:

Catalyst of Jewelcrafting (0 charges) + 1x Arcane Crystal→
Catalyst of Jewelcrafting (5 charges)

Then, by cubing it with itself, you can change the preset modifier that it adds to the jewel:

Catalyst of Jewelcrafting →
Catalyst of Jewelcrafting with changed modifier

Each time you craft a jewel, you have to have enough gold:

Jewel + Catalyst of Jewelcrafting + gold →
Catalyst of Jewelcrafting (-1 charge) + Crafted Jewel with added bonuses

The preset modifiers on the jewel and the gold consumed are as follows:

Gold CostProperties
5 000 (1 to 3)% Magic Find
5 000 Requirements -(2 to 4)%
5 000 +(4 to 6)% to Summoned Minion Life
10 000 Elemental Resists +(3 to 5)%
10 000 +(2 to 4) Life after each Kill
+(1 to 2) Mana after each Kill
10 000 +(2 to 4)% to Summoned Minion Resistances
15 000 +(3 to 5) to all Attributes
15 000 +(2 to 8) Life on Melee Attack
+(1 to 4) Mana on Melee Attack
15 000 +(1 to 3)% to Summoned Minion Damage
25 000 +(1 to 2)% to Spell Damage
25 000 (1 to 2)% Life stolen per Hit
(1 to 2)% Mana stolen per Hit
25 000 +(2 to 4) to Maximum Damage
50 000 +(4 to 8) Spell Focus
50 000 +1% to Experience Gained

TROPHY BONUSES

Trophies are a reward for your hard work and dedication clearing all evil from Sanctuary.

Multiple bosses have a few percent chance to drop a Trophy Fragment when killed on Hell difficulty. If you're really unlucky, you can also combine 20 Charms from a boss to get one:

20x Charm → Trophy Fragment

You can combine Trophy Fragments to form a Trophy:

3x Trophy Fragment → Trophy

Cubing a Trophy with its respective Charm adds a small bonus:

Charm + Trophy → Charm with added bonuses

An exception being the Bremmtown trophy, where you must apply the trophy by killing the Dark Star Dragon in under 30 seconds from entering the area.


AMULET CRAFTING
CREATE YOUR OWN AMULETS

Amulet Crafting

Requires Oil of Alchemy, which drops in the Infernal Machine dungeon.

Only works on set amulets.

Set Amulet + Oil of Alchemy → Crafted Amulet

The craft always gains +1 to All Skills and one of the following modifiers at random:

10% Movement Speed
+100 Life regenerated per second
+7% Innate Elemental Damage
+5% Vitality
+5% Energy
-5% Enemy Elemental Resistances
+5% Physical Resist
+25% Weapon Physical Damage
Poison Length Reduced by 20%
Curse Length Reduced by 20%


SOULFORGE
MODIFY YOUR RARE ITEMS

Crafting the Soulforge

Requires a Heavenly Soul, which drops in the Heroic Library of Fate

1x Heavenly Soul + Oil of Enhancement → Soulforge

Enhancing Your Rare Items

x Amount of Oils of Enhancement + x Amount of Heavenly Souls + Gem + Rare Item → Enhanced Rare Item


The type of Gem you use (such as an Emerald or Diamond) determines the types of affixes you can modify your item with. The Soulforge will explain the amount of Souls and Oils required for affix additions.

Important to note that the Soulforge respects the item generation rules of Diablo 2 such that:

Rare items can have at most 3 prefixes and/or suffixes
You cannot craft an affix that is already present on the item
You cannot have more than one affix from the same affix group on the item


MISCELLANEOUS RECIPES
EVERYTHING ELSE

Gem Upgrade

You can upgrade gems to the higher quality levels. Note that unlike classic Diablo II, this recipe only requires two gems, not three.

Same gem x2 → next higher gem quality

Gem Cluster

You can store multiple same runes in a Gem Cluster.

Gem + Oil of Craft → Gem Cluster of the same type as the Gem

After creating the Gem Cluster, you can right click it to collect all the gems of the same type in it. You can get a gem out by cubing the Gem Cluster in the Horadric Cube.

Rune Upgrade

You can upgrade runes to the next higher rune. This is useful when you need a certain exact rune to create a runeword.

Same rune x2 → rune one level higher
Same rune x4 → rune two levels higher
Same rune x2 + rune one level higher → rune two levels higher

These recipes do not allow you to obtain:
Great Runes (Taha, Ghal, Qor)
Elemental Runes (Stone, Magic, Fire, Ice, Light and Poison).

Rune Downgrade

You can downgrade normal runes to the previous lower rune. This is useful when you need a certain exact rune to create a runeword.

Rune → rune one level lower

These recipes only applies to normal runes (El - Zod).

Rune Cluster

You can store multiple same runes in a Rune Cluster.

Rune + Oil of Craft → Rune Cluster of the same type as the Rune

After creating the Rune Cluster, you can right click it to collect all the runes of the same type in it. You can get a rune out by cubing the Rune Cluster in the Horadric Cube.

Unsocket Recipe

These recipes separate the socket fillers (gems, jewels, runes) from an item and return both the item and the socket fillers.

Magical, Rare, Set, Unique, Crafted or Honorific:

Socketed item + Oil of Disjunction → separate item and socket fillers

R.I.P. Recipe

If you went wild with reanimate items and now you can't see the forest for the reanimated Ents, this recipe can help. It adds the 'R.I.P.' modifier to an item, causing your kills to stay dead instead of rising up to get in your way. This should help out players with slower computers.

Any item + Oil of Renewal + Arcane Crystal → returns item with R.I.P. modifier

This recipe adds the following bonus:

Slain Monsters Rest in Peace

Warning! Do not forget the Arcane Crystal or you will destroy more than you bargained for.

Cow Level Portal

Moo! You need to stand in the Rogue Encampment in Hell difficulty to use this recipe. Be careful, the cows have been beefed up compared to the regular Diablo II.

Wirt's Leg → Cow Level portal

Killing the Cow King does not disable this recipe.

I Am Rich

Want to show the common rabble in your game how rich and powerful you are? This recipe consumes some of the rarest trophies in the game and returns a completely useless item that grants you a glowing red aura. Show it to friends and strangers so they know that you are strong, powerful and wealthy enough to waste trophies on a worthless item.

See the Uberquests section for more information.

Yshari Sanctum Trophy + Void Trophy + Uldyssian Trophy + Vial of Elder Blood → I Am Rich Gem

This recipe is inspired by the $1000 iPhone application that does nothing.