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Diablo 4 Aspects – imprinting and extracting explained

Extract with confidence with our guide to all the Diablo 4 Aspects, what they are, how to unlock them, and what they do in Blizzard's latest.

Diablo 4 Aspects are important to understand to take on Inarius who sends glowing strands out.

What are Diablo 4 Aspects? Diablo 4 is bringing a lot to the table in terms of character and gear customization. One thing to pay the most attention to is Aspects, which you can extract from specialized equipment to provide buffs to any character or specific classes and abilities.

We’ve tested these for hours – as you can get a sense of in our Diablo 4 review – to find the right combinations. Aspects can be powerful tools for making the best builds for all Diablo 4 classes in both early and endgame activities throughout Diablo 4. Hunting these down will be quite a task to build up a good collection, but it’s worth the effort. We’ve got the lowdown on how to get Aspects and some of the best Aspects to extract for both general use and specific classes.

A Diablo 4 legendary item with an Aspect. This is one where the Druid gets increased armor for four seconds whenever they deal any form of damage.

Diablo 4 Aspects list

Here are the best Diablo 4 Aspects:

Aspect Type Class Bonus
Accelerating Aspect Offensive Any Critical strikes with core skills increase your attack speed by 20-40% up to three seconds.
Aspect of Might Defensive Any Basic skills grant 25% damage reduction for 2-8 seconds.
Aspect of the Crowded Sage Defensive Any You heal for 2.1-8.4 life per second for every close enemy, up to 42 life per second.
Aspect of Ancestral Echoes Offensive Barbarian Lucky Hit: damaging enemies with leap, upheaval, or whirlwind has a chance to summon an Ancient to perform the same skill. Can only happen once every five seconds.
Aspect of Bul-Kathos Offensive Barbarian Leap creates an earthquake that deals physical damage over several seconds. While standing in earthquakes, you gain increased damage reduction.
Aspect of the Prickling Offensive Barbarian Damaging an enemy with a core skill has a chance to grant thorns for five seconds.
Skullbreaker’s Aspect Offensive Barbarian Stunning a bleeding enemy deals a percentage of their total bleeding damage to them as physical damage.
Aspect of Metamorphic Stone Offensive Druid Boulder is now a core skill and costs spirit and deals normal damage.
Aspect of Quicksand Utility Druid Damage from earth skills slow enemies by 25-50% for five seconds.
Aspect of the Dark Howl Utility Druid Debilitating Roar is now a werewolf skill. In addition, Debilitating Roar will immobilize poisoned enemies for 2-4 seconds.
Aspect of Bursting Bones Offensive Necromancer When a segment of bone prison is destroyed or expires, it deals damage in an area around itself.
Aspect of Explosive Mist Offensive Necromancer Blood Mist triggers corpse explosion on surrounding corpses. When Blood Mist detonates a corpse, its cooldown is reduced.
Aspect of Hardened Bones Defensive Necromancer When you have X or more minions, your minions gain increased damage reduction.
Aspect of Arrow Storms Offensive Rogue Lucky Hit: your ranged skills have up to a 10% chance to create an arrow storm at the target’s present location, dealing 216-270 physical damage over three seconds. You can have up to five active arrow storms.
Aspect of Lethal Dusk Defensive Rogue Evading through an enemy affected by Shadow Imbuement grants stealth for several seconds. Breaking steal with an attack grants you X maximum life on kills for X seconds.
Frostbitten Aspect Utility Rogue Chilled enemies hit by your grenade skills have a chance equal to double your critical strike chance to be instantly frozen for X seconds. This effect can occur once only every X seconds.
Aspect of Concentration Resource Sorcerer Your Mana regeneration is increased by X% if you have not taken any damage in the last X seconds.
Aspect of Control Offensive Sorcerer You deal 30-40% more damage to immobilized, stunned, or frozen enemies.
Aspect of Seared Flesh Utility Sorcerer Every five times you deal direct fire damage to an enemy, they are immobilized for X seconds.

Talk about Diablo 4 Aspects in a dimly lit tavern with several people gathered in the middle

What are Diablo 4 Aspects?

Diablo 4 Aspects apply a special effect on equipment, buffing damage, class abilities, or passive effects. You can equip these on any rare or legendary quality item by visiting the Occultist in town.

Aspects are broken up into specific categories depending on what they do. These categories include offensive, defensive, resource (your class-specific energy), utility, and mobility. You can only imprint specific legendary Aspects on specific gear, though.

Offensive Aspects

  • Gloves
  • One-handed weapons
  • Two-handed weapons
  • Rings
  • Amulets

Defensive Aspects

  • Helms
  • Chests
  • Pants
  • Shields
  • Amulets

Resource Aspects

  • Helms
  • Rings
  • Amulets

Utility Aspects

  • Helms
  • Chests
  • Boots
  • Gloves
  • Amulets

Mobility Aspects

  • Boots
  • Amulets

A view of one of the dungeons and the entry of the Codex of Power it unlocks to give you new Diablo 4 aspects.

How to find a Diablo 4 Codex of Power

You can find a Codex of Power after completing a dungeon in the open world during the main story.

When you finish the Diablo 4 dungeon, you will gain a new Aspect for your Codex that you can use back in town at the Occultist. Here you need to spend Veiled Crystals and gold to equip an Aspect using the Codex of Power.

After choosing which Aspect to equip for a specific piece of gear, you can then commit the changes. As you complete more dungeons in the world, you will gain more Aspects to choose from at the Occultist.

A UI showing how to extract Diablo 4 aspects at the Occultist

How to extract a Diablo 4 Aspect

To extract an Aspect in Diablo 4, simply drag and drop the equipment from your inventory at the Occultist and pay gold. The Occultist will extract the Aspect, allowing you to store it for later use.

If you come across an Aspect on a piece of equipment you don’t like, or it’s not meant for your class, you can extract it at the Occultist in a major town using the Codex of Power. However, remember that Aspects stored in the Codex of Power will always be their lowest possible percentage that they buff something. For example, if you have an Aspect with a range of 15-30% chance to deal thorns damage, the value at the Occultist will always default to only 15%.

A UI showing how imprint Diablo 4 aspects at the Occultist

How to imprint a Diablo 4 Aspect

To imprint an Aspect in Diablo 4, drag the item you want to enhance to the Occultist. You can imprint an aspect from the Codex or Power or sacrifice an inventory item. 

You can imprint Aspects onto rare or legendary gear at the Occultist. You can also improve the rarity level of a rare item into a legendary one if you imprint an Aspect on a rare-grade piece of equipment. Keep in mind that imprinting an Aspect on a legendary item will overwrite the current Aspect, and any imprinted items are bound to your character, making the equipment unsellable for Gold. That said, you can still salvage the item at the Blacksmith for crafting resources.

Once you’ve chosen the Aspect to be imprinted, commit the changes by hitting the Imprint Aspect button at the bottom of the window. Pay the fee and materials needed to complete the imprint, and you are done.

Now that you know all there is to know about imprinting, extracting, and the best Aspects in Diablo 4, why not brush up on the loot you can find in the game or check out the best Diablo 4 builds we’ve discovered and those according to the Diablo 4 development team.