Gear & Loot

Gear is the most direct way to strengthen both the Necromancer and the legion. Equipping and leveling up the gear you bring back from the labyrinth changes your hero’s offense and survival, your minions’ power, and even your Command. This page covers every rule for handling gear: how loot arrives, grades, slots, base types and lines, and how to equip and break items.

How loot reaches you

• You never pick anything up. Loot is recorded the moment you kill, and the item name briefly floats up in its grade color.
• Gear and runes arrive in your inventory when you return to the village. Newly arrived gear is marked NEW.
• Gold and Essence go straight into your wallet on the spot.
• Dropped gear always starts at level 1.
• Gear that has already dropped is never lost, even if you fail the floor or die.

Where loot comes from

Source	What to know
Normal and elite kills	Drop gear now and then. While your combo is running you find more items and better quality.
Gold-glowing enemies	Special enemies that show up sooner the better you fight. Killing one always drops gear. Only a limited number appear per floor.
Battle chests	Hold gear, minion materials, gold and essence, or runes. A chest whose Mimic you defeat pays more and can even exceed that floor’s usual grade cap by one step.
Bosses	A kill brings Spoils secured and a guaranteed reward. It is guaranteed a high grade for that floor, each boss favors certain slots and options, and it carries one of that boss’s signature Exotic options.
Your first steps	A brand-new Necromancer is guaranteed a first item within the opening kills, and the first boss you defeat hands over an especially good piece once.

Depth and grade caps

The highest grade that can drop opens up step by step as you go deeper. On shallow floors top grades never drop no matter how lucky you are, and the very highest grade only drops in the later part of the labyrinth. Each zone also favors certain slots and options — check the Spoils preview on the labyrinth select screen. See Floors, Combo & Grades for details.

Boss pity

• Every boss has its own Pity gauge. It fills a little with each kill and is not reset by reincarnation.
• Once the gauge is full, your next kill of that boss guarantees a jackpot reward with a better grade, sockets and options. After that the gauge starts over.
• You can check the gauge in Monster Intel on the labyrinth select screen and in the boss records of the Book of the Dead. When the next kill is guaranteed, it reads Guaranteed next kill!

When your bag is full

• If there is no room for a new item, it replaces the weakest item in your bag only if it is clearly better.
• Otherwise the new item is automatically broken down into gold and essence. An item that gets pushed out is broken down the same way.
• Items broken down automatically still count as discovered in the Book of the Dead.
• Items you have placed in the smithy’s crafting slots are never pushed out.

Grades and options

Gear comes in six grades: C, B, A, S, SS and SSS. Higher grades have bigger main stats and option values, a higher level cap, and tend to roll more sockets.

Grade	Random option lines
C, B	1 line
A, S	2 lines
SS, SSS	3 lines

• On top of the random options, every item carries fixed options set by its base type. See the base types below.
• Rarely an Exotic option appears: special effects that normal options never have, such as chained Corpse Explosions or Command restored when a minion falls.
• For weapons and off-hands, a higher grade upgrades the hero skill to a stronger tier.

Slots and base types

There are eight gear slots: weapon, off-hand, armor, helm, boots, cape, ring and amulet. Every slot has one standard base type, and from armor through amulet line base types drop as well. Every base type can drop from the very start.

Slot	Standard	Legion	Rite	Carnage
Weapon	Epitaph Staff	—	—	—
Off-hand	Codex of Rites	—	—	—
Armor	Wraithmail	Funeral Vestment	Ash Rite Robe	—
Helm	Ossuary Mask	—	Ossuary Priest’s Mask	Headsman’s Visor
Boots	Gravewalker Boots	Gravekeeper Marchers	—	Executioner’s Warboots
Cape	Ashveil Cloak	—	Corpsewright Shroud	Bloodveil Cape
Ring	Silent Signet	Warlord’s Signet	Rot Signet	—
Amulet	Doomcharm	Commander’s Gorget	—	Carnage Charm

Weapon and off-hand elements

Weapons and off-hands drop with an element, which changes their name and the hero skill they grant.

• Weapon: Hellbrand Staff (Hellfire Bolt), Rimebound Staff (Frost Spear), Voidcaller Staff (Abyssal Orb), Bloodletter Staff (Sanguine Needle)
• Off-hand: Codex of Embers (Cinder Brand), Codex of Rime (Rime Ward), Codex of the Abyss (Umbral Effigy), Codex of Blood (Blood Orbit)

Each skill is explained in Controls & Hero Skills.

Standard and line base types

• Standard base types keep their full main stat and carry one slot-specific fixed option line.
• Line base types have a slightly lower main stat but carry two fixed option lines that match their theme. The item window shows the line’s tag.
  • Legion: strengthens your minions’ damage, health, attack speed, critical hits and resistances.
  • Rite: strengthens Corpse Explosion, Reaper Form, and your hero’s health and Teleport.
  • Carnage: strengthens your hero’s attack damage, critical damage, attack speed, life leech and survival.
• Fixed options also grow with grade and level.

Lines favored by bosses

Gear dropped by a boss leans slightly toward the line that boss favors. Other lines can still drop.

Boss	Favored line
Bone Marshal	Rite
Grave Ritualist	Legion
Grave Tax Collector	Legion
Soul Legate	Carnage

Leveling up

• Level Up in the item window costs gold and essence and never fails.
• Leveling up does not raise the grade. Use the smithy’s Transmute for that.
• Each grade has a level cap, and higher grades can go higher. At the cap the button changes to MAX.
• The main stat, fixed options, and some random options such as damage and health grow with level.
• The gold and essence you spend are tracked, and part of it comes back when you later Break the item or use it in a Transmute.

Equipping and comparing

1. Open the village Inventory and tap an item in your bag.

2. The info window shows how your stats change compared with what you have equipped in that slot. View all changes lists every difference.

3. Tap Equip. The item you were wearing goes back to your bag.

4. To take something off, tap the equipped item and choose Unequip.

• Unequipped gear does nothing. Runes and runewords in an item also work only while it is equipped.
• There is no auto-equip. Compare your NEW items yourself every time you return to the village.

Breaking and disposing

• Break in the item window breaks down gear you don’t need. You get gold and essence by grade, plus part of what you spent leveling it. The confirmation shows your total investment.
• Socketed runes are not returned. Always remove runes before breaking an item. Removing runes is free.
• You cannot sell gear back to merchants. Instead, hand gear that matches a wanted entry in Jeff’s Ledger to get gold and stamps. See Shops.
• Spare gear also works as material for the smithy’s Transmute, Carve and Reforge. See The Smithy.

Tips

• Loot arrives only when you return to the village. If something good dropped, compare and equip it right after returning.
• Keep your combo alive. While it runs you find more items, and gold-glowing enemies show up sooner.
• Pick a zone if you are after a slot. The labyrinth select screen’s Spoils preview shows slot and option tendencies.
• Match the line to your build. Legion for minion builds, Rite for Corpse Explosion builds, Carnage for hero attack builds.
• Keep bag space free. With a full bag, borderline new items can’t get in and are broken down.

Common mistakes

1. Hoarding gear in the bag without equipping it. Gear in the bag has no effect.
2. Expecting Level Up to raise the grade. Only Transmute raises grade.
3. Breaking an item with runes still in it. The runes are lost with it.
4. Waiting for top grades on shallow floors. Grade caps open with depth.