Diablo 4: Item Power level and Breakpoints explained

There are plenty of mechanics going on in Diablo 4 that you may not even know or understand. One of these are Item Power levels and Breakpoints. Anyone new to the Diablo series like me didn’t know anything about what these meant until I did my research. So to save you some time, let me explain to you what Item Power levels and Breakpoints are in Diablo 4.

What are Item Power levels and Breakpoints in Diablo 4?

Any piece of gear, such as armor, jewelry, and weapons, in Diablo 4 has an Item Power level. Listed below its name and what rarity it is, you can see the item’s Power level. This statistic determines the overall quality level of an item. It takes quite a few different numbers, and piles them into one important number. This includes things like your character level, the item’s base stats, and other bonus stats, like Affixes and buffs.

To have a high Item Power level, keep leveling up your character, and upgrading your gear. You may see the Item Power level with a number beside it with a ‘+’ to it. This is the amount upgraded to the item.

Screenshot by PC Invasion

On the other hand, Item Power levels have Breakpoints within them. These are tiers that break up what level your item truly is, and determines how many buffs the item has. This is sort of an invisible stat that most players don’t even know about. Let me break down the Breakpoint levels for you.

Depending on what Breakpoint level your item is at, your item will receive a certain amount of buffs and upgrades. So overall, while most players don’t even know about Breakpoints, you should take advantage of this knowledge when you’re upgrading equipment.

Also, certain crafting materials are only accessible from gear at specific Item Power levels. For example, I wrote about how you can get Coiling Wards, which requires Salvaging gear over a certain Item Power level.

Diablo 4 is available on Battle.net.