Throughout yourDiablo 4adventure, you’ll come across colorful jewels known as gems. The seven types are Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Amethyst, Topaz, Diamond, and Skull. Each of these gems can be equipped on weapons, jewelry, and armor, can boost your character’s stats, and grant other useful effects.
RELATED:Path Of Exile Vs. Diablo 4: Which Game Is Better?Gems come in various rarity levels (from Crude to Royal) and can be obtained by completing a quest, seeing a jeweler, or opening ores and treasure chests. With all the different kinds of buffs in addition to classes, you might be wondering what’s the best gem to use on your characters to ensure you may defeat enemies and survive upcoming challenges the best ways possible.
7Deal Damage With Ruby
The gem of fire, the Ruby gem gives typical strength buffs to characters in addition to fire-based attacks. Ruby weapons increaseOverpower damage, Ruby armor increases max life, and Ruby Jewelry adds resistance to fire attacks.
Overpower damage is crucial for tank-like characters like the Barbarian, in which you can convert resilience into extra attack power. Using Ruby weapons, the Barbarian can significantly boost Overpower whether after using abilities such as Bash or even with Earthstriker’s Aspect or other passive abilities.
6Crowd-Control With Sapphire
The ice-cold gem of Diablo 4, characters with Sapphire can dish out cold damage in addition to freeze enemies. Equip the Sapphire on weapons to increase damage to crowd-controlled foes, on armor to reduce damage when fortified, or on jewelry to raise cold resistance.
RELATED:Diablo 4: All Crowd Control Effects ExplainedDiablo 4 allows you to initiate crowd control to impair and attack multiple enemies at a time, but Sapphire weapons can make this process much more efficient. Not only being able to slow, freeze or stun enemies, each attack will also deplete more of their health. Rogue is one of the best characters to use with Sapphire, as their skills allow dashing through enemies like Swiss cheese while triggering Daze constantly.
5Puncture With Emerald
Emerald is the gem of protection and resilience in Diablo 4. It increases critical strike damage in weapons, increases poison resistance in jewelry, and adds Thorns to armor. Thorns still allow you to take damage, but they cause attackers to receive damage back. The green gem can also increase damage on foes in vulnerable states, such as Stun.
The Barbarian is one of the best classes for the Emerald gem if you like fighting up close and personal. Adding this gem to your armor will give your character an additional means of dealing damage, especially for enemies who constantly give you damage. Without needing special skills or armor to increase Thorns, Emerald armor allows fights to be over faster while reducing the damage you take in the process.
4Cast Magic With Topaz
A gem that symbolizes calmness, Topaz gems in Diablo are known for drawing and protecting against electricity. Topaz increases skill damage in weapons, reduces damage during crowd control in armor, and increases lightning resistance in jewelry.
RELATED:Diablo 4: Necromancer Leveling GuideWhile useful to wear on armor for a lot of different debuffs and impairments, Necromancers see the best use of Topaz on weapons, especially in the early parts of the game. With all the spells the Necromancer can use, and all being fairly weak when starting out, Topaz weapons make skills universally stronger and can greatly ease your difficulty curve.
3Inflict With Amethyst
Known as the gem of time, Amethyst issues Bleed damage to foes where mild damage is applied every moment like poison. With Amethyst, weapons can increase Damage Over Time (DoT), armor can reduce DoT, and jewelry can add resistance to Shadow attacks.
You can’t go wrong with any class capable of causing Bleed, Poison, Burning, or Blight to enemies with Amethyst weapons. The Sorcerer, Necromancerand Rogue classeshave attacks and skills containing many of these effects. You’ll be able to finish enemies faster thanks to the boost in chip damage from certain attacks.
2Stay Alive With Diamond
The gem of light and resistance, Diamond has great protection properties. It’s also the rarest gem in the game, mostly being found as quest rewards. Diamonds can increase Ultimate damage in weapons, increases barrier protection in armor, and adds resistance from any element in jewelry.
RELATED:Diablo 4: Tips For Playing As DruidThe elemental resistance comes in handy most for Druids. As many fights will be taxing on Druids, Diamond jewelry works well to alleviate this problem so that battles are more manageable and end quicker. Druids are also one of three classes that use barriers, and Diamond armor will give your barriers extra life so the odds of hanging on in a difficult fight improve.
1Heal With Skull
While a widely-known depiction of death, Skull gems are all about life and rejuvenation. No matter your class, you might find Skull gems tempting on any kind of equipment. Skull gems can add Life on Kill to weapons,make potions more effectivewith armor, and increase overall defense with jewelry. Life on Kill allows you to replenish a small amount of Life after defeating an enemy.
The abilities of Skull gems are rather universal. This allows you to double or triple-dip with another type of gem you might be eyeing. For example, if you like the idea of having Emerald armor for your Barbarian, you can also equip Skull jewelry or weapons as a great supplement to the armor’s Thorn buff.
