Kanai's Cube

"The artifact known as Kanai’s Cube is said to have incomprehensible powers of transmutation. Certainly, the services this item can provide will enhance your potential to incredible levels, including personal customization and impressive mastery over the many treasures you have uncovered throughout your journey. I wonder...will it be worth the cost?"

- Nevalistis^(src)

The Cube

Kanai's Cube interface

Kanai's Cube is an ancient device players can recover from the Tomb of King Kanai in Adventure Mode of Diablo III. Characters can use it in any town once retrieved. It was added in patch 2.3.0 and quickly became a centerpiece of endgame character builds and item management.

Kanai's Cube allows players to benefit from 3 additional Legendary Item powers without actually equipping them, providing a significant boost to power level. It also has a variety of recipes which can improve or transform items, making it the spiritual successor to the Horadric Cube of Diablo II.

Lore

Kanai's Cube is able to siphon and archive the energies of powerful items. None understand its power better than Zoltun Kulle.

History

The Cube is created

At the beginning of the Hunt for the Three, the Horadrim realized they would need an artifact of immense power. Such an artifact came in the form of a device simply called "the Cube." Designed by Zoltun Kulle the Horadrim forged the Cube over a period of weeks, as smiths hammered and mages chanted, feeling their sanity slipping all the while. The Cube was completed, but was marred by the dark methods used to complete it and disastrous results.

For an extended period of time, the Horadrim used the Cube as they hunted the Prime Evils. None were able to wield its power more adeptly than Kulle. In time, the Cube became the center of Horadric works. Every initiative or action required it, and those who survived its creation became increasingly haunted by its presence. Aware of the dangers of corruption, and of the Cube's marred design, the Order determined that it was too dangerous for anyone to continue using it. That it had to be hidden from anyone, including them. Of all the Horadrim, only Kulle objected to the abandonment of the device, but his experiments were forced to end. As such, they created the weaker Horadric Cube in its stead, and entrusted the first Cube to a secret organization of Barbarians on Mount Arreat, who kept it safe from everyone, including the rest of their tribe. Throughout the years, these Barbarians served as guardians over the Cube, keeping it safe from prying eyes and those who would use its powers for evil.

The Cube below Sescheron

In 1265, the cube was guarded by the elder Kanai, and was his most prized possession. It was buried beneath Sescheron. As the Army of Destruction overran the city, Kanai was killed. However, his spirit could not rest, due to the destruction of Mount Arreat and the Worldstone. Doomed to stand eternal vigil over his home and greatest treasure, he awaited a powerful and honorable individual to whom he might pass on his task. Such an individual came in the form of the Nephalem, as the hero(es) and the spirit of Zoltun Kulle were able to retrieve the artifact and unlock its power. Many adventurers have since come to learn of the power that dwells within the artifact.

At some point, Lorath Nahr looked at the Cube. He discovered something within the artifact that caused him to reflect that everything he thought he knew about human history was now, at best, uncertain.

The Cube was lost at some point after the defeat of Maltheal. The Order of the First Ones searched for it, hoping to recreate the artifact without the dangers inherent with Kulle's design.

In-game

Zoltun Kulle's spirit and the Cube in Bastion's Keep

Players may obtain the Cube if they survive through what remains of Sescheron and open the ancient king's lost tomb. It is found in the Elder Sanctum, within The Ruins of Sescheron in Act III on Adventure Mode only.

Once recovered, the Cube is found in any Act's main town, for any character on the account with the same Seasonal and/or Hardcore status, almost like a fourth artisan, but only in Adventure Mode. It is not carried in the Inventory like the Horadric Cube. Zoltun Kulle's spirit stands next to the Cube in town and makes snide comments when its recipes are used. It allows The Nephalem to use three additional Legendary item powers beyond those from equipped items, and also can transmute items for a variety of effects not provided by other artisans.

Additional Legendary powers

Power selection slots in the Cube

Kanai's Cube provides a significant and direct gameplay impact by allowing the player to select one Legendary weapon power (which includes shields and offhand items), one armor power, and one jewelry power (ring or amulet), which then apply to the character as if those items were equipped. The powers must first be extracted from the original item using the Cube's first crafting function, "Archive of Tal Rasha". These powers last indefinitely until replaced with a different power, even in Campaign Mode when the Cube itself is not available. Thus, the Cube effectively grants three extra "partial" equipment slots, with the player gaining the unique power (but not the statistics) of each item selected, making it a large increase to Nephalem power. Because of the importance of these powers to character builds, they are saved and loaded along with items and skills within the Armory.

Extracted Legendary powers are shared across all characters in any gameplay mode (seasonal and/or hardcore), and can even be used by multiple characters at once. The acquisition of these powers is permanent for a given gameplay mode, and powers may be replaced and reselected without additional cost. Finding Legendary powers for the Cube is just as important as finding Legendaries to equip when a new Season begins or a new account is created.

See the sub-article for the extraction recipe for full details on usage of extracted powers.

Some Seasons have used variations on the one weapon, one armor, one jewelry arrangement.

Transmutation recipes

Cube close-up

The Cube has several different crafting functions via transmutation, much like its predecessor the Horadric Cube. Transmutation consumes most ingredients placed in the Cube to improve or manipulate items, gems, or crafting ingredients, or to open portals. The known transmutation recipes are listed below.

An important quality of life addition compared to the Horadric Cube interface is that Kanai's Cube uses smart materials allocation: one may put more materials than needed into the Cube, the excess will simply be returned to inventory. There is no need to split materials into smaller packs with exact numbers. A recipe book also appears when using the Cube, allowing players to easily page through most recipes - although single items consumed to make portals are not included. The Fill button under each recipe automatically places the required materials for the active recipe into the Cube.

Legendary Abilities: Archive of Tal Rasha

"...all agreed the Cube was necessary if the hunt for the three was to be successful. They thought they understood the dangers."

- Fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls^(src)

Main article: Kanai's Cube/Archive of Tal Rasha powers

This recipe extracts the "essence" from nearly any Legendary or Set item with special (orange) item power, destroying it. Characters can select three such essences at a time, causing their special legendary powers to be active as if they were actually equipped. Selecting or reselecting various powers can be repeated as much as desired without actually using a recipe; only the initial extraction costs materials.

See the sub-article for this recipe for full details on usage of extracted powers.

Required materials to extract a Legendary power:

• Khanduran Rune
• Caldeum Nightshade
• Arreat War Tapestry
• Corrupted Angel Flesh
• Westmarch Holy Water
• Death's Breath x5
• The item with a power to be extracted

The transmutation will fail with no effect or consumption of materials if the item's power has already been extracted or cannot be extracted.

Crafting Materials: Pleasure, Regret and Wrath of Iben Fahd

"Still, none could deny the transcendent power of the cube. With its might, the impossible seemed to be within their grasp..."

- Fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls^(src)

"But one of their number came to realize the growing danger. A simple errand led him away from the others, and he experienced a moment of clarity that would change the fates of all."

- Fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls^(src)

"He called the nine together, and declared that the cube must be put away, hidden even from them. Perhaps from them most of all. Seven of the nine concurred, and so the cube was taken, under cover of darkness, entrusted..."

- Fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls^(src)

These three recipes allows converting between any of the three non-Legendary salvaged crafting materials, in batches of 100 at a time. No other materials but these three can be converted this way.

Required Materials:

• Death's Breath x1
• Any equippable Normal, Magic or Rare level 70 item (controlling ingredient)
• Replaced: A stack of Reusable Parts, Arcane Dust, or Veiled Crystals, 100 of which will be converted and the rest ignored

The resulting material matches the rarity of the controlling ingredient used to perform the transmutation:

• Normal items cause conversion into Reusable Parts
• Magic items cause conversion into Arcane Dust
• Rare items cause conversion into Veiled Crystals

Note that the choice of recipe determines which materials are converted, not the materials produced, which varies based on control ingredient. Therefore, for any material desired, two different recipes could be used to obtain it. "Pleasure" converts Reusable Parts to another material, "Regret" converts Arcane Dust, and "Wrath" converts Veiled Crystals. For example, to get Veiled Crystals, either "Pleasure" or "Regret" could be used depending on which other ingredient should be converted.

Normal Items become significantly more valuable due to this recipe - arguably more than Rare Items. Their Reusable Parts can be easily converted to Veiled Crystals, and salvaging non-magical items produces a relatively large amount of Reusable Parts compared to the minimal Veiled Crystals received from Rares. The recipes are quite low in overhead, costing only one Death's Breath and one item easily purchased from a vendor. Therefore, it allows the player to treat the three materials as almost interchangeable, making quantity rather than quality the primary limitation on crafting with these ingredients.

Gems: Darkness of Radament

"...in time, the cube became the center of the Horadric works. Every initiative or action required it, and those who survived its creation became increasingly haunted by its presence."

- Fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls^(src)

Converts exactly 9 gems (obviously, not Legendary Gems) of the same color and quality into 9 gems of the same quality and different color. The result color is determined by the player's choice of controlling ingredient, one of five Essences sold by Squirt the Peddler for 500,000 gold each.

Required Materials:

• One Essence of the desired gem type (controlling ingredient):
  • Essence of Amethyst
  • Essence of Diamond
  • Essence of Emerald
  • Essence of Ruby
  • Essence of Topaz
• Replaced: A stack of gems, 9 of which will be converted and the rest ignored

Obviously, it is most efficient to use this recipe with Flawless Royal gems, the highest quality possible. Of course, if the player is in urgent need of a certain gem type but does not have enough Flawless Royal ones to convert, lower quality may be used. In the long run, each quality level lower than the maximum triples the costs in Essence and time.

This recipe may be rendered unnecessary with frequent use of the Broken Crown, which allows players to focus which type of gems they find, as well as doubling the total quantity.

Reforge Legendary: Law of Kulle

"For weeks, the fires burned, the smiths hammered, and the mages chanted. Those who spent too long in the forge wandered, wide eyed and unblinking, in the daylight. They did not sleep."

- Fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls^(src)

This recipe completely re-randomizes all powers and statistics of any Legendary or Set item. The item is treated as if it just dropped anew; the resulting item will have none of the modifications the original may have received after being obtained, for example from Enchanting or Ramaladni's Gift. Reforged items have a chance to be Ancient, Primal, or non-Ancient items, regardless of the original item's quality, at approximately the same rate as a regular drop. Smart Loot is always active when reforging, so the resulting item will never have the primary stat of another class.

The item's identity as a Legendary item will remain the same - reforging Leoric's Signet always results in another Leoric's Signet of some variety. Reforging also keeps the same item level, not updating the item to the current character level. Outdated items - those buffed or reworked in a patch after the original drop - will NOT change to use the patched attributes and Legendary powers, since the original and patched versions have different "item identities" in game code.

Required Materials:

• Forgotten Souls x50
• Khanduran Rune x5
• Caldeum Nightshade x5
• Arreat War Tapestry x5
• Corrupted Angel Flesh x5
• Westmarch Holy Water x5
• Replaced: The item to be reforged

If the item was socketed, the gem will be returned to the player's inventory without being consumed or affected by the transmutation.

Set Items Conversion: Skill of Nilfur

"...of the cave, ten Horadrim channeled powers, arcane and mystic. Ten felt their sanity slipping away. And nine averted their eyes as the cube came alive."

- Fragment of the Dark Exile Scrolls^(src)

When used, replaces a Set item with another random item of the same set, as a fresh roll, nullifying all modifications. The new Set item will never roll as an Ancient Item, even if the old one was Ancient.

Required Materials:

• Forgotten Souls x10
• Death's Breath x10
• Replaced: The Set item to be converted

Only Sets with at least 3 items may have their items converted. If an item that cannot be converted is placed in the cube for this recipe, the transmutation will fail with no harm to any ingredient. If the item was socketed, the gem will be returned to inventory when it is converted, with no harm or effect on the gem.

Upgrading Rare Items: Hope of Cain

"When the physical material of the cube was forged, the real work began. Ten Horadrim took it deep into the cave, to a place that should never have been disturbed."

- Dark Exile Scrolls^(src)

Turns a level 70 Rare item into a random Legendary or Set item of the same item type. The probability of rolling a specific item for a given class varies with that item's normal drop rate. Thus it cannot award items from Horadric Caches. All modifications are lost, but any gems socketed are returned to inventory.

• Smart Loot always applies.
• Resulting item has a 10% chance to be Ancient, and if it is, an additional chance to be Primal.
• Can roll either Legendary or Set items.
• The Rare item used may be crafted, bought from a vendor, or looted.
• Class-specific items and generic items that occupy the same slot are not interchangeable. For example, a Wizard cannot use a Helm to roll a Wizard Hat or vice versa.
• May roll items exclusive to Torment difficulty.

Overall, it may be an efficient way of farming specific Legendary items or missing set pieces, even more effective than gambling from Kadala. It is especially useful when options for a class are limited — for example, there are only so many class-specific items, so the chances of rolling the desired one are pretty high. It is also vastly preferable to gambling for weapons, where Kadala does not allow players to select a specific weapon type, and to a lesser extent rings and amulets with their higher gambling cost.

Required Materials:

• Death's Breath x25
• Reusable Parts x50
• Arcane Dust x50
• Veiled Crystals x50
• Replaced: The rare item to be upgraded

Character Level: Work of Cathan

"...was done, and the scars would remain forever. And so it was time for the final step, the one each of them had secretly hoped would not come to pass."

- Dark Exile Scrolls^(src)

Sets Character Level requirement of that item to 1, without any other effect. Cannot be used on Legendary Gems, but can be used on items of any quality, including Set items and those produced or modified by other recipes. Does not use up any item power slots or sockets.

This recipe is of little use to regular characters, due to the fact that death is not a permanent setback in that mode. On the other side of the coin, however, it can prove extremely helpful for any Hardcore character, whether in a Season or not, so long as the player has a good set of equipment in their stash to fall back on in the event of a character's untimely death.

Required Materials:

• Gem of Ease (rank 25 or higher)
• Improved: The item to have its level requirement removed

Augmenting Ancient Items: Caldesann's Despair

"Some of them still felt the dark lust the cube has awoken in their hearts. They felt the absence of the cube keenly for rest of their days. Some even plotted to find it."

- Dark Exile Scrolls^(src)

This recipe can be applied to any Ancient (or Primal) item, including both Legendary or Set items. It will not work on non-Ancient Legendary or Set items.

When transmuted, it will upgrade the item by adding +5 to the primary attribute of player's choice for each rank of the Legendary Gem consumed in the process. The stack of Flawless Royal gems consumed is the controlling ingredient, using the choice of gem color to determine the core stat gained.

The enhancement is applied as a separate modifier, displayed below and in addition to the other bonuses of the item. This applies even when the augmentation is for a stat the item already provides, for instance two separate bonuses to Vitality, which would both be fully functional and additive. While the recipe can be used multiple times on the same item, additional uses are not additive: the new bonus will overwrite the old one, even if the new bonus is lower.

Required Materials:

• A Legendary Gem of sufficient rank
  • For Weapons: rank 30 or higher (includes off-hand items)
  • For Jewelry: rank 40 or higher
  • For Armor: rank 50 or higher
• 3 Flawless Royal gems, all of the same color (controlling ingredient):
  • Ruby for Strength,
  • Topaz for Intelligence,
  • Emerald for Dexterity, or
  • Amethyst for Vitality.
• Improved: The Ancient Item to receive the extra stat bonus

If any extra gems are in the stack provided, only 3 will be consumed, and the rest will remain in the inventory unaffected.

Upgrade Legendary Item: Curiosity of Lorath Nahr

"I found something disturbing within Kanai's Cube. Everything I thought I knew about our history is, at best, uncertain."

- From the journal of Lorath Nahr^(src)

This recipe allows Legendary Items to be upgraded into Primal Items. Only one upgraded Primal Item may be worn at a time. The exact bonuses of the resulting Primal Items are freshly randomized without regard to the properties of the Legendary Item that was consumed in the process, but it will still have the same identity, similar to the process of Reforging. This recipe was introduced for Season 28, but was made permanent thereafter.

Required Materials:

• 100 Primordial Ashes
• Replaced: Any Legendary equipment

Because of the very high impact weapons have on character power, both in bonuses and base damage, using this recipe on a weapon is often the first choice. However, if a high quality Ancient weapon has already been obtained, it may be better used on other slots.

Portals

Certain items can be placed into Kanai's Cube without any other "recipe ingredients", and transmuted to create a portal to a special zone:

• Bovine Bardiche's portal leads to Not The Cow Level. It does not close until the game is exited.
• Puzzle Ring's portal leads to The Vault. It closes 60 seconds after Greed's chest is looted inside.
  • If an Ancient Puzzle Ring is used, The Vault will have a special, darker lighting effect, and contain many more Treasure Goblins!
• A Petrified Scream's portal leads to the Echoing Nightmare. It closes 30 seconds after the reward chest is looted. Only 1 Scream is consumed; any extras are ignored.

While a portal is still open, transmutation of another portal of the same type will fail, even in a different town.

These "recipes" are not in the recipe book; players must learn about them independently and manually insert the required item.

Green Hills of Stranglethorn

Converts a page of Black Rock Ledger into a page of same number from the World of Warcraft lore book, Green Hills of Stranglethorn. There is a total of 6 different pages.

This "recipe" is not in the recipe book; players must learn about it on their own and manually insert the required item.

Infuse Legendary Power: Natala's Prayer

This page contains obsolete content This article contains information that is no longer relevant to gameplay.

"Natala's sacrifice saved the Horadrim from themselves, but her name must be stricken from the texts."

- Dark Exile Scrolls^(src)

Natala's Prayer was a future planned recipe for Kanai's Cube, expected to come after patch 2.5.0.

Patch changes

• 2.3.0 - Kanai's Cube added.
• 2.5.0 - Fill button added to recipe book.
• 2.7.5 (Season 28) - "Upgrade Legendary Item: Curiosity of Lorath Nahr" recipe added.

Images

Kanai's Cube in the Tomb of King Kanai

The Nephalem and the Cube in the camp

Transmutation active

Kanai's cube found!

Kanai's found

Trivia

This section contains facts and trivia relevant to this article.

• Each of the Cube's transmutation recipes are named after Horadrim members: Tal Rasha, Radament, Zoltun Kulle, Jered Cain, Nilfur, Iben Fahd, Caldesann and Cathan. The final recipe, added in a later patch, is the only one named after a Horadrim from current rather than ancient times: Lorath Nahr.
• Originally, the Radament's recipe was named after Nor Tiraj, a Horadrim acolyte who documented Baal's imprisonment.
• The cube was named after Kevin Kanai Griffith, a Blizzard employee who succumbed to cancer.
• Pre-release items, namely the Nephalem Cube and Cauldron of Jordan, bear resemblance to Kanai's Cube.

Discrepancies

• Exactly how long the Horadrim used the Cube differs. According to a post on battle.net, the Order quickly determined that it was too dangerous to continue using soon after its creation. According to Brian Kindregan however, the Horadrim used the Cube for a long time before abandoning it. The second timeframe is supported by the Dark Exile Scrolls (which appear as flavor text for the Cube's functions), stating that it was used over a period of time long enough to become integral to the Horadrim's actions.
• According to Season 31, Kanai's Cube is a nephalem artifact. This contradicts other sources which state it was designed by Zoltun Kulle.