Gems (Diablo II)

See also: Gems (The Hell)

A Gem in Diablo II is one of three small items that can be placed in a socket to enchance your gear. There are different types as well as qualities of these gems, both deciding what kind of stats you will recieve when socketing it into gear. Although they cannot activate bonus stats when placing in a specific order, gems are still a valid ingame currency for another reason. Other than item enchancement, these gems can be used in a variety of Horadric Cube recipes, reaching from Rerolling of magic items to upgrading gear and runes. Gems can be used to start the accumulation of ingame wealth with successful trades, and because you're more likely to find various gems while playing than Mid or High Runes, they make it easier for the newer members to involve themselves with trading.

Just like Runes and Jewels, once a gem has been socketed into an item, it cannot be removed unless using the Horadric Cube Recipe for this purpose. Should an item have a lower level requirement than the gem you insert, it will be adjusted to be consistant with the gem level requirement.

Gem Qualities

Gems can be found in any of five qualities: Chipped, Flawed, Normal, Flawless and Perfect, from lowest to highest. While lower qualities are often used to enhance your own gear early in the game, cubing and trading is generally restricted to Perfect Gems. Each gem type has a predetermined list of stats always present on that type of gem. These will increase to be more effective as the quality of the gem improves.

List of Gems

There are seven different types of Gems in total, one type being as likely to drop as the next. The quality of gems themselves differ depending on where they are found, although it is still possible to find the lowest quality in Hell difficulty. This makes a total of 35 different gem variations possible (7 types X 5 qualities).

Ruby
	Gem quality	Level	Weapons	Armor/Helms	Shields
	Chipped	1	3-4 Fire Damage	+10 to Life	12% Resist Fire
	Flawed	5	5-8 Fire Damage	+17 to Life	16% Resist Fire
	Regular	12	8-12 Fire Damage	+24 to Life	22% Resist Fire
	Flawless	15	10-16 Fire Damage	+31 to Life	28% Resist Fire
	Perfect	18	15-20 Fire Damage	+38 to Life	40% Resist Fire
Sapphire
	Gem quality	Level	Weapons	Armor/Helms	Shields
	Chipped	1	1-3 Cold Damage, 1.0 sec Duration	+10 Max Mana	12% Resist Cold
	Flawed	5	3-5 Cold Damage, 1.4 sec Duration	+17 Max Mana	16% Resist Cold
	Regular	12	4-7 Cold Damage, 2.0 sec Duration	+24 Max Mana	22% Resist Cold
	Flawless	15	6-10 Cold Damage, 2.4 sec Duration	+31 Max Mana	28% Resist Cold
	Perfect	18	10-14 Cold Damage, 3.0 sec Duration	+38 Max Mana	40% Resist Cold
Topaz
	Gem quality	Level	Weapons	Armor/Helms	Shields
	Chipped	1	1-8 Lightning Damage	+9% Chance to Find Magic Items	12% Resist Lightning
	Flawed	5	1-14 Lightning Damage	+13% Chance to Find Magic Items	16% Resist Lightning
	Regular	12	1-22 Lightning Damage	+16% Chance to Find Magic Items	22% Resist Lightning
	Flawless	15	1-30 Lightning Damage	+20% Chance to Find Magic Items	28% Resist Lightning
	Perfect	18	1-40 Lightning Damage	+24% Chance to Find Magic Items	40% Resist Lightning
Emerald
	Gem quality	Level	Weapons	Armor/Helms	Shields
	Chipped	1	+10 Poison Damage over 3 Seconds	+3 to Dexterity	12% Resist Poison
	Flawed	5	+20 Poison Damage over 4 Seconds	+4 to Dexterity	16% Resist Poison
	Regular	12	+40 Poison Damage over 5 Seconds	+6 to Dexterity	22% Resist Poison
	Flawless	15	+60 Poison Damage over 6 Seconds	+8 to Dexterity	28% Resist Poison
	Perfect	18	+100 Poison Damage over 7 Seconds	+10 to Dexterity	40% Resist Poison
Diamond
	Gem quality	Level	Weapons	Armor/Helms	Shields
	Chipped	1	+28% Damage vs. Undead	+20 to attack Rating	All Resistances +6%
	Flawed	5	+34% Damage vs. Undead	+40 to attack Rating	All Resistances +8%
	Regular	12	+44% Damage vs. Undead	+60 to attack Rating	All Resistances +11%
	Flawless	15	+54% Damage vs. Undead	+80 to attack Rating	All Resistances +14%
	Perfect	18	+68% Damage vs. Undead	+100 to attack Rating	All Resistances +19%
Amethyst
	Gem quality	Level	Weapons	Armor/Helms	Shields
	Chipped	1	+40 to Attack Rating	+3 to Strength	+8 to Defense
	Flawed	5	+60 to Attack Rating	+4 to Strength	+12 to Defense
	Regular	12	+80 to Attack Rating	+6 to Strength	+18 to Defense
	Flawless	15	+100 to Attack Rating	+8 to Strength	+24 to Defense
	Perfect	18	+150 to Attack Rating	+10 to Strength	+30 to Defense
Skull
	Gem quality	Level	Weapons	Armor/Helms	Shields
	Chipped	1	Steals 2% life, 1% Mana	Replenish Life +2, Regenerate Mana 8%	Attacker Takes 4 Damage
	Flawed	5	Steals 2% life, 2% Mana	Replenish Life +3, Regenerate Mana 8%	Attacker Takes 8 Damage
	Regular	12	Steals 3% life, 2% Mana	Replenish Life +3, Regenerate Mana 12%	Attacker Takes 12 Damage
	Flawless	15	Steals 3% life, 3% Mana	Replenish Life +4, Regenerate Mana 12%	Attacker Takes 16 Damage
	Perfect	18	Steals 4% life, 3% Mana	Replenish Life +5, Regenerate Mana 19%	Attacker Takes 20 Damage

Upgrading Gems

Gems can be upgraded from the lowest quality all the way to their highest without having to use any other items except a Horadric Cube. To upgrade a gem, three identical gems of same type and quality are needed. This nondependancy on other items to upgrade gems made it a easily accessibe and efficient source of currency that could be traded by everyone, while also ensuring that it was easy to gather enough in short time to use for other purposes.

The second possibility of upgrading a gem can be through a Gem Shrine. Upon activating this shrine, a random gem from your inventory will be upgraded to the next higher quality. Should the player not have any gems currently in the inventory, a random type chipped gem will drop. It is important to note that the gem will drop near the shrine in both cases, and has to be picked up again manually.

Hellforge Quest

The Hellforge Quest, found in Act IV, will drop four gems for each player completing the quest in a game. Regardless of the difficulty in which the quest was completed, there will always be one gem of perfect quality in that drop for each player present. The Hellforge may also drop runes.