Inherent modifier

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An inherent modifier is an item upgrade that cannot be changed or salvaged; they are part of the weapon itself. The term is used strictly to indicate a built-in inscription, but can also be used loosely to describe invariable modifiers (e.g. the prefix on a Fiery Gladius) or universal bonuses (e.g. the +10 energy available to any staff with maximum stats).

Weapons in Nightfall and later have removable modifiers rather than inherent ones: inscriptions, focus cores, shield handles, and wand wrappings. The following table illustrates the difference in how modifier slots are distributed in each campaign.

Item source/type Inherent Inscription Suffix
Prophecies / Factions weapon[1] 1 0 1
Prophecies / Factions off-hand[1] 2 0 0
Nightfall / Eye of the North weapon 0 1 1
Nightfall / Eye of the North off-hand 0 1 1[2]
  1. ^ ab Exceptions may exist in post-Nightfall update content. Such items would have the same properties as Nightfall/EotN items.
  2. ^ Salvaged off-hand components can only be re-applied to inscribable items and therefore cannot be used with Prophecies/Factions items (see note 1).

An important functional difference between inherent modifiers and inscriptions is that inscriptions providing armor are calculated as part of the core armor in the armor calculation, while inherent modifiers are calculated as part of the bonus armor, which is capped.

  • For instance, ward against elements (+24 vs elemental damage) with an off-hand with the inscription "Leaf on the Wind" (+10 armor vs cold damage) will provide +34 vs cold damage, however the same ward with an off-hand providing armor +10 vs cold damage inherently will only offer +25 armor vs cold damage (since both the +24 and +10 are counted as bonus armor and bonus armor is capped at 25). See Armor calculation for details.

Exclusively inherent modifiers[edit]

See also: Category:Unreplicable non-unique items

Notes[edit]

Item tl.gif Item tr.gif
Wooden Buckler
Armor: 16 (Requires 13 Tactics)
Health +43 (while Enchanted)
Illusion Magic +1 (19% chance while using skills)
Value: 224 gold
Item bl.gif Item br.gif

A shield with a chance to boost Illusion Magic.

  • Weapons using inherent modifiers are often referred to as old school.
  • Inherent modifiers with attribute-specific bonuses can be found in items with a non-matching attribute, e.g. shields with a chance to boost rank in a spellcaster attribute.
Anomaly Anomaly.An extremely small number of weapons in circulation carry an inherent mod and an inscription slot. Currently, all known exploits or game bugs that produced them have been resolved.

See also[edit]


Weapons (edit)
RequirementSwappingSetsBonus
One-handed Melee:
Ranged:
AxeSword
SpearWand
Two-handed Melee:
Ranged:
DaggersHammerScythe
BowStaff
Off-hand only FocusShield
Types CasterMartial
Upgrades BundlesComponentsInscriptions
RewardsInherent modifiersPerfect
20/2040/20/2040/40