Gaming Simplified: A noob’s guide to Kanai’s Cube

In Diablo III: Reaper of Souls patch 2.3.0, Blizzard added the Kanai’s Cube to the game. While Blizzard drew many parallels between the item and its predecessor – the Horadric cube – there are more differences than similarities between the two items. While Kanai’s Cube isn’t the most difficult to understand item in gaming history, its functions can be a bit misleading.

As such, here’s a guide to how you can acquire and use the Kanai’s Cube in Diablo III: Reaper of Souls!

Acquiring the Cube

Finding Kanai’s Cube is both simple and difficult at the same time. In order to find the elusive Kanai’s Cube, players must travel through the Ruins of Sescheron. The ruins are not accessible via traditional means, as the only way to find them is by traveling through a Waypoint to Act III, where its own Waypoint can be found at the top-right corner of the map.

Once there, players must search the second area of the Ruins of Sescheron known as “The Elder Sanctum”. Since Diablo III generates random maps each time you start a game, it can be somewhat difficult to pinpoint the exact location of the Kanai’s Cube. This is further complicated by the lack of a quest marker on the mini-map.

The entrance to the Tomb of Kanai will always look like this. It is usually found in a smaller snowy area in the north-east part of the Elder Sanctum

Once located, enter the tomb and you will find Kanai’s Cube waiting for you. Kanai’s ghost will appear and open the barrier for you, and Zoltun Kulle will take the cube back to the base camp. At this point Kulle will act as an artisan (similar to the blacksmith, jeweler, or enchantress) where you can use the Kanai’s Cube whenever you want.

Using the Kanai’s Cube

Kanai’s Cube is deceptively easy to understand. While it does provide you with a list of all possible recipies, what the cube is actually capable of is very poorly explained. Here’s the basics:

Archive of Tal Rasha

This recipe extracts legendary powers from any weapon, armor, or jewelery players place within the cube. Players can then select any of these abilities at any time to gain their buffs without having to equip the item. However, you can only equip one ability at a time, and once you extract a legendary item’s powers it is gone forever, so choose wisely.

Players can choose one power for the following classes: weapons, armor, and jewelery. This is particularly useful for amulet abilities that absorb damage from certain elements.

Law of Kulle

The Law of Kulle is a very useful ability. When this recipe is completed it will completely reset a legendary item as though the player had just picked it up. This means that you can analyze it again with the potential of awakening an “ancient” item that will have much higher stats than regular legendaries. However, the cost of this recipe is very high, so limit its uses to items you really want to upgrade.

Hope of Cain

This recipe turns any rare item into a legendary item of the same type. When I say “the same type” I mean it quite literally. If you place a rare mace, you’ll get a legendary mace. If you place a rare amulet, you’ll get a rare amulet. The list goes on…

This ability can be particularly useful for acquiring “The Furnace”, a legendary two-handed mace which has an ability that can increase your damage output exponentially. Remember, if two-handed maces aren’t your style you can alway use the Archive of Tal Rasha to turn it into a passive buff!

Skill of Nilfur

This is perhaps one of the least rewarding recipes in the list. While it is useful for turning one legendary set piece into another, it can never roll an ancient quality one. Not only that, but if you use on an ancient item it will turn into a plain set item. Only use this if you have multiple identical set pieces and you want the other ones. Otherwise, don’t bother.

Work of Cathan

This recipe is one of the most expensive in the game, as it requires you to have a Gem of Ease that has reached level 25. This ability completely removes level restrictions on one item. That’s it. While it can be useful for raising several characters to a higher level – handing down a level 70 item to a level 1 – it has relatively little use outside of this. I would recommend only using this once on an item like a 100% buff Leoric’s Crown. Otherwise, pass this one as well.

Darkness of Radament

Ever have too many of a single gem? Have a bunch of useless diamonds and amethyst that you want to get rid of? Then look no further! This recipe will turn any of your gems into a single gem type. This can be really useful for farming rubies, topaz, or emeralds to buff your characters.

Anger of Iben Fahd

Similar to Darkness of Radament, this recipe will allow you to turn any crafting material into another one. To do so, you must place the material you want to change, and one piece of armor that matches the quality of material you need. Sadly this doesn’t work for Death’s Breath…

But there’s more!

There are two unlisted recipes that need only 1 legendary item to use. The first requires the Puzzle Ring, which will open a portal to The Vault. The other needs the Bovine Bardiche to access…a level that is certainly Not The Cow Level.

What you are seeing above is Not The Cow Level, as clearly displayed in the top-right corner of the screen. Please disregard the abundance of cows as these are not characteristic of the cow level in any way, shape, or form…

I hope that this guide clears up a little bit of the lack of clarity the Kanai’s Cube has. Remember, the Kanai’s Cube is a very useful item that can change up your style of gameplay and open up various new builds that were otherwise useless before. So get out there and start crafting!