What is the max number of sockets for each equipment type?

Question

Since you can add sockets to an item, it is possible for an item to have more sockets than what it dropped with. What is the maximum amount of sockets that each equipment type can support? Can the maximums be reached on any item (by adding sockets) regardless of it's initial socket count, or does the initial socket count matter? Are there any other rules to consider?

Edit It has been clarified that sockets can no longer be added. Leaving the description above, so the answers below still make sense.

Asked by EBongo

Answer

First, note that you can not add sockets to items anymore. The site from the Diablo homepage saying this is outdated.

The maximum number of sockets per equipment type varies.

For magic items it is two.

For rare items it is four.

Another thing to safely assume is that the maximum for rings and helmets is one.

Helmets are a special case since gems have a special purpose in them (like +8% life), which would probably be too strong if there were more than one socket. Same goes for rings. Rings are somewhat special since they sometimes turn up with only one stats instead of two, or three instead of four, because they have fewer bonuses in general. More than one socket would seem to counteract this balance.

There's no official source for all of this this, but it can easily be deduced from one fact: Magic items and rare items have a set amount of random properties (2 and 4, respectively), and when rolling socket places, those count as a random property, meaning they take up a "property slot", although just when rolling (they only take up one total affix of the final item, meaning that you can still have three magic properties and four sockets on gems).

This also gives an important conclusion: Sockets take away important stats, which gems can not fill. Let's say you're looking for strength in your items. Your sockets could "roll away" the strength-property slot of the item, leaving you only the sockets to catch up for it. If you're lucky and you roll two or more socket-slots, you might be able to get the numbers even using high-level gems, but if you (like it happens most of the time) only roll one socket, it will be very hard or impossible to recoup the damage done using gems (since e.g. when the item would give you 50 strength, you're usually at a stage in the game where you maybe have a +22 strength gem).

This becomes useful, however, if you want to stack a certain stat alone. Items can not roll the same bonus stat twice (e.g. 2x +strength), so you can further enhance a certain stat on an item with gems.

This thread discusses it (notice Bashiok's post later in the thread, acknowledging this fact).

Needless to say, it's incredibly unlikely that you'll ever find a rare with 4 sockets in it, but it should be theoretically possible. I have already found magic items with two sockets and no stats, so there's no reason to have an arbitrary restriction for rare items.

For legendary items there is no general rule. The max number of sockets in legendary items is whatever is the highest amount of sockets you find on a legendary in the Diablo III database of your choice, since legendaries are always set up the same way (number of bonuses, sockets, etc., even though the bonuses themselves can change).

Answered by heishe

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