Quote from elizabeth.jones on February 27, 2026, 2:34 PM

You grab a Crystal Sword in D2R and you can almost hear Spirit calling your name. Then you notice it already has four sockets and you start thinking, "Cool, I'll just cube it again and tweak the result." Nope. The Horadric Cube doesn't do upgrades on an item that's already been socketed, and trying to force it feels about as useful as window-shopping diablo 4 items for sale when you're supposed to be farming runes instead.

What The Cube Actually Allows

The socket recipe with Ral, Amn, and a Perfect Amethyst only applies to a plain white, unsocketed weapon. That detail matters more than people think. If the sword has holes in it already, even one, the recipe won't "re-roll" anything. No extra sockets, no different socket count, no secret workaround. You'll hit Transmute, nothing changes, and you're left wondering if you misremembered the recipe when the game's just enforcing the rule.

Getting Four Sockets Without The Headache

If you want the clean, reliable path for Spirit, you're really chasing the right base, not a magic trick. Item level decides the maximum sockets a base can take, and you don't see that number on screen. That's why Normal Secret Cow Level Crystal Swords are so popular: they tend to land in a range where the maximum sockets cap out at four. Bring that exact kind of unsocketed white Crystal Sword to Larzuk in Act V and he'll punch in the max every time, which in this case means four. It feels almost boringly consistent, and that's the point.

When Rolling Sockets Is Worth It

Cubing an unsocketed Crystal Sword is the budget option, but it's still a roll. The game picks a random number of sockets, 1 through 6, then checks what that sword is allowed to have at its item level. If the roll goes higher than the cap, it gets forced down. So on the right Normal-difficulty base, "bad" high rolls can still turn into four sockets. It's not a promise, though. If you're short on Larzuk uses, this gamble can be smart. If you're on a tight timeline, it can also be a time sink.

Common Mistakes And The Real Fix

A lot of players get burned by thinking they can correct a near-miss. A Crystal Sword that dropped with 1, 2, or 3 sockets is basically locked in. You can remove runes or gems with a Hel rune and a Town Portal scroll, sure, but the sockets themselves don't disappear and you can't add more. At that point, the "fix" is just getting another base and trying again, whether that means more Cows, more Chaos runs, or simply trading; if you'd rather skip the grind and just focus on builds, some folks use services like eznpc to pick up game currency or items and get back to playing instead of endlessly hunting for the same sword.