Your plan for your endgame gear demands careful consideration for the one piece of gear that opens or closes all other set synergies. The Ring of Royal Grandeur isn’t essential for everyone, but it affects your other options so much that the choice to use it or not should be the first choice you make.
The Argument in Favor
Even if we forget about sets this is a pretty good ring.
It’s easy enough to get that many players wind up finding several without even trying. The Ring of Royal Grandeur can drop from Horadric Caches obtained in either Act I or Act IV.
The ring provides a fair boost to your main stat, always comes with attack speed, and will frequently also have crit bonus. Should you happen to roll poorly, it’s not too hard to get another one, unlike some other famous rings that require a great deal more effort. All of this means it’s usually worthwhile even before we look at the game-changing effect it can have on the rest of your gear.
What you need to realize is that the special ability really works in two ways. The first and less obvious bonus that most people forget is that endgame sets can take forever to complete. Even the crafted ones (comparatively easy to farm) are aggravating, but getting that last piece of a dropped set is a nightmare.
This ring removes that frustration.
And even more important than that is the freedom to get a full set bonus while still leaving room for additional gear. Not only does this mean that you don’t have to give up that one orange proc you really wanted to keep, it also opens up the option to have multiple sets simultaneously that would otherwise be impossible.
Incredible options you now have include:
If you love to both move fast and not run out of resources you can get the full speed bonus from Guardian’s Jeopardy, while still leaving your wrists free for some Reaper’s Wraps.
Example synergies for an efficiency setup:
- Guardian’s Jeopardy* Bonus:
+250 Vitality
Regenerates 2000 Life per Second
+15% Movement Speed
*(the helmet automatically adds Movement Speed another 10-12% Movement Speed) - Reaper’s Wraps: Health globes restore 25–30% of your primary resource.
Nuke-based builds can receive the combined cooldown bonuses from Born’s Command and Captain Crimson’s Trimmings with only four set pieces total. In some cases this still leaves room for two more sets.
Example synergies for a Nuke build:
- Born’s Command Bonus:
+15% Life
Reduces cooldown of all skills by 10.0%
Increases Bonus Experience by 20% - Captain Crimson’s Trimmings Bonus:
Regenerates 2000 Life per Second
Reduces cooldown of all skills by 10.0%.
+50 Resistance to All Elements
Reduces all resource costs by 10%
You’ll only need three pieces of Asheara’s Vestments and four Unity rings (one for you, and 1 ea. for your Followers) to take 25% of normal damage, still leaving eight equipment slots up for grabs. That also means not choosing between Asheara’s and Aughild’s Authority, or between Aughild’s and certain class sets.
Example synergies for damage mitigation build:
- Asheara’s Vestments Bonus:
+100 Resistance to All Elements
+20% Life
Attacks cause your followers to occasionally come to your aid. - Unity: All damage taken is split between wearers of this item.
- Aughild’s Authority Bonus:
Reduces damage from ranged attacks by 7.0%.
Reduces damage from melee attacks by 7.0%
Reduces damage from elites by 15.0%
Increases damage against elites by 15%
Picture your Barbarian with Immortal King’s Call, Asheara’s, and Aughild’s at the same time.
Example synergies for Barbs:
- Immortal King’s Call Bonus:
+100 Resistance to All Elements
+10 Maximum Fury (Barbarian Only)
Gain 289 Life per Fury Spent (Barbarian Only)
Increases Fury Generation by 2 (Barbarian Only)
Call of the Ancients last until they die. - Asheara’s Vestments Bonus:
+100 Resistance to All Elements
+20% Life
Attacks cause your followers to occasionally come to your aid. - Aughild’s Authority Bonus:
Reduces damage from ranged attacks by 7.0%.
Reduces damage from melee attacks by 7.0%
Reduces damage from elites by 15.0%
Increases damage against elites by 15%
Or your Monk doing the same with Inna’s Mantra.
Example synergies for Monks:
- Inna’s Mantra Bonus:
+250 Dexterity
Gain 124 Life per Spirit Spent
Increases Spirit Regeneration by 2.00 per Second
Reduces resource cost of Sweeping Wind by 70 Spirit
Gain the base effect of all four Mantras at all times. - Asheara’s Vestments Bonus:
+100 Resistance to All Elements
+20% Life
Attacks cause your followers to occasionally come to your aid. - Aughild’s Authority Bonus:
Reduces damage from ranged attacks by 7.0%.
Reduces damage from melee attacks by 7.0%
Reduces damage from elites by 15.0%
Increases damage against elites by 15%
The Armor of Akkhan and Blackthorne’s Battlegear line up nicely for Crusaders.
Example synergies for Crusaders:
- Armor of Akkhan Bonus:
+500 Strength
Reduce the cost of all abilities by 50% while Akarat’s Champion is active.
Reduce the cooldown of Akarat’s Champion by 50% - Blackthorne’s Battlegear Bonus:
+250 Vitality
Increases damage against elites by 10%
Reduces damage from elites by 10.0%
+25% Extra Gold from Monsters
You are immune to Desecrator, Molten, and Plagued monster ground effects.
Demon Hunters could mix Aughild’s, Blackthorne’s, and Natalya’s Vengeance (and still have room for a Cloak of the Garwulf).
Example synergies for Demon Hunters:
- Aughild’s Authority Bonus:
Reduces damage from ranged attacks by 7.0%.
Reduces damage from melee attacks by 7.0%
Reduces damage from elites by 15.0%
Increases damage against elites by 15% - Blackthorne’s Battlegear Bonus:
+250 Vitality
Increases damage against elites by 10%
Reduces damage from elites by 10.0%
+25% Extra Gold from Monsters
You are immune to Desecrator, Molten, and Plagued monster ground effects. - Natalya’s Vengeance Bonus:
+250 Dexterity
+20 Maximum Discipline
Critical Hit Chance Increased by 7.0%
The cooldown of Rain of Vengance is reduced by 1 second for every enemy you kill. - Cloak of the Garwulf: Companion – Wolf Companion now summons 3 wolves.
Witch Doctors do the same combo with Zunimassa’s Haunt and a Starmetal Kukri for a elite-destroying fetish army with high crit damage.
Example synergies for Witch Doctors:
- Aughild’s Authority Bonus:
Reduces damage from ranged attacks by 7.0%.
Reduces damage from melee attacks by 7.0%
Reduces damage from elites by 15.0%
Increases damage against elites by 15% - Blackthorne’s Battlegear Bonus:
+250 Vitality
Increases damage against elites by 10%
Reduces damage from elites by 10.0%
+25% Extra Gold from Monsters
You are immune to Desecrator, Molten, and Plagued monster ground effects. - Zunimassa’s Haunt Bonus:
+250 Intelligence
Grants 30 Mana per Kill
+75 Resistance to All Elements
Increases Mana Regeneration by 7.50 per Second
Your Fetish Army lasts until they die. - Starmetal Kukri: Reduce the cooldown of Fetish Army and Big Bad Voodoo by 1 second each time your fetishes deal damage.
Archon Wizards that don’t want to waste time looking for enough Unity drops can instead combine Tal Rasha’s Elements, Aughild’s, and Vyr’s Amazing Arcana.
Example synergies for Wizards:
- Tal Rasha’s Elements Bonus:
Cold skills deal 5% more damage.
Fire skills deal 5% more damage.
Lightning skills deal 5% more damage.
Arcane skills deal 5% more damage.
+100 Resistance to All Elements
Increases Arcane Power Regeneration by 2.00 per Second (Wizard Only)
Damaging enemies with Arcane, Cold, Fire or Lightning will cause a Meteor of the same damage type to fall from the sky. There is an 8 second cooldown for each damage type. - Aughild’s Authority Bonus:
Reduces damage from ranged attacks by 7.0%.
Reduces damage from melee attacks by 7.0%
Reduces damage from elites by 15.0%
Increases damage against elites by 15% - Vyr’s Amazing Arcana Bonus:
+500 Intelligence
Archon gains the effect of every rune.
And all these are just a sample of the combos this ring opens up.
The Argument Against
There is one main drawback here: you only have two fingers, and the Hellfire Ring and the Stone of Jordan still exist. If your heart is set on other endgame rings you might now have a difficult decision to make.
If you hate sets and want nothing but orange gear, then… wait, why did you read this far?
Farming Strategy
The procedure for getting this ring could seriously not be simpler. Just farm split bounties on Act I or IV, which most people are doing anyway. First act drops it more often.
Even if you are having bad luck finding it, you’re going to be getting a ton of rift shards and lots of other great drops in the process, so there isn’t a downside here.
What to do once you’ve got it
Hopefully you got either increased critical chance or critical damage as one of the random properties. If you didn’t, you might want to think about farming another.
Once you have one of those two bonuses, go to the Enchantress and trade the Life on Hit for the other one you didn’t get. It shouldn’t take too many tries. Now your ring provides the amazing trinity of CC/CD/IAS, possibly the best bonus combination in the game.
Then equip those incomplete sets that have been sitting in your stash or start farming crafting mats.
Final Conclusion
This ring is easy enough to get, has decent stats, and can completely change your mind about the usefulness of sets by making them infinitely better. And the benefits increase the more sets you try to combine.
It’s silly not to go join a split bounty team right now and stay there until you get this ring.
Good luck!
I agree with everything you say, well most, talking about freeing a set slot is moot as you must fill a slot to equip this ring but I am looking for one(to no avail) to combine immortal kings and asheras so I can stick cindercoat on my barb and rock out a soj for mass fire damage and huge defence/perma ancients.
only problem is… I find it almost impossible to find split farming groups, they either ignore my advice and folow me everywhere or simply say f*ck you(literally) and open a rift, drives me mad
just join a group on normal difficulty they will always be in act 1 doing bounties for the ring.
heres a decent use for the ring on a demon hunter, im actually using it myself atm. with the ring, i have 5 pieces of the maruader set, 2 of natalyas, and the cloak of garwulf, getting every bonus but the rain on nats which is useless for sentry build
I’m have been using these non-set items, because it is very useful if you’re using it right. Therefore, this guide is very helpful information to understand more about these useful gear sets. Good job and thanks you for your information!