Shattered Pixel Dungeon Identification: What to Keep, Test or Alchemize

Use a Scroll of Identify when you need reliable information about one particular item. Use a Stone of Intuition when you have a good guess about an unknown potion, scroll or ring type. Choose Divination when learning several random types would help more than inspecting a specific piece of equipment.

Alchemy can also reveal consumable types, but it spends the item you convert. Before sacrificing an unknown potion or scroll, decide whether you can afford to lose its original effect. An unidentified Strength potion or Upgrade scroll is a poor price for information you did not urgently need.

This guide covers Shattered Pixel Dungeon 4.0.2, checked on November 7, 2026. It does not cover other Pixel Dungeon variants. The illustrations below are original explanatory diagrams, not game screenshots.

First decide what you need to learn

An unknown item can leave you with different questions. What kind of potion is this? What bonus does this ring give? What level is this particular ring, and is it cursed? Those questions do not all have the same answer.

Potion colors, scroll runes and ring gems are assigned when a run is initialized. Do not carry a color-to-effect chart from a previous adventure into a new one. Learn the associations for the run you are playing.

For potions and scrolls, learning a type tells you what matching copies do. Rings have another layer: knowing that a gem belongs to a Ring of Haste does not reveal the upgrade level or curse status of every ring with that gem. Inspect the actual item before making an equipment decision.

Choose the information you need: Identify for a particular item's level and curse status, Intuition for a targeted type guess, Divination for several random types, or alchemy when the consumable can be sacrificed. Choose by the question you need answered. A method that reveals more names can still leave your immediate equipment problem unresolved.

Choose the right identification method

Scroll of Identify: inspect one item

Identify targets a chosen item and normally reveals its full details, including equipment level and curse status. It does not remove a curse. Finding out that a ring is cursed is useful, but you still need a separate way to deal with that curse before relying on the item.

This is the direct option when uncertainty is blocking an important equipment swap. Saving one Identify for that decision can be worth more than learning several unrelated names early. There is a Shard of Oblivion exception, explained below.

Stone of Intuition: check a reasoned guess

Intuition lets you select an unknown potion, scroll or ring and guess its type. A correct guess reveals the type without drinking the potion or reading the scroll. It cannot identify armour, and a correct ring guess does not reveal that ring's level or curse status.

In 4.0.2, ordinary Intuition use alternates between an attempt that keeps the stone and an attempt that consumes one. A wrong guess still counts. Read the stone's description before committing: it tells you whether the next attempt will use up a stone. Do not rely on older advice that promises a second attempt only after a correct answer.

Spend those attempts on clues rather than selecting an appealing effect at random. Even an incorrect guess only rules out the type you selected; it does not tell you which remaining answer is right.

Scroll of Divination: learn several random types

Divination reveals up to four previously unknown types across potions, scrolls and rings. It can reveal types you have not found yet. If fewer than four unknown types remain, it cannot supply four new discoveries.

Its alchemy recipe uses a Scroll of Identify and 6 energy. You are exchanging a targeted identification for broader, random knowledge. That can help early in a run with many unknown consumables, but it is unreliable when you need the answer for one ring now. Learning a ring's type through Divination does not reveal that particular ring's level or curse status.

Use a room clue without treating it as proof

A piranha treasure room is a useful example. Its generation adds a Potion of Invisibility to that floor's item spawn list. If you have collected several unfamiliar potions on the floor, Invisibility is therefore a sensible possibility to consider.

The clue does not identify a color for you. Other potions can appear on the same floor, and the potion nearest the room is not automatically the solution. Use Intuition to check a well-supported candidate, or keep exploring safely to improve your information. Do not drink an unknown potion beside the pool just because you hope it is Invisibility.

More generally, separate evidence from certainty. Where an item appeared can help you form a hypothesis. A large stack, a familiar color from an old run or a convenient location is not a guarantee of the effect.

Alchemy reveals a type by spending an item

Convert one scroll into two runestones

At an alchemy pot, a normal scroll can be converted into two corresponding runestones for no additional energy. The conversion consumes one scroll and reveals its type. Any remaining matching scrolls then benefit from that knowledge.

You cannot use the unknown-scroll runestone recipe preview as a free identification tool: it shows a generic runestone result until the type is known. You must accept the conversion to learn what the scroll was.

This can be a reasonable exchange when you have a spare copy and would accept losing its original effect. It is less appealing when Upgrade is still unknown, you may need Remove Curse, or the scroll could solve a problem you are about to face. Two stones are not automatically worth more to your run than the scroll that produced them.

Convert a consumable into energy

Energizing an unidentified potion or scroll also reveals its type. The selected item is destroyed in exchange for energy; the discovery does not give you the original potion or scroll back.

For a stack, distinguish the option that energizes one item from the option that energizes all of them. If your goal is identification, converting one copy is enough to reveal the type of the others. Converting the whole stack spends the remaining supply for additional energy, not additional type information.

Decide what you are willing to sacrifice before choosing a conversion. If Strength or Upgrade is still unknown, do not treat an unidentified stack as disposable simply because it has several copies. Keeping it for a clearer clue or targeted identification may be the better trade.

Why your named ring is still not fully identified

Suppose Divination reveals Ring of Haste. You now know what that ring type does and which appearance represents it in this run. You have not established that your own ring is upgraded, uncursed or better than the ring you are wearing.

Intuition has the same limit for rings. A successful type guess solves the naming problem, not the equipment assessment. If the swap matters, fully identify that particular ring or wait until you can manage the remaining risk. Equipping an unknown ring merely to test it can leave you stuck with a curse.

Two levels of ring knowledge: learning Ring of Haste identifies the type, while fully identifying the actual ring also reveals its level and curse status. Identification does not remove a curse. The ring's name is shared type knowledge. Its level and curse status belong to the individual item you are deciding whether to use.

A Stone of Detect Magic answers a narrower question too. It can reveal positive magic, negative magic or both. Positive magic is not an exact upgrade number: an upgrade or a beneficial enchantment or glyph can produce that result. Detection does not fully identify the item or remove its curse.

Three inventory decisions

You need to replace a ring now

Divination has revealed the ring's name, but its level and curse status are still unknown. Another Divination is not a targeted solution. Use Identify on the actual ring if knowing those details will determine the swap. If the item is cursed, identification has warned you; it has not fixed it.

You found a piranha room and several unknown potions

Keep the potions while gathering clues about the floor. Invisibility is a supported candidate, not a confirmed color. If you use Intuition, check its next-use warning, select your candidate and make the guess. A miss costs an attempt, so do not turn a useful clue into an assumption that every subsequent guess is free.

You have spare scrolls and already know Upgrade

An unknown stack with a different rune cannot be the already identified normal Scroll of Upgrade. Converting one copy into runestones can reveal the stack's type while preserving the others. First consider whether you could need the original scroll effect soon. Knowing Upgrade removes one uncertainty, not every reason to keep a scroll.

Check Shard of Oblivion before spending another scroll

Shard of Oblivion changes equipment identification. While its effect is active, gear can become ready to identify without automatically revealing its details. Use the trinket's Identify action on eligible gear when you choose to reveal it.

With the Shard active, a Scroll of Identify used on equipment can make it ready rather than immediately displaying the full identification. If a scroll seems not to have finished the job, check the Shard and the item's readiness before spending another. This exception does not make Intuition or Divination reveal an individual ring's hidden level.

Before you spend an identification resource

• Name the question: unknown type, exact level, curse status or all three.
• Check what the method actually reveals, especially for rings.
• Read Intuition's warning instead of assuming the next guess is free.
• Choose one copy, not the whole stack, when sacrificing a consumable just to learn its type.
• Keep the original effect in mind. Strength, Upgrade and an urgently needed utility item can matter more than an extra discovery.

Once your equipment is identified, use our armour guide to decide whether heavy gear deserves your upgrades, or the blacksmith guide to check whether your items meet Reforge's requirements.