How to salvage your gear in Diablo 4 (and why you should)

In Diablo 4, you’ll spend a bulk of your time running around Sanctuary and shoving powerful weapons and armor into your pockets. But you can only hold and use so much of that gear, and you’re going to end up with a lot left over. Now you could sell this gear and add a bit of weight to your purse. Or you could salvage it all to net yourself some sweet crafting material. In this Diablo 4 guide, we’re going to go over why salvaging loot is important, and how to do it. Why should you salvage your gear? Crafting and upgrading gear is a big part of Diablo 4. You’ll need special materials (as well as gold) to craft powerful new items, make Legendary gear with Aspects, and upgrade your existing weapons and armor. And the only way to get these materials is to salvage stuff you pick up on your journey. Each rarity of item (Common, Magic, Rare, Legendary, etc.) consists of a different type of crafting material, which you can get by using the blacksmith to destroy gear of that type, both freeing up your inventory and lining your bag with materials you’ll need later. Even if you’re not doing a lot of crafting in the early game of Diablo 4, you will eventually be using these materials for something when you’re working to perfect your build. And since you can acquire gold elsewhere — like by killing monsters or riding around the open world on your mount opening chests — it’s best to salvage all of your items until you are either desperate for gold, need to respec your chosen class, or have built up a healthy supply of Veiled Crystals, Iron Chunks, and other crafting components. It’s worth noting here that, as of season 2, Blizzard removed the need to salvage rare or worse items in World Tier 3 and above. Instead of low-tier items dropping, you’ll instead gain bonus crafting materials (and gold) in order to reduce inventory clutter. In World Tier 4, you’ll only get Ancestral Rare items or better in your inventory and everything else will simply drop as crafting materials. How do you salvage your gear in Diablo 4? [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24696549/vlcsnap_2023_06_01_12h03m26s985.png?quality=90&strip=all] Once you’ve decided to break down your fancy new loot into parts, all you need to do is find a blacksmith (denoted by an anvil on your map). You can find one in any major town and almost all small villages. When you speak to the blacksmith, you’ll be able to tell them exactly what you want broken down. If you only want to salvage a few specific items, use the hammer button in the blacksmith menu to pick individual weapons and armor pieces from your inventory. You can also choose to instantly salvage all types of a given item rarity (such as all rare items), and you can even tell the blacksmith to break down all items currently in your inventory. Hitting the “all items” button is definitely the fastest, but you can never get any of your salvaged weapons back, so be sure before you hit yes. If you want to methodically manage your loot on the go, you can mark certain items in your inventory as “junk,” which you can then easily sell or salvage the next time you’re in town without worrying that you’ve accidentally given away a priceless upgrade. As of season 2, Blizzard also added the ability to “favorite” items, which allows you to quickly pick items not to salvage — even if you hit the “all items” button in the salvage menu. This is significantly faster than the junk tag if you’re planning on dumping most of your inventory.