Diablo IV - How to Salvage Equipment

Fire up any Diablo game, and it won’t be long before you’re drowning in loot. Weapons, rings, pieces of armor, amulets, and so much more can be found all over the place. Inside chests, under rocks, as a reward for completing quests, or inside the guts of demonic foes. Blizzard’s latest hell-fueled adventure is no different as Diablo IV will have you swimming in gear almost immediately. Obviously, you won’t need all of the equipment you come across, but you should think twice before hawking it at your nearest vendor.

One of the best things you can do with unwanted loot is salvage it. To do this you’ll need to find a blacksmith. Marked on your map as a small hammer and anvil, they can be found in towns and there’s one you access early on in Kyovashad. In fact, the second you enter the city of Kyovashad you can run straight to the blacksmith. Lorath and the main questline can wait just a little bit longer.

Interact with a blacksmith, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you have multiple options for going about your salvage work. You can salvage everything in your inventory based on item rarity, salvage everything you’ve labeled as junk, or simply salvage everything you’ve got. Caution! Anything you salvage is irreversibly destroyed, so double check your selection.

So why are we salvaging things instead of selling them? For a few reasons. First, salvaging gear is how you unlock different looks for customizing your character. You might get a powerful helmet later on and decide that it’s much uglier than the weaker helmet you used to have. If that weaker helmet happened to be one that unlocked a new look when salvaged then voila! Your stronger helmet could be transmogrified to look like the old one while retaining its power. Thankfully, equipment descriptions will say whether or not the item in question unlocks a new look, and when salvaging at a blacksmith these items are even easier to spot thanks to a hammer symbol that appears above them.

Even if you aren’t worried about making a bold, Diablo fashion statement, salvaging is still a good idea because it’s a great way to acquire crafting materials. Breaking down equipment can give you things like Iron Chunks and Silver Ore that can then be used at the blacksmith to upgrade your gear. While these materials can be found when you’re cutting down demonic hordes and exploring, you’ll get a lot more of them by recycling your unwanted loot.

You can’t actually begin using the blacksmith for upgrades until your character hits level ten, but you can begin to salvage things the second you meet your first blacksmith. Additionally, none of the crafting materials you gather from salvaging will take up any of your precious inventory space and you can hold onto a lot of it so salvage, salvage, salvage!