Should you salvage or sell in Diablo 4?

Salvage in Diablo 4 is an important way to get crafting materials, though you lose out on gold in the process.

Item salvage in Diablo 4 is essential not just to keep your pockets free of clutter, but to get some of the most useful items you need for high-level crafting and upgrades. Salvaging is quick and costs you nothing, though make sure to spare a thought for what you’re giving up. Once you salvage something, it's gone for good.

You absolutely should salvage any gear you don't need or want. Do not sell your gear. Selling gear is only advisable if you’re desperate for gold, and even then, you can get plenty of gold by completing side quests or defeating enemies in the open world.

Salvaging gear might not get you gold, but it does give you resources which are substantially more valuable. What you get specifically depends on an item's category and upgrade status, though in general, you can expect skin and hide items, along with ore chunks of all descriptions.

You’re guaranteed to end up with scores of common gear and no small number of low-powered magical and rare items just from wandering the world and defeating enemies. Make it a habit to head to the blacksmith every time you enter a settlement to clear it all out and stock up on resources.

You can then use these resources to upgrade the gear that you do want to keep, though just because you get a windfall of silver ore and veiled crystal doesn't mean you should use it immediately. Just as you should think carefully before salvaging, so too should you plan ahead before using the resources you get from salvaging.

Salvaging is also the only way to unlock new transmog looks.

You can salvage equipment in Diablo 4 at any blacksmith, free of charge. Blacksmiths are fairly common throughout the towns and settlements of Diablo 4's first three acts in Fractured Peaks, Scosglen, and the Dry Steppes, though slightly less so everywhere else. Make sure you’re activating fast travel points so you can easily return to a blacksmith when you need one.

Blacksmiths exist to upgrade weapons or salvage gear, so all you need to do to is interact with one and select the salvage option – the giant pickaxe in a red square on the left side of the screen. Then, choose the equipment you want to salvage. Salvageable gear has a pickaxe icon in the top right corner of its inventory slot. With the Salvage option active, you can just select any piece of equipment that you want to salvage, and the process happens instantly.

You can also salvage several pieces en masse by choosing a gear classification under the Salvage icon – common, magical, and so on. Bear in mind that these options instantly destroy all gear of the corresponding category, so make sure to give it all a good once-over before deciding to salvage. The last thing you want to do is get rid of some pants with enviable bonus stats.

If you're still getting used to how things work in Sanctuary, check out our Diablo 4 beginner's guide for some handy tips and how to get a mount so you can ride across the lands in style.

Josh is a freelance writer and reporter who specializes in guides, reviews, and whatever else he can convince someone to commission. You may have seen him on NPR, IGN, Polygon, or VG 24/7 or on Twitter, shouting about Trails. When he isn't working, you’ll likely find him outside with his Belgian Malinois and Australian Shepherd or curled up with an RPG of some description.

Josh Broadwell posted a new article, Should you salvage or sell in Diablo 4?

Speaking of salvaging, I don't quite understand what I’m looking at in the upgrade screen in terms of cost to upgrade. To the left of the gold cost is an icon of the resources used with two numbers. The smaller number is at the bottom of the icon and is in white. What is that representing? And then if you want to upgrade the same item a second time, you get another icon to the left of the first icon with another set of numbers. What does that mean?

You have 12 of the 4 required resource or 0 of the 1 required type stuff you mean?

No idea, man. I’ll have to take another look at it. I’m early in though and I figure by the time I get into real crafting I will have figured it out.

Yeah I'm pretty sure you're looking at the Crafting Mats needed for that Tier of upgrade.Like maybe 100/12 Iron & 500gp for T1, then 88/16 Iron and 10/8 Silver Ore & 2500gp for T2. Then T3 adds in Veiled Crystal or something.

salvage everything, easy 4 levels of upgrades on any item that's an upgrade

I've started selling Blue worth 5K or more and Gold above say 9K if I'm running low on money (unless I need the New Transmog from it). I have nearly always sold the 15-25K stuff if I didn't immediately equip it.This has allowed me to play more with Enchanting to try to fix that ONE bad affix on an item.

You should just look at how many mats you have when you upgrade something and see if you're anywhere close to running out. I'm swimming in those mats and have no reason to salvage anything except legendaries now. The later in the game you are, the less frequently you'll need to upgrade gear.