Diablo 4 Guide: All Blacksmith Skills and How to Salvage or Upgrade Equipment
This guide dives deep into every Blacksmith ability, explains how to use them effectively, and outlines the best practices for salvaging and upgrading your gear to ensure your hero is ready for any challenge.
The Role of the Blacksmith in Diablo 4
The Blacksmith is one of the key craftsmen you will encounter early in Diablo 4. He provides services to:
Repair equipment durability
Upgrade weapons and armor
Salvage unwanted gear into crafting materials
Craft new Diablo 4 Items or improve existing ones
Unlike previous Diablo titles, Diablo 4 emphasizes more dynamic interaction with the Blacksmith through a progression system that unlocks more powerful crafting and upgrading abilities as you invest skill points into him.
Unlocking and Leveling the Blacksmith
In Diablo 4, the Blacksmith is not available immediately. You will unlock him after reaching a certain point in the campaign, usually in the first major town you visit after the tutorial area. Once unlocked, you can level him up by investing Blacksmithing Skill Points earned through quests, exploration, and crafting activities.
Each level you advance the Blacksmith unlocks new crafting recipes, upgrade possibilities, and more efficient salvage methods.
Blacksmith Abilities Overview
The Blacksmith's abilities fall into several categories. Here's a breakdown of the main abilities you can unlock and upgrade as you progress:
1. Repair Mastery
Effect: Reduces the cost and resources needed to repair your gear.
Importance: Equipment durability decreases as you use it in combat. Repairing ensures your weapons and armor maintain their effectiveness without breaking.
Tip: Invest early to save resources and gold on constant repairs.
2. Upgrade Weapon
Effect: Allows the Blacksmith to upgrade your weapon to the next tier.
How it works: Using rare crafting materials and gold, the Blacksmith can improve a weapon's base stats - increasing damage, attack speed, and sometimes adding sockets.
Best practices: Prioritize upgrading your primary weapon, especially unique or set items that benefit most from improvements.
3. Upgrade Armor
Effect: Similar to weapon upgrades, but focuses on defensive stats such as armor rating, resistances, and vitality bonuses.
Importance: Upgrading your armor significantly boosts survivability, especially in higher difficulties and PvP.
Tip: Focus on upgrading your chest, gloves, and boots, as these usually provide the best defensive stats.
4. Socketing and Rerolling
Effect: Adds sockets to equipment or allows rerolling of specific stats on gear.
How it works: By investing materials and gold, you can add sockets to weapons or armor, making room for gems or legendary jewels. Rerolling helps tailor gear to your build.
Note: This ability is unlocked at higher Blacksmith levels.
5. Salvage Efficiency
Effect: Increases the amount and quality of crafting materials obtained when salvaging unwanted gear.
Why it matters: Salvaging is a crucial source of materials for crafting and upgrading. Better salvage yields mean fewer runs farming for materials.
Strategy: Upgrade this skill as soon as possible to maximize crafting resource returns.
How to Salvage Equipment
Salvaging unwanted equipment is one of the most important Blacksmith functions in Diablo 4. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to salvage efficiently:
Step 1: Identify Gear to Salvage
Prioritize salvaging:
Low-level gear you no longer need
Items with poor stats or unusable affixes
Duplicate gear that doesn't fit your build
Keep unique or set items for upgrading or rerolling.
Step 2: Visit the Blacksmith
Open the Blacksmith interface.
Navigate to the Salvage tab.
Drag and drop the items you want to dismantle.
Step 3: Confirm Salvage
The Blacksmith will display the materials you'll receive.
Confirm and salvage to receive crafting materials such as:
Ore
Leather scraps
Essences
Rare crafting reagents
Step 4: Use Salvaged Materials Wisely
Use these materials to craft or upgrade weapons and armor.
Stockpile materials for end-game upgrades where costs rise significantly.
How to Upgrade Equipment
Upgrading gear through the Blacksmith is one of the best ways to keep your character powerful without relying solely on RNG drops.
Weapon Upgrades
Choose a weapon you want to enhance.
Ensure you have the necessary materials (usually rare ores, essences, and gold).
Select the Upgrade Weapon option in the Blacksmith menu.
Confirm the upgrade, which will:
Increase base damage
Improve attack speed (sometimes)
Potentially add sockets for gems
Note: Weapon upgrades require progressively more materials at higher tiers.
Armor Upgrades
Select the armor piece you want to improve.
Confirm the required materials and costs.
The upgrade increases armor rating, resistance, and sometimes adds vitality or other defensive stats.
Consider upgrading pieces that offer set bonuses or are core to your defense.
Rerolling and Socketing
At advanced Blacksmith levels, you unlock the ability to reroll stats.
This can allow you to:
Improve an existing stat to a better value
Change an unwanted stat to something more useful
Socketing allows adding gems that provide:
Elemental damage bonuses
Life on hit
Critical hit chance increases
Blacksmith Crafting: Making New Gear
Beyond upgrading, the Blacksmith also lets you craft new items using blueprints and materials. These crafted items can fill gaps in your gear or be specialized for your build.
Crafting Tips:
Always gather crafting materials by salvaging unwanted gear.
Complete quests and explore for blueprints to unlock powerful crafting recipes.
Focus on crafting gear that complements your build or that can be upgraded later.
Save rare materials for crafting legendary or set items.
Resource Management for Blacksmithing
Effective Blacksmithing requires managing multiple resource types:
Gold: Used for repairs, upgrades, and crafting.
Basic materials: Iron, leather, wood, etc. Gathered by salvaging and looting.
Rare materials: Essences, magical dust, and higher-tier crafting reagents. You can also buy Diablo 4 materials.
Blueprints: Unlock new crafting recipes.
Tips to optimize resource use:
Don't upgrade every piece of gear. Focus on your main weapons and armor.
Salvage junk and unwanted gear immediately to maintain material flow.
Prioritize leveling the Blacksmith's salvage efficiency skill early on.
Save gold for critical upgrades; repair often but efficiently.
Best Practices for Blacksmith Use
Regularly repair gear to avoid losing durability mid-combat.
Upgrade your primary weapon and armor pieces frequently to keep pace with enemies.
Use the salvage system strategically-never hoard unwanted items unnecessarily.
Invest in Blacksmith skills focusing first on salvage efficiency, then upgrades.
Experiment with socketing and rerolling to tailor gear to your playstyle.
Plan upgrades around your build needs, especially if you rely on elemental damage or critical hits.
Conclusion
The Blacksmith in Diablo 4 is a vital NPC that can dramatically improve your gameplay experience. By mastering all Blacksmith abilities-from repairing, upgrading, socketing, rerolling, to salvaging-you ensure your character remains powerful and well-equipped throughout your journey.
Salvaging unwanted gear keeps your crafting materials well-stocked, while upgrades enhance the gear you want to keep and strengthen. Balancing your resource management, Blacksmith skill investment, and crafting choices will give you a significant advantage as you face the darkest challenges in Sanctuary.
Take full advantage of the Blacksmith's services and watch your hero grow stronger with every hit and every piece of gear improved!