Upgrading your gear is an essential part of the Diablo 4 experience. You’ll eventually hit a point where you have a legendary item in every slot, and the only way to improve their stats is via upgrades.
Understanding how and when to upgrade weapons and armor can be confusing for players, especially on your first playthrough. However, the upgrade process is straightforward once you understand what is needed and where to go. Players must visit a Blacksmith to upgrade their weapons and armor in Diablo 4. These vendors can be found in almost every major city and offer three services: Salvage, Repair, and Upgrading Items.
Salvaging items is a crucial step if you want to upgrade Diablo equipment, as you’ll need crafting materials. You accumulate dozens of these items during missions and dungeons, which can be salvaged at the Blacksmith and used for upgrades.
Repairing items is helpful if you die while exploring Sanctuary, as each death lowers the durability of your equipped items.
Related: Should you sell or salvage gear in Diablo 4?
Finally, the Blacksmith can also upgrade weapons and armor if you have the materials and gold. This process slightly increases the item’s power level and the base attack power and armor ratings. It will also increase each item’s other unique values.
Weapons and armor can be upgraded four times at the Blacksmith, with each level costing more in materials and gold than the previous level. For example, upgrading my Barbarian’s greatsword for the first time costs 14 Iron Chunks and 1,800 gold. This increased its damage from 490 to 499 per second and slightly raised all other stats.
Upgrading my sword a second time cost me 14 Iron Chunks, eight Silver Ore, and 3,600 Gold. The price continued to increase the more I upgraded the item.
Should you upgrade your weapons in Diablo 4?
Upgrading your weapon might be tempting as you level your character and gather materials and gold. But you shouldn’t upgrade gear until you finish the campaign and make it past level 50, as you’ll probably find better equipment while exploring.
I upgraded a piece of armor for my Barbarian around level 20 during my first run. I only upgraded it once, which raised the base stats a bit and made my character slightly stronger. But I almost instantly found a better piece of equipment in the next dungeon, making the upgrade totally useless and a waste of money.
The Diablo 4 mid-to-end game is all about finding the best gear for your build and upgrading it to its strongest limits. You’ll have plenty of time for upgrades later, so don’t worry about that in the early game—just enjoy finding new weapons and armor.
