Throughout your time in Diablo 4, you will loot hundreds of weapons, pieces of jewelry, and different kinds of armor. While most of these items will end up being salvaged or sold to your local Blacksmith or vendor, you will inevitably keep some of the items you find.
Whether the item is a legendary weapon or a rare piece of armor that happens to have a good affix/stats on it, you might be curious about upgrading it at the Blacksmith’s shop. After all, who wouldn’t want to upgrade their gear to make it stronger in Diablo 4?
However, there are some costs associated with upgrading weapons and other items in Diablo 4. Specifically, it will cost players gold, crafting materials, Veiled Crystals, and legendary crafting items as well. This is quite the price to pay to get your weapon or armor a little bit stronger.
So, the question many players have is whether it is worth it to upgrade items in Diablo 4. I will explain all of the pros and cons of this in the guide below.
Upgrade weapons and gear in Diablo 4
First and foremost, let me start off by saying that most of the time, it’s usually not worth the price to upgrade a weapon or piece of armor. During the leveling portion of Diablo 4, you are constantly going to be trading out gear left and right. It doesn’t make much sense to keep wasting gold and materials to upgrade an item when you might get a much stronger item in the next dungeon you run.
As a general rule of thumb, I never upgrade my rare items, as I want to eventually replace them with a legendary item. Now, speaking of legendary items, you only want to fully upgrade a legendary item if you are positive you are going to be using it in the long run. This is primarily because to fully upgrade a legendary item, you need one specific crafting material that is extremely hard to come by.
Upgrading legendary weapons requires Baleful Fragments, legendary armor requires Coiling Ward, and legendary jewelry requires Abstruse Sigil. You cannot obtain these materials easily in Diablo 4, so you want to save them until you’re sure the gear you have is going to stay equipped for a while. In those cases, you should upgrade your legendary items, as it will make them stronger and allow for an easier time in the endgame of Diablo 4.
So, to sum up, I only recommend upgrading a weapon or gear when you feel you have the best item for your build equipped. This should only be a legendary item and you should ideally wait until the endgame or very late into the main story to start upgrading.
