Diablo 4 will constantly shower players with loot, allowing you to always try out new builds. Despite the abundance of gear always coming in, some players will get attached to some of the more unique-looking gear pieces. Others like particular upgrades on a piece of armor and want it to be relevant for a few more levels.
Using your gear in battle and dying will also lower the durability until it eventually needs to be repaired. Both of these situations are where the blacksmith comes in handy, and one can be found in just about every town.
How To Upgrade Gear
One of the functions of the blacksmith is to allow you to upgrade your weapons and armor. You may do this a limited number of times to help items become stronger. These upgrades will increase its base damage, along with any bonus attributes that come with the item. The amount of times you can upgrade an item is limited, but will help keep an item relevant just a bit longer.
Go to the nearby blacksmith in town and go to their third menu. Here you'll be able to pick the gear piece you'd like to upgrade and see what the total cost will be. Upgrading a piece of gear will take both gold and resources that match the rarity of the item you're trying to upgrade. Depending on the rarity, you will need multiple consumable materials of the same rarity to upgrade the weapon.
Obtaining Crafting Materials
To obtain the right crafting materials to upgrade your gear at the blacksmith, you'll need to break down older pieces of gear in the blacksmith's first menu. You'll be able to break items down through junk or by rarity. Breaking down an item will give you crafting materials that match the rarity of the item. This requires you to break down yellow items to upgrade other yellow items. Early into the game, it makes sense to break down all older gear. You'll constantly find better gear, and yellow rarity crafting materials will be very useful later on.
To see which crafting materials you have, go to your inventory and look along the left side of the menu. Below your character's name will be "Stats And Materials." Press the corresponding button for your platform that appears next to these words. From here, switch to the Materials menu and scroll down to see your total material menu. Blacksmithing materials are near the bottom.
How To Repair Gear
The blacksmith is also where you can go to repair your damaged armor. The second menu in the blacksmith will allow you to repair equipped or damaged items in your inventory for gold. While the cost will get higher as more armor pieces start to wear down, switching them out constantly or repairing them will often stop the price from becoming too steep.