Diablo 4 will have players constantly picking up new gear pieces to try out. While mixing and matching new gear will help players find that perfect build later in the game, you'll often come across powerful gear you want to keep using for a while. That's where the blacksmith comes in.
The blacksmith allows you to upgrade your existing gear pieces multiple times, multiplying its current stats to make it much stronger. For those lucky enough to find incredibly powerful legendary items, you'll want to upgrade them even further. This will require Baleful Fragments, which can be a little tricky to obtain.
Where To Find Baleful Fragments
Baleful Fragments are only obtained by breaking down legendary weapons at the blacksmith. After finally finding a legendary weapon, it may not seem like a great idea to destroy it. However, this is necessary if you want to upgrade future legendary weapons. It is usually best to hold onto legendary weapons until they are much lower than your current level, or until you find another legendary weapon you want to upgrade.
Legendary weapons are incredibly rare drops that won't often be found defeating basic enemies in the world. Fighting powerful bosses, elite enemies, and world bosses give you the best chances at farming legendary weapons. World bosses will spawn all over the map, making it best to find as many waypoints as possible to reach these bosses when they spawn. World bosses also cannot be fought until after completing the main campaign. Unfortunately, there is no set way to get legendary weapons to drop, but upping your world tier when fighting these bosses will help increase your chances.
How To Use Baleful Fragments
Baleful Fragments are used by the blacksmith to further upgrade legendary weapons. This allows you to get further use out of other legendary weapons that may fall behind or are inefficient for your playstyle. Getting the right bonus stats on a weapon is also important, and breaking down legendary weapons with bad stats will give you the resources to upgrade the right weapon.
Like all upgrades with the blacksmith, you'll need materials of equal rarity to upgrade a weapon. Baleful Fragments only upgrade legendary weapons, not armor pieces. Breaking down a legendary weapon will only provide Baleful Fragments, making players find legendary armor to break down when wanting to upgrade other legendary armor pieces.