Diablo 4 legendary crafting: How to craft powerful gear

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Diablo 4's Lilith — (Image credit: Tyler C. / Activision Blizzard)

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If you hope to survive in the world of Sanctuary, Diablo 4 legendary crafting can mean the difference between life and death—or maybe death and death if you've chosen to level as a necromancer. Either way, the Aspects that are associated with legendary gear pieces are invaluable and can make a good build great when it comes to speed and efficiency.

Legendary gear drops have an RNG element to them, meaning you can't count on getting the exact piece of gear you need, or with the right stats. Item enchantment can help a little with this, but if you want to take it one step further, you can craft your own legendary gear with any Aspect that you choose. With that in mind, here's how to get started with Diablo 4 legendary crafting, and how to figure out whether crafted gear is more powerful than an equivalent drop.

Diablo 4 legendary crafting: How to imprint an Aspect

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You can start imprinting Aspects onto gear once you reach level 25—or acquire your first Aspect from a dungeon—and unlock the Occultist, an NPC that is found at many hubs. You'll need a Legendary Aspect to imprint, and a rare quality or better item to add it to. Add the item you want to use to the top slot of the Imprint Aspect screen, then select an Aspect source.

Codex of Power: Legendary Aspects can be learned from the various dungeons found around Sanctuary and once collected, these are added to your Codex of Power, which you can access by pressing Y, or via the Imprint tab of the Occultist's UI. Selecting this option gives you access to the Aspects you've collected so far.
Aspect (From inventory): This option assumes you've extracted an Aspect from an unwanted piece of legendary gear. If you've out-leveled a piece of gear but want to keep the Aspect, you can extract it, using the relevant tab at the Occultist, at the cost of destroying the gear. Once the Aspect has been extracted, it is stored in your inventory under the Aspects tab. You can select one of these to imprint onto a new piece of gear.

Once you've selected the Aspect you want to imprint, check you've got the resources required, which will be a combination of salvaged materials and gold, then hit the Imprint Aspect button at the bottom.

Does it matter whether you use the Codex or an extracted Aspect?

Yes, it does make a difference: extracted Aspects are generally stronger than the versions you get from clearing a dungeon for the first time. The Aspects added to your Codex of Power will always be the weakest version of the Aspect, while those that drop from enemies or that you collect from the Purveyor of Curiosities have a chance of rolling higher stats or multipliers.

The reasoning behind this seems to be that Aspects acquired from dungeons are guaranteed drops. So, providing you've got the gear to imprint the Aspect onto, and the gold and materials needed to complete the action, you'll get that powerful piece of gear. If you want a potentially more powerful Aspect, you're going to need to kneel before the RNG gods and start farming those drops.

It's also worth noting that you can also find Aspects that are only available from drops, so if you want to move these to a better piece of gear, you'll have to extract them first.

How to get Baleful Fragments and Abstruse Sigils

Diablo 4 Legendary crafting - Baleful Fragments — Both materials come from dismantling Legendary gear (Image credit: Blizzard)

When upgrading Legendary Weapons and Legendary Jewelry you need some very specific extra materials, and these are Baleful Fragments and Abstruse Sigils respectively. Both have a pretty appalling drop rate, so it's understandable if you've never gotten any, but in order to get them you need to dismantle Legendary items. Baleful Fragments have a chance of dropping when you dismantle Legendary Weapons, and Abstruse Sigils, when you dismantle Legendary Jewelry.

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Sarah started as a freelance writer in 2018, writing for PCGamesN, TechRadar, GamingBible, Red Bull Gaming and more. In 2021, she was offered a full-time position on the PC Gamer team where she takes every possible opportunity to talk about World of Warcraft and Elden Ring. When not writing guides, most of her spare time is spent in Azeroth—though she's quite partial to JRPGs too. One of her fondest hopes is to one day play through the ending of Final Fantasy X without breaking down into a sobbing heap. She probably has more wolves in Valheim than you.

With contributions from

Sean MartinSenior Guides Writer