Want to know what to do with your Diablo 4 legendary gear? Turn on this optional setting immediately

Diablo 4 Rogue standing in a dungeon — (Image credit: Activision Blizzard)

I'm at the point in my Diablo 4 levelling journey where legendary gear is starting to drop more frequently. And as exciting as it is to see some orange loot pop out from a chest, it also comes with a deep anxiety. I only have a few of these pieces right now, and I want to make sure I'm using them in the most efficient way possible. Are these boots actually good? Should I be extracting the aspect they contain? Or is it more useful to break them down for materials?

Luckily, it turns out, there's a setting buried in Diablo 4's option menu that helps make that decision far easier. I discovered a mention of it in the comments of an unrelated thread in the Diablo 4 subreddit, and more than a few people in the replies were also delighted to learn that it exists.

If you're also struggling with decision paralysis around your legendary loot, head into the gameplay options and enable 'Advanced Tooltip Information'. With that checked, you'll see some extra information attached to your inventory screen's tooltips. Specifically, you'll be told the stat ranges that a piece of gear could have dropped with.

Item stats in Diablo 4. "Dealing direct damage to a vulnerable enemy has up to a 33% [25-45]% chance to Daze them for 2 seconds." — (Image credit: Blizzard)

My boots, then, are currently giving a 33% chance to daze a vulnerable enemy—a pretty good effect given that I'm using Fundamental Puncture as my basic skill. But with the advanced tooltip, I can see that that's a pretty middling percentage change for that aspect—it actually goes up to 45% chance.

The advanced tooltip shows you the range of all skills on a piece of gear, but to my mind it's most useful in deciding the primary question around legendaries: extract or salvage?

In knowing the potential stat range of a legendary effect, I've got a much better sense of whether I should keep it for the end game. Given that extracted aspects can only be used once—they can't be re-extracted for later distribution—it makes sense to only save the best rolled aspects for use in my eventual end game build. This is good, because it means, in all but the most optimally rolled instances, I can feel confident about salvaging the rest. That will not only give me the materials needed to imprint aspects later on, but add that gear's look to my transmog wardrobe. And in a battle between combat effects and drip, I'm picking fashion every time.

Only extracting the most theoretically primo aspects also saves on gold costs, which is good—as Jody notes, I'm going to be needing that cash later on.

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.