Tip for Diablo 4 beginners: Salvage, don't sell, unused equipment

I only started to realize this during my 2nd playthrough of the game and it is actually very important since a very larger portion of the game is all about drops and the various inscription or qualities (called aspects) that this particular item has. These can normally sell for what appears to be a pretty penny at a vendor, but so far, I haven't noticed any sort of real need for a large amount of money in the game. The people who have been playing for a long time would probably scoff at this as there very well may be some sort of endgame mechanic that I have not yet encountered that takes a bunch of money. For me, after 35 hours playing the game or so, I have never not had enough money for anything that I am trying to do.

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Like any game that functions like Diablo, you are going to end up with all sorts of crap that is dropping on the ground and as you move up in levels, your legendary gear that got you through the past 1-5 levels is no longer going to be any better than the rares or even common items that you find. Some might feel compelled to sell this to get some cash (which is certainly the easier option) but when it comes to legendary items or better, you really should salvage these items so that you can bank the aspects.

In the picture above the aspect is written at the bottom in orange, and all legendary items have one of these.

Why is this important?

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Later on in the game when you find more powerful gear, it might be a wonderful item but doesn't have exactly the sort of perks that you are looking for. Well if you travel over to your friendly neighborhood Occultist, you can imprint any aspect that you want on certain gear. This isn't an RNG thing, it is guaranteed to work. You also have no limit as far as I can tell as to how many times you are allowed to change the aspect of it. I could be very wrong about this, but I haven't encountered it yet

Making everything in your inventory as junk and selling it all is certainly a lot faster than salvaging things, but as you are progressing through the game you may encounter certain items that you don't actually find useful, but you, or some other character that you are using MIGHT at some point down the line. If you figure it out later that you want one of these aspects but don't have any, then you are at the mercy of the dreaded RNG gods as far as getting some random loot drop is concerned.

On my second playthrough I always salvage all of my legendary gear that I no longer want via the blacksmiths that are located all around Sanctuary.

This has come in very handy for me on my 2nd playthrough and the fact that I didn't do this on my first playthrough kind of rather heavily held my character back from getting the exact perks that I would like to have.

Since farming for legendaries actually happens by accident quite frequently, I wouldn't say that it is actually very important that you know what you are actually looking for, especially when you are below max level.

I don't feel like there is really much point to bother micro-adjusting your gear at lower levels, because a level 15 legendary is NOT going to be more powerful than a level 20 common item. It's kind of a waste of time to even bother. I know that as I am leveling up, I don't really even pay any attention to anything about the items I am equipping other than their overall damage, armor, or elemental resistance depending on what part of your body it covers.

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Honestly, as far as I have seen gold is so prevalent that I don't see much reason to ever sell anything honestly, you can just salvage all of your gear that you mark as junk rather than bothering with it. Plus, there is always the fact that if something in your inventory has a very high sell rate, you may want to investigate whether or not it has some sort of amazing value that you are not aware of at first glance.

Happy gaming!