Materials are obtained by salvaging items in the salvage cube. On their own materials have no function, but they are essential for crafting items and training Artisans, and may have other unrevealed purposes as well.
Some materials will also drop directly, from monsters, chests and perhaps as quest rewards, but these will be far from sufficient for your crafting needs. [1]
Some can and will drop, but it won’t be in quantities or types sufficient to craft all items. Meaning you will need to salvage items you don’t want to be able to make the ones you do. We want that to be a decision, to choose to break an item down to crafting components, and not allow making sweet loots just through a slow collection of reagents over time.
Salvaging
To obtain materials, placed items into the Salvage Cube, and click the salvage button. The cube opens back up, revealing the raw materials your unwanted items were reduced to. Materials stack up in the inventory, and are automatically apportioned out when needed by the Artisans.
Only a few materials are known so far:
Rare Materials
There are numerous types of materials, including some very rare ones that can only be obtained by salvaging very high level/quality items. Other materials may only be obtained from salvaging non-items, such as skill runes.
Since rare materials are needed to craft high level recipes, players will have to work to find uncommon items that they don't actually want to use, and may end up debating between using, salvaging, selling, or trading a nice item.
| Items of Diablo III [e] Item Basics Normal Items Crafting Legendary Armor I Legendary Armor II Legendary Weapons 1h Legendary Weapons 2h Item Sets |
|---|