How to dismantle items in Last Epoch

When you find yourself with unwanted items in Last Epoch, you have one of two options: sell it for gold or dismantle it. While the idea of destroying high-tier items sounds like an awful idea, it can be quite beneficial.

Dismantling in Last Epoch doesn’t just destroy the item and leave an item slot open for something else, it also removes the item’s affixes—stat modifiers, such as increased melee damage or quicker health regeneration—and converts them into affix shards, allowing you to attach them to other items instead. This way, you can acquire Legendary items with high tier modifiers, dismantle them, and then attach those modifiers to your current gear; something that should prove extremely helpful come Last Epoch‘s endgame content.

How do you dismantle items in Last Epoch?

First things first, you can’t just dismantle your items whenever you feel like it. You need a specific item called a Rune of Shattering. You can easily acquire one from town merchants, but they’re not cheap at 2,000 gold each, so you will need to save up or sell any items you don’t need or want. We think they’ll sometimes drop from enemies too, since we found one in our inventory we don’t recall buying. Once you’ve acquired one, make sure to click Transfer Materials in your Inventory menu, otherwise you won’t be able to use the rune in the Forge menu.

Keep in mind that the Rune of Shattering destroys the item and creates “a random number of affix shards containing its powers.” We tested it on a Vital Leather Boots of Remedy, which came with two affixes, and a Pyromancer’s Copper chalice of Deflection, which came with three affixes, and received only one shard from the former and three shards from the latter. So, there’s no guarantee you’ll get shards for each affix, meaning there’s some risk involved with dismantling items.

How to use the Rune of Shattering

To use the Rune of Shattering, open up the Forge menu and move the item you want to dismantle into the upper middle slot in the left hand side of the screen—the same slot you’d use if you wanted to add affixes to an item. Then, click on the little icon (the one that looks like it has a + sign on it) next to the lower middle slot. This is where you select which rune you’d like to apply to the item. Upon picking the Rune of Shattering, the button underneath should change to Shatter. Clicking this will permanently destroy the item and grant you affix shards you can then attach to other items.

If you’re thinking you can dismantle an item and then reload your save in case you’re not happy with the results, stop thinking that. Last Epoch automatically saves whenever you exit the game, so you can’t save-scum to reclaim an item you just dismantled.