So the crafting and gear system is actually pretty neat once you get the hang of it. When you unlock the forge in your hideout, thats where the real fun begins with customizing your gear. Ive found that legendary items are cool and all, but you can actually make some really strong builds with regular rare gear if youre smart about it.

The whole thing basically works through heiji, your blacksmith who helps upgrade your equipment and add those sweet engravings. Something interesting i noticed is that you can take perks from gear youve found and apply them to other pieces, which opens up tons of possibilities. Like, i managed to combine some night-time bonuses with stealth gear, and it worked amazingly well for those tricky assassination missions.

The upgrading part goes all the way to level 60, and honestly, the resource management adds a nice layer of strategy to everything. You'll want to be a bit careful with your materials though since dismantling stuff doesn't give you much back. One thing that really clicked for me was realizing that sometimes a well-upgraded rare piece with the right engravings can actually outperform legendary gear, especially if youre going for a specific build style.

You can get pretty creative with it all - mixing defensive perks with assassin gear or boosting your critical hits for some really powerful combinations. Just keep in mind youll need to upgrade your forge to unlock the better modifications, but its totally worth the investment if you want to make your character feel more unique.