Crafting Hero Items

Hero items crafted in the Forge provide a range of bonuses in relation to resource production, construction, research, and troop attack, defense and health.

Materials

You need materials to craft items, and you can collect these through completing Daily and Alliance Quests, collecting treasure box gifts, and you may also find materials on resource tiles. You can buy material chests but it's a lucky dip as to what you'll get. There are six levels of materials:

Level 1 - Black background (basic)
Level 2 - White background (common)
Level 3 - Green background (uncommon)
Level 4 - Blue background (rare)
Level 5 - Purple background (epic)
Level 6 - Gold background (legendary)

Higher level materials will provide you with higher bonuses when you equip your hero with the item. In the craft/recipes within your fort, you'll see a colour code that indicates the possible level your item will be once made. For example, the materials you have collected may mean you have 10% white, 40% green and 60% blue, but be advised that this does not guarantee your item will end up blue. Unless you have 100% of a particular colour, there is a chance that your item may come out as a lower level colour.

So craft wisely. Take into consideration the following when choosing what item/s you should craft and when:

Have a look at your overall boosts on your profile page to know where your strengths are and your areas for improvement, having regard to what your priorities are as a player (ie. farming, growth, fighting).
Think about what you are looking for in a new item. Consider what it is that you would benefit most from.
Have you already crafted items that provide the same bonuses? Is it worth recrafting the same items if they meet your needs, but with higher level materials so as to increase those boosts?
Do you want an item that provides different bonuses from what you already have, to fill gaps in your overall boosts?
Has your hero progressed to a level where different items are now available for crafting, that may provide better bonuses than the items previously available to you?
Are you desperate for the item, or can you wait a bit longer to be able to combine more materials and therefore use higher level materials to craft the item?

Gems

Gems are similar to materials in the following ways:

They provide valuable bonuses for your hero
They can be combined to create higher level gems, which of course provide higher level bonuses
There are 6 gem levels (black to gold, same as the materials)
They are obtained in the same manner as materials, although harder to come by

The main differences with gems are:

They are mostly focussed on troop skills such as attack, defense and health
They are not used to craft items, but can be embedded into a hero item after it is crafted to boost the items bonuses, or provide additional bonuses - three gems can be embedded into any one hero item

When it comes to embedding gems into your hero items, consider the following:

Have a look at your overall boosts on your profile page to know where your troop strengths are and your areas for improvement.
Think about what would add value to your items, and what you would most benefit from.
Do you want to use your gems in such a way as to have some bonuses for all troop attack, defense and health, or do you want to focus on a specific troop bonus?
Use higher level gems wherever possible, especially if you are not prepared to spend the gold to save the gem if you wish to remove it from the hero item at a later date.
Embed gems in the hero items that you are more likely to utilise in times of war