Blacksmithing Guide for The War Within

Blacksmithing is responsible for creating plate gear, such as Everforged Greatbelt, weapons, such as Everforged Dagger, profession accessories and tools, such as Artisan Needle Set and Artisan Leatherworker's Knife, reagents such as Sanctified Alloy, and temporary enhancements, such as Ironclaw Whetstone and Ironclaw Razorstone.

If you are a Horde player, none of the races have any smithing advantage, but Alliance players can be Lightforged Draenei for +5 skill points and the ability to summon an anvil anywhere, or Dark Iron Dwarf for +5 skill points and 10% increased Blacksmithing speed.

Blacksmithing, in particular, can make great use of all four stats, but you might want to focus on specific stats for different playstyles. We go into detail with Blacksmithing stats and the gear you can use to boost them in the specialized guide below:

Increasing your skill is done by crafting items that grant skill points as usual, and in order to be efficient, we recommend trying to get as many first-craft bonuses while leveling as possible, which also grant experience if you are not at maximum level.

Crafting Everburning Ignition is also a way to slowly (but also cheaply) level to 100, and only requires you to get started on the Everburning Forge talent tree.

You will be able to track all weekly and one-time sources of profession knowledge with Myu's Knowledge Points Tracker, a very helpful Weak Aura!

There are multiple treasures around Khaz Algar that you can loot for up to 24 extra knowledge. You can find them all easily in-game with the aforementioned Weak Aura or the Rarescanner addon, which will put up small treasure icons with a hammer underneath at their map location, as exemplified below.

The best specialization for you depends on what your goals are. If you wish to be a best in slot armor crafter able to max out items such as Beledar's Bulwark and Sanctified Steps as quickly as possible, the Armorsmithing tree and its specialized armor nodes are fundamental to increase your skill to the point where you can make natural Rank 4s, with the rest being covered by Concentration early on until you fully max out. You will also be able to learn all the generic armor crafts with this tree, such as the Everforged Defender.

A similar path exists for maxed out weapon crafting, with the Weaponsmithing tree and its specialized weapon nodes providing massive skill bonuses to specific weapons and unlock the generic weapon crafts, such as Everforged Dagger.

If combat gear is not your cup of tea and you would rather play the auction house or craft profession gear, Means of Production has you sorted with multiple bonuses towards profession gear in the left side with Tools of the Trade and associated sub-nodes, bonuses towards consumable stones in the bottom Stonework nodes, and reagent crafting bonuses in the right side with the Fortuitous Forges sub-specialization.

Finally, the Everburning Forge tree is all about maximizing the benefit of your Everburning Ignition and gaining massive Ingenuity, Resourcefulness, and Multicraft stat bonuses, and complements any of the other trees well once your desired skill level is reached.

Ideally, Blacksmithing allows you to convert cheap ores and essences into expensive consumables, strong armor and shields, or weapons, which can be sold directly on the auction house or, for the Spark gear, to other players directly through the Crafting Orders system.

Until you fully max out skill, gear, and knowledge for your desired crafts, you will be reliant on Concentration to get maximum ranks out, which can quickly be exhausted every day, so make sure to create some alts to increase your production cap while it is still very profitable to do so! Even later on those can still be useful as they will be able to create maximum rank items more cheaply than the guaranteed method, which requires full Rank 3 reagents.

We have a specialized guide for The War Within gold-making below, which contains a gold-making tier list and goes deeper into techniques and habits for successful gold making, as well as websites and addons that can help you on your journey!