Leveling Guide for Blacksmithing in Dragonflight

Before you start leveling, consider the race you are leveling Blacksmithing with. While Horde players have no race with special advantages, 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.

While usually irrelevant, having these extra stats can be the difference between being able to craft a top-end item with a higher quality level!

Increasing your skill in Dragonflight 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 Blacksmithing as possible (which also grant experience if you are not at maximum level), and also to learn as many Blacksmithing patterns as you can.

Try to search for Plans: on the auction house for extra ways to level up, as many of them are easy and cheap to buy and create while still giving you extra skill and a knowledge point for the first craft. You can also increase your Renown with the various factions of Dragonflight, which usually unlocks books that increase your knowledge or new plans for you to get your first crafts.

Some crafts require special bind on pickup reagents, such as Artisan's Mettle or Spark of Shadowflame. These reagents are heavily time-gated in how they can be obtained, and thus caution should be used on what you use them for, especially early on.

The endgame of Dragonflight Blacksmithing is in the search for Blacksmithing Knowledge and using it to unlock Blacksmithing Specializations, which grant skill, extra crafting secondary stats, and teach new recipes.

There are many sources of Blacksmithing knowledge, split between one-time sources and weekly sources.

The best way to find all the knowledge points you are missing is the Profession Knowledge Tracker Weak Aura, which requires the Weak Auras 2 Addon.

As long as you have the TomTom addon, you can even place markers on your map and arrows pointing to the various knowledge point spots by left clicking the TomTom Waypoints section of the weak aura, and get text directions on what to do to gain each knowledge point by middle-clicking it, instead.

All First Crafts grant one point of Blacksmithing knowledge.

You can also get a large knowledge boost by seeking hidden Blacksmithing-specific treasures and the hidden profession master in the Dragon Isles, with the coordinates for both being easily accessible from the weak aura linked above.

Finally, remember to get the knowledge books and plans from the various Dragonflight Renown tracks and the Artisan's Consortium reputation, as significant amounts of knowledge can be obtained once you are high enough. Contract: Artisan's Consortium is especially powerful, as it grants 150 extra reputation per world quest and the Artisan's Consortium requires very low reputation for each level until the final one.

Having a higher reputation will also help you get more Artisan's Mettle from your weekly handout, and if you have obtained the ranks required for the books on a different character before, you will be able to buy them on new characters, regardless of their individual reputation status.

You can also get extra knowledge every week by doing weekly Blacksmithing quests, turning in any looted Dragon Shard of Knowledge, from buying Inscription-produced Draconic Treatise on Blacksmithing, and from the Forbidden Reach rares (this can be time / gold consuming, though, as the items needed to summon them are rare drops).

Every time the Darkmoon Faire is active at the start of each month, you will also be able to do a quick quest in there for 3 knowledge points and 3 skill points if you are not yet maxed.

Finally, make sure to kill two specific types of mobs every week (detailed in the knowledge tracker weak aura) for two more knowledge points and loot enough dirt piles (need to have Small Expedition Shovel or Blacksmithing-crafted Sturdy Expedition Shovel in order to see and be able to use them) and expedition scout packs around the world to get two more knowledge points weekly!