Blacksmithing Guide for Dragonflight

The main addition of Season 3 is the new Embellishment helm, Flourishing Dream Helm. Its pattern is obtained randomly from Tindral Sageswift in Amirdrassil and while it is too early to say if this helm will end up being widely used, it is not currently listed as a best in slot helm in any of the Icy Veins plate tank gear guides, which is a grim outlook.

The main addition to Blacksmithing are the new Plans: Shadowed Alloy and Plans: Shadowed Belt Clasp recipes, which allow you to create a new belt enchant, Shadowed Belt Clasp, which can increase your stamina significantly and has no competition, as it is the only end-game belt enchant currently in-game!

These can be obtained from Ponzo in the new Zaralek Cavern zone. There are also a few new Blacksmithing raid patterns for Shadowed Impact Buckler and Shadowed Razing Annihilator.

All of these new Shadowflame crafts need to be crafted at Shadowflame Forge or Shadowflame Anvil locations, which can be found within the weekly active Fyrakk Assault.

Like always, Blacksmithing is responsible for creating plate gear and melee weapons, but now it also creates caster weapons gear enchants such as Shadowed Belt Clasp, and temporary enhancements such as Primal Razorstone.

Dragonflight introduces Crafting Specializations, which you are able to unlock once your profession skill hits 25. These serve as a profession talent tree system fueled by Blacksmithing Knowledge, obtained from weekly quests, one-time treasures in the Dragon Isles, Draconic Treatises, and first-time crafts.

While you will eventually be able to unlock all talents, doing so will require a long time as the sources of knowledge are very limited, especially once one-time treasures and first-crafts are exhausted.

Due to its depth of knowledge talents and many specializations available, it can be useful to have multiple Blacksmithing characters, as it will take a significant time to specialize in each type of plate armor, let alone also chase all the different weapon types, profession gear, or consumables.

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.

Dragonflight introduces a few new concepts to professions, which we delve deeper into in the specialized guide below:

Dragonflight introduces four new stats specific to crafting professions: Multicraft, Resourcefulness, Inspiration, and Crafting Speed.

We explain what each stat does and how to maximize them in the specialized guide below:

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:

The most important source of Blacksmithing skill is your profession level, which is increased by performing difficult crafts. While leveling is generally straightforward, you should still take into account the racials of the character you are leveling on and any special recipes that can help you along the way, both of which are discussed in our specialized guide below:

Often more important than raw skill, profession knowledge allows you to progress through the new profession knowledge talent trees of Dragonflight. It comes from many sources, some one-time, others weekly, and you will generally want to farm as much of it as you can to make your Blacksmithing crafts as efficient as possible and unlock unique perks!

We detail where and how to best farm these points in the guide below:

Blacksmithing Specializations are divided into four disciplines, which contain multiple sub-specializations which can be unlocked as you put points into their pre-requisite disciplines, akin to talent trees.

The best specialization for you depends on what your goals are: are looking to craft plate gear and shields, weapons, consumables, and enchants, or just to improve your overall Blacksmithing results? Each tree has its own unique perks which can help you reach these goals.

Go with Armorsmithing if you want to be able to craft plate armor and shields. While the tree is extremely deep, you can always start with Large Armor (chests, shields, legs), Sculpted Armor (helms, shoulders, boots), or Fine Armor (belts, bracers, gloves), and fill out the rest as you gain weekly points.

Weaponsmithing allows you to specialize into creating all types of weapons, both one-hand and two-hand, for physical specializations and magic users. It will also increase your skill at making profession tools of the type you specialize in.

We recommend you to specialize in a specific type of weapon first in order to be able to perform it to the best skill as quickly as possible. Thus, either go with Blades (swords, daggers, profession knifes) or Hafted (maces, profession hammers, and pickaxes) first, and you can always take the other path later.

Speciality Smithing is responsible for the profession gear and consumable parts of Blacksmithing and has two main builds: one for toolsmithing and one for consumable crafting.

Hammer Control is responsible for improving your general Blacksmithing skills, and has two sub-nodes that improve your Inspiration and Resourcefulness benefits.

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.

We have a specialized guide for Dragonflight 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!