Professions in Shadowlands

Professions in Shadowlands

The Shadowlands brough many changes to the World of Warcraft, however, one of the most substantial ones is the whole new system of professions and crafting introduced in this latest expansion. In this guide, we present the changes that were introduced to the crafting system as well as the tips and tricks to help veteran and new players get started with the new system and hopefully get a head-start on their competition.

The main changes include things such as:

• The introduction of Optional Reagents, that can improve the crafted items or just overall quality of life.
• The option to craft new legendary items – from the base pieces into legendary armor.
• Re-introduction of enchanted resources as well as armor kits, oils, and sharpening stones.

Overall, many things that were present in the vanilla game are making a grand return with the dawn of the latest expansion.

Optional Reagents in crafting

One of the primary changes is the possibility to use optional reagents in crafting. These are permanent changes made during the production process of the items, which can be applied to certain recipes in Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, and Tailoring. However, it does not mean that the players are able to use just any additional items in crafting – there are special items prepared for this, but let’s return to that in a moment. Meanwhile, another important thing is that the number of reagents that can be used for a single item is more or less fixed, however, some higher-tier items have more slots for some types of reagents.

Generally, each item has one slot reserved for the item level modifying reagent. The next two slots are open for the stat-specifying items. Lastly, the fourth slot, if available, is meant for a Bonus Effects reagent, which, as mentioned before, can include things like small bonuses or extra sockets for gems.

It is important to remember that these reagents can only be used during the crafting process, they cannot be used afterwards, neither can they be reclaimed nor changed in any way after they have been used on a particular item.

What these reagents do, is give crafters an opportunity to use additional items that allow for some modification of the items crafted. Normally, these make it possible to alter certain areas of the crafted item. There are quite a few of those, although there are the two main categories, with the rest of them being more of unique options granted to certain professions.

Secondary Stat

In the crafting process two of those can be used to specify the secondary stats of the item. Do note that it is not possible to have the same stat twice. These items are:

• Missive of Critical Strike, which guarantees critical strike as a secondary stat on the crafted item.
• Missive of Haste, which guarantees haste as a secondary stat on the crafted item.
• Missive of Mastery, which guarantees mastery as a secondary stat on the crafted item.
• Missive of Versatility, which guarantees versatility as a secondary stat on the crafted item.

In this way, the players can ensure that the item has the preferred statistics for their chosen class and spec, especially when crafting higher tier items or even legendary items.

Item level

Using these items on the other hand it is possible to manipulate, both, the item level, as well as the level requirement of an item. Moreover, it is not only possible to upgrade a low-level item to a high level, but to downgrade some items to be used by lower-level characters. However, these reagents can only be applied to the items introduced in the Shadowlands expansion. These are the so-called Crafter’s Marks:

• Novice Crafter's Mark, which changes the item level to 87 in addition to setting the level requirement to 50.
• Crafter's Mark I, which changes the item level to 117 in addition to setting the level requirement to 55.
• Crafter's Mark II, which changes the item level to 168 in addition to setting the level requirement to 60.

Relics of the Past

A similar item to the aforementioned Crafter’s Marks is the Relics of the Past, which is an item crafted using pre-Shadowlands materials, depending on the profession it requires ores, leathers, or clothes. These also allow the players to modify the item level and the required level of items, however, unlike the previous items, these are used to lower the levels to a significantly higher degree. These come in five level variations:

• Relic of the Past I, which changes the item level to 23 and the level requirement to 15.
• Relic of the Past II, which changes the item level to 33 and the level requirement to 25.
• Relic of the Past III, which changes the item level to 43 and the level requirement to 35.
• Relic of the Past IV, which changes the item level to 56 and the level requirement to 45.
• Relic of the Past V, which changes the item level to 87 and the level requirement to 50.

Unique optional reagents

While the two aforementioned groups of reagents are the main change to the crafting from Battle for the Alliance, since the secondary stats were rolled randomly. However, these are not the only optional reagents. The special reagents that can be crafted only by certain professions include:

• Alchemist's Pouch, which increases the duration of Flask effects
• Elethium Setting, an item adding an additional socket into a piece of armor
• Reinforced Girdle, a special reagent that can be crafted into armor, that allows the player to keep the Well Fed buff, after being slain in the Arena or a Battleground.
• Hydrodynamic Accelerators, which increases the swimming speed of the player
• Necrostatic Micro Capacitor, which is a mysterious item that buffs the Primary Stat of the player for completing World Quests.
• Loosened Belt, an item which makes the Well Fed buff last longer
• Craftman's Pouch, a reagent that provides the player with a random chance of gaining an additional skill point, whenever they craft an item from the Shadowlands expansion.

Crafting Legendary Items

The possibility of crafting one’s own Legendary Items is a complete novelty that arrived with the Shadowlands expansion. Until now, the players had to acquire those ultimate weapons from raids, bosses, quests etc. Now, however, everyone can make a Legendary of their own choosing, and a whole set of it at that.

How to start crafting legendary items?

Generally, gaining the ability to start crafting legendary items is not so difficult. First of all, the player’s character has to be max level, then they need to do the introductory questline in Torghast, which will unlock the Runecarver, who is a key figure in the whole process. Afterwards, what remains is to craft the base pieces, which are the so-called rune-vessels, which can then be granted Legendary powers using the Memories of the Runecarver.

However, there are a few noteworthy issues with the whole process, which force the player to make wise decisions from the very beginning of the crafting process if they wish to achieve the pinnacle of power sooner rather than later. Most importantly, a player can only equip one of these legendaries, and secondly, each one of them requires Soul Ash, for crafting and upgrading – which is an extremely rare currency and takes a lot of time to acquire in the necessary quantities.

Acquiring the Legendary Powers

As was mentioned, in order to complete the vessel and make it into a proper Legendary, you need to find Memories of the Runecarver recipes. These can be found in a variety of places, such as dungeons and raids. If you want to find a particular Memory, try checking in the Adventure Guide, in the Powers tab.

Crafting the Legendary Armor

Moving on to the main crafting process, what is needed to make a Legendary is:

• A base item (the memory vessel), which has to be of a desired level and slot type
• These are the crafted vessels for the legendary powers, they are unlocked by completing the content that was introduced in the Shadowlands. Moreover, it is important to note that they can be traded and sold, as such you don’t necessarily need to craft your own – you might buy them instead.
• 2 Stat Missives (the optional reagents), which are going to decide the stats of the item
• A certain amount of Soul Ash
• A currency introduced in Shadowlands, which can be acquired from Layers in Torghast. Moreover, the higher item level of the base item, the more you will need of the Soul Ash to craft it.
• The Memory of the Runecarver, which must be learned from the Runecarver.

An important part of this process, and a time-consuming one at that, is the process of increasing the rank of the base item. Which is done in a rather straightforward fashion – the recipe you receive at rank 1, has to be leveled by crafting it over and over, until it levels-up. Do note however, that not only more experience is required for each rank, but also the material cost increases steeply.

Having completed your endeavor – you got a desired Power, an appropriate base item, you can complete the Legendary by crafting it in the Runecarver’s Chamber in Torghast. In order to do that, you need to interact with the Runecarver, which opens a special window that allows for the Legendary to be crafted.

Moreover, do note that you don’t have to wait for the maximum rank of the base item, before crafting the legendary item. You can craft it at rank 1 and then upgrade it afterwards. Although the cost is going to be slightly higher this way, but still, it also means you have access to your new powers much sooner.

Alternative methods of leveling professions

Among many other things that changed in Shadowlands, an interesting idea was introduced with the professions overhaul, and that is, alternative methods of leveling professions. Since up until now, the only sensible way of leveling professions was to tirelessly craft certain recipes and some skill levels to grind it as efficiently as possible, which was neither interesting, nor was it profitable in most cases. However, that changes with two new methods – Journals and Darkmoon Faire Professions Quests.

• The Journals are books that can be found all around Azeroth, since they are considered world drops, meaning they can drop anywhere. They grant a 5 skill points increase and can be used weekly. Moreover, these are not Soulbound, which makes it possible to sell them or buy. Do note that these are specific for each profession, and the one that drops may not necessarily fit the profession of the character.
• Darkmoon faire profession quests can be done at each faire, which means they are repeatable, although they are not dailies, every time you must wait for the next event to begin. Despite that, the players are not limited to only one of them, each time the faire is in progress, each of the player’s characters can complete the quest for each of his professions, with each quest increasing the proficiency of the character by 5.

None of these two methods are satisfactory ways of leveling professions on their own since the process would be too time-consuming. However, they are important and useful, because they can be used to level through the difficult parts in the path of leveling professions, or simply to avoid spending a lot of gold in the last stages.

World quests

Another big change in the Shadowlands, is the profession world quests. Four of those quests appear every day, in four zones with one quest in each zone. These are available in:

• Hero’s Rest in Bastion
• Theater of Pain in Maldraxxus
• Refugee Point in Ardenweald
• Sanctuary of the Mad in Revendreth

However, do note that only certain professions will have their quests appear on a given day.

Participating in World Quests

To take part in the profession World Quests, the player needs to have at least 25 skill point in the Shadowlands profession, otherwise you are not going to see the quests at all. If an item increases your skill level beyond the basic requirement, it also counts, and the quest will appear for the player to take. These are reportedly, one of the best ways of gaining reputation with the related factions.

Detailed changes to professions

Blacksmithing

• One of the professions capable of crafting base (vessel) items, in this case plate, for Legendary crafting, with experience the players have to grind for each of the pieces they want to create or upgrade.
• Return of the Sharpening Stones and Weightstones, which increase the weapon damage for 1-hour.
• Warglaives can now be crafted and have been added to recipes.
• Shadowlands recipes do not have star ranks.

Leatherworking

• Another profession with the ability to create base items for Legendary crafting, for these artisans it will be leather and mail items.
• Four armor sets for each of the zones related to Covenants, where the players will be able to acquire recipes necessary for thematic pieces, which use local leather to craft.
• Similarly, to Blacksmithing, armor kits have been re-introduced, which increase Stamina on each chest, legs, hands, and feet for 2-hours. It is also possible to apply them to all of these pieces for maximum efficiency.
• Star ranks in Shadowlands recipes make much less of a difference.

Tailoring

• Third of the professions creating base pieces of Legendary items – for cloth armor.
• Introduction of new sets of armor, one for each Covenant as well as a legendary set.
• Like with Leatherworking, star ranks are of a lesser importance.

Jewelcrafting

• Last profession related to the new Legendary crafting system, with the ability to create the legendary rings and necklaces.
• New types of gems, that increase their effects depending on how many Shadowlands gems there are in the player’s gear – one that increases health and the other for speed.
• Reduction to only three base gems.
• Rare gems are removed, instead they are now being crafted by combining
• It will be possible to use those rare gems as optional reagents, in a way similar as with the Scribe’s missives.
• Star ranks also lose their significance.

Enchanting

• Re-introduction of armor enchants which can again be applied to most pieces.
• Return of the enchanted reagents, which are used in the blacksmithing, leatherworking, and tailoring professions.
• Enchants related to gathering now become one, that increases the global speed for those professions in Shadowlands.

Alchemy

• Additional types of potions
• Oils, which can be used to bestow temporary effects on weapons.
• Extracts, which are herbal medicine, that can be used in other recipes
• Optional reagents are also available for crafting with alchemy. These can be applied to armor pieces to increase the duration of Flasks or Food, or to give the player a chance on hit to increase their Primary Stat.
• Many new potions added, with interesting or quality-of-life effects, such as increase on the movement speed in ghost form.
• Reduction of the number of Flasks to two, one for the Primary stat and one for Stamina.
• Shared global cooldown for all kinds of potions, with the exception of health potions.

Engineering

• Introduction of a new mechanic – techno-magic breakthrough, which is a double-edged sword buff, that increases the power of the devices, but makes them unstable, as such, a player risks the backfire for a sudden boost. However, the chance of those can be reduced with the higher skill level.
• Optional reagents that increase swimming speed and primary stat.
• Many fun devices are re-introduced, all of them somewhat dangerous.
• Access to the special mechanical auction house in the Hall of Shapes in Oribos.

Inscription

• The most important professions for crafting optional reagents, since the Missives are necessary for crafting and legendary crafting.
• A possibility of crafting specific Darkmoon Cards.
• Words of power – a new optional reagent that increases the armor class.
• Introduction of a new, Dark Parchment, which is a first since the MoP expansion.

Mining

• Mining reverts to certain features that were present in the past.
• Stones are re-introduced as a possible outcome of Mining.
• Shadowlands ores are based on zones in which they are mined and as such each zone has a specific ore assigned to it.
• Removal of Seams.

Skinning

• Scales are no longer skinned from monsters, and normal leather replaces their place in recipes.
• Scraps make a comeback as a possible outcome of skinning, although it is not going to be a frequent one.

Herbalism

• Herbs are no longer going to be dependent on the terrain.
• Covenant related zones are going to each have a special herb growing only there.

Cooking

• New interesting recipes are being added, some of them with interesting effects.
• Cooking recipes are going to be more reliant on the Fish products than it was in previous expansions.

Fishing

• The differentiation between coastal and inland waters is removed when it comes to fishing, as such, the same kinds of fishes are going to be available in both.
• Certain kinds of fish are zone limited.
• Bait is being re-introduced. It is an item that increases the player’s chance of catching the important, non-junk fish types.
• Changes to the chances of fishing trash items, these never stop appearing even once you hit max level.

All in all, the changes are rather significant, and crafting has now become an even greater part of the game with its significance at its peak. Hence, its recommended to take care of whatever professions you have on your characters, since their role in the coming days is going to grow exponentially.