Blacksmithing Leveling Guide, 1 to 300

At a glance

Blacksmithing crafts weapons, mail and plate armor, sharpening stones and tools used by other professions. Pair it with Mining if you want to gather the bars yourself. You also need a Blacksmith Hammer and access to an anvil for the recipes that require them. Flux, dye, cloth, leather and gems are real parts of the cost; this is not an ore-only profession.

Use the Forever beta route through 225 and its conditional 225-300 planning table. Acquire each upper plan before committing to its material batch. This is public-source research, not our own game test.

Train before reaching the 75, 150 or 225 rank cap. The current Forever guide reports no Apprentice level requirement; later gates still require checking at the trainer. Galvan the Ancient teaches quest recipes through the Mithril Order, not the Artisan rank.

The Forever route by skill range

Counts are approximate crafts. Yellow and green recipes may give no point. Save the intermediate stones named below instead of selling them and paying to remake them.

The table's expected starting budget is 90 Rough Stone, 90 Copper Bar, 120 Coarse Stone, 440 Bronze Bar, 25 Medium Leather, 25 Strong Flux, 90 Iron Bar, 15 Green Dye, 240 Steel Bar, 120 Heavy Stone, 150 Mithril Bar, 60 Mageweave Cloth and 220 Solid Stone. Add a buffer only as skill colors and your actual progress require it.

Mithril Spurs plans are a world drop, so obtain them before you buy their whole material batch. If unavailable, keep making Steel Plate Helm while it awards skill, at a much higher steel cost, or use another current recipe. Heavy Mithril Shoulder is a leather-based alternative to the Mageweave gauntlet step. These alternatives replace a batch and change the totals.

A current personal gear craft

Acolyte's Silvered Chain Helm is a Blacksmithing 95 recipe for a level-20 mail wearer. Both plan and helm bind on pickup, so you must craft it on the character who will use it. Current vendor records list the plan for 30 Merchant's Favor from Stondry Darkhammer at Three Corners for Alliance or Gor'mak outside the Crossroads' west gate for Horde. Its 15 Bronze Bars, 6 Coarse Grinding Stones, 4 Silver Bars, 4 Pristine Leather and 6 Strange Dust are an optional equipment bill, outside the leveling totals. See the new recipe guide for the item's current healing and spell-damage use.

Planning Forever 225-300

The current Forever recipe catalog and recipe tooltips support the options below. This is a planning path for characters who can obtain the plans and train Artisan, not a tested craft-count budget. The beta's level-30 cap prevents testing its higher character-level gates. Colors are the skill at which each recipe becomes yellow, green and gray; gray crafts award no points.

A possible sequence is Dense Sharpening Stone to 230, Thorium Belt or Bracers to 245, Imperial Bracers to 270, then Imperial Helm to 300. Bracers become yellow at 265 and Helm at 290, so extra crafts may be needed. If you already own Mithril Spurs, their current colors are 230/240/250: they can bridge toward 245, and become gray at 250. Each Spur craft costs 4 Mithril Bars and 3 Solid Grinding Stones.

Acquire the plans before the bulk materials. Imperial plans bind on pickup; their original Classic quests require character level 50 and Thorium turn-ins. Confirm the current quest's character level, skill gate and cost with Derotain Mudsipper before relying on this sequence: Artisan at level 35 does not establish access to those quests. Thorium and Radiant patterns also need their own acquisition. Until that access is confirmed, keep this as a conditional plan and choose an obtainable recipe that still awards skill.

The table gives materials per crafting action. It does not assume a particular number of finished armor pieces or an extra skill-up from any output bonus. Price the actual recipes and current skill colors before choosing between a Thorium, Mithril or Radiant bridge.

Armorsmith and Weaponsmith

For later specialization planning, the inherited entry gate is skill 200 and level 40. Current Forever quest records retain the turn-ins below, but live access to these higher-level chains remains unverified. Specializing is optional and never required just to reach 300. The inherited rules can require unlearning and relearning the profession to change the main specialization, losing recipes. Inspect the current trainer's switch options before making an expensive choice.

Armorsmith starts through Grumnus Steelshaper in Ironforge or Okothos Ironrager in Orgrimmar. The current quest requests 4 Ornate Mithril Helms, 2 Ornate Mithril Boots and 1 Ornate Mithril Breastplate. Learn the required Ornate recipes through the Mithril Order, Galvan the Ancient and the subsequent Trenton Lighthammer tasks before promising the finished set. Those prerequisite quest costs are additional to the final turn-in.

Weaponsmith starts through Ironus Coldsteel in Ironforge or Borgosh Corebender in Orgrimmar. Its current quest requests 4 Moonsteel Broadswords, 4 Massive Iron Axes, 2 Heavy Mithril Axes and 2 Big Black Maces. These are finished-item quantities, not crafting-action counts. Buy the vendor plans before collecting the final bars, and keep the turn-in weapons separate from items intended for sale.

Weaponsmiths can later choose a master weapon specialty at skill 250 and level 50. Kilram in Everlook gives the Axesmith task tied to Shadow Hunter Vosh'gajin in Lower Blackrock Spire; Lilith the Lithe gives the Hammersmith task tied to Crimson Hammersmith on Stratholme's living side; Seril Scourgebane gives the Swordsmith task tied to Black Guard Swordsmith on its undead side. Bring a group and finish the appropriate quest, rather than expecting a solo trainer purchase.

Recipes worth buying or farming

Plans: Mithril Spurs is valuable leveling access. Plans: Moonsteel Broadsword comes from Zarena Cromwind in Booty Bay; Plans: Massive Iron Axe has faction vendors in Stranglethorn Vale. Stock can be limited. Buy the correct recipe with the character who can learn it if binding requires that.

Thorium Brotherhood plans from Lokhtos Darkbargainer in Blackrock Depths have individual reputation, skill and specialization requirements. Inspect the specific plan before farming reputation or choosing a specialty.

For a future Sulfuron Hammer plan, the inherited quest route requires character level 60: carry a Sulfuron Ingot to expose Lokhtos's contract dialogue and exchange it for the tradeable plans. Learning them requires Blacksmithing 300 with no specialization or Exalted requirement. Crafting the hammer uses eight further Ingots, so obtaining the plans yourself and crafting once needs nine in total, alongside the hammer's other reagents. A lower-level crafter could obtain the tradeable plans without doing that quest personally. Confirm the contract and recipe are available in Forever before farming Ingots; these quest-access details are inherited planning evidence.

Dark Iron smelting belongs to Mining and needs its own Blackrock Depths unlock and the Black Forge. A Blacksmith who cannot smelt it can buy bars or work with a Miner. Do not buy Dark Iron Ore assuming your Blacksmith Hammer can process it.

Forever checks and tips

Blizzard confirms new recipes, advanced dungeon blueprint drops and profession camp objects. Use the current skill colors in the planning table above when choosing an upper recipe, and confirm that you can obtain its plans before buying hundreds of Thorium Bars.

Keep quest turn-ins separate from your leveling supplies and label saved grinding stones. Check hammer, anvil access, rank cap, recipe binding and required character level before travelling to an out-of-the-way trainer. Use the camping guide for station access rather than assuming a camp replaces every recipe-specific forge.

In Forever, the October 16 public data lists Working Overtime as an increase to tradeskill skill-up chance. That can change expected material use on yellow or green recipes; it does not mean an exact 20% reduction in every shopping list. The route budgets do not assume that perk. Bartering discounts vendor items under its current rules, not training or repairs, so do not subtract it from every profession expense.