If you have one of the armor crafting professions you get access to some very strong new recipes in Phase 3.
The Thorium Brotherhood.
The Thorium Brotherhood rep vendor just got a bunch of new recipes. The recipes are spread across all reputation levels, with the higher rep levels giving access to generally stronger recipes. The recipes range from literally best in slot to good filler pieces depending on the item and class. Getting the rep and advertising the items is well worth it.
As with other high-end crafted items they are quite expensive so you want to sell them by advertising in trade that you can craft them. For some of them you will want to add some advertising to help create demand. You can fairly easily get the recipes by turning in materials. It will cost you a decent amount of gold, but there’s nothing stopping you outside of that.
Let’s look at the recipes
We’ll go through the recipes on a profession by profession basis to quickly highlight the strongest pieces.
Leatherworking
The top leatherworking recipes you get are obtained at revered. The Corehound Belt is BiS for druids and paladin healers and will be in demand for a while. The Molten Belt is a decent alternative for unlucky rogues, hunters and feral and can also put in some work as a Fire resistance piece, but these classes have better alternatives both in Molten Core and Blackwing lair. At honored you get the Lava Belt which is a pure fire resistance piece that is useful for any ferals looking to tank Firemaw for their guild. All three pieces rely on Lava cores, Fiery cores and cured rugged hides as the main materials.
Blacksmithing
Blacksmiths get a ton of new recipes. The most interesting ones are of course the weapons. Nightfall provides a great raid debuff and will be in demand for most raid groups. The Ebon Hand is a great weapon particularly for human warriors that have not gotten weapons from Molten Core as it provides a huge upgrade over pre-bis weapons. Blackguard is an option for swords, but the speed means it’s an off-hand weapon, making it less interesting. The new dagger Black Amnesty is also a great option for rogues, but it is quite expensive. All of the weapons require weaponsmithing, and the respective weapon type master smith specialization, so you can only craft one of Blackguard, Ebon Hand or Nightfall.
Blacksmiths also get some new armor pieces if you are an armorsmith. The Dark Iron pieces are fire resistance pieces that anyone wanting to tank Firemaw will need, making them a great option. Outside of Firemaw there is not much need for fire resistance, but it is crucial on this fight and loads of groups are struggling.
The weapons require Exalted, as do the Dark Iron Boots, while the rest of the crafts are found at Revered. This makes Blacksmithing by far the most expensive to unlock the recipes for.
Tailoring
Tailors get the shortest end of the stick here. None of their pieces are really BiS, but they represent potential upgrades. Some of the flarecore pieces have massive amounts of stamina, making them great PvP options though, so you should be able to make gold with these recipes as well. The robe and leggings are the new recipes, with the leggings representing by far the best piece. The robe cannot compete with the best options available both pre-raiding and in MC.
Advertising in trade chat
For these items you have to advertise. Not just that you have the recipe, but make it persuasive. Guilds are struggling a little bit in BWL so now is the time to sell players on performance increases, even if it’s not BiS. “Weapons not dropping for you? I’ve got you covered: Blacksmith LFW, got Ebon Hand recipe, replace those dal’rend swords now!” is an example that will help you explain why players should care about this weapon. People are hyper-focused on BiS lists, but many guilds will have materials and gold and be willing to spend them on improving the power of their raids, so take advantage of it.