I am continuing my series of previews on WoW Forever professions and today we get to the second profession preview for WoW: Forever with Blacksmithing.
Historical facts
Blacksmithing has not historically been a massive goldmaker in Classic. This has mostly come down to the relatively high crafting costs for gear, as well as the fact that other professions have outclassed it for the relevant classes (devilsaur leather being better than any plate gear for warriors for instance). There are some consumables though in the form of weapon stones, that has some consistent demand. So let’s see if forever changes that!
New recipes galore, but do they matter?
There’s a LOT of new blacksmithing recipes coming in Forever, with 3 main types of new recipes. BoP armor for leveling, new uncommon BoE items both armor and weapons and new rare weapons that are BoE. In general crafted gear can be really good for profit, and has been a great goldmaker for me in many expansions.
The BoP gear is economically irrelevant
The BoP gear you can craft with blacksmithing is generally very good while leveling. That being said they do not provide any direct goldmaking opportunities, so given that we will mostly be ignoring them today. If you want to pick blacksmithing for the armor you can, but that’s not the focus here.
Uncommon BoE armor is weak
The uncommon BoE armor you can craft is obviously weaker than the BoP gear. The sale rate will depend on how the playerbase shake out with profession choices. If most plate wearers go blacksmithing then the potential for uncommon gear will be on the lower end, but in certain level brackets they can potentially compete with other gear. They are significantly cheaper than the BoP gear, so that is a potential niche.
The new BoE Weapons could be big!
There are a lot of new BoE weapons as well as changed weapon recipes. Below level 40 all the weapons are uncommon quality, which means they will compete with dungeon drops or specific quest rewards. I expect there will be a market for some of these recipes, depending on the level and class. Weapons are generally quite expensive to craft in terms of materials and are almost never used in leveling guides for a profession. That means these recipes are less likely to be crafted en masse early on and there’s good chance there will be profitable recipes here even while leveling the profession.
Rare weapons at higher levels
At level 42 the first rare weapons appear, but the real level here is 50. At level 50 there is a whole glut of various rare weapons. I expect these to be quite relevant, and this will be a good point to secure upgrades for the final push into max level dungeons. This is where upgrades start being a lot more than very temporary.
The next step up is at level 58 where there are both old and new recipes. These are equivalent to end game dungeon gear, but they are also very expensive. The new recipes use the Legionite bar, which is a new alchemy transmute, whereas old recipes like the Arcanite Reaper use Arcanite bars. In both instances these will be quite expensive and you will rely on alchemy transmutes to get going. I’m unsure about the demand for these, as there are also BoEs at this level alongside dungeon gear, and the cost is quite high. At the vendor price of 50g per arcanite on the new Black market vendor the Arcanite reaper for instance is at least 1000 gold (50g * 20 arcanite = 1000g).
Changed recipes don’t have the largest impact
A lot of items got their stats changed, many old recipes are now more relevant. Generally BoEs still weaker than BoPs slot for slot. Overall I don’t see any particular stand outs on the list of changed recipes, and none that are super economically relevant.
Sharpening stones remain the same
The Sharpening stones for weapons remain from Classic unchanged. It will be interesting to see the price of Elemental Sharpening stones, as they are very strong. Overall I expect demand to be good, in particular since they have changed the game so you can have a sharpening stone and a totem.
Overall verdict
I am cautiously optimistic about blacksmithing from a gold point of view. Sharpening stones provide some consumable value, and there are some very interesting new weapon recipes. Especially down the line when players level alts I expect weapon sales to be quite strong as leveling gear is a niche I have found to have VERY consistent profits. That being said I am uncertain about where Blacksmithing will be at launch. It is definitely possible there is a market for the level 50 or 58 items early on while leveling, but it’s also possible players are saving for their mounts. Longer term it looks better with the leveling demand and I expect MANY players to level alts in Forever.