Category Archives: Professions

Blacksmithing, Reborn

Posted by arvash29 on

The Thunder Forge

Rejoice, fellow Blacksmiths, Patch 5.2 and the Isle of Thunder has finally given us a daily cooldown for our profession and the ability to learn new recipes!  These new recipes allow us to create PvP armor and new “Reborn” weapons; weapons that were learned back when Blacksmithing had the Weaponsmithing specializations, which was even more specialized to Hammer-, Axe- and Swordsmithing.  These specializations were removed at the beginning of Cataclysm because of their complexity, so if you didn’t have the plans before, you were out of luck making these weapons….until now.

Making these Reborn weapons requires several bars of a new reagent, the Lightning Steel Ingot, 2 to 3 bars of Living Steel and 3 Spirits of Harmony.

To begin making the Lightning Steel Ingot, you first have to obtain a quest item, a Strange Metal Ingot, from Itoka, the Master of the Forge, located on the Isle of Thunder.  He first becomes available once your realm opens up Stage 4 of the Isle.

Itoka, Master of the Forge

Once you have the quest item, you turn it in by reading one of the books in the Thunder Forge, which is located just north of Itoka.

Location of the Thunder Forge

Completing the quest rewards you with your first Lightning Steel Ingot and the Notes of Lightning Steel.  Opening the Notes provides you with the plans to create more Lightning Steel Ingots as well as the six “new” weapons I previously mentioned.  They are:

Reborn Weapons

The Reborn Weapons

These Reborn weapons are of rare quality and have an item level of 463, which would be perfect for fresh level 90 toons.  They are Bind on Equip, so you can craft these for your friends and fellow guildies or even sell them on the Auction House.  You can also mog these weapons if you prefer that instead.  Here are previews of each of the Reborn weapons.

EDIT: I just found out that you do need to use the anvils at the Thunder Forge to create any of the Reborn weapons.  Guess you have to make the trip out there after all, lol.

Drakefist Hammer, Reborn – this one-handed mace with spirit can be useful for Holy Paladins, Elemental/Restoration Shamans, Balance/Restoration Druids, Priests and Mistweaver Monks.

Drakefist Hammer, Reborn Description

Preview of Drakefist Hammer, Reborn

Fireguard, Reborn – this one-handed sword with agility can be useful for Rogues and Brewmaster/Windwalker Monks.

Fireguard, Reborn Description

Preview of Fireguard, Reborn

Lionheart Blade, Reborn – this two-handed sword with strength can be useful for Retribution Paladins, Blood/Unholy/Frost Death Knights, and Arms/Fury Warriors.

Lionheart Blade, Reborn Description

Preview of Lionheart Blade, Reborn

Lunar Crescent, Reborn – this two-handed axe with strength can also be useful for Retribution Paladins, Blood/Unholy/Frost Death Knights, and Arms/Fury Warriors.

Lunar Crescent, Reborn Description

Preview of Lunar Crescent, Reborn

The Planar Edge, Reborn – this one-handed axe with strength can be useful for Protection Paladins, Protection Warriors and Frost Death Knights.

The Planar Edge, Reborn Description

Preview of The Planar Edge, Reborn

Thunder, Reborn – this two-handed mace with agility can be useful for Guardian/Feral Druids.

Thunder, Reborn Description

Preview of Thunder, Reborn

Once you’ve created a Reborn weapon, you automatically learn how to create its upgraded version, which requires the Reborn weapon and additional Lightning Steel Ingots, Living Steel and Spirits of Harmony to make.  These upgraded weapons are epic quality and have an item level of 476.  They are:

And you can even upgrade these weapons one more time!  Once you’ve created these upgrades, you automatically learn how to create its final version, which requires the Reborn weapon and even more Lightning Steel Ingots, Living Steel and Spirits of Harmony to make.  These upgraded weapons are still epic quality and have an item level of 502.  They are:

….yeah, I’ll be crafting Lighting Steel Ingots for a while, just to learn all these new plans, lol.

So what weapon will I make first?  I like the look of the Lionheart Blade out of the six Reborn weapons and I probably won’t see a two-handed strength weapon drop for Arv unless I start running LFR as Retribution, so that’ll be the first weapon that gets made.

The Lightning Steel Ingot Cooldown

To craft all these Reborn weapons and to learn all the new plan is going to take a lot of Lightning Steel Ingots.  Creating a Lightning Steel Ingot requires 10 Ghost Iron bars and can only be made once a day.  At first, I thought these special Ingots could only be created at the Thunder Forge, but you can actually create them with any anvil you find, which is very convenient.  Thank God they are not like making the Dark Iron Bars from Vanilla WoW, which requires you to use the special Dark Iron Forge in Blackrock Depths to be smelted.

For every Ingot you make, you learn a new armor plan, either for PvP or PvE, similar to how Tailors learn their new plans from their Imperial Silk cooldowns.  So far, the only PvE plan I’ve learned is the Holy Paladin ilvl 522 boots, the Haunted Steel Greaves.  I have a handful of PvP plans learned, a couple of ilvl 458 Paladin ones (Crafted Dreadful Gladiator’s Ornamented Legplates and Crafted Dreadful Gladiator’s Scaled Helm) and some of the ilvl 458 Death Knight Crafted Dreadful Gladiator’s Desecration set. Crafting the PvP only requires Ghost Iron Bars, none of the precious Lighting Steel Ingots, whew.  The Death Knight set looks really cool, I’m tempted to make the set for Arv for transmog once I get the rest of the plans.

Crafted Dreadful Gladiator's Desecration set

So, fellow blacksmiths, we finally get a second chance to create some old-school weapons and upgrade them to fit the current content.  Get those hammers ready and keep the anvil hot, we’ve got lots of work to do!

Secret Agent Val

Posted by arvash29 on

Double Agent and Val hits Level 90

My spy has been planted, now it’s time to go to work and learn all of the Alliance’s secrets…/grin

I finally got my Alliance human paladin, Valoree, to level 90 last night.  It was a long and arduous journey, especially not having any heirlooms that my Horde alts are so spoiled with.  And I wasn’t about to spend any money just to transfer a toon to mule my BOAs over to Winterhoof.

Valoree

Val originally was part of a tanking project I was working on towards the end of Cataclysm.  My plan was to rotate each of the four tanking classes (Valoree – prot pally, Zackariah – blood death knight, Marrcus – prot warrior and Lorelin – bear tank) mainly through dungeons with a little bit of questing, until the rest state was used up.  I did this so that I could closely compare each class and their abilities, while learning how to tank on ones I haven’t done before, like bear tanking.  The project stalled and I managed to get Val to level 50 before Mists came out.

I started leveling Val again halfway through patch 5.1, not to restart my project, but for a totally different reason…I didn’t have the Alliance versions of the Guild Page and Guild Heralds (I swear I don’t have a companion addiction, lol =P).  I was already Honored with Crits at the time, so I made the grind to Exalted in a few days.  At that point, Val had made it to Outland and I figured I would just make the push to 90 to get the achievement.

Level 1 to 85 wasn’t too bad, but the grind from 85 to 90 was rough.  And I managed to do it all as prot, Val doesn’t even have a dual spec, lol.  I might spec her Holy to try it again. Might.

So what’s next for Val?  I might do the Operation: Shieldwall and Isle of Thunder quests just to check out the story on the Alliance side.  I do need to go to the Argent Tournament Grounds to get an Argent Squire to add to my companion collection (nope, definitely not a companion collector, not me =P).  And now that I have a maxed out Alliance toon, I can participate in future World events and earn some of the faction-specific rewards, like how the Horde got the Mini-mana bomb and the Alliance got the Tabard from the Battle of Theramore event.

Val in front of the Shrine of Seven Stars

And I’m still trying to get used to the setup and the location of the Shrine of Seven Stars in the Vale.  I haven’t “accidentally” flown into the Shrine of Two Moons like some others I know have….yet.

And I’ll Form…the Head!

Posted by arvash29 on

Voltron.  The second best mech cartoon next to Transformers while I was growing up, imo.  I’ve always been a fan of Combiners, teams of robots that formed together to create a much larger and stronger robot.  Like the Autobot Aerialbots combining to form Superion and the Decepticon Constructicons forming Devastator and yes, even the Power Rangers, lol.  So when I heard that the new Jewelcrafting mounts were a tribute to the lions of Voltron, I had to create a set of my own.

The cool thing about these JC mounts is that each can be used as a ground or flying mount.  So what’s it going to take to make these mounts?  Lol, be prepared to spend a lot of gold!  If you want the full set of five mounts, you’re essentially going to have to make 8 mounts: one set of Sapphire, Ruby, Sunstone and Jade Panthers to be learned individually and another set of the same four to combine into the Jeweled Onyx Panther.  And just like other profession-made mounts, there’s always a certain mat or two that classifies the mount as a “gold sink”.  That mat is the Orb of Mystery, which is sold by Big Keech in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.  He sells the Orbs for 20,000 gold a piece, but if your guild has the Bartering perk, you can buy it for 18,000 gold.  So if you want all five Panthers, you’re gonna have to spend 144,000 gold on just the Orbs alone, lol.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Good luck on building your own version of Voltron!  And here’s my tribute to the JC mounts and Voltron itself:

“Form feet and legs…”

Vynndicator on the Sapphire Panther

Kaelina on the Sunstone Panther

“Form arms and body…”

Heavyarms on the Ruby Panther

Rasfari on the Jade Panther

“And I’ll form…the head!”

Arvash on the Jeweled Onyx Panther

“Go Voltron Force!”

That video brings back so many memories, I get excited every time I see it, lol.

I wished there was some sort of animation or cutscene the would play when you had all five Panther mounts, maybe even an on use item that would transform the current toon you’re on into a mini Voltron.  Or better yet, if you had all five Panthers or were in a group that had one of each of the Panthers, you could summon an Azeroth version of Voltron to aid in fighting world raid bosses, like the Sha of Anger or Galleon, that would last for 30 seconds and have a two-week cooldown.  How awesome would that be!

Shared Topic: Jack of all trades, Illustrious Grand Master of them all

Posted by arvash29 on

This week’s Shared Topic from Blog Azeroth comes from Effraeti who asks:

Professions are fun for some and a necessary evil for others.

Some of us have farming professions.  Some of us have crafting professions.  Some of us have a little bit of everything!  Professions are leveled because they fit our style of play, help us in raiding, allow us to outfit our alts, and make us money.

What professions do you have on your main?  Do his/her professions fit their personality?  Why did you choose them?  If you chose professions based on your character and not on gaming needs, would that change some of their professions they use?

When I first started playing WoW, I really didn’t know much about professions.  I guess it was because my friend Chewy had most of them, if not all, maxed out on his toons and he was always supplying me with gear/gems/enchants he would create while leveling.  I don’t think Arv picked up his first profession until halfway through leveling in Outland.  And boy was it a pain to catch up back then: no flying mounts to make farming easier in Kal/EK, no gold to buy mats with and Firetree was a Moderate/Heavy server, so competition for nodes and mats was fierce.

I ended up picking Blacksmithing and Mining as my main professions, because to me that’s what made sense for a plate-wearing paladin to specialize in.  Speaking of specialization, remember when Blacksmithing was broken down into two sub-specializations, Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing and Weaponsmithing was broken down even further to Hammer-, Axe- and Swordsmithing?  Yeah, I’m glad they got rid of that and just made BS one spec, lol.

About halfway through Wrath, I dropped Mining and picked up Jewelcrafting.  Those two professions were the optimum specs that most raiding tanks had because of the stamina bonus from BS and the Dragon’s Eye bonus and extra gem sockets from JC.  I leveled up a couple of alts just for the Mining profession alone, so that they would supply Arv with the ore needed to maintain BS and JC.

I like to be self-sufficient when I can, so maximizing First Aid, Fishing (for mats of course, not for fun, lol) and Cooking allowed me to be prepared for raids, if food and bandages weren’t already provided.  This self-sufficiency transferred over to my alts as well; amongst all ten of my 85s, I have every profession covered and maxed, ready to support my band of toons and guildies.

One last thing I want to say about Jewelcrafting, this is the one profession that has single-handedly earned almost all my gold.  Gems are the only thing I really sell on the Auction House.  I buy cheap ore when it’s available and turn it around for instant profit.  With the Voltron mounts coming out in MoP, Jewelcrafting is only going to get that much profitable and sweeter, lol.


From MMO-Champion