Dragonflight Blacksmithing Guide – How To Train Your First Knowledge Points

Unlike gathering professions, the Dragonflight crafting professions come with four specialization trees. Also, some of them have quite a few sub-specializations which can be very confusing. This pretty much applies to Blacksmithing. This profession has four spec trees. These are Armorsmithing, Weaponsmithing, Speciality Smithing, and Hammer Control.

Now the Knowledge Points that we earn as we play the game are pretty much spoon-fed to us after a certain point. So, here’s a short Blacksmithing guide to help you avoid training your first points wrong like many of us did at the start of the Dragonflight expansion.

How To Train Your First 105 Points In Blacksmithing

First of all, before training any points, it’s pretty important to decide what you want to craft first – armor or weapons – and which types. If, for example, you want to craft axes and polearms, you’ll need to first unlock Weaponsmithing, and then go with the sub-spec traits that unlock Axes, Picks, and Polearms. If, for example, you want to craft boots, you’ll first have to unlock Armorsmithing and the sub-spec traits that lead to Sabatons.

For the following example, I went with the Short Blades specialization. This is overall a great specialization to make gold as well. That’s because there are a few classes that dual-wield daggers or fists, so they may need at least one weapon crafted.

• Weaponsmithing: +10
• Blades: +30
• Short Blades: +25
• Hammer Control: +10
• Poignant Plans: +30

Explanation:

Needless to say, with your first 65 points, you will need to open your desired specialization. In the example above, I went with Weaponsmithing – Blades – Short Blades. However, if you want to craft axes or maces, you should go with Weaponsmithing – Hafted – Axes, Picks, & Polearms, or Weaponsmithing – Hafted – Maces & Hammers. The same goes for Armorsmithing. The number of points trained in your desired trait line should be the same – 10 – 30 – 25. By training your points like this, you’ll be able to use Illustrious Insight and Quenching Fluid finishing reagents to boost the quality of your products. You’ll also earn quite a bunch of Inspiration in the process.

You don’t need to cap your desired sub-specialization now; you can cap it later for the repair tool. Having 25 points in it for the Illustrious Insight Finishing Reagent should be enough.

Next, Hammer Control and Poignant Plans will grant you a hefty amount of Inspiration when crafting Blacksmithing goods. Thus, you’ll have higher chances to score a T4 – T5 quality weapon or armor.

Tips:

Before starting to level up your Blacksmithing profession, buy the green T5 tools and accessories from the Auction House. If possible, get a green Draconium Blacksmith’s Hammer with +79 Inspiration. This crafting stat directly affects your crafting skill and will help you craft T4-T5 quality gear. Even if at the beginning you’ll be crafting green and blue gear, some of these crafted pieces can be sold for a few extra 100s of gold, if they’re T4 or T5. So, you’ll get some of your materials money back.

Of course, later on, upgrade your crafting gear to blue. This will cost you, but will increase your chances of crafting maximum quality goods.

Once you’ve trained your 105 points as suggested above, it’s important to cap both Weaponsmithing and Hammer Control to 30/30. This will grant you extra Inspiration.

Most epic Blacksmithing recipes require at least a bunch of alloys. Thus, capping Smelting from the Specialty Smithing tree will help you craft your own high quality alloys. Higher quality materials lead to higher quality final products. Also, alloys are rather expensive, so if you’re going to craft items for your alts, it’s nice being able to craft T3 alloys yourself.

You should be able to level your Blacksmithing up to 60+ without training any Knowledge Points. The recipes that you’ll learn from your trainer, and a few others from reputations, from the AH, or world drops, should be enough. You should also be able to earn at least 105 Knowledge Points from easy crafts, not the ones that require Sparks of Ingenuity or Primal Chaos. This being said, before even training any Knowledge Points into your Blacksmithing traits, it’s best to skill-up your profession as much as you can, and earn all the points that you can from First Crafts.

How to earn Blacksmithing Knowledge Points:

1. First Crafts – when you craft any Blacksmithing product for the first time, you earn 1 Knowledge Point. The first craft rule pretty much applies to all other Dragonflight crafting professions.

2. Molten Globule (drops from Blazing Manifestation elementals in the Waking Shores), Primeval Earth Fragment (drops from Crushing Elementals in the Waking Shores), Valdrakken Weapon Chain, and Draconium Blade Sharpener. The last two can be found in Disturbed Dirt and Expedition Scout’s Packs. You can collect one of each per week.

3. Draconic Treatise on Blacksmithing – these are made by Inscription crafters. You can use one per week to earn one Knowledge Point, so set a public crafting order for one each week.

4. Dragon Shard of Knowledge – quest item found in Disturbed Dirt, Expedition Scout’s Pack, or various other reward boxes. You can turn these shards in for Knowledge Points at Khadin in Ohn’Ahran Plains (51, 33). But in order to get Dragon Shards of Knowledge, you’ll have to complete the quest chain Catching Up! which starts with A Gift For Miguel and ends with A Worthy Hunt. One shard equals one point.

5. Dusty Blacksmith’s Diagrams, Rare Blacksmith’s Diagrams, Ancient Blacksmith’s Diagrams – sold by Rabul in Valdrakken (35, 59) when you reach Preferred, Respected, and Valued reputation with the Artisan’s Consortium (as of 10.0.7). These grant 10 points each and cost 100, 150, and 200 Artisan’s Mettle.

6. Valdrakken weekly quests – from Metalshaper Kuroko (37, 46), Dothenos (36, 62) and Azley (35, 58).

7. Crafter’s Knowledge –  available when you reach renown level 14 and 24 with the Maruuk Centaur and Valdrakken Accord factions.

8. One-time loot Enchanting Treasures.

Cheap Blacksmithing plans that you can buy from the Auction House:

• Plans: Serevite Skeleton Key
• Plans: Crimson Combatant’s Draconium Breastplate
• Plans: Crimson Combatant’s Draconium Waistguard
• Plans: Crimson Combatant’s Draconium Armguards
• Plans: Crimson Combatant’s Draconium Helm
• Plans: Crimson Combatant’s Draconium Sabatons
• Plans: Crimson Combatant’s Draconium Greaves
• Plans: Crimson Combatant’s Draconium Gauntlets
• Plans: Crimson Combatant’s Draconium Pauldrons

All these plans cost between 50g and 300g each. Even though you won’t make a lot of gold by selling crafting and selling them, you should get them for the First Craft bonus. They’re eight in number, which equals 8 Knowledge Points.

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