How to craft and upgrade Legendary gear in WoW Shadowlands

Legendary gear is back in style for Shadowlands, much like it was during Legion. All classes will have their own Legendaries to choose from, along with a few neutral pieces, and they’ll be key to powering up your character. But getting Legendaries is a bit more complicated than hoping for random drops: you’ll need to gather materials to craft them.

But before we go into how to craft your Legendary gear, a spoiler warning: this post has some spoilers in it because the route to unlocking Legendaries will take us through parts of the Shadowlands storyline and into Torghast. If you want to experience that story for yourself first, go through it then come back here. (If you’re not quite sure when that spoiler warning ends, keep following the main quest campaign once you reach max level. You’ll be introduced to a certain figure who will help you start opening up and adding to your Legendary collection.)

Now for the good stuff: how to get your own Legendaries.

You have to find the Runecarver to craft Legendaries

Once you’ve reached max level, you’ll align with a Covenant and the quest campaign will eventually take you to Torghast. Much of this process also involves unlocking your soulbinds and your conduits, so this is where your character will start getting some pretty big power boosts.

Eventually, you’ll help out Ve’nari, an ally who’s being held within Torghast. She’ll conjure up a portal that teleports you into Torghast, and as you infiltrate the prison you’ll come across the Runecarver who has been trapped here for an extremely long time (quest: Deep Within).

You can’t miss the Runecarver: once you zone into Torghast, just hang a right and you’ll see the entrance to his chamber. Befriend him and he’ll make Legendary gear for you.

How to find Legendary recipes

Before the Runecarver will make you anything, you need a recipe. The first step is to figure out which Legendary power you’re looking for: you can see all available Legendary powers by opening your Adventure Guide and clicking Powers. Here you can use filters to sort by class and spec and look for anything interesting — but unfortunately, it won’t tell you where to acquire these Legendary recipes.

Sources can include vendors, world drops, raid drops, Torghast, dungeons, or even The Great Vault, and our pals at Wowhead have assembled a great list here. Characters have access to 16 Legendary abilities, which vary based on your class and spec (like A Memory of Sephuz’s Proclamation). Of those, there are also eight general abilities that can be used by any class and spec, while the remaining eight include four class-specific Legendaries (like A Memory of Vault and Heavens) and four spec-specific Legendaries (like A Memory of Harmoniuous Apparatus).

These memories of the Runecarver are the actual Legendary recipes, and you’ll need to learn them first before you can create the Legendary you want. Get the memory, bring it back to the Runecarver, and use the recipe to add it to his library. It’s pretty straightforward, but one of his first quests will walk you through that process (quest: Reawakening).

Once the Runecarver has learned a recipe, it’s unlocked account-wide and you can craft the Legendary on any character.

Collecting Legendary crafting components

Once you’ve met the Runecarver and gotten a recipe, you’ll need the right crafting materials to make your Legendaries. Here are the basic components:

• A base armor item which you will transform into a Legendary item — for example Grim-Veiled Robe from Tailors.
• 2 Missives, which are sort of like stat scrolls. The stats on your Missives must be different from each other.
• Soul Ash, a currency found within Torghast.
• A Legendary recipe.

Every profession has a place in making these Legendaries, but fortunately none of the crafted components are soulbound so you don’t need to have a specific crafting profession to make Legendaries. You can get anything you need from a friendly crafter or the auction house.

Here’s where you’ll get each component

Base armor comes from Tailors, Leatherworkers, Blacksmiths, and Jewelcrafters

Base armor items come from their related armorworking profession. A base cloth item comes from a Tailor; a plate item from a Blacksmith; leather and mail from a Leatherworker; and rings or necks from a Jewelcrafter. These armor pieces can be crafted at different ranks, with higher ranks creating more powerful Legendaries (and requiring more materials to craft):

• Rank 1: Item Level 190
• Rank 2: Item Level 210
• Rank 3: Item Level 225
• Rank 4: Item Level 235

To craft these items, you’ll need an Enchanter to make components like Enchanted Lightless Silk and Enchanted Elethium Bar.

Missives come from Scribes

Scribes make make stat scrolls which set the secondary stats on Legendaries:

• Missive of Critical Strike
• Missive of Haste
• Missive of Mastery
• Missive of Versatility

Soul Ash is a new currency

Soul Ash is a Legendary-specific currency that you earn found by completing levels of Torghast. You’ll earn Soul Ash when you finish a layer of Torghast (which consists of six floors) in one of the six wings of Torghast. You can only earn Soul Ash once per week per wing, and every week two wings will be available. As you ascend each layer, the enemies become increasingly challenging, so don’t expect an easy grind. Thankfully, you won’t need keys to get inside, so Soul Ash is the only currency you have to grind.

Higher item level Legendaries will take more Soul Ash, and you can expect to spend weeks earning enough to make the best items.

When you have your Legendary components, actually making the item is pretty easy to do. Have a chat with Mr. Carver (first name Rune) and tell the big guy you’d like to craft a Legendary item. A pretty-self-explanatory interface pops up: choose the base item in the middle slot, choose the Legendary power in the left slot, and choose Missives (stats) in the two right slots.

Hit the craft button and you now have a Legendary item.

How to upgrade Legendary items

As new content gets released, you’ll want to ensure your Legendaries stay competitive and up to date. I mean, can you imagine replacing your Legendary with some random raid item? Ugh!

That’s why the Runecarver offers an upgrade service, which works just like Legendary crafting. Just pick an existing Legendary select a base item that is a higher item level than your original Legendary. That’s all you need! Runecarver will then do his thing and upgrade it.

Enjoy your new Legendary gear!

Updated 12/2/2020