Economical blacksmithing training This is a guide on how to train Blacksmithing economically . General recommendations . Here are a few general pieces of advice on economically improving blacksmithing skill . Apprentice Blacksmithing . Apprentice Blacksmithing allows 75 maximum skill , requires level 5 . Journeyman Blacksmithing . Journeyman Blacksmithing allows 150 maximum skill , requires level 10 and 50 skill . Coarse Grinding Stones are not a guaranteed point after skill level 90 , but you need a very large number of grinding stones for later items so you might as well make them now . Heavy Grinding Stone is not a guaranteed point skill after level 130 , so leveling to 150 with them can be very expensive / wasteful . Expert Blacksmithing . Expert Blacksmithing allows 225 maximum skill , requires level 20 and 125 skill . Notes : Artisan Blacksmithing . Artisan Blacksmithing allows 300 maximum skill , requires level 35 and 200 skill . The Imperial Plate plans are obtained via quests from Derotain Mudsipper , by turning in Thorium Bar s . A total of 30 bars are required for these plans . The 440 bar total includes this . NOTE : It may be more efficient to craft Thorium items ( starting with at skill 250 ) which can be learned from a Blacksmithing Trainer . These are mostly more efficient than crafting Imperial Plate items so check Thorium items first . If you cannot find , the Thorium Bracers ( or Belt ) can be made from 260 - 265 instead . The total mats are 40 thorium bars , so it is also worthwhile to compare this cost to the cost for the Spurs plans plus the mithril . Master Blacksmithing . Master Blacksmithing allows 375 maximum skill , requires level 50 and 300 skill . A peculiarity of improving skill from 300 to 375 is that trainers do not teach all the required recipes for this range . You must buy from vendors or even farm some recipes to fill in this lack . Faction standing also becomes much more important . The general course of action is to make normally trained Fel Iron items from 300 to 335 skill level . After that , you will need to buy adamantite items ' recipes from your faction ' s and / or neutral vendors like . With these recipes , you may reach 350 skill . Then several bifurcation points come . It should be noted that once you achieve level 68 and 350 skill in blacksmithing , you can immediately go to Northrend and train Grand Master Blacksmithing and begin to craft the low cobalt recipes , thereby removing the need to farm or purchase additional Outland materials or recipes . However , you may choose to instead continue with Outland trainers and recipes . Blacksmiths who choose to skill up in Outland after 350 points have to make a few other decisions . Maybe the highest cost way to 375 points is to produce trained , and switch to blacksmithing specialisation BoP items after 360 . Several lower cost ways involve faction standing . at Cenarion Refuge in Zangarmarsh sells and . Each of these is a cheap way to 355 or even 360 points . They require status with Cenarion Expedition which is easily gained from this faction ' s quests . An important decision of choosing to ally with either Aldor or Scryers specially imports for blacksmiths seeking to skill up in Outland . Both factions sell 4 reputation - dependent recipes ( up to ) for items that you can make for skill - ups until 375 . Also requires skill level 360 and reputation with either Honor Hold or Thrallmar . Becoming green only at 380 this item looks like a cheap way to finish blacksmith ` s training in Outland . And of course getting some lucky drops like or buying them from the Auction house would probably make some leveling easier . NOTE : Currently , the table below involves reputation requirements . This is just one of many ways of progressing in blacksmithing . Grandmaster Blacksmithing . The key to leveling blacksmithing in Northrend is to farm the plans for the Reinforced Cobalt pieces . These use only 8 Cobalt Bar s and 2 Crystallized Water for each item , require 375 blacksmithing to make , and stay orange to 395 for the shoulders , 405 for the helm , 410 for the legplates , and 415 for the chestpiece . Each Bind on Pickup pattern is dropped by a single specific mob .