In Shadowlands, every legendary is crafted. This enables you to pick the specific Legendary Power, slot, and secondary stats that you want. Patch 9.1 added the ability to upgrade legendaries to rank 6.
Legendary crafting requirements:
- A base item for a specific gear slot (made by crafting professions)
- A legendary power (dropped by various sources)
- 2 Missives (secondary stats, made by Inscription)
- 1,250 Soul Ash (for rank 1)
Each Legendary can also be upgraded to a higher item level for more stats and have sockets added (for the slots that can get sockets). If you fall behind or craft on an alt, there is also a catch-up mechanism.
In patch 9.1, legendaries can be upgraded to rank 6. They require Soul Cinders (instead of Soul Ash).
This post is meant to give you the top level overview so you can get a big-picture of what you need to know while leveling and doing max-level activities. Each section links to more details and resources, for whenever you are ready to dive in.
Base items
The base items are crafted by tailors, leatherworkers (leather and mail), blacksmiths, and jewelcrafters. Each recipe also needs a component made by enchanters. Crafters do not make the actual final legendary, just the base component.
If you are searching for a base item on the auction house, here are the names to look for:
- Tailoring / Cloth: Grim-veiled
- Leatherworking / Leather: Umbrahide
- Leatherworking / Mail: Boneshatter
- Blacksmithing / Plate: Shadowghast
- Jewelcrafting / Necks & Rings: Shadowghast
- Tailoring / Back: Grim-veiled
All gear slots have a legendary option except weapons and trinkets. The amount of materials required to craft the base item is dependent on the item budget for that gear slot. For example, a helm has a larger item budget than a belt, which is why helms have more stats on them and require more crafting reagents.
The item budget only affects the amount of crafting materials needed, and not the amount of Soul Ash. The Soul Ash cost is the same regardless of the specific item slot. For full crafting material requirements, visit this chart on WoWhead.
Legendary Powers
Another component are the actual Powers you want to put on your legendary item. Here’s what you need to know about them:
- Each Legendary power can only be used in the specified slots (usually 3 different slots)
- Once you learn a legendary power, you keep it (rather than using it up when you craft the item)
- There are several general powers usable by all specs
- There are a lot of class and spec-specific powers
Where do you get the Legendary Powers? They come from various sources (each power is tied to a specific source, just like a crafting recipe). The sources include things like reputation vendors (revered), Torghast drops, world boss drops, PvP (honor) and so on.
View the full list of sources by class.
Missives
Two different Missives are required to add secondary stats to your Legendary. These are crafted by Inscription. The four Missives are Critical Strike, Haste, Mastery, and Versatility and are used up when you create your legendary. (search for ‘missive’ to find them on the AH)
Can you change stats on a legendary after it’s crafted? No, once you make the legendary, the secondary stats are permanent. Even if you upgrade it, you are not allowed to change the secondary stats.
Soul Ash
Creating a Legendary with the Runecarver requires a certain amount of the Soul Ash currency. Soul Ash is only used for Legendaries and is obtained exclusively in Torghast and from Torghast intro quests. Level 1 Legendaries all cost 1,250 Soul Ash.
What is a Torghast layer? Each layer is made up for 6 floors. There are 48 floors in the dungeon, divided up into 8 layers. More Soul Ash is awarded at the lower layers of Torghast (150 for layer one compared to 40 for layer eight).
For more information, check out these two Blizzard Watch articles: How to earn Soul Ash, and Everything we know about the Torghast dungeon.
Upgrading your Legendary
You need 2 things to upgrade your Legendary:
- A new base item, but at a higher rank (so it will be more expensive)
- Soul Ash for ranks 1-4
- Soul Cinders for ranks 5 and 6
You don’t waste Soul Ash or Soul Cinders by upgrading vs making a higher rank at the start. You are charged the difference in cost. For example, a rank 1 Legendary costs 1,250 Soul Ash and rank 2 costs 2,000. If you start with a rank 1 item, you pay just 750 Soul Ash to upgrade it.
| Rank | Item Level | Soul Ash Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 190 | 1,250 |
| 2 | 210 | 2,000 (or 750 to upgrade) |
| 3 | 225 | 3,200 (or 1,200 to upgrade) |
| 4 | 235 | 5,150 (or 1950 to upgrade) |
| 5 | 249 | 1,100 Soul Cinders |
| 6 | 262 | 1,650 Soul Cinders (550 to upgrade) |
You can jump right to crafting a rank 4, for 5,150 Soul Ash. You could also start with a rank 1 for 1,250 Soul Ash, and upgrade right to rank 4. In that case, you are charged the difference (5,150 – 1,250 = 3,900 Soul Ash).
What does upgrading a legendary get you?
When you upgrade a legendary, you get more Stamina and more secondary stats. That’s it. The Legendary Power does not get more powerful. The amount of stats you get for each rank follow the same item budgets as non legendaries. The amount of stats you get on each slot are as follows, listed as primary / secondary.
| Slot | 190 | 210 | 225 | 235 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Head, chest, legs | 58 / 58 | 70 / 65 | 80 / 71 | 88 / 74 |
| Neck, ring | 0 / 77 | 0 / 95 | 0 / 106 | 0 / 115 |
| Shoulder, hands, waist, feet | 44 / 43 | 53 / 48 | 60 / 52 | 66 / 55 |
| Back, wrist | 33 / 32 | 39 / 36 | 45 / 39 | 50 / 41 |
A rank 1 legendary neck (ilevel 190) has 0 primary stat (like all necks) and 77 of each secondary stat you choose (two stats). For example, you could have 77 haste and 77 crit on a rank 1.
Adding sockets
Sockets can be added to head, neck, wrist, waist, and ring slots with a Spatial Realignment Apparatus. This is sold by Ve’nari in the Maw for 2,500 Stygia and requires Exalted rep.
We know this works on regular items and are currently assuming it also works on Legendaries until we can get concrete evidence one way or the other. Here’s an older blue post about sockets in Shadowlands.
Legendary catch-up system
You can buy a Chronicle of Lost Memories to learn a random legendary Power that you don’t know yet. This is purchased from the Renown quartermaster for your Covenant, for 35 Grateful Offerings. (See what else this currency buys).
Grateful Offerings are earned from Anima Conductor activities.