There are many different ways to get good weapons in World of Warcraft, but right now there is a way for almost every class to get the Best in Slot pre-raid weapon easily.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, there is a simple way for almost every single class to get the a best in slot pre-raid weapon. By this I mean the weapon that provides the biggest bonus to your class before having to be involved in the newest hardest raid. While the weapons that drop from the tier 12 bosses in the Firelands are better than the weapons I am going to discuss, if you are raiding Firelands you are probably not worried about gear upgrades.

For the rest of the players out there that are not raiding the newest hardest content Blizzard was kind enough to add best in slot weapons for pretty much every class out there that can be gotten extremely easily. These weapons are available to anyone as long as they can afford the materials to get them crafted.

As you can probably tell I am talking about the brand new patch 4.2 Fireland blacksmithing and Engineering weapon patterns. These patterns become available after you have completed enough Fireland Daily quests to turn in 125 Marks of the World Tree to finish the quest: [ps quest=29281]Additional Armaments[/ps].


Materials Required for Fireland Weapon Patterns

Obviously most players are not Blacksmiths or Engineers, there are just too many other options. But that Doesn’t mean you can not get the weapons made for you. You just need to farm the materials and then talk really nice to a Blacksmith or Engineer that has the pattern and the last ingredient.

That last ingredient is of course [ps item=52078]Chaos Orbs[/ps] which are used for pretty much any high level Cataclysm Pattern. These unfortunately are Bind on Pickup and therefore the person crafting the item for you has to have them and gets to charge what they want for them. Most of these patters require 5 Chaos Orbs, and on most servers the going rate is about 500 gold per orb, meaning that in addition to the other materials you need, you will have to bring at least 2500 gold as well, and possibly more depending on your server.

The other materials you need depend on the item you are attempting to have crafted, but will include other high level crafting materials such as:

  • [ps item=58480]Truegold[/ps]
  • [ps item=53039]Hardened Elementium Bars[/ps]
  • [ps item=56516]Heavy Savage Leather[/ps]
  • Gems
  • Volatile [ps item=52325]Fire[/ps] or [ps item=52326]Water[/ps]

Best in Slot Weapons for World of Warcraft

While it would impossible to list every best possible combination, here are just a few for some specific classes or class types to consider.


Best in Slot Hunter Weapons

The new crafted gun represents a serious upgrade and is best in slot for a Hunter pre-raiding.

Hunter’s get some big upgrades available through crafting here. For a hunter's melee weapon there are really only two better items in the whole game above the crafted [ps item=70165]Witch-Hunter’s Harvester[/ps], which is pretty remarkable. Those are the [ps item=71361]Ranseur of Hatred[/ps] and Fandral’s Flamecythe both from the Firelands raid. The Ranseur of Hatred is the only real option for non-raiders other than the Witch-Hunter’s Harvester though as it can be purchased since it is a BOE drop, however on many servers it sells for 3-4 times the cost of the crafted item and is not a huge upgrade.

Hunters also can get a big upgrade for their ranged weapon in the form of [ps item=71077]Extreme-Impact Hole Puncher[/ps] that Engineers can create.

Again the only other upgrades are in Firelands but only one is BOE and again sells for 3-4 times the cost of the crafted item. The crafted item is likely going to be a 500 DPS or more upgrade for non raiders upgrading from the Zul’Gurub drop Mandokir’s Tribute. If you’re a non-raider that is a bigger upgrade than you are likely to find anywhere else.


Best in slot Weapon for DPS Warriors/Paladins/Death Knights

For these classes that use big two-handed weapons that require strength there is not much of a bigger upgrade out there than the new [ps item=70164]Masterwork Elementium Deathblade[/ps]. This is gigantic leap forward from anything you would be likely to get outside of a raid.

Previous to this the best you could get outside of a raid was the Jeklik’s Smasher from Zul’Gurub, which is still a good weapon. However this new crafted item will provide at least a 600 DPS upgrade all from one upgrade.


Best in Slot Healer Weapon

A great new best in slot weapon for healers, that gives high spell power and spirit.

Here again there is a huge upgrade for healers available called the [ps item=70157]Lightforged Elementium Hammer[/ps]. For players that used single handed caster weapons, probably the best they could have hoped for previously was the Amani Scepter of Rites or the Voodoo Hexblade from Zul’Aman. If they chose to use a two handed weapon then it would have been the Legacy or Arlokk from Zul’Gurub.

All of those weapons were very solid pieces of gear, however this new item is far superior. For starters they all had just under 1850 spell power, while the Lightforged hammer has 2066, which is a big jump. In addition it is a higher item level and therefore has higher stat numbers across the board.

This is the spirit based weapon and probably the better choice for any healer, however if you chose you can also pick the Masterwork Elementium Spellblade but it has hit and crit instead of spirit and mastery, making it much more of a DPS weapon than a healing weapon.


All of the Crafted Best in Slot Crafted Items

As mentioned above there are many other weapon choices out there and all of them are best in slot pre-tier 12 raids. In almost every case they are even superior to all of the old tier 11 raid weapons which is truly remarkable.

Don’t believe me? Go and check them out for your self.


World of Warcraft - Related Content
Playerscore Database | Blacksmithing Guide | Patch 4.2 Portal


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Byron has been playing and writing about World of Warcraft for the past ten years. He also plays pretty much ever other Blizzard game, currently focusing on Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, while still finding time to jump into Diablo III with his son.

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