Legendary may be designed and improved up to two higher grades in Shadowlands 9.1, but the new Shards of Domination system puts the brakes on things a bit. Crafting and upgrading Legendaries in Shadowlands hasn't changed much, but you'll want to know the wrinkles in this update before moving forward with your Legendaries. I mean, unless you like throwing money to the wind. If so, you do.
Newly crafted Shadowlands legendaries have prismatic grips and can reach ranks 5 and 6.
Crafting a Legendary up to Rank 4 works exactly the same in patch 9.1 as it did before. You will need a legendary power, two stat missives, and the appropriate base item from an artisan. You will then visit the Runecarver in Torghast and pay him the required amount of Soul Ash (which is much easier to farm now, since Torghast is breedable).
Here's the catch: according to Blizzard, "newly created armor pieces for the helmet, neck, bracer, belt, and rune carving ring will now always be created with a socket." Keep in mind that this grip is a standard prismatic grip, not one of the new domination grips introduced in Shadowlands Patch 9.1. To make this even more confusing, all newly crafted base items for these slots will have a socket.
You cannot upgrade an existing legendary with a socketed base item to gain a socket. You can use the socket base item to power the upgrade, but its socket will not transfer to the legendary. If you want a grab on your legendary, you must use a grab item from season 1 or season 2 to add a grab to your legendary (as long as it's one of the gear types listed ). That said, all new Legendaries crafted in these gear slots will have a Prismatic Grip.
According to the updated patch notes, you can indeed upgrade these slots with a socket base item to add a socket to the legendary.
Finally, you can upgrade your Shadowlands Legendaries to ranks 5 and 6, but you'll need a new material found in the Maw and Korthia. Korthite Crystals can be found by slaying rare creatures, completing daily quests and Alliance Assaults, and occasionally in hoards throughout the Maw and Korthia. These don't drop frequently, and you'll need 40 of them to create a Vestige of the origins through a jeweler. Additionally, this Jeweler will need to purchase the "Tome of Origins" from the Honored reputation Death's Advance Quartermaster for 2000 Stygia to even craft the Vestige. This item is then used as an optional reagent when crafting your legendary base item, increasing the rank by 2.
So if you craft a Tier 3 Legendary in Shadowlands and shuffle an Origins Vestige, you'll get a Tier 5 base item. To get a Tier 6 Legendary, you'll just use the Vestige as an optional reagent in a ship Rank 4. This means crafters won't have to rank up their recipes two more ranks, but the low drop rate of Korthite crystals will ensure that these higher ranked legendaries will still be expensive to assemble. There is also a new Souls Cinders currency used to complete crafting or upgrading legendaries at rank 5 or 6, and it is obtained from Torghast layers 9-12 (although it can be found as a quest reward in the weekly Korthian quest).
Below is the total cost for each Legendary Rank you can craft or upgrade in Shadowlands Patch 9.1. Again, this is the total cost at each stage, so you can subtract whatever you've already paid if you jump one or two ranks (say from rank 4 to rank 5: that jump will only cost 1950 Soul Ash).
- Rang 1 (iLvL 190)
- 1250 Soul Ashes
- Rang 2 (iLvL 210)
- 2000 Soul Ashes
- Rang 3 (iLvL 225)
- 3200 Soul Ashes
- Rang 4 (iLvL 235)
- 5150 Soul Ashes
- Rang 5 (iLvL 249)
- 1100 soul ashes
- Rang 6 (iLvL 262)
- 1650 Soul Ashes
Keep in mind that the new Shards of Domination system may conflict with your Legendary. This new armor and raid gem system offers minor set bonuses that players will eventually take advantage of, but these slots only appear on specific armor slots. If it feels like you need to redo a Legendary, check out this comprehensive guide from WoWHead.com, where the experts can best help you with the more advanced details of Shadowlands.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Patch 9.1, Chains of Domination will launch on June 29 (NA) and June 30 (EU).
– This article was last updated on: June 29, 2021
