How to Unlock, Get and Upgrade Legendary in WoW Shadowlands

Legendary equipment continues to be a cornerstone of character progression in World of Warcraft expansions, with Shadowlands introducing a refined system that eliminates much of the frustrating randomness from previous iterations. Every class receives access to multiple legendary options, supplemented by neutral pieces that work across various specializations, all designed to significantly enhance your combat capabilities. However, obtaining these powerful items involves a deliberate crafting process rather than relying on chance encounters, requiring players to strategically gather specific materials.

The video presentation from Bellular offers visual guidance on the complete legendary acquisition and enhancement process within WoW Shadowlands.

Shadowlands legendaries represent an evolution from the Legion system, maintaining the transformative gameplay impact while removing the problematic RNG dependency. These items function as an intentional progression framework that players actively participate in developing. Each legendary possesses a major gameplay-altering effect, ranging from complex mechanics that fundamentally change rotation priorities to straightforward stat enhancements. While most legendaries focus on PVE or PVP utility, several are specifically designed to enhance performance in Shadowlands-specific content like Torghast and the Maw.

Your journey toward legendary power begins during the early stages of Torghast exploration, where you’ll encounter the imprisoned Runecarver entity. After completing a series of introductory quests, this ancient being will offer his services to craft legendary items tailored to your class and specialization.

To commission legendary creations, you’ll need to assemble four critical components: Soul Ash for the infusion process, a Crafted Base Item to serve as the physical vessel, Missives to determine secondary stat allocations, and Memories containing the actual legendary powers. Let’s examine each of these essential materials in detail.

Soul Ash Acquisition Strategy

Soul Ash serves as the primary legendary currency, obtained initially through introductory Torghast quests and subsequently from the two active wings available each week. Additional small amounts can occasionally be acquired from your Covenant’s Mission Table assignments. Weekly Torghast availability rotates between two specific wings, each featuring eight progressively challenging difficulty tiers known as layers. Higher layers provide substantially increased Soul Ash rewards, with completion of layer 3 granting cumulative rewards from layers 1 through 3. Unlocking progresses sequentially, requiring completion of lower layers before accessing higher difficulties. Eventually, maintaining layer 8 completion on both weekly wings provides maximum Soul Ash efficiency.

At Shadowlands launch, layers 1-3 become immediately accessible, with layer 3 presenting minimal challenge for properly geared characters. Layers 4 through 6 unlock on December 8th alongside Shadowlands Season 1 commencement. The final layers 7 and 8 activate one week later concurrent with Castle Nathria raid releases. Understanding this staggered availability helps plan your legendary crafting timeline effectively.

For precise numerical requirements regarding Soul Ash quantities and upgrade thresholds, the video segment between 4:07 and 6:39 provides detailed visual explanations that may be clearer than textual descriptions.

Base Item Crafting Mechanics

Professional crafters manufacture the Base Items required for legendary creation. To access these specialized recipes, crafters must achieve maximum Shadowlands profession skill (100) and complete the introductory Torghast questline through the Runecarver liberation sequence. Armor crafting professions create base items for their respective armor types (leatherworkers for leather, etc.), while jewelcrafters produce ring and necklace bases. These items demand substantial material investments, often requiring enchanted components or alchemical treatments, making legendary base creation a collaborative effort involving gatherers, crafters, and enchanters.

Market awareness becomes crucial here—monitoring Auction House trends may reveal optimal purchasing windows as prices typically decrease after initial market saturation. This consideration becomes particularly important regarding the upgrade system, since crafters must produce 15 rank 1 base items to unlock rank 2 recipes, representing significant gold investment barriers early in the expansion cycle.

Upgrading existing legendaries requires presenting the Runecarver with your current legendary, the necessary Soul Ash quantity, and a higher-ranked base item. This mechanic creates potential gold savings by directly crafting higher-rank legendaries, bypassing the need to purchase intermediate base items. Crucially, upgrades only enhance item level and secondary statistics without modifying the legendary power itself, making early acquisition advantageous for immediate gameplay benefits.

Missives and Stat Customization

Inscription specialists contribute through Missives, which enable players to select two secondary stats for their legendary items. These crafted components allow strategic stat optimization for your specific specialization and content focus, though duplicate stat selection remains prohibited. Budget additional WoW Gold for purchasing appropriate missives that align with your character’s stat priorities.

Legendary Power Distribution System

The legendary power system represents the core transformative element of these items. Each class receives four class-wide legendary powers supplemented by four specialization-unique options. Additionally, eight general legendary powers function across all classes. These powers operate similarly to simplified essences from patch 8.2, dropping from predetermined content sources. Unlike Legion’s random acquisition, Shadowlands powers are targetable—Fury Warriors seeking specific powers would farm Mort’regar wing of Torghast when available.

This targetable acquisition system creates two significant gameplay implications. First, reduced RNG enables focused farming of desired powers, though drop rates vary (some guarantee 100% drops like world bosses). Second, desired powers may not be immediately accessible; some originate from PVP honor vendors or end-boss raid drops. The most extreme scenario involves powers from world bosses appearing last in the four-boss rotation, potentially requiring up to one month from launch for acquisition.

Account-wide legendary power sharing represents a major quality-of-life improvement. General legendary powers unlocked on your main character become immediately available for alts, significantly accelerating alternate character progression.

Blizzard has incorporated a Random Grab Bag mechanism that provides an unowned random legendary power, available through Covenant vendors approximately six weeks after Shadowlands launch via purchase.

Each legendary power restricts application to two or three specific equipment slots. Sephuz’s Proclamation, for instance, can only be applied to neck, shoulder, or chest slots. Strategic slot selection becomes paramount since legendaries typically represent your highest item level equipment.

Mastering legendary optimization requires understanding several advanced concepts beyond basic acquisition. The upgrade path presents significant gold investment considerations—direct crafting of higher-rank legendaries bypasses intermediate purchase requirements. Since upgrades only affect item level and secondary stats without enhancing the legendary power itself, prioritizing early acquisition of your bis (best in slot) legendary provides immediate gameplay advantages regardless of item level.

Common mistakes include overspending on early-rank base items, failing to account for slot conflicts with other best-in-slot gear, and misunderstanding power acquisition timelines based on content release schedules.

For time-efficient legendary progression, focus on completing both available Torghast wings at the highest accessible layer each week. Advanced players should research their specialization’s legendary tier lists before committing to specific powers, as some provide substantially greater performance improvements than others. Advanced Torghast strategies can significantly reduce completion times for higher layers, optimizing Soul Ash acquisition rates.

If you found this legendary guide valuable, consider sharing it with fellow adventurers. MmoGah provides comprehensive Shadowlands content guides alongside secure WoW Gold purchasing options and professional WoW Power Leveling services for time-constrained players.

Explore additional Shadowlands guidance through our related content:

https://www.mmogah.com/news/wow/how-to-gear-up-in-wow-shadowlands-184-item-level

https://www.mmogah.com/news/wow/how-to-catch-up-with-gear-renown-legendaries-in-wow-shadowlands

Until our next adventure guide, may your legendaries be powerful and your Soul Ash plentiful!

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