World of Warcraft: Dragonflight has made massive changes to professions in their entirety, as crafting gear and gathering materials have become far more intricate and rewarding to do. From specialization trees to crafting orders, to more cross-profession interactivity through different resources, it truly is a whole new world (of Warcraft).

RELATED: World Of Warcraft: Dragonflight - Everything You Need To Know About Crafting

The shiny new profession system is vast and incredibly nuanced, so this article will focus on the optional reagents you can pick up to improve your crafting. Adding these is a small, yet very important, aspect of professions as a whole, so read on.

What Are Optional Reagents?

WoW leatherworking page with optional reagent slot highlighted

Simply put, optional reagents are extra items of varying qualities that help upgrade your crafted gear’s item level and stats. As such, there are two important things to note:

  1. Optional reagents do not apply to gathering professions (Mining, Herbalism, Skinning), only crafting professions (Leatherworking, Blacksmithing, etc.).
  2. Though some optional reagents are Soulbound (untradeable), they can still be utilized in crafting orders if you have them.

When picking which optional reagent(s) to use when crafting your gear or putting up a work order, there will be one to three total slots, depending on the gear:

  • Titan Matrices or Power Infusions
  • Missives
  • Embellishments.

However, not every piece of crafted gear has access to all of these slots. For example, you cannot add Embellishments to most Rare-quality gear, only Epic gear. Even so, there is some Epic gear whose stats and powers are predetermined, so you can’t use Missives or Embellishments on them (i.e. Ancestor’s Dew Drippers for Leatherworkers) either.

Titan Matrices And Power Infusions

WoW dungeon jounrnal neltharus mythic

There are six total optional reagents (as of Dragonflight’s first season), each of which can be obtained in different ways and boost your gear’s item level and stats by different amounts.

Optional Reagent Name

Crafted Gear Quality It Is Applied To

Item Level Range

How To Get Them

Titan Training Matrix I

Rare

333-343

These are the easiest to snag as they drop from World Rares. Once you reach a high enough item level though, they’ll generally stop dropping.

Titan Training Matrix II

Rare

346-356

These only drop from Normal-level final dungeon bosses.

Titan Training Matrix III

Rare

359-369

These only drop from Heroic-level final dungeon bosses.

Titan Training Matrix IV

Rare

372-382

These only drop from Mythic-level dungeon bosses.

Primal Infusion

Epic

395-405

These require 10 Primal Focus and 100 Primal Chaos to create. A single Primal Focus drops after completing any Mythic Plus dungeon at Keystone levels one to fifteen.

Concentrated Primal Infusion

Epic

408-418

These require 10 Concentrated Primal Focus and 150 Primal Chaos to create. A single Concentrated Primal Infusion drops after completing any Mythic Plus dungeon at Keystone level sixteen or higher.

The item level of the gear within each optional reagent’s item level range is determined by the quality of your materials and skill in the profession.

All four of the Titan Training Matrices can also be obtained through certain World Quests. Make sure you’re checking them whenever they’re up, and bear in mind that the level of the Matrix scales with your item level — just like gear rewards from World Quests do.

To use them, pick a piece of gear in whatever crafting profession you’re pursuing, click the Empower with Training Matrix slot for Rare gear, or the Infuse with Power slot for Epic gear, and pick which optional reagent to use.

Missives

WoW leatherworking missives options

The next optional reagent to address is the Missive. This is the most straightforward of the three, as they simply allow you to pick your secondary stats for a piece of crafted gear.

Only Inscriptionists can craft these, so if you want some Missives, be sure to level the profession up on one of your characters. Otherwise, you’ll be buying them off the Auction House, although they’re usually relatively cheap.

There are six total Missives (as of Dragonflight Season One), each with three levels of quality. As you can see in the table below, the higher quality reduces the recipe’s difficulty, allowing you to more reliably craft higher quality gear:

Missive Name

Guaranteed Secondary Stats

Tier One Recipe Difficulty

Tier Two Recipe Difficulty

Tier Three Recipe Difficulty

Draconic Missive of the Fireflash

Critical Strike and Haste

25

20

15

Draconic Missive of the Peerless

Critical Strike and Mastery

25

20

15

Draconic Missive of the Feverflare

Haste and Mastery

25

20

15

Draconic Missive of the Quickblade

Critical Strike and Versatility

25

20

15

Draconic Missive of the Aurora

Haste and Versatility

25

20

15

Draconic Missive of the Harmonious

Versatility and Mastery

25

20

15

In order to utilize them, click on the Customize Secondary Stats slot under your optional reagents options. If you don’t see a slot there, that means the secondary stats of the selected gear are predetermined and cannot change.

Also, if this slot is locked for you, that means you haven’t progressed a specific specialization tree in your profession to unlock the ability to utilize Missives in that type of gear.

Embellishments

WoW Acidic hailstone treads leatherworking

The final type of optional reagent is the Embellishment. These allow you to add some unique, powerful effects to your gear and, in most cases, two can be equipped at the same time on a given piece of gear. These also come with three quality levels.

Embellishment Name

Item Slot

How To Get

Effect

Tier 1/2/3 Recipe Difficulty

Potion Absorption Inhibitor

All

Alchemy

Increase the duration of Dragon Isles potions by 50 percent.

35/30/25

Magazine of Healing Darts

All

Engineering

When you heal, you sometimes fire a Healing Dart.

35/30/25

Blue Silken Lining

All

Tailoring

While above 90 percent health, gain Mastery.

35/30/25

Alchemical Flavor Pocket

All

In the Supply-Laden Soup Pot weekly quest reward. Complete five tasks during Iskaaran Tuskarr Community Feast.

Increase the duration of Well Fed from Dragon Isles meals by 100 percent, and they now persist through death.

N/A

Armor Spikes

Armor slots

Blacksmithing

Adorn your armor with thick spikes (has a chance to deal damage when hit by melee attacks).

35/30/25

Toxified Armor Patch

Armor slots

Leatherworking

Infuses the item with the essence of decay.

35/30/25

Fang Adornments

Weapons

Leatherworking

Physical attacks sometimes deal extra physical damage.

35/30/25

Bronzed Grip Wrappings

Weapons

Tailoring

Your spells sometimes cause a ripple in time (your damage and healing spells have a chance to retrigger).

35/30/25

Griftah's All-Purpose Embellishing Powder

All

Sold by Griftah, located atop the Obsidian Citadel

Removes player-crafted Embellishments from gear (usually during recrafting).

N/A

In order to utilize them once bought, click on the Add Embellishment slot under your optional reagents options. Some epic gear already has Embellishments built into them (i.e. Acidic Hailstone Treads, as shown in the image above), and will consequently not have the Embellishment slot open.

Furthermore, most rare-quality gear cannot be given an Embellishment, as usually this optional reagent slot is reserved for the Epic-quality crafted gear that you unlock through your profession’s specialization.

Lastly, as with the Missives, if this slot is locked for you, that means you haven’t progressed a specific specialization tree in your profession to unlock the ability to utilize Missives in that type of gear.

NEXT: World Of Warcraft: Dragonflight - Complete Guide To Fishing