Profession levelling: how to reach skill 300 and forge a legendary

Levelling professions in an MMORPG is a marathon where it’s easy to burn twice the materials you actually need. In Zarhold, a card MMORPG you play in your browser, every profession’s skill grows from 1 to 300, and at the top you’ll find rare recipes from bosses and legendary forging. Here’s how to level quickly without waste, how Lucky Hour helps (it now speeds up gathering too), what to do with everything you make, and how legendary forging works. An overview of all twelve professions and how to earn with them is in “MMORPG professions”.

How profession skill grows

Skill doesn’t grow from every item you make — only from ones that are hard enough. The recipe colour shows how hard it is, that is, how far your skill is above its requirement:

• orange (0–19 above) — always a skill point;
• yellow (20–39 above) — always a point;
• green (40–59 above) — a point one time in three;
• grey (60 or more above) — no points.

You get the item at any colour — a grey recipe just doesn’t teach you anything anymore. A successful craft gives 1, 2 or 3 points, as written in the recipe. Crafting is instant, with no timers and no failures, and the result is always exactly what the recipe says. Skill doesn’t depend on your hero’s level: you can start at level 1, and there are no trainers or paid lessons.

The game has 173 recipes in total: 149 unlock on their own as your skill grows, and 24 more can only be learned from a scroll dropped by a boss.

Which professions to level together

Zarhold has 12 professions of three kinds:

• crafts — Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Enchanting, Engineering, Leatherworking and Alchemy; every hero starts with two craft slots;
• gathering — Mining, Herbalism and Skinning: it comes bundled with a craft and takes no slot (Mining for blacksmiths and engineers, Skinning for leatherworkers, Herbalism for alchemists);
• secondary — Cooking, First Aid and Fishing: open to everyone.

The advice is simple: take a craft together with its gathering profession, so you collect levelling materials along the way instead of buying them. Good pairings are listed in the knowledge base: “Which professions to pick”.

Seven rules of fast levelling

1. Level on orange and yellow recipes. Green gives a point only one time in three, so the same points cost three times as much. Once a recipe turns green, find the next one.
2. Use Supply. It’s a reference right inside the game (the Professions screen, K on PC): every recipe shows its colour band — at what skill it’s orange, yellow, green and when it turns grey — and every material shows where it comes from. Details in the knowledge base: “Supply”.
3. Gather as you go. Gathering nodes on a land map are personal to each hero: what you gathered is still there for someone else. An ungathered node doesn’t vanish, and a gathered one leaves a faded icon with a label such as “in 2 min” — a new one appears in 1–5 minutes. Node requirements rise with the land’s level, so the best materials are in higher lands.
4. Try Match-3. Ore veins, herbs and beast tracks have a mini-game mode: 25 seconds, the node’s material is always yours, and the tiles you collect give up to a 50% chance of one more. Quick gather is the default; you can switch in Settings.
5. Skin tough carcasses. The requirement depends on the carcass level, and a carcass harder than your skill counts as orange — always a point.
6. Fish for the best fish. The best fish available to you always gives a point until the next one opens up somewhere. Everything about fishing is in “Fishing in an MMORPG”.
7. Disenchant wisely. Disenchanting goes by an item’s required level, not its item level; an item above your skill always gives a point too.

After gathering or skinning, the game tells you whether your skill went up — and if not, why. No guesswork.

Lucky Hour: skill-ups twice as often — now for gathering too

Lucky Hour is a daily mini-event. It’s announced every day at 03:00 Moscow time: on weekdays it lasts one hour, on weekends two, and it starts between 12:00 and 22:00 Moscow time. While it runs, a ✦ badge with a timer sits in the bottom right.

What it gives:

• profession skill-ups almost twice as often — for heroes of any level. Green recipes, nodes, carcasses and fish give a point 5 times in 9 instead of 1 in 3, while orange and yellow always count anyway;
• +25% experience from fights and expeditions — for heroes below level 60.

The big news: Lucky Hour used to speed up crafting only, and now it speeds up gathering too. During the event, Mining, Herbalism, Skinning, Fishing and Disenchanting skill rises as fast as crafting skill. It’s the best moment to push through a green band: stock up on materials beforehand and spend them during the lucky hour. The rest of the daily events are covered in “MMORPG events and daily errands”.

The Wishing Well: +10% materials

The capital of Zarhold has a Wishing Well — a shared goal for the whole world, paid in gold. When it holds 3,000 gold it’s full, and every hero gets an hour of +10% materials from gathering nodes and fishing and +10% gold from enemies. If you see the full-Well news in World chat, it’s time to go round the nodes. Details are in the knowledge base: “Zarhold’s small places”.

What to do with everything you make

Levelling leaves you with piles of bandages, potions, bars and leather. Here’s where they can go:

• Order of the Week — the crafters’ guild asks for three kinds of goods. Hand in 5, 15 and 30 items for 5, 10 and 15 Marks of Distinction, and if the world hands in 2,000 items, every participant gets 5 more. Whoever hands in the most earns the title Master of the Week. What you hand in leaves the world, so crafting has real demand.
• The auction house — sell your surplus to other players. How to list an item without underselling is covered in “MMORPG auction house”.
• Your own fights — bandages, potions, food and bombs come in handy on expeditions.

Professions also feed themselves: one of the rewards you can pick for daily and weekly errands is reagents for your profession — a stack of 20 for a daily errand and two stacks for a weekly one. The weekly crafting errand adds an Unstable Crystal (levels 20–59) or an Arc Spark (level 60).

Recipe scrolls: 24 recipes from bosses

24 recipes don’t unlock with skill — you learn them from a scroll that drops from bosses:

• 11 regular recipes for skill 100–210 — from dungeon bosses of levels 10–38, a 4–6% chance;
• 10 epic ones — from specific dungeon bosses, 6%;
• legendary ones — from raid final bosses (2.5%), while the Hammer of the First Forge blueprint drops from world bosses and the final bosses of two raids (1%).

You can learn a scroll at any skill, but you can only craft the item at the recipe’s skill: for epic and legendary recipes that’s 240–300. A scroll is rolled the moment the boss falls, and in a group every member gets their own roll. Which scroll drops where is shown in the Item Atlas and in the “Recipe scrolls” reference.

Legendary forging at skill 300

The peak of crafting is legendaries forged by players themselves. There are three:

• Storm Axe — Blacksmithing 300;
• Eye of the Storm Core — Engineering 300;
• Hammer of the First Forge — Blacksmithing 300, plus 12 Shards of the First Forge from world bosses and raid bosses.

To keep legendaries legendary, forging has three rules:

1. A rare reagent. Each legendary has its own reagent that drops from the same boss as the recipe scroll, with a 10% chance and no more than once a week per hero. The reagent is personal: it can’t be sold or traded.
2. One forging a week. A hero can forge each legendary once a week — until the next Monday at 03:00 Moscow time. The crafting window shows when you can forge again.
3. Bound right away. A forged legendary is personal from the moment it’s made: it can’t be listed on the auction house, traded or mailed. Epics and everything else you craft can still be traded as before.

Every legendary in the game is item level 280 — nothing goes higher. If you’ve already learned your personal Hammer of the First Forge blueprint, the boss gives you 2 Shards of the First Forge instead, so a duplicate never goes to waste. Other ways to get a legendary are covered in “World bosses and heroic raids”.

What’s new in professions

Professions in Zarhold change along with the rest of the game. Recent changes include:

• Lucky Hour doubles not only crafting but also gathering, skinning, fishing and disenchanting;
• a gathered node shows when the next one will appear, and the gathering result tells you whether your skill went up;
• a carcass harder than your skill always gives a skinning point;
• legendary forging got a weekly reagent, a weekly cooldown and a bound legendary;
• Alchemy and Engineering level to 300 without gaps: recipes unlock together with their materials;
• the leather kit can be made from your own materials from skill 120, and leatherworkers and tailors got reinforced kits with +4 Resilience (skill 200).

Every change by date is in the Updates section.

Profession levelling FAQ

How do I level a profession to 300 fast?

Level on orange and yellow recipes, take a craft together with its gathering profession, check the colour bands in Supply and save materials for Lucky Hour — during that hour skill-ups come almost twice as often.

Why isn’t my profession skill going up?

Most likely the recipe, node or carcass is already grey for you: your skill is 60 or more above its requirement. Green ones give a point only one time in three. After gathering or skinning, the game tells you why your skill didn’t grow.

Does Lucky Hour speed up gathering?

Yes. It used to speed up crafting only; now during the event Mining, Herbalism, Skinning, Fishing and Disenchanting skill rises as fast as crafting skill.

Does a profession depend on my hero’s level?

No: you can learn at any level, and skill grows from work. But the best materials are in higher lands, and those open up as your hero levels.

Can I sell a forged legendary?

No. A forged legendary is bound right away: it can’t go on the auction house, be traded or mailed. You can forge each one once a week.

The bottom line

Levelling a profession in Zarhold isn’t an endless grind but a clear ladder: orange and yellow recipes, your own gathering, Supply at hand and a Lucky Hour that now speeds up gathering too. At the top, at skill 300, boss scrolls and legendary forging await — rare, fair and bound to you. Open Zarhold, pick a craft, and let your first anvil ring today.