Jewelcrafting on MoP Classic runs from 1 to 600 in eighteen brackets, roughly 690 crafts, and it settles into a simple pattern once you clear the first hour: cut one raw gem type per expansion and move to the next when it grays out. This guide gives you the bracket route, the craft count expected at each step, and one shopping list you can fill before you start.

Every number here is computed from the MoP Classic client data, not estimated. Where the route and the community consensus disagree, the disagreement is called out rather than smoothed over.

What you need

Jewelcrafting trains in seven ranks up to Zen Master at 525, and you must visit a trainer to unlock each rank before your skill will move past it. The ranks land at 75, 150, 225, 300, 375, 450, 525. If your skill stalls dead on one of those numbers, you are not unlucky, you are untrained.

The first two brackets are the only place this route needs an intermediate craft. Delicate Copper Wire is both your very first recipe and a reagent for the second one, and the second bracket needs far more of it than the first one produces. Keep making wire past skill 21 instead of moving straight to rings; the shopping list below already accounts for this and gives you the real total.

Past skill 81, every recipe on this route takes a single raw material: an ore bar early on, then one raw gem per expansion after that. All of it, ore bars and raw gems alike, is a common Auction House commodity on progression realms. Mining on the same character pays for itself here, but it is not required.

How the craft counts work

A recipe is orange while your skill is below its yellow threshold, and every orange craft raises your skill. Between yellow and gray, each craft has a diminishing chance to give a point, and at gray it gives nothing. The MoP client lists most of these recipes as learnable from skill 1, because trainer ranks gate access instead of the recipe's own minimum, so the yellow and gray thresholds are what actually decide whether a recipe fits a bracket.

The "expected crafts" column is the mathematical expectation for that bracket, computed from the recipe's real yellow and gray values in the client data. The "buy" column adds 20 percent on top, because expectation is an average and your run will not be average. If you end a bracket with leftovers, that is normal and intended.

The route

Classic, 1 to 236

Skill	Craft	Expected crafts	Buy (+20%)	Materials
1-21	Delicate Copper Wire	20	24	Copper Bar x48
21-60	Braided Copper Ring	129	155	Delicate Copper Wire x310
60-81	Elegant Silver Ring	21	26	Silver Bar x26
81-236	Thorium Setting	155	186	Thorium Bar x186

Outland, 236 to 326

Skill	Craft	Expected crafts	Buy (+20%)	Materials
236-301	Brilliant Blood Garnet	65	78	Blood Garnet x78
301-306	Bold Blood Garnet	5	6	Blood Garnet x6
306-316	Glinting Shadow Draenite	10	12	Shadow Draenite x12
316-326	Potent Flame Spessarite	10	12	Flame Spessarite x12

Northrend, 326 to 441

Skill	Craft	Expected crafts	Buy (+20%)	Materials
326-351	Bold Living Ruby	25	30	Living Ruby x30
351-376	Powerful Earthstorm Diamond	25	30	Earthstorm Diamond x30
376-411	Bold Scarlet Ruby	35	42	Scarlet Ruby x42
411-441	Shielded Skyflare Diamond	30	36	Skyflare Diamond x36

Cataclysm, 441 to 526

Skill	Craft	Expected crafts	Buy (+20%)	Materials
441-451	Bold Carnelian	10	12	Carnelian x12
451-501	Bold Inferno Ruby	50	60	Inferno Ruby x60
501-506	Bold Chimera's Eye	5	6	Chimera's Eye x6
506-516	Fleet Shadowspirit Diamond	10	12	Shadowspirit Diamond x12
516-526	Rigid Deepholm Iolite	10	12	Deepholm Iolite x12

Pandaria, 526 to 600

Skill	Craft	Expected crafts	Buy (+20%)	Materials
526-600	Rigid River's Heart	74	89	River's Heart x89

Total shopping list

Buy this once and you can run the whole route without stopping. Quantities include the 20 percent buffer. Delicate Copper Wire is not on it because you craft every copy of it along the way; the Copper Bar total below already covers both the leveling bracket and the wire you need as a reagent afterward.

Material	Total	Buy (+20%)
Copper Bar	516	620
Thorium Bar	155	186
River's Heart	74	89
Blood Garnet	70	84
Inferno Ruby	50	60
Scarlet Ruby	35	42
Skyflare Diamond	30	36
Living Ruby	25	30
Earthstorm Diamond	25	30
Silver Bar	21	26
Shadow Draenite	10	12
Flame Spessarite	10	12
Carnelian	10	12
Shadowspirit Diamond	10	12
Deepholm Iolite	10	12
Chimera's Eye	5	6

Copper Bar dominates the list because Braided Copper Ring alone burns through 310 Delicate Copper Wire, at two Copper Bar per wire. Everything after skill 81 is a single raw gem per craft, so the rest of the list is just one line per expansion.

Where this route disagrees with the usual advice

Three places.

The commonly published route sends you through Delicate Copper Wire all the way to skill 35 with 110 Copper Bar, then Bronze Setting from 50 to 80 with 100 Bronze Bar. Recomputed against the client data, wire to skill 35 needs 40 Copper Bar, not 110, and Bronze Setting from 50 to 80 needs 68 Bronze Bar, not 100. Both are padding on top of the expectation, not a different read of the mechanics.

The commonly published route also fragments the 80 to 235 stretch across several small recipes, ending with Gloom Band, a three-reagent craft. The client data shows one recipe, Thorium Setting, carries you the entire distance on a single Thorium Bar per craft, with no intermediate items to juggle.

Two brackets in the commonly published route, the 300-320 and 527-575 stretches, are described only as "cut TBC uncommon gems" and "MoP necklaces and gem cuts, mixed" with no specific recipe named. Neither resolves to an actual spell in the client data, so this guide replaces both with the exact single-gem recipes verified against the 5.5.4 client. Where the published route does name a specific recipe deep into Cataclysm, Ornate Band at skill 500, it runs the other direction: it lists 4 of each gem, while the client data calls for 12 of each to cover that same stretch reliably. This route does not use Ornate Band, so the correction is for reference if you go looking for it elsewhere.

FAQ

Does this work on any MoP Classic realm? Yes. The route is computed from the Mists of Pandaria progression client, so it applies to Mists of Pandaria progression realms. Classic Era and retail have different recipes and different caps, and each has its own guide.

Can I skip ahead if my Jewelcrafting is already partly levelled? Yes. Find your current skill in the bracket tables, start there, and buy only the materials from that row down. The totals are additive.

Why do I keep failing to gain skill even though the recipe is not gray? Between yellow and gray, skill ups are a chance, not a guarantee, and the chance shrinks as you approach gray. If you are stuck for a long run of crafts, check that you are not sitting on a training rank at 75, 150, 225, 300, 375, 450, or 525.

Do I need Mining to level Jewelcrafting? No. Every ore bar and raw gem in the shopping list is a commodity you can buy. Mining lowers your cost, it does not change the route.

What do I do with everything I craft? Most of the rings and settings vendor for a little. Delicate Copper Wire is the one exception: keep every copy of it, because Braided Copper Ring right after it consumes far more wire than the first bracket makes on its own.

When this guide changes

This route is computed from MoP Classic client build 5.5.4.68806. If Blizzard adjusts recipe thresholds or adds recipes in a content patch, the brackets shift and this page is recomputed from the new client data. The material quantities are expectations from the current thresholds, so they move with them.