Merchant's Favor

What it is

A reputation-free currency you earn by handing in Waylaid Crates, and spend on recipes that no trainer sells.

1. Waylaid Crates drop from ordinary monsters roughly level 7 to 26, and from chests and dungeon mobs
2. Fill one line of the crate's material list — for example Waylaid Crate: Apprentice Herbs asks for 20 Peacebloom, or 20 Silverleaf, or 10 Earthroot
3. Hand it in at Three Corners in Redridge (Alliance — the Azeroth Commerce Authority) or west of the Crossroads in the Barrens (Horde — Durotar Supply and Logistics)

A crate pays 5 to 20 Favor. Most recipes cost 30 to 240. So a recipe is several crates, not one.

Crates are tradeable, so most players buy them at the auction house rather than hunting them. Crates that take crafted goods are green and pay double the white raw-material ones.

Favor is per-character, not account-wide. Every alt starts from zero.

Why it matters even if you have no profession

You need no profession to fill a crate or earn Favor, and it opens at level 10. It is the only part of the profession system that is open to everyone.

It also gives low-level raw materials a guaranteed buyer they never had in vanilla. Peacebloom and copper ore now have a price floor. If you are levelling a gathering profession, this is where the early junk goes.

What you can buy

317 recipes across seven trades — the six crafting professions plus Cooking:

Gathering professions buy no recipes — they feed the crates instead.

This is where most of the good level-20 gear lives. The role-templated armour families in Blacksmithing, Leatherworking and Tailoring are all Merchant's Favor recipes, and they are Bind on Pickup — you cannot buy the finished item, only the ability to make it for yourself.

Certifications and titles

New, and only from this system. At skill 300, 1,000 Merchant's Favor buys a Certification that unlocks an account-wide title: the Alchemist, the Blacksmith, the Enchanter, the Engineer, the Leatherworker, the Tailor.

Six crafting professions only. There is no gathering title and no Cooking title. The title is account-wide, but only a character with 300 skill in that profession can display it.

Craftsman's Writs

A separate item, and the optional reputation path: 150 different crafting orders, 30 each for Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Engineering, Leatherworking and Tailoring. Enchanting has none.

Crate tiers

Apprentice and Journeyman from level 10, Expert from 20, Artisan from 35. Only Apprentice and Journeyman crates have been seen in the beta, which is a consequence of the level cap rather than a design statement.

The Legacy perk

Performance Bonus, in the Professions tree, gives a 5%, 10% or 15% chance of doubled Merchant's Favor on a crate turn-in across three ranks.

What is not known

The exact recipe count, as above. Whether Expert and Artisan crates behave as expected — nobody has seen one. And real gold values for any of it: there are no prices before launch, so every cost estimate in circulation is weighed by vendor value rather than by what players will actually pay.