Forging Materials Guide - Every Material and Where to Farm It

Every weapon and armor craft in Anvil Quest runs through four bottleneck materials, and the game never explains where to get more of them. This guide lists every material in the game, every source with real drop rates, the farm route we run each week, and the three materials you should never sell even when the vendor offer looks tempting.

The Material Hierarchy

Material	Tier unlock	Main source	Rate	Used for
Copper Ore	Tutorial	Oakwood Vale mine	45s respawn	Copper Sword, first crafts
Glacial Gem	Level 10	Frost Wisp (Frostspire Approach)	100% per kill	Frostpike, Glacial Robe
Molten Gem	Level 20	Emberfang	35%	Emberweave set, Emberclaw
Inferno Gem	Level 30	Stormcaller	30%	Voidforge Blade, Stormcaller staff

The pattern worth noticing: each gem tier drops from the boss that gates its act. The game is teaching you its farming loop — kill the boss, craft the gear, kill the next boss faster. Once you see the loop, the whole economy makes sense.

Copper Ore — the tutorial bottleneck

The Oakwood Vale mine east of Mara’s shop respawns a node every 45 seconds, with six nodes in rotation. That’s one ore every ~8 seconds if you circle the mine — a full 10-ore quest takes about five minutes.

Farm tip: nodes spawn in a fixed ring order. Running the ring counterclockwise hits each node within seconds of its respawn; running it randomly costs triple the time. Ten extra ore banked at level 5 saves a return trip at level 10, when the forging guide projects start consuming ore in twenties.

Glacial Gems — the Frostpike gate

Every new player’s first real material wall: five Glacial Gems stand between you and the Frostpike, the best early weapon per our weapon tier list.

• Source: the Frost Wisp miniboss at the end of the Frostspire Approach drops one per kill, guaranteed.
• Respawn: the Wisp respawns on dungeon re-entry — no timer, just a 3-minute walk back through the ice trash.
• Full Frostpike cost: 5 Glacial Gems + 300 gold (the recipe from Mara, free if you didn’t skip the tutorial crafting).

Two kills per dungeon run makes this a 15-minute farm. Do not sell spare gems even at the vendor’s 120 gold — they’re soulbound, the vendor price is the only value they’ll ever have, and you need five more for the Glacial Robe later.

Molten Gems — the Emberweave economy

Molten Gems are where farming becomes a schedule, because the drop is probabilistic:

• Source: Emberfang, 35% per kill, 100 coins flat guaranteed on top.
• Respawn: 20 minutes after death.
• Uses: Emberweave chest (4 gems), Emberclaw sword (6 gems), the rest of the Emberforged armor set (11 more across pieces).

An hour of Emberfang farming — three kills, average one gem plus 2,550 coins — is the best gold-per-hour in Act 1. The codes page ANVIL-DAWN charm (+10% gold for an hour) is tuned exactly for this farm; one code turns the same hour into ~2,800.

Inferno Gems — the endgame sink

The Voidforge Blade needs 50 Inferno Gems. At Stormcaller’s 30% drop rate, that’s the game politely telling you to get good at a 4-minute fight:

• Source: Stormcaller, 30% per kill.
• Time cost: a clean 3:10 clear plus loot and re-entry is about 5 minutes per attempt, so an hour buys roughly 12 kills → 3–4 gems → 50 gems in about two weeks of casual play.
• Secondary use: the Act 2 pieces of the Emberforged armor set.

This is the intended endgame rhythm: the numbers only work if your clear time is near the enrage timer, which is why our Stormcaller guide spends more words on the 4:00 DPS check than on the loot table.

The Weekly Farm Route

For a character with Act 2 unlocked, this route is roughly two hours a day and yields about 6,000 gold an hour equivalent across gems and coin:

1. Frost Wisp ×2 (5 min) — bank two Glacial Gems, always.
2. Emberfang ×3 (25 min) — Molten Gem average one per kill with pity resets at 20 minutes.
3. Stormcaller until the enrage-race charm breaks (40 min) — Inferno Gems and the 8% pattern chase.
4. Sell the trash, keep the gems (10 min) — vendor everything blue and below; the coin pile funds potions for tomorrow.

Three Materials to Never Sell

1. Glacial Gems — the vendor pays 120; the Frostpike pays 115 DPS. Worst trade in the game.
2. Emberfang’s Helm — the 5% cosmetic looks like vendor trash; it’s a checklist item for the fashion-endgame and can’t be re-farmed once sold.
3. Copper Ore after level 10 — you’ll stop needing it eventually, but not at level 10, which is exactly when the selling temptation peaks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a material cap or bag limit?

Stack cap is 99 per slot. Inferno Gem farmers hit it around week three — expand the bag with gems (the currency) before the Voidforge grind, not after.

Do drop rates improve with luck gear?

No. We tested 200 Emberfang kills with and without the Lucky Horseshoe: 71 vs 69 gems, within noise. Luck changes rare-table rolls (the Helm), not gem drops.

Which gem do I prioritize if I can only farm one?

Whatever gates your next weapon: Glacial until Frostpike, Molten until Emberweave chest, Inferno until Voidforge. The forging guide has the full crafting order by level.

TL;DR

Copper from the Oakwood ring, Glacial from the Frost Wisp walk, Molten from Emberfang’s 20-minute respawn, Inferno from Stormcaller’s 30%. Never sell gems. Two hours a day clears any craft wall inside a week, and the beginner guide gets a new character to the farming point inside two.