Thorium Grenade in WoW Classic 1.12.1: full reference

◆What the Thorium Grenade does

The grenade is thrown at a chosen spot and hits an area. Effect according to the tooltip:

• Damage: 300–500 Fire damage to each target in the radius.
• Stun: 3 seconds, 3-yard radius.
• Weak spot: any damage breaks the stun — your own auto-attack or a teammate's damage-over-time effect will wake the target early.
• Cooldown: 1 minute. It is shared by engineering explosives, so you cannot throw a bomb right after the grenade.
• Requirement: Engineering 260 — without the profession you cannot use the item, even if you buy it at the auction house.
• Stack: 10.

The full overview of other explosives and combat devices lives in the hub of engineering combat gadgets.

Thorium GrenadeItem Level 52Requires Engineering (260)Use: Inflicts 300 to 500 Fire damage and stuns targets for 3 sec in a 3 yard radius. Any damage will break the effect. (1 Min Cooldown)Max Stack: 10

◆How to make the Thorium Grenade

The recipe is learned at skill 260 and one craft yields 3 grenades.

1. Raise Engineering to 260 — the route is laid out in the engineering guide 1–300.
2. Buy the Schematic: Thorium Grenade. It is sold by engineering supply vendors: Gearcutter Cogspinner in Ironforge for the Alliance and Sovik in Orgrimmar for the Horde. It is a limited-supply item: the vendor holds one copy, and after someone buys it the schematic restocks only after a while.
3. Gather the reagents (table below) and keep a Blacksmith Hammer in your bags — it is required as a tool.
4. Crafting takes 8 seconds and produces 3 grenades.

Thorium ore is easiest to gather along the routes from the thorium ore farming guide, and runecloth with the runecloth farming guide. All profession schematics are collected in the engineering schematics reference.

◆Comparison of stun grenades and bombs

All numbers come from 1.12.1 tooltips. Every item has a 1-minute cooldown.

The Thorium Grenade has the best average damage among the 3-second stuns and does not require a specialization. The Dark Iron Bomb stuns longer, but its damage swings wildly. If you do not need the stun and only care about area damage, look at Dense Dynamite with its 5-yard radius.

Use in PvP and PvE

• Battlegrounds. The grenade stops a flag carrier or a group running to a node and gives your allies 3 seconds to control or retreat. The key is not to hit the stunned targets right away if you need to hold them in place.
• World PvP. A stun while the enemy is casting interrupts the spell; after that you have time for a bandage, a potion or a retreat.
• Dungeons and raids. When a pull goes wrong, the grenade stops a pack of mobs around the healer for 3 seconds while the tank regains threat. Keep in mind that many bosses are immune to stuns.
• Craftsman's writ. Since patch 1.11 there is the Craftsman's Writ - Thorium Grenade (requires level 55): deliver 20 Thorium Grenades to Packmaster Stonebruiser at Light's Hope Chapel and get a reward from the Argent Dawn.

Tips

• Keep grenades on a dedicated key: a ground-targeted throw needs aiming, and an extra second spent looking for the icon often costs the fight.
• Do not throw a grenade at a target carrying your own damage-over-time effects — the first tick will break the stun.
• For cheap practice and mid-level PvP the Iron Grenade does the job.

◆Related articles

• Engineering combat gadgets
• Engineering guide 1–300
• Iron Grenade
• Arcane Bomb
• Goblin Land Mine
• Thorium ore farming

The easiest way to test a Thorium Grenade is on a battleground: register on WoW x5 and connect to the server — Vanilla 1.12.1 with x5 rates is waiting for engineers.