Guest Post: 3.0 Professions for the Priest (and Clothies)

This is a guest post written by Galadria.

Hello Matt’s Readers!  For those of you who remember me, I’m back playing WoW and writing my blog again.  For those of you who don’t, I’m Galadria and I write Galadria’s Corner (yes I renamed it… again) formerly The Light and The Dark formerly The Holy Light.  I’ve got raiding experience on 2 level 70 Priests, one Holy and one Shadow, and I’m now rolling new toons on a new server, another Priest and now a Warlock (they’re both 40ish at the moment).  Without further ado, here’s my thoughts on Professions in Wrath!

Professions have taken a slightly different flavor in WotLK. Each has its own unique benefits, even the gathering professions. It seems to me that Blizz decided to balance not only classes, but professions. Tailoring was so incredibly OP for casters that I felt I didn’t have a choice but to learn Tailoring or be horribly gimped in raid.  With each profession having something special, the selection of your professions requires a little more thought (especially if you’re leveling new toons like I am!). The information included is from the Beta and WoWHead’s WotLK site. Since WotLK isn’t live yet this data isn’t set in stone there are likely to be a few changes. When the expansion goes live I’ll let you know what changed and how (over at my blog, or course, so add me to your reader if you haven’t already!  /shameless plug off). With the disclaimers out of the way, here we go!

Alchemy

• Double duration on Flasks and Elixirs
• Increased effects of Flasks & Elixirs (it appears that the increased effects are 37 spellpower for flasks and 19 spellpower for Battle Elixirs, not sure about Guardian Elixirs)
• BoP trinket (Mercurial Alchemist Stone) that will increase effects of Pots by 40%. The highest mana potion grants 4200 to 4400 and we’ll assume that the average is in the middle. Adding 40% gives 6020 mana.  Let’s assume for simplicity’s sake that boss fights are 5 mins (I’ve heard as low a 3 and up to 8).  Over a 5 min boss fight, the unbuffed mana pot gives 71.5 MP5, the buffed is 100.3 MP5.  Using the same logic for health pots, with the largest being about 3600 plus 40% gives 5040, giving 12 HPS unbuffed and 16.8 HPS buffed (I’m not sure how meaningful that statistic is, but there you go… I did the math for you!)
• If PvP is your thing, there are also craftable Arena potions.

The Bottom Line: Alchemy can be a great profession for anyone. The double duration will save you money and I think the Alchemy stone will be very valuable with the potion changes (my gut is telling me that this is going to be one of the more powerful profession benefits available, but nothing is set in stone yet).  It can also be a money maker if you can get your hands on some of the rare or discovered recipes.  If you are going to be an Alchemist I highly recommend Herbalism to go with it so you don’t have to purchase Herbs.

Blacksmithing

• Extra Socket for Bracers and Gloves
• Entry level BoP Epic Weapon

The Bottom Line: I can’t recommend Blacksmithing for any caster since we can’t use the majority of the crafted products.

Enchanting

• Enchanter only Ring enchants that give 19 spell power or 24 stamina

The Bottom Line: I think we’ll find Enchanting to be less tedious to level and make money off of than it used to be with the introduction of scrolls.  A friend told me that she was actually able to make a little money selling the enchanted scrolls that she made while leveling Enchanting.  While it’s a pain to level, Enchanting requires no gathering profession and therefore pairs well with Tailoring or any gathering profession for money making.  To me the ring enchants aren’t enough to make me level the profession, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good option for any caster (as it has always been!)

Engineering

• Mounts
• Utility enchants for gloves (rocket launcher, haste)
• Portable Mailbox and Vendor
• Epic Helmets - This is a level 72 helmet, I’m sure there will be a level 80 one but I can’t anything on WoWHead right now.

The Bottom Line: I’m not sure Engineering is a great choice for a caster… but I don’t think it’s a bad one either.  The Repair Bot brings a lot of utility to raid and there’s no denying the mounts are really cool.  If Engineering is your thing I can’t knock you for it.

Herbalism

• Lifeblood: a self HoT that scales with Herbalism level, costs no mana, and does not trigger the GCD. At it’s current incarnation Rank 6, available at 450 Herbalism grants 2000 health over 5 seconds with a 3 min cooldown. If used every time it’s available it averages out to 11 HPS.
• Fire Seed: increases spellpower by 200 for 10 seconds with a 1 min cooldown. It also increases damage taken by 10% and reduces all resistances to zero. Shares a cooldown with other crafted consumables (Drums and Grenades but not Pots, Healthstones, or Mana Gems)
• Herbalism provides the raw materials for the crafting professions of Alchemy and Inscription

The Bottom Line: As far as gathering professions go, Herbalism is my favorite and the 2 crafting professions Herbalism benefits are both useful to a caster. If you need a profession to make money for you Herbalism can be a good choice, especially since there are now 2 crafting professions that benefit from it and therefore more demand.  Also, Lifeblood has saved my tail more than once!!

Inscription

• Scroll of Recall - consumable hearthstone with a 20 min cooldown that is separate from regular hearthstone
• BoP Off-Hands - There’s a PvP oriented one (or Lock tank) and a general caster one.  Both look to be pretty good.
• Scribe only Shoulder enchants - these are MUCH better than the reputation versions
  • Crag (spell power and MP5) - Craftable and Reputation
  • Storm (spell power and crit) - Craftable and Reputation
• The extra Glyph slot was taken out.

The Bottom Line: I can tell you from personal experience that the Scroll of Recall is HIGHLY useful, but it’s not a raid benefit.  The shoulder enchants are much better than the reputation versions and don’t require a rep grind on top of it. I’m leveling Inscription on my Priest and really liking it!  If you are going to have Inscription for a profession I recommend Herbalism to go with it so you will have easy access to the raw materials for Milling.

Jewelcrafting

• Slightly better epic gems - you can equip up to 3 and they are prismatic to match any socket color.  The JC only gems have 7 crit, haste, or hit, 3 MP5, 11 sta, or 9 sp more than their counterparts.  These are epic gems so to see this benefit you’ll need gear you’re willing to put epic gems in!
• Entry level BoP trinkets - Healer, or Caster DPS

The Bottom Line: Jewelcrafting can be a money maker if you can get the high-end patterns, though it is very expensive to level (second only to Blacksmithing).  If you are going to have this as a profession I would recommend Mining to go with it so you have easy access to the ore for Prospecting.

Leatherworking

• Bracer enchants that are substantially better than other options
• Drums appear to be removed.

The Bottom Line: Leatherworking is like Blacksmithing, I can’t recommend it for a caster

Mining

• Health bonus that scales with mining level
• Mining provides the raw materials for the crafting professions of Blacksmithing and Jewlecrafting and is recommended for Engineering.

The Bottom Line: If you are a Jewelcrafter, Mining is a good choice for your second profession.  Also not a bad idea to accompany Engineering.  I also know several people that have paired it with Enchanting to make money

Skinning

• Bonus to Crit rating (now that Crit is a uniform stat this will benefit melee as well as casters)
• Skinning provides the raw materials for the crafting profession Leatherworking.

The Bottom Line: If you need money Mining or Herbalism will make you a lot more money and Leatherworking just doesn’t benefit us.  However, if you are going to have 2 gathering professions for leveling or on an alt skinning pairs well with the others since you can’t track herbs and mineral nodes at the same time.

Tailoring

• Tailor only Leg enchants with cheaper mats.
• Tailor only Cloak enchants
• Bonus cloth drops
• BoP Flying Carpet Mount
• Entry level raiding gear

The Bottom Line: It appears that Tailoring won’t be practically necessary for clothies this time around. Yay! I have never really liked Tailoring, the only reason I had it was to get the gear. That said, Tailoring is nice because it requires no gathering profession and can be easy to level while you level your toon since you are always picking up cloth. Bags can be a money maker on some servers (my experience is that it will be more profitable on low-pop servers).

There you have it!  You can look at the BOP benefits of each and see which suits your playstyle best.  I think we’ll see a lot more variety in professions this time around.  I’m really looking forward to seeing where the expansion takes us.

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11 Excuses: How to Tell the Real Life Professions of Your Healers

The people that play World of Warcraft come from all manner of job backgrounds and disciplines. Many of us are students. Some of us work in the office. No doubt there are players who come from military backgrounds. But did you know you can tell what kind of job your healer has when you put him on the spot? It’s true! It might not be relevant, but you might find it interesting to know what supports the fix of the WoW playing healer! I guarantee you that someone out there has uttered these words*!

*Note: Not a real guarantee.

Lawyer

"Do you have any evidence with which to base your claim on that it was, in fact, my lack of heals that cause my client, this tank, to lose health and subsequently die?"

Politician

"Think of the big picture. Our cause is just. I believe we have to stay the course. There is a concept known as acceptable casualties. The loss of a tank, in this case, certainly falls under that. As long as we complete our mission, then everything is perfectly alright."

Forensics

"Judging by the position of the tank relative to me and taking into account the time of death, I do not believe that I was the cause of the death of this player. I was within 40 yards and the heals were coming out. There is no logical reason as to why I let him die."

Doctor

"We don’t know what his cause of death is just yet. Blame cannot be issued until we establish how the player died. Pull up WoW Web Stats. I want combat logs of the last 5 players who interacted with the dead player."

Coach

"Let’s see the replay tapes again. I want a play by play break down. If you watch it, it helps prove that his dying had nothing to do with me at all!"

Accountant

"The numbers don’t properly add up. My heals more than made up the difference between that and the damage taken."

Psychic

"Your death was foretold. I was merely allowing the prophecy to come to pass."

Teacher

"You did not follow proper tanking instructions. You get an F in tanking. "

Marketing

"It’s a terrible tragedy that you died in a raid. This is an excellent example of why you should buy my Flask of Fortification! It boosts your stamina by 30! More stamina means you live longer, right? With the right mix of herbs and a small fee of, you can have 500 additional health and higher defense rating! If you act now, I’ll even throw in a free Spicy Crawdad! Limited time only, act now!"

Mafia

"3000 gold and half a dozen Crimson Spinels says that I didn’t cause the raid to wipe. Capice?"

Computer Technician

"Go restart your computer. That will solve most problems 99% of the time including tank deaths. There is no reason to blame anybody."

On a completely different note, there appear to be no photos of psychics anywhere.

The Problem With Enchanting: Part 2 (Supply)

I recently wrote a piece several days back on the problems with enchanting your items from the demand side. There’s also some issues from the supply side. We’re the only profession that’s not able to put any finished products on the auction house. Blacksmithers can put up their crafted items. Alchemists can put up potions and flasks. Leatherworkers and tailors have their own BoE blues. Even Jewelcrafters can put up gem cuts.

But enchanters? We need to pay house calls to players who want our services individually. Only face to face can we earn any gold.

Rumor has it that this will be changed some time in the future. I’m not sure of any details at the moment, but I’m thinking what they’ll allow us to do is create Enchanting “scrolls” that can be applied to items. It would be similar to a silver spellthread or those other leg patches. This way, we’ve got something tangible that we can then put on the auction house. If they want to prevent twinking on certain levels, it would be easy to do by adding a level requirement for the item or the user of the enchant.

We can only hope.

The Problem With Enchanting: Part 1 (Demand)

I was reading one of Tobold’s latests posts on enchanting and I just had to write a response. You can imagine my amazement when he wrote that he is one of the few 70’s who runs around without any major enchantments on his gear.

Why?

Because enchanting your gear is one of the most expensive things you will ever undertake.

The gear selection and vast selection of raid instances are at the point where you could replace a piece of gear you got today with one later on in the week.

So herein lies the dilemma. Why spend copious amounts of money investing in enchants for some item when it might be replaced later?

It’s like shopping for computer parts. You could upgrade your memory now or wait and watch it drop in price. You never know when a better deal might come along, right?

Let’s take a look at the price for 81 Healing to weapon. WoWecon.com reports Large Prismatic shards having a price of 19G (Ner’Zuhl has ridiculous prices with 25+G).

Primal Life: 10 gold x 8 = 80G
Primal Water: 20 gold x 8 = 160G
Large Prismatic Shard: 20 gold x 8 = 160G

That’s about 400 gold spent just to increase your healing by 81 on your weapon.

Obviously, your weapon is the most expensive piece to enchant. Factor in bracers, gloves, boots and your chest and watch the costs double or even triple on some servers. As raiders, I’m not sure what we spend omre of our money on: potions and flasks or enchants (or even jewelcrafting).

With costs like that, you want to ensure that your gear pieces that get are here to stay. I’ve had cases myself where I got an item one day only to replace it the next. What sucked the most is that I had the original item enchanted before I got the upgraded piece.

Knowing When to Enchant

Get the most out of your enchants! It should be an investment on gear that you know you won’t replace for a while. Typically, I follow the 4-week rule. If I know for certain that I’m replacing this item within 4 weeks, I won’t enchant it.

Start reading up on boss drops. Know which boss drops the items that you’re looking for. Calculate the probability of you getting an upgrade. Remember that not only does the encounter have to drop the item for you, you may need to compete with other players in your Guild for it. If you’ve got the most DKP, then you’re set since you can either bid a high amount or get first option.

Great example: Your Attumen bracers drop for you but you’ve been steadily collecting badges for better bracers anyway. You figure you’ll easily obtain the amount of badges you need within a week. Therefore you shouldn’t enchant your Attumen bracers.

Matt’s Philosophy: Assume what you want from a boss isn’t going to drop and enchant your present ones. Be the best player you can be statwise as that will help the Guild more in the long run.

Be prepared to pass on an item because your enchanted gear is better then that unenchanted piece. You can score major brownie points and save precious DKP if you pass it off to someone else.