Dual-Gathering Specs

Yes, yes... I know I totally dropped off the edge of the blogging earth without even a real hint that I was going to leave. Obviously nobody missed me too much since I didn't get even a single e-mail about my absence. But that's okay. I've never really blogged for others. I've more done it for my own benefit, and maybe some of my close friends that I talk to outside of this.

But I had a small epiphany as I was looking at MMO-Champion and some of the beta changes that have been made for Cataclysm. (Yes... you could consider this a spoiler if you'd like.) And I came across the Multi-Tracking picture that they have. (Picture shamelessly stolen from MMO-Champion.) So, now that you can track multiple things at once you can gather even more as well.

Most of the toons that I've leveled as straight gatherers for profit have learned skinning and mining. Leather from skinning is used by leatherworkers, and ore/gems from mining is used by jewelcrafters and blacksmiths. Your other option (which can also be quite lucrative) is herbalism, which the herbs can be used by alchemy and inscription.

Ideally, however, you would want to maximize your money by choosing both mining and herbalism. Well, unless you're okay with switching tracking constantly or using some mod like maybe Spotter (I have no clue if it still works or ever did, so I'm not linking it), you'll probably miss some flowers or mining nodes. So, with this new multi-tracking, you should be able to easily track both which means maximizing profit from gathering professions.

Just something to look forward to in Cataclysm if it makes it to live.

Economics on Enchanting Pre-3.3

Matticus posted his thoughts on disenchanting for 3.3. Overall, he believes it's a good thing. And while I agreed with him initially, his article got me thinking about materials we use and how they're gathered, and how I completely disagree with him.

One of the points he makes is that skinners, miners and herbalists get to keep everything. Heck, you don't even roll on one of those things unless there's multiple toons that have that profession. And yes, that person gets to keep it all.

He also points out that given this thought process, enchanters would roll on everything so they could shard it. Personally, I think this is a huge fallacy. If an item is an upgrade for a player, it is much more valuable then the shard would be. So the priority list would go something like The Upgrade > The Offset > The Shard > The Gold from Vendoring the item. Look at how we treat green items today. No enchanter "needs" on all the greens. I've never had anyone ask if there's an enchanter that will collect the greens. And I'm sure that's a function of greens that drop in instances are BoE. But in a sense, aren't blues and purples BoE for a short amount of time now with people in your group?

So, let's take a look at what we get from those gathering professions that everyone in the group can use.

Skinning
You get leather. I suppose you could argue that that could be useful to everyone by means of the Drums of Forgotten Kings or Drums of the Wild. But we always run raids with at least 1 druid and 1 paladin, so I really don't care. You could even go as far as to talk about leg armor for melee classes or tanks, but it doesn't really benefit everyone. So, Skinners? Go ahead and keep your leather.

Herbalism
Herbalism gathers flowers. Flowers make flasks. Flasks can also be ground into ink for Glyphs. Maybe we should start rolling on herbs. Then again, if you want a flask or glyph, you generally just go to the AH and pick those up. You don't usually see somebody looking for an alchemist in Trade unless the AH is completely out of them. But I'm sure you'll get a fight if you ask to roll on the flowers.

Mining
Ore can be prospected into gems. Gems are generally more valuable than ore. Even the raw ore is still something that should be rolled on, but I don't see that happening after years of habits of letting the miners get it. So, fine... miners can keep their ore as well.

Enchanting
Yep... everyone can use the enchanting materials. Everyone can (and probably should) enchant their gear. And yes, it's needed by everyone. But as an enchanter, do you want to disenchant all of the items people don't use? The economic answer is: NO! You do not.

Let's pretend that all enchanters on your server went on strike. "No more Instance Disenchants" is their battle cry. (It's not catchy, but you get the idea.) They only disenchant the blues, purples, and greens that they win on greed rolls. Supply for Enchanting Mats would go down, therefore raising the price. On the other side, for you non-disenchanters, you'll be forced to sell those blues and purples you won on a greed roll to a vendor, so you now have more money to spend on Enchanting Materials. Prices go up some more.

Bottom line is this: Enchanters revolt! We only have a small window of time before 3.3 goes live and forever breaks our ability to revolt. Stop* enchanting all the PUG blues and purples. Reclaim the enchanting materials market and profit. Make sure every enchanter you know gets this message!

*Note: You might want to continue providing this service to guild members. But then again, I guess it just depends on how much of a jerk you want to be.

Missing Head Pieces

So, in case you haven't taken the time to map out all of your upgrades, here's a small clue for you: Unless you're an engineer or a plate wearer (see all items here), there is no way you're getting a level 80, epic helm unless you go raiding.

Wait. Wut???!!!???

That's right. For the majority of classes there are exactly zero epic helms that can be made, absolutely zero that can be found in heroics, and then only a handful in the first raid area of Naxx 10-man.

Seriously Blizzard? If you don't want helms to drop from heroics, fine. I can respect that decision. But allowing 2 professions to create them and not allowing 2 others? Finish Tailoring and Leatherworking please so we can craft our helms already.

3.0.8 Enchanting Changes, Yeah! Wait... but...

If you follow the good folks over at MMO-Champion at all, you know that there's some changes coming to the Enchants that they've posted about. Overall, I think it's a great thing. Almost every WOTLK enchant has had the mats lowered, making it far more affordable and reasonable to enchant all of your gear. 30 to 40 dust on some of those enchants was just out of control if you ask me. So, yeah for easier gear enchants!

But this is really a fix for the community as a whole. They obviously looked at the profession and thought, "something's not right here", and fixed it. But what about the part of the motivation to hit 450? I've got buddies that are there, so there's even less motivation for me. I hit 400, I can do the ring enchants... now what? Drop a ton of mats to hit 450 for what?

I suppose there's the economy side of it. I can put all my enchants on the AH via vellums. And then I can make a ton of money on all those enchants that require 450 skill. Oh wait... there's none of those. So, still no motivation to hit 450 here. Oh well... I'm sure everything will be "fixed" in 3.1, right? Right? Who's with me? *crickets*

AH = EBay

I was chatting with one of my raid leaders last night about things that were almost completely unrelated to Wow... until now. *queue ominous music* She works at a comic book store, and she was telling me how she just got their e-bay business/store back up and going, and she's doubled e-bay sales in the first month. (Double over when it was running.)

Then I started thinking about her Wow life. Among the many things she does, she's a very good player of the Auction House. Her alt jewelcrafter made enough money to completely pay for Epic Flying Training and a lot of the rare BoE gem cuts. She also took over selling the excess stuff out of the guild vault, where she's always turned a great profit as well. So... her doing a great job at work with e-bay was no surprise at all.

All in all... it's just another example of the lessons you can learn from playing Wow. Add micro-economics of the things you can learn from this video game.

Hard Habit to Break

I think at times I can be kind of stubborn in my ways, maybe even compulsive to a degree. Kind of reminds me of a smoker... with all the knowledge and education we have about how smoking kills you, there's a lot of people that keep doing it. "Why?" I ask. Why? Why? Call it stubborn, call it dedicated, call it whatever.

Leiandra, my mage, has always been my main character. She has always had tailoring and enchanting as professions. I've respec'ed her very few times. I think I've only paid for 2, maybe 3 respec's, and one of those times was because I didn't put the points exactly how I felt they should be. (Although I have tried most specs due to talent point resets, PTR's, Beta, etc.) Once it was available, I choose to specialize in Spellcloth and I haven't given that one up either.

Which is kind of funny that Leiandra is so set in her ways. My alts were willing to try anything and everything. My priest did healing duty (both as holy and disc), and was also shadow quite a bit. My shaman's done all three trees as well. (Probably my worst toon as far as gear is concerned. Getting multiple sets of gear was never my forte.)

So what's the point I'm making here besides rambling? I posted awhile ago about the different specializations in tailoring for Wrath, and also how much + hit I need for raiding. So, I'm pretty sure I'm going to respecialize to Ebonweave so I can make the necessary cloth to make the two pieces of Ebonweave gear. That will bring me (with current gear) to 280. It's not quite 368, but it's 83 points closer.

My wife's shadow priest is already Ebonweave specialized, but she's pretty far away from 415 skill, so I can't use her cooldowns yet. And I could always make a set of these for her as well. I don't know... it just feels so... warlocky for me to go this specialization. It makes my skin crawl. But, in the name of + hit, I guess I do what I have to do.

If need be, I suppose I can go Moonshroud for a bit so that I can cleanse out that icky feeling. Then I can help my wife get her healing gear. :)

Wotlk BS Bop Items, Wut???

Okay... this will not be a rant. I have to keep telling myself that.

In the PTR's MMO-Champion is reporting that there's a new Bop Blacksmithing sword. Two of them in fact. Titansteel Deflector and Titansteel Defender. Check out the link to see the stats.

This will not be a rant.

I thought Blizzard's platform was that they were not going to allow powerful Bop items from professions. Something about doing the tradeskill that's fun, and not the one that you have to to be the best.

This will not be a rant.

Where's the freakin' Bop items for Leatherworking and Tailoring? Engineering has had their best head piece reign for awhile now. And then there's the hawt JC only gems. And wasn't Inscription supposed to get a 4th major glyph?

Yep, it turned into a rant. Well, finish the professions already. They so don't feel done.

Wrath Enchanting Wands

Not sure how many of you followed the Wrath Beta, but I was excited about one part that I haven't exactly seen go live on the live realms yet. And from the title of this post, I'm sure you can guess that I'm talking about wands.

Which is kind of funny, because this is the reason I first got interested in enchanting. I had been playing for less than a week and I started asking around in the Stormwind, "Where can I get a wand for my level?" When I found out I could make my own, I was elated. (Remember that I came from EQ2 where I enjoyed the whole crafting usable armor/materials.) So, I think some random stranger showed me where the enchanter trainer was and game me some dust and essences to get me started, and off I went to make my very first wand.

An interesting thing you might notice though. As of this writing, Wowhead lists exactly 4 wands that can be created by an enchanter. The best wand being the Greater Mystic Wand that has no stats, and requires level 30. Gee... no upgrade for level 60 enchanters in Vanilla Wow? No upgrade for enchanters when the Burning Crusade came out? And again no update with Wrath? Tsk, tsk.

But yet from the beta, we know the developers were thinking about it. And not that the mats were correct in beta, but it was nice that it was essentially 75 Void Crystals to get the best crafted wand available.

So, what happened? Did the developers realize that there are other classes (besides just the Mage, Priest, and Warlock) that may be enchanters that aren't interested in wands? Were the wands just too overpowered, so they scrapped them? Or was it the direction that they now seem to be taking with BoP items for professions, in that they don't want them? Or is it simply that professions for Wrath still aren't done and they're trying to figure out wands after 50 levels of enchanters not having other crafted wands? We may never know.

Tailoring in Wrath (375-385)

I'm still a little unsure about the direction of Tailoring in Wrath. From the Verimonde's post, it looks like we won't have any Bop tailored epic items, and I kind of disagree. I liked the fact that I could make my own gear. I hit 375 tailoring and crafted my first 3 epic items. Heck, it's practically payback for all the mats I dumped in there. I understand the direction they're going, but I don't necessarily agree with it. There's always going to be min/max people. And you'll always have people changing professions just so they can get that one special thing. Sigh... oh well. What can you do?

So, I'm not really finding a huge push to hit 450 at the moment. But I'm still planning things out as if I were. I guess the worst case scenario, I'd like to start making some type of cloth sooner rather than later to get my gear and maybe make some money off of Tailoring. So, I started looking at the recipies I'll be using.

First off, I have enough Outlands materials that I'll probably be using some of those first. It'll push me ahead about 10 points or so. So, here's what I have:

• 375-380 Arcanoweave Robes. At about 300 Netherweave Cloth, 100 Arcane Dust and 10 Rune Thread, it will be a tad expensive, but since those items aren't selling much on the AH anyway... might as well use them up. Hopefully I can sell some of the shards to leveling enchanters.
• 380-381 Spellfire Bag. I'm not 100% sure I'll do this one. I'm guessing not, but was just a thought I had, so I figured I'd put it down. I never made the largest (as of TBC) enchanting bag, so I figured I'd make 1 to get the point from it. Not really sure why I'd want to since I can make the Mysterious Bag at 440, so I'll probably scrap this idea.
• 381-385 Golden Spellthread. This might be a tad expensive, so I may pass on it, but it uses "old world" mats. It really just depends how cheap (or expensive) Frostweave Cloth becomes. I may just do 5 (or 6, depending if they all skill up) Frostwoven Robes. That will be 100 (or 120) cloth. Yeah, breaking it down like that, I may do the Spellthread option. Again.. we'll see what the AH does come Thursday.

Tailoring Decisions in Wrath

With the launch of The Burning Crusade about a year and a half ago, Tailors from all walks of life (classes) were gently guided into choosing a specialization for Tailoring. Healing Priests were enticed to Primal Mooncloth for the Primal Mooncloth set, such as the robes, that used to be BoP and were strictly a + healing item. Shadow Priests, non-Destro Warlocks, and Frost Mages (were there any true PvE Frost Mages in TBC?) were drawn to Shadowcloth and Frozen Shadoweave Set. Most of the mages and Destro Warlocks wanted the + fire and + arcane that came from the Spellfire Set. But I'm a little confused about what to choose as a mage in Wrath.

Let's take a look at the 3 specializations and what they can craft. Things so far are very similiar to their level 70 counterparts. You need imbued cloth along with some level 80 Primals to make the special cloth. Each special cloth makes some really good armor, a bag, and this time some thread for your back and a flying carpet. As far as I can tell, the flying carpets are purely aesthetics, so I will not discuss them in each group. Also, the bags need multiple cloths, but there is a predominate cloth for each. None of these patterns are BoP, so that makes things even more questionable.

Spellweave Specialization
At first glance, I thought this was the one that I do. It worked for me as a fire mage in TBC, why wouldn't the level 80 equivalent be the same, right? Well... not exactly. The Spellweave Robe and Spellweave Gloves have nice haste on them, but no stamina (I like to be able to survive something), and chaulked full of Spirit. Seems almost more like a healing piece.

Spellweave is the predominate cloth for the 32-slot enchanting bag, also requring 2 Moonshroud, but not really being class-specific there.

The thread for the back piece from Spellweave is actually for a melee class: Swordguard Embroidery. Not really sure where Blizzard is going on this one. Only tailors can do embroidery on their own cloaks, and last I checked, melee wearers don't wear cloth. So, this belongs to... umm???

Moonshroud Specialization
Again, from the level 70 version of, I thought this was more for a healing Priest. Let's take a look at the armor you can make: Moonshroud Robe and Moonshroud Gloves. Well.. there's good all around stats there. This could really go for any of the three clothies, I suppose. No + crit or hit or haste, but has a good amount of all the major stats.

Glacial Bags are made with 4 parts Moonshroud and 4 parts Ebonweave. So.. umm... have two tailors so you can make lots of bags? I don't know here, but big bags are cool.

But the Lightweave Embroidery is really one of the best things for DPS casters. I still don't think there's any armor that is + holy resist, so there's almost no chance it will get resisted. (Okay, might be a small exageration.) At any rate, extra damage every once in awhile is a good thing, okay?

Ebonweave Specialization
Ah, the Warlock Specialization. Finally something I know. Wait. Or is it? You can make the Ebonweave Robe and Gloves with this cloth. The + hit is beneficial to all DPS casters, arguably more needed for a warlock, but Mages and, to a lesser extent, Shadow Priests need some too. So, again... could be for pretty much any DPS caster.

The Abbysal Bag has Warlock written all over it. But since you'll only buy one, this factor alone shouldn't dictate which route you go. As mentioned before, this is also the other 1/2 of the 22-slot bags.

And finally the Darkglow Embroidery is for mana regen. That would mean it's for... healers and arcane mages? /shrug.

Summary
After looking at all the different options, I have no idea what I'm going to specialize in. If I wanted to make a profit, I guess I'd go for Ebonweave or Moonshroud, since that has the potential to make a lot of bags for people. Other than that... well.. Wrath is still technically in Beta, so there could always be changes.

Commited to Professions

In truth, since Wow 3.0 (or 3.02 if you want to get technical), I haven't been on Beta and in Northrend much. I've been too busy doing achievements, trick or treating, killing the Headless Horseman, and battling the scourge. I even went and killed Prince Tenris Mirkblood in Karazhan. (Had never walked up those steps past Attuman before.) And it was kind of fun because it was learning a new boss, not just your standard tank and spank, and it made me think more about all of the instances that I will need to start learning in just a few short weeks.

Then there was an incentive to skill up my Tailoring a bit more since a guildie had sent me a whole bunch of Frostweave Cloth. I burned through it in no time flat, and didn't even hit 400. It got me thinking about how much cloth will be used to hit 450. Furthermore, how much cloth did I use to get to 375?

If you look at Highlander's post on leveling professions over on the EU boards, you'll see that in order to get your Tailoring from 300 to 375, you'll need, roughly, the following materials:

• 2,880 Netherweave cloth
• 210 Arcane Dust
• 30 Netherweb Spider Silk
• 45 Rune Thread
• 20 Knothide Leather

Now, looking over at the Guide forum post by Thinkpad, to get from 375 to 450 it will take the following materials:

• 7,225 Frostweave Cloth
• 780 Infinite Dust
• 175 Eternium Thread

I doubt I'll follow those materials exactly. For the 405-415 section, I don't think that 5 Duskweave Wristwraps will net you 10 skill points. Thinkpad also has you skilling up your last 10 points creating 50 Frostweave Bags. If you create the other bags instead of those, you might save 600 or so cloth, but you'd also have to worry about cooldowns and a few other mats such as Eternal Fire.

But regardless of which path you take. That's a lot of materials. I had forgotten how much cloth I had "spent" skilling up to 375... twice. (Once on my wife's toon... I took care of all of her professions.) And now it will be almost 3 times the mats to get to 450. With no reputation discount, that will be 525 gold in thread alone! Not to mention all the money it will cost to learn the new spells. Wow... I better figure out how to make a profit out of this somehow. lol.