Anyone else think lackluster profession is due to WoD gold craze?

[Brennen]

So it seems to be a general consensus that profession in Legion are pretty...lame. The only reason most profession even made some big profits was the obliterate rush (the plate armguards still going for 6-8k on my server).

I am a tailor so I can attest to that most. tailoring, well can't really make much. Even the obliterum quest gear only goes for 1.5k which BARELY covers cost of regents, so it's almost easier to just sell the shards. Bags are...well not even sure what to think. I can't see myself making a bag that is smaller than what I am currently carrying on my main, and is the same size as what my alts already have. I guess for people with new account that used the level to 100 token can have a cheap bag made, but other than that, bah.

in terms of the other main professions, it seems like by time you can even make the item (after quest, farming mats) you already way out gear the item, as do most people, unless you get a real lucky upgrade proc. But the amount of mats needed to make something outweighs the ability to craft enough to get lucky. I can't even remember when I last crafted a tailoring item...weeks?

Enchanting is really the only decent profession, because it's so needed, as is alchemy. Things people need to raid. JC I hear is hit or miss and a massive RNG game, engineering...not sure, but I know people are not too happy, but engineering has always been that on profession you just do because you want to make cool stuff for yourself.

Inscrption, aside from those that feel the need to min-max boss fights and change talents all the time, they do not really sell anything worthwhile any more.

Cooking...well Nomi...nuff said.

I guess what I am getting at, it seems after everyone who played Garrisons a lot during WoD making insane amounts of Gold, blizzard made Legion professions so lackluster that it's hard to make a nice profit...unless you win the RNG game. But because the good stuff is so RNG (gems, alchemy, various shoulder enchant bags) the good stuff goes for insane prices in AH. Basically instead of seeing a flood of high demand items going for moderate prices, you have a few high demand items going for a metric crap ton, with only the lucky RNG winners selling. This means only the rich from WoD are buying, spreading the gold around the economy.

Just my two cents. I could way off base.

[Unforgivenn]

tbh, professions on wow was never been relevant, not like it is in lineage 2 for example.

back then, like vanilla, the gear u crafted was almost useless (u could get pvp itens which was better). in tbc, they added some craft from hyjal/black temple, but that was it.

wotlk/cata i didnt remember well..

on mop u had some 553 u could craft too (heroic soo ilvl).

on wod u had the chance on crafting and upgrading up to same heroic raid ilvl, but u are limited to 3 pieces...

on legion u can craft all for 850 max, no limit, same ilvl as en normal raid... but meh... en is faceroll, even pugs can clear it on normal. 850 u easily get doing mythic dungeons/wq, which it isnt hard.

tbh blizz should make professions like lineage 2, make all the itens that drop from EN and future raids, even tiers, craftable (but let the item still drop), but with highly requirements on mats (like ores, bars, skins etc) and of course, using itens that only drop inside the raid dungeon. Also, make it evenly equal to raid dificulty (normal, heroic and mythic) while if u want to craft the mythic stuff, the itens u should get from raid need to be from mythic.

PS: the itens u have to get from the raid should only drop from bosses, and dropping at a max of 3 per boss... also, the pattern should be dropped inside raid (buts boe)

like, lets say u want to craft Midnight Herald's Pauldrons... like the itens needed is:

mythic:
7000 leystone ore
7000 felslate ore
750 Nightmare Cogwheel (mythic)

normal:
3500 leystone ore
3500 felslate ore
250 nightmare cogwheel (normal)

of course, that item (nightmare cogwheel) dont exist lol... just an example here from item that drop from raid.

the reqs from mats should increase as long u want to craft the most powerful version of the item.

[cuafpr]

yep profs in legion are pretty much fail, as a BS its pointless anything i can make is out-gained by drops. I'm pretty sure the goal was to redistribute / drain some of the wod gold rush some people got, but those that didn't oh well tough shit it feels like. The economy is virtual wreck right now.

[Dsc]

tbh, professions on wow was never been relevant, not like it is in lineage 2 for example.

back then, like vanilla, the gear u crafted was almost useless (u could get pvp itens which was better). in tbc, they added some craft from hyjal/black temple, but that was it.

I remember professions being quite relavant in TBC and Wrath if you raided seriously.

The Frozen Shadoweave set and Moreso the Primal Mooncloth sets lasted many of priests right into Hyjal. Then you hit BT where if you wanted to kill Mother Shariz you needed much of the raid in their crafted resist set.

I Have missed crafted set bonus' ever since. (pst in TOGC we got some early Twin Valks kills and Tribute to Dedicated Insanity using Warlocks in thier BT resist gear as soakers.... (yes, tiers later.

If you were in a Sunwell guild you had Leather-working on a good chunk of the raid team, for a drumming rotation.

In wrath I profession swapped quite a bit, BS /JC for extra OP gem-slot. Did engineering in ICC for rocket boosts, and I think Chanted or tailored for a cloak buff/gemslot

Professions haven't really been relevant since, besides for quality of life and gold making, but never a deal breaker.

[Schizoide]

Professions are less relevant today than ever before.

There's no reason to hit max skill on most professions. No power gains, although some do have cosmetic stuff/mounts. Why do skill points still exist, anyway? Seems like an obvious prune to me; restrict learning recipes by character level and move on.

Easily craftable gear is fairly expensive and immediately outclassed by WQ rewards for clicking on squirrels. This isn't 8 months into the expansion, it was immediately irrelevant.

Obliterum-upgraded crafted gear is the very top-end 10 itemlvls higher than WQ squirrel-clicking rewards and is extraordinarily expensive, to such a degree that I would be surprised if anyone bothers. I have millions of gold from WoD garrison garbage and I would never even consider gearing up alts with Obliterum.

Overall, primary professions are worse than they have ever been in the history of WoW in terms of relevance. I do like the questlines, though.

[spiritsurge]

I don't think it's anything to do with WoD. I think professions are lackluster because Blizzard added literally nothing interesting to most professions. Tailoring is totally worthless, all of the good stuff for Engineering is from other expansions, Enchanting does what it always does but at least it has some new interesting enchantments. It's strange to think about but all of the interesting profession changes went into Fishing and Cooking.

[dexx]

Blizz overshot professions this time. In Wod they were too easy to level and crafted items were cheap. This time they take ages to level and the matts for crafted items make them very expensive.

[chronia]

tbh, professions on wow was never been relevant, not like it is in lineage 2 for example.

back then, like vanilla, the gear u crafted was almost useless (u could get pvp itens which was better). in tbc, they added some craft from hyjal/black temple, but that was it.

In both Vanilla and TBC there was some very sought after crafted gear.

Vanilla: Fire res gear / Ony cloak for MC / BWL, Nature res gear for AQ if you didn't want to run maraudon a million times and didn't have the monopoly on killing green drages, and some Frost / Shadow gear for Naxx iirc.

TBC: Cloth starter Epic crafts were BiS for alot of caster atleast till quite far into T4, don't know about other classes since i only had clothies in TBC, There was also Res gear again and don't forget weapons like stunherald that were highly sought after by crafters.

[Poisongaz]

why are people forgetting that you dont have to buy mats? You can just go out and get them yourself if you have the gathering profession for it. If you are trying to level two crafting professions at the same time then you are the person that is driving up the price of mats in the first place. There is nothing wrong with that. It just seems that people are forgetting that fact. Also to the OP, I think you are really over estimating just how much gold the average player actually has. People talk all the time about how they quite during WoD and came back for legion or they played during WoD but couldnt be bother to log into 10 alts to play a facebook game. People on this forum might have taken advantage of that system, but the vast majority of the people that are playing in legion did not.

There are a couple of things that are driving up the prices of mats on the AH. One is simply because it is much harder to get mats now. With herbing starlight rose has a chance to fail until you get lvl 3 so that will drive the price up on that herb and it is the most used herb for most recipes. Mining is a bit better, but they added meaningful prospecting back into the game so the ore itself has more value than it did in WoD. The seond reason mats are so expensive right now is because the crafting professions use a lot more of the mats in the recipes and in order to get 800 crafting in the professions it requires that you make the items to level up much more. This is because in all professions the last 10 points can only be gained from crafting a level 3 recipe that isnt even guaranteed to give you a level in the first place.

I think you guys have forgotten what it is like to work for something. The explicitly said that the professions were designed so that only the people that cared to get the max level profession would do so. Is that such a bad thing?

[Hhavok]

I've also wondered if it's not the smaller portion of players with an excess of WoD wealth that don't keep the prices high for enchants, pots, and harder to acquire crafting mats. It seems like the prices haven't came down like they should have after the initial demand for everything during the expansion release, but I agree with the OP that gear crafting professions are pretty lackluster. I have a bank full of crafting mats, but if I burned them all to produce some obliterum for the AH, it probably still wouldn't be enough to buy one neck enchant.

[Unforgivenn]

That is without a doubt the most godawful idea I have ever read.

You are aware that the playerbase of WoW has shifted from the hardcore gamer to the more casual player, and thus the crafting has changed to reflect that?

So your answer is to make it not hard, but a ridiculous grind so only a tiny amount of players actually use their professions, and the prices become so stratospherically high due to the mats required, that no one buys them?
Oh, and let us not forget the raid mat requirements as well, because that worked so well in BC where only once in a blue moon would you see the item actually appear on the AH, and only then when the guild didn;t need the sub-standard item.

Bad idea, poorly thought out, and just simply wouldn't work in WoW. It works in Lineage (if working is the correct wod...) because that has a vastly different, smaller playerbase. Wow has a lot more people who are far smarter than you working on problems like these, don't try and fix something when you don't actually grasp all the facets of the game.

- - - Updated - - -




The game is only 6 weeks old. Crafted gear is now viewed mainly for something to help Alts gear up faster. As it allows them, with Oblitereum, to bypass HC dungeons, and start doing Mythic Dungeons pretty much off the bat. Also, if they increase the cap for Oblitereum, it will allow the item to also slowly progress upwards, not the same as HC raid ofc, but roughly the same as Normal, allowing players to get a foot in the door there.
Crafted gear is designed now to be a boost, not BiS stats, or something you stick with throughout the expansion. We are only 6 weeks in, so you will yet to see the effects the crafted gear will have once the inevitable alt runs start to pop along, then, you will see people purchasing it a lot more, and also the oblitereum.

As for the random stats? That is purely so you don;t cherry pick, and also use the forge to put more oblitereum into the economy, allowing players to keep items upgraded, and keep the price of the upgrade mat low.
It actually all makes sense, you just have to look at the long term game, rather than jumping to conclusions (which is an MMOC staple I guess) off the bat.
Give it time, you will see it will balance out.

like i said, u can still run raid to get the item or craft it..

[Poisongaz]

I've also wondered if it's not the smaller portion of players with an excess of WoD wealth that don't keep the prices high for enchants, pots, and harder to acquire crafting mats. It seems like the prices haven't came down like they should have after the initial demand for everything during the expansion release, but I agree with the OP that gear crafting professions are pretty lackluster. I have a bank full of crafting mats, but if I burned them all to produce some obliterum for the AH, it probably still wouldn't be enough to buy one neck enchant.

what you are forgetting is that while we have gone back to a profession system that isnt just giving to players for free, this new system is inherently more grindy and does take more mats and much more time to work. That is what is keeping the prices so high. Also in the type of economy that runs in the game. There would absolutely no physical way that rich players could intentionally keep the prices much higher, let alone the rich players from WoD. Yes there is some carry over, but some of the richest people coming from WoD were the raiders that were selling moose runs. These are also the people that would be spending the most money on pot, flasks, food, gems, and enchants because they just dont have the time to spend crafting. So the people that are rich now are the people that had the time to put into their professions and actively made gold doing them.

The price will go down and we have already seen this happen. Gem prices have gone down and now hover (using my server as an example) at 1k-2k gold depending on the stat. The 200 main stat gems have gone down drastically and now are affordable, but still a bit pricey as they should be. Food is way cheaper than at the start of the expac and has found an equilibrium point atm. The ones that we are waiting on to go lower are alch stuff and enchants. This is because it is completely rng whether or not you can get to 800 and on top of that many of the mats required have a chance to fail when you pick them. I posted above about this exact thing. Also keep in mind that as more people switch to these professions, whether it is because they want to make it easier on their raid group's pockets or because they want to make more gold, more supply is added to the market and by competition we will see the prices go down with those as well. It will just take awhile because of how rng based and slow these particular professions are.

[Sounder]

why are people forgetting that you dont have to buy mats?

This point is irrelevant because when you farm your own mats, you have the opportunity to sell those mats on the AH. So when you perform a combine using 50g worth of mats, you either have to spend 50g to acquire them on the AH or forego earning 50g on mats that you gathered. Either way, you have to subtract that 50g from what you make selling the crafted item in order to decide how worthwhile the crafting part of it was.

If your best crafted item sells for 10% above what you could have gotten selling the mats, then you have an underperforming crafting profession. Consider that you could have had two gathering professions and collected 100g worth of stuff in about the time you spent collecting 50g worth of stuff with one gathering prof.

The thing I don't see folks discussing is that professions are content unto themselves -- and ignoring the economy for a moment, there's more profession-specific content in Legion than ever before. If you enjoy that content for its own sake, then maybe you're getting a good deal if you just break even on what you sell. Of course crafters-for-profit hate this because people who are happy breaking even nullify their business model. This is a perennial challenge in MMO design.

Me, I saw this coming, dropped Eng/JC before Legion launch and had Herb/Mining ready to go. Crafters keep busy making everything I need and I can afford it just from the "drive by" gathering I do while on the way to other things (I don't farm). If everyone who's unhappy with crafting were to drop it for gathering, the economy would rebalance. It seems like that's not happening so gatherers will continue to capture most of the profits to be made.

[Poisongaz]

This point is irrelevant because when you farm your own mats, you have the opportunity to sell those mats on the AH. So when you perform a combine using 50g worth of mats, you either have to spend 50g to acquire them on the AH or forego earning 50g on mats that you gathered. Either way, you have to subtract that 50g from what you make selling the crafted item in order to decide how worthwhile the crafting part of it was.

If your best crafted item sells for 10% above what you could have gotten selling the mats, then you have an underperforming crafting profession. Consider that you could have had two gathering professions and collected 100g worth of stuff in about the time you spent collecting 50g worth of stuff with one gathering prof.

The thing I don't see folks discussing is that professions are content unto themselves -- and ignoring the economy for a moment, there's more profession-specific content in Legion than ever before. If you enjoy that content for its own sake, then maybe you're getting a good deal if you just break even on what you sell. Of course crafters-for-profit hate this because people who are happy breaking even nullify their business model. This is a perennial challenge in MMO design.

Me, I saw this coming, dropped Eng/JC before Legion launch and had Herb/Mining ready to go. Crafters keep busy making everything I need and I can afford it just from the "drive by" gathering I do while on the way to other things (I don't farm). If everyone who's unhappy with crafting were to drop it for gathering, the economy would rebalance. It seems like that's not happening so gatherers will continue to capture most of the profits to be made.

Agree with you on that point thanks for point that out. I hadnt really put much thought into it. It seems that some many of these posts center around crafting atm not being worth the money htat you have to put in and people aren't willing to give up there crafting profession for another gathering one. Personally I went with Mining/Jc because jewelry doesnt have main stats on it anymore so an 850 crafted item with the right roll in most cases can be BiS for a really long time.

I mainly dont like when people complain about prices of stuff. They are at that price for a reason, because people are willing to buy them. I mean I can spend an hour listening to a popcast and a farm like 600 felslate ore and then flip it on the AH for 30k gold. 10K a stack or more. And at that price its like 10g per ore above the lowest price and it just flies of the AH almost as fast as I post them.

This might not be it, but people still seem to think that money is easy to come by. That is just not true, but in this market, there is def money to be earned. More than enough to pay for stuff for raids.

[Sounder]

Personally I went with Mining/Jc because jewelry doesnt have main stats on it anymore so an 850 crafted item with the right roll in most cases can be BiS for a really long time.

Indeed, and you may have made the "BiS for a really long time" neck and ring I'm wearing right now. Thanks!

[Zodd]

I didn't play in WoD.

My perspective, mainly from WoTLK -> Cata -> MoP is this:

Enchants were expanded until virtually every slot had something to go in it. This, combined with the vellum addition that enabled Enchanting Scrolls to be made and sold on the AH made it hugely popular. The enchants were also quite relevant.

Jewel sockets grew over time to the point where nearly every piece of gear had 2-3 sockets in it, plus the meta gem on helmets. This synergized with Blacksmiths who sold belt buckles that gave everyone an extra socket on the belt. JC always had the "blue" gems initially that grew to the "epic" gems after a while in the expansion. Each character had huge amounts of sockets to fill.

Inscription took up the shoulder "enchant" slot, added glyphs, and had some other stuff.. it had a niche, was smaller than the others, but it definitely had its' uses.

These 3 professions I think were gutted the most as there are only a handful of enchants now, sockets are rather rare and mostly show up via warforge rolls, and the gems themselves are kind of boring. No more colors, matching, or socket bonuses - no more meta gems. Inscription - beyond the tomes for switching talents and the vantus runes, I dunno what they do... will a large percentage of people even use vantus runes? My instinct is to say no on that.

I always love professions and used to have them all maxed on various characters at one point, but now I'm just glad I had Alchemy on my main and I ditched Tailoring as soon as I reactivated my account for Legion and took a look at it.. completely worthless. Dat herbalism though, at least I can make my own flasks and mana pots

[bufferunderrun]

tbh, professions on wow was never been relevant, not like it is in lineage 2 for example.

back then, like vanilla, the gear u crafted was almost useless (u could get pvp itens which was better). in tbc, they added some craft from hyjal/black temple, but that was it.

wotlk/cata i didnt remember well..

on mop u had some 553 u could craft too (heroic soo ilvl).

on wod u had the chance on crafting and upgrading up to same heroic raid ilvl, but u are limited to 3 pieces...

on legion u can craft all for 850 max, no limit, same ilvl as en normal raid... but meh... en is faceroll, even pugs can clear it on normal. 850 u easily get doing mythic dungeons/wq, which it isnt hard.

tbh blizz should make professions like lineage 2, make all the itens that drop from EN and future raids, even tiers, craftable (but let the item still drop), but with highly requirements on mats (like ores, bars, skins etc) and of course, using itens that only drop inside the raid dungeon. Also, make it evenly equal to raid dificulty (normal, heroic and mythic) while if u want to craft the mythic stuff, the itens u should get from raid need to be from mythic.

PS: the itens u have to get from the raid should only drop from bosses, and dropping at a max of 3 per boss... also, the pattern should be dropped inside raid (buts boe)

like, lets say u want to craft Midnight Herald's Pauldrons... like the itens needed is:

mythic:
7000 leystone ore
7000 felslate ore
750 Nightmare Cogwheel (mythic)

normal:
3500 leystone ore
3500 felslate ore
250 nightmare cogwheel (normal)

of course, that item (nightmare cogwheel) dont exist lol... just an example here from item that drop from raid.

the reqs from mats should increase as long u want to craft the most powerful version of the item.

professions were relevant when you could craft thing that were on par with at last dungeon/raid drop, the sets from tailoring back in bc or the weapons, bloodmoon? stormherald? or the highly sough recipes you could drop in raid, bracers, boots, waists; or when there was a bonus to levelling them up.

I don't understand why blizzard hadn't simply go back to pre wod design and stop this nonsense it's clear that the change they have done are absolutely crap and should be reverted back to what they once were.

[Dnusha]

So it seems to be a general consensus that profession in Legion are pretty...lame.

Lol what general consensus are you talking about? Is it you and your imaginary friends or something? Professions are for making gold and i'm doing millions with new legion professions(like many others) atm. People here mostly have a perception that if Profession can't craft Mythic gear, then it fucking useless. Do you really think this is the case when 65% of population never had a chance to finish even heroic HFC ? Things sell like hot cakes but you just have to PUT HEM ON THE AH ---it is too fucking complex for 80% of population. However i agree that some questionable items have been added (engineering intra dalaran portal that takes a slot int iventory? music box that only has 3 melodies and can't save them at all?). Let me remind you though that best items usually come from further patchs (Jeeves, Sky Golem, Epic Gems, better weapons and armor)

[FobManX]

Back in the day, you wanted double crafting professions for the stat boosts. IIRC Blacksmiths could create gem sockets in gloves and bracers, and JCs had access to unique JC only gems that were stronger then normal gems(I remember because i was BS/JC on my main back then).

I'm glad that's no longer a thing to be honest. The problem is that creates a sitution where some profs are a lot better then others. Alchemy for example will always be good because you'll always need flasks/pots. Ditto JC for gems(although not as common as before). On the flip side profs that craft gear go obsolete quick. What they need to do is bring back epic crafting recipes that drop off raids again that are equal to if not better then raid drops so there is still a reason to maintain BS or LW, etc.

[Triptych]

I'm really enjoying the Profession stuff in Legion.

I don't do cutting edge PVE content, nor do I try and earn pots of gold via AH sales. For me, it's enough to have another side branch of character progression : something to tinker away at, and slowly improve over time, purely for my own satisfaction. The quest lines are very engaging, and I'm perfectly content to hope for rare drop chances, or wait for a WQ to pop up with a Rank 3 pattern.

I can see why players with different priorities would get frustrated though!