Changing professions

[gash46]

Hey guys, thinking of coming back for WLK with my Shaman. As a reroll she's got jewelcrafting and mining (classic..) and am thinking of taking Enchanting (on my previous main, always loved enchanting) and a secondary. I'm hoping to switch builds from time to time, her main being enhancement probably, so my question would be what do you recommend for a second profession? I was thinking alchemy for the buffs, or maybe skinning for some extra cash while leveling up, as so far LW sets don't seem great.

[Shikaka]

Still Alchemy + Leatherworking. Leatherworkers will have a profession only wrist enchant that dominates that of enchanters.

and well, alchemy always has it's uses.

[Elementium]

I got Skinning and Leatherworking. Skinning is good because theres never a shortage of resources and hell you can get greens,blues etc while farming. Plus there's practically no ninja skinners out there who wait to skin your kill.

Leatherworking is great cause of the leg and now the wrist enchantments.

I actually wouldn't go with enchanting because in WotLK they'll be sellable on the AH so they will be alot easier to come buy as opposed to sitting in a city all day spamming "WTS enchant".

[gash46]

So what about Enchanting and Leatherworking? Bonus to rings + the LW bonuses to wrists etc?

[Elementium]

So what about Enchanting and Leatherworking? Bonus to rings + the LW bonuses to wrists etc?

If your willing to spend the money that would be a good idea. LW mats are usually expensive, for example I sell 20 Thick Clefthide Leather on the Ah everyday for like 100g and it only takes about 45 minutes to get.

[Tal]

I have 6 70lvl, all with maxed out professions. My raiding toon is an Enhancement Shaman, currently LW/Alch.

I'd keep mining for the leveling up, it's guaranteed to be able to make money selling what you mine while questing. There will be legions of JC/Engineers/Blacksmiths trying to max out their professions. You can always drop it if you feel the need once you hit 80.

If you are sure you dont want to continue as a JC, and wish to pick up a second profession, I'd advise a second gathering profession, herbing and skinning are easy to level compared to mining.
My farming toon is a hunter Herbalist/Miner, but skinning should do well, and wouldnt require switching the minimap scanner periodically. Just decide now, and level the skill up to 375 before the expansion.

Most important thing is to decide what you are going to replace when you hit 80, And reserve the mats for it now.

For me, Alchemy and I imagine Inscription as well, will be the most painless to level. You just need to create a bank alt and farm bags of herbs. I took Alchemy from 0 to 375 in less than 6 hours once. But the agony of leveling Enchanting once was enough to ensure I never tried it again. Only Blacksmithing was nearly as challenging. I've leveled multiple Engineers and Jewel-crafters and find these somewhere in the middle as far as expense and effort.

Leatherworking will most likely have patterns of great benefit when WOTLK comes out, just as it did in TBC. Blizzard wants us to feel we got value you from our professions so LW will most likely provide access to items superior to 10 man lvl Epics for those slots, equal to or perhaps even superior to 25 man epic level, requiring final components similar to primal nethers that must be farmed from Heroic Instances. Unless you are in a raiding guild, anything from leatherworking or blacksmithing will undoubtedly last you well into your endgame at level 80.

Personally, I'd never give up my Alchemy, as a Enh Shaman who raids, the +40% trinket bonus to pots as well as Mad Alchemist Potions are just too good. So if I were in your shoes, (and felt JC didnt do much for me) I'd consider dropping JC for Herbalism, level it now, and then drop Mining for Alchemy once I hit level 80 and was ready to pick it up.

Though following the same path with Skinning and changing to Leatherworking at level 80 wouldn't be a bad idea either.

[gash46]

Thanks a lot for the long reply
Tempted to take Herbalism and Skinning to level up, once I hit 80 possibly replace herbalism with LW until I've got most of what I need from it (entry level sets) and stack up on some leather, then by the looks of things alchemy is the way to go, especially if I'm inclined to try healing again. Enchanting doesn't seem to have enough of a bonus now...

Elixir spec for alchemy?

[Tal]

Tempted to take Herbalism and Skinning to level up, once I hit 80 possibly replace herbalism with LW until I've got most of what I need from it (entry level sets) and stack up on some leather, then by the looks of things alchemy is the way to go, especially if I'm inclined to try healing again.

Elixir spec for alchemy?

I've gone LW/Alch for two reasons. One, I have other toons that farm herbs/leather for me, and two, as a raider I'm on drum rotation in the melee group. Sadly the new 2min debuff to drums means that 4 players will no longer be able to keep the drumming buff constantly up in WOTLK, reducing the benefit of having so many LW.

Despite this, the new leather 'wrist enchants' and the promise of good lw gear at 80 will keep me a LW, at least until raid drops eclipse the bop Leather-working patterns.

Your mileage may vary, however, if you are not a consistent raider and dont have a gathering alt, one gathering skill and one crafting profession may be a better way to go.


As for which alchemy mastery, all of them have benefits. If you have high TBC reps, and therefore access to main TBC rep Flask recipes, then Elixir is a strong choice.

Playstyle really impacts which Alchemy mastery is best for you, I feel.
A raider may well benefit from potion mastery.
If you are in the habit of logging in daily, even if you dont do much, Transmute Mastery is excellent for turning a profit, from extra procs as well as from turning low value primals in to higher value primals.
If your playtime is more sporadic (2-3 times a week, but a couple of hours at a time) and you dont mind herb-farming, I'd go with Elixir Mastery. Collect some herbs, make the pots, keep what you need and sell the rest.

[kakashi]

you go enchanting for 1 simple reason... Ring Enchants... as Resto/ele 40 spell haste will be far moar superior then the LW bracers enchant. and you get 80 Extra attack power for enh etc...

going LW/Enchanting might be an idea... personally on my resto shammy i'm thinking about dropping JC for Alchemy(already got 3 alch alts though) for the trinket... as i wont see momento trinket from Illidan for a while (i'm like last in line for it.. so far only 1 dropped).. but yeah...

like i said you will want enchanting if your gonna PvE its really gives you an advandage...

edit: checked LW patches again... well LW is abit better for melee but for resto/ele 40 haste is better... depending on how Alch/JC turns out i'll go LW(together with enchanting ofc)...

[Deleted]

Will there ever be LW "enhancements" for Elemental/Restoration shamans? I mean with spellpower/spellcrit etc.
I was wondering to turn in my Mining (I have other toons with mining) and get Leatherworking, keeping my Jewelcrafting of course (I also have a toon with skinning).

In TBC there were a lot of very cool BoE items you could craft with LW for Elemental and Resto shamans. If they add new LW enhancement items and they keep up with those BoE recipes, LW could be a nice addition for my JC? (yes, I love JC).

I dunno, Enchanting BoE enchants look cool, but it's so expensive/slow to level Enchanting that I really don't want to go through it again. Maybe I should consider Inscription? Any good BoE inscript have been leaked already?

[Sarevokcz]

Will there ever be LW "enhancements" for Elemental/Restoration shamans? I mean with spellpower/spellcrit etc.

LW is going to get bracer enchants, 70 SP, 90 sta or 120 AP

but i guess u meant leg enchants... i suppose no, since those are available from tailors, but id definately love to see more usefull enchants than dmg/sta and dmg/spi, more like dmg/hit or dmg/crit, maybe haste, same for LW, AP/hit, AP/haste

[Deleted]

LW is going to get bracer enchants, 70 SP, 90 sta or 120 AP

but i guess u meant leg enchants... i suppose no, since those are available from tailors, but id definately love to see more usefull enchants than dmg/sta and dmg/spi, more like dmg/hit or dmg/crit, maybe haste, same for LW, AP/hit, AP/haste

Looking good, I might really turn in Mining for LW then, which doesn't even seem that hard to level up to 375, right? At least compared to JC or Enchanting...

[Sarevokcz]

tbh, i dunno now, when i leveled LW up to 375, there werent any "cheap" recipes, it was about 6 primals per item, tho it wasnt prolly that bad as mining
but fro what i heard, drums and riding crop last longer yellow afaik, which could make LW realtively cheap up to 360-65

[Deleted]

And getting to 350ish honestly could be enough, since after that you would most likely able to use the WotLK cheap recipes to skillup

[Gomexus]

I'm 375 LW/Skin atm and I must say...LWing is pretty much worthless atm in TBC.

Our prof specific sets do not last nearly as long as tailoring...nor do we have upgradeable patterns such as the blacksmithing weps and armor.

I am a dragonscale LW'er so the first set I made was the elemental set. It's actually pretty decent to start off raiding with due to the lack of +spell dmg mail items. The problem is that in a raid environment the T4 set would be an upgrade due to set bonuses and belt should be replaced asap by Belt of Ruination...bracers may be the only piece you are wearing by the time you hit T5 and even then it's iffy.

I made the enhancement set next. I'm not exaggerrating when I say this set lasted me a total of 3 RL weeks...not /played...just 21 days before I replaced every piece with either pvp or pve gear with better stats. The set is very good but it doesn't last as long as the elemental set and that's sad for a top end profession item.

So far in WotLK I am severely unimpressed by LWing. The wrist enchants look nice and the leg armors are definitely nice, but other than that I don't see any room for progression as Blizzard talked about months ago.

I have been seriously contemplating re-rolling JC/Mining. Mining will always be a staple source of income and JC'ing to me seems to be a very hand trade. Considering we have 3 specs which require completely different gems.

[Sarevokcz]

i was keeping my LW set until kael chest, but that was only because we didnt do mag at all, and before t6 quality badge items were available, otherwise, it would be changed alot sooner

also bracers are easily replacable by s3/s4 bracers, which are clarly superior to anything up to SWP and t6 bracers (from mail ofc)