The Big War Within Profession Post

All right, folks. Here it is. The very long profession post for The War Within. Note that these are, as always, just my opinions (and I always have a lot of them) and that there is a Comment Policy in place here. Please don’t be a jerk, thank you kindly.

In the past, when trying to untangle something to do with holy paladins or something, I would often try to explain it here on my blog to see if I really did understand the thing. I’d be in the middle of writing something and go “oh, wait. WAIT. HOLD THE PHONE,” and then go test something at 2am or whatever.

When it comes to planning for The War Within and professions, I have been researching for like, a month. At least. Are you excited yet??

Kurn’s Characters

Let’s start out with the fact that I have eleven level 70 characters ready to go for early access on Thursday, August 22, at 6pm ET. Here is my spreadsheet of professions for the various toons. Please feel free to make a copy for yourself and organize your own stuff!

Okay, so if we look at the spreadsheet in question, we have 11 characters and have this spread of professions:

  • 5 Herbalists
  • 4 Miners
  • 4 Alchemists
  • 2 Scribes
  • 1 Blacksmith
  • 1 Enchanter
  • 1 Engineer
  • 1 Jewelcrafter
  • 1 Leatherworking
  • 1 Skinner
  • 1 Tailor

I can already hear you all going “wtaf, Kurn, why do you have FIVE herbalists, FOUR miners and FOUR alchemists??? Isn’t that MORE than you had in your last blog post???”

Uh, yep, that is, in fact, the case. In my last post about this stuff, I had 4 herbalists and 3 miners and 3 alchemists. As I’d mentioned in the last post, I want all the characters I can’t play well to have a gathering profession, because then I can at least level them. I am very bad, for example, at being an evoker. I still don’t know what 97% of the skills do. I die frequently. I am just bad.

Part of that is because I just don’t care enough to be better on those characters. I could go to Icy Veins or something and figure out the right spec and the right rotation and I did spend some time doing that in Dragonflight, but ugh, doing that for all these characters? All eleven? No thanks. I dislike playing a warlock, I don’t enjoy playing a warrior, and, like I said, I am just bad at being an evoker. So, at minimum, those three toons need gathering skills. The evoker already has herbalism, it’s largely how I got her to 70 in Dragonflight. The warrior? Hah, the warrior was a boost when I bought The War Within. And the warlock? I was already 65-66 by virtue of profession quests most weeks and then I just took him out and did stuff for a week. (While healthstones didn’t properly cool down, just FYI. That was unfun.)

Anyway, the only two toons who don’t have a gathering profession are Madrana (I am not dropping alchemy, which I have had since the day I rolled her, nor jewelcrafting, which I’ve had since it was introduced in Burning Crusade — I spent days in The Exodar!) and the priest, who’s an alchemist and enchanter. This is because I am confident I can level Madrana within a gathering profession and, at the very worst, I can do all kinds of follower dungeons with the priest. I still sort of know how to heal, after all. But everyone else needs a gathering profession for the time being to get up to 80.

(80? Dear God, I feel like I should be prepping to run Azjol-Nerub and Ahn’Kahet: The Old Kingdom. Which I guess we kind of will be, given the theme of this expansion and its focus on the Nerubians. But you still get my point, right? As I was levelling my latest timerunner, an Alliance druid, to 70, I kept muttering to myself “look, you’re not in the Mana Tombs. You’re not in Auchenai Crypts. You’re not queued for Sethekk Halls. THIS IS BETTER.”)

So, yes, it’s to help with levelling characters I don’t want to kill things on and such. But, it’s also to help with making gold. Let’s talk about that, shall we?

Kurn’s Herbalism Plans

In The War Within, you have three Herbalism trees for your profession. They are Bountiful Harvests, Botany, and Overloading the Underground. Much like in Dragonflight, if you put 40 points into Botany, you gain the ability to pick herbs while mounted.

However, I have just saved myself 160 points of Herbalism in the early game because:

  1. One of my planned herbalists is a druid, who can already do that
  2. I bought a Sky Golem

I’m actually annoyed that I bought the Sky Golem, because I have an engineer who was boosted in Pandaria and, therefore, learned how to make the Sky Golem. I even had 21 of the 30 Jard’s Peculiar Energy Source I needed! I even had a few of the 30 Living Steel I needed! So why did I buy a Sky Golem? It’s because I had run out of time. 21 of the Jard’s means I needed 9 to make the golem, which means nine daily cooldowns consisting of 90 Ghost Iron Bars, which is 180 Ghost Iron Ore. That doesn’t even include the Living Steel mats, which is TRILLIUM. Yeah, no, wasn’t going to be able to build it in time — which is my fault. I didn’t think I had any of the Jard’s source, but, lo and behold, I had 21. Crazy. Anyway, I looked at my spreadsheet tonight and decided to buy the Sky Golem. I went to The Undermine Exchange site and looked up Sky Golem. I clicked on it and scrolled down to where it shows the realm data and I clicked to sort by price. At the time, the cheapest was for about 23,987g (something very close to 24k) on the Dragonflight server. So I created a new alt there, withdrew the money from my warband bank, then purchased it on Dragonflight, put my leftover cash (and the mount) into the warband bank and then learned it on a toon over level 30 (the requirement).

While I will put points into Botany eventually, I’m not going to do it right at the outset. I’m probably going to learn it as my second tree, but I will only learn it, and I won’t put points into it. Upon learning the specialization, “Gathering herbs in Khaz Algar will replenish 1 Vigor. +30 Deftness while gathering herbs.” You don’t need to put points into it at all, just open it up, and you’ll get those perks. I’m planning on getting to 100 Herbalism pretty quick on at least one character — it’s probably just a couple of hours of farming if you get some special nodes and such.

So if I’m not putting points into Botany, where I am putting points?

Bountiful Harvests.

In case you’re not aware, the WoW devs have realized there’s a problem with the increase in gathering skill leading to fewer rank 1 herbs/skins/ores. Eventually, rank 2s and 3s get devalued in comparison. After not playing for several months and coming back this summer, it was ridiculous that I could buy a rank 3 Bubble Poppy for less than a rank 2 sometimes, and it always cost me less than a rank 1! So the key in all gathering professions is going to be in your ability to pick, mine, skin and refine your herbs, ores and skins. To do so, you need 40/40 points in Bountiful Harvests to refine to rank 3. You only need 20/40 points to refine to rank 2, but I think it’s really going to be worth it to drop your first 40 points directly into Bountiful Harvests.

From there, it sort of depends where you’re going to farm. You will want to max out one of the sub-specs to 40/40 because it’ll allow you to find Null Lotus more often while picking that specific kind of herb. So if you want to herb the crap out of Mycobloom (which is the most common herb, like Hochenblum was), max the heck out of it to allow you to more easily come across the Null Lotuses. Null Lotuses are, of course, used in the making of flasks, so this is going to be an important ingredient as we approach raiding and Mythic + dungeons. Looking at the calendar Blizzard provided, normal dungeons are open as of early access (to those with early access) on August 22, while heroic dungeons open on the global launch on August 26. Just over two weeks later, on September 10, Normal and Heroic raids (plus LFR Wing 1 and Mythic 0, heroic seasonal dungeons, etc) open up. The following week, September 17, Mythic raids and Mythic + dungeons open up.

Early access theoretically will not grant a long-term advantage to people. In this recap from a November, 2023 interview with Ion Hazzikostas, it states:

Players will be unable to do Mythic 0/Mythic+ dungeons, loot the best items from rares, access weekly profession cooldowns and profession specialization points.

Now, there’s two schools of thought on what the heck this actually means.

  1. Players won’t be able to spend any accumulated profession specialization points until after the reset on Tuesday, August 27, or Wednesday, August 28 (depending on region).
  2. Players are only unable to access weekly profession quests (like craft 2x of this thing, or give me 16 ore, etc) and are unable to get a spec point from the Algari Treatise books.

Far be it for me to actually link to the WoW forums, but, uh, there’s a few threads and this one seems less hostile than some.

I think the second school of thought makes more sense. Just don’t implement the weekly profession quest thing until reset and don’t allow people to use the treatises until reset. It seems way easier to implement those things rather than not allow people to open trees and use points, right? I would hope it’s a limited effect, but I am also somewhat prepared to get no points until August 27. Which would suck. But at least I’ll be herbing and mining and skinning?

Why am I talking about this? Wasn’t I just talking about important dates in WoW? Why yes, yes I was. So why am I talking about points and stuff?

It’s simple. If we just miss out on like, 3-4 points in the early access, that still leaves 2 or 3 weeks of full specialization points (knowledge points?) to cash in on the surge for flasks and potions and all the things so people are ready to raid or do mythic +.

For the gathering professions, let’s say 3 full weeks of getting (and this is an estimate):

  • 3 points from a profession quest
  • 1 point from an Algari treatise
  • 5 points from random gathers
  • 3 points from the epic random gather item

So that’s 12 x 3 = 36 points, which does not count the bonus for the first node of that kind.

For Herbalism, there are five kinds of base herb nodes:

  • Mycobloom
  • Blessing Blossom
  • Arathor’s Spear
  • Luredrop
  • Orbinid

Then, there are four (?) empowered types:

  • Crystallized
  • Altered
  • Sporefused
  • Irradiated
  • AND there’s Lush, like there was in Dragonflight

Now, assuming you can get each of the herbs in each variant type (and you may not, I’m not sure), that means:

  • 5 from the base nodes
  • 5 from the variants on each (5)

So that’s another 30 points.

Given perfect luck in nodes and such when it comes to Herbalism, you can theoretically get 66 points in the first three weeks. Don’t quote me. I don’t know if you can get, say, an Altered Arathor’s Spear or an Irradiated Orbinid. (Also, I’m bad at math, in general.)

This means that you, as an herbalist, have a choice. Do you go for the ability to refine herbs first OR do you go for the ability to find more Null Lotuses on a single type of herb? You can’t do both before raids come out, not even in the three weeks before mythic raids/mythic +.

For those of us with multiple herbalists, this isn’t an issue. One herbalist can get the ability to refine the herbs to max rank (40 in Bountiful Harvests) and any other ones can focus on the actual nodes, leading to more Null Lotuses. (I should note that I just spent like an hour herbing and mining in the beta and I got like 2-3 Null Lotuses, without any skill in a specific node and just flying around the Isle of Dorn. Of course, I didn’t have much competition, so your mileage may vary on live servers.)

For those with just a single herbalist, I gotta go with the ability to refine herbs to max level. This is something that will be useful throughout the entire expansion. Even if you max out every single spec tree and node within that tree, you will still be picking rank 1 herbs as we await the Midnight expansion, probably in the next 18-24 months. People will still want flasks and potions and fancy stuff in a month, two months, 12 months. And they will almost certainly still want max-rank herbs. At the beginning of the expansion, it becomes even more important that they’re max-rank because not everyone will have blue profession gear yet, and so people will need to use Concentration to max it out. If Concentration takes 5-6 minutes per point to regenerate, this severely limits how much of anything crafters can make. The higher quality the materials (the herbs, ores, skins), the easier it is to max out the final product. As time goes by, it’ll still be important to be able to refine these things to a max rank, but the demand will be mostly earlier on. (In my opinion.)

So, my plans:

  • 1 Herbalist to go 40/40 in Bountiful Harvests to get the refine to ranks 2 and 3
  • Other Herbalists to go 5/40 in Bountiful Harvests to open up the various nodes, probably starting with Mycobloom, and then go 40/40 to get more Null Lotuses

Whew. Is that it? Are we done?

Not even close… 😅

Kurn’s Mining Plans

Herbalism and Mining are very similar in terms of trees. You have three specializations and Bountiful Harvests equates to Plethora of Ore, while Botany equates to Mining Fundamentals and Overloading the Underground equates to Mastering the Mysterious.

That said, there are a couple of major differences here. The first is that Mining Fundamentals is a freaking 60 point node and it’s at 60 points that you can finally mine while mounted. 60! Outrageous! 😂 Similarly to Botany, though, if you open up the spec, you restore 1 Vigor when you mine, so this is useful to bear in mind.

Plethora of Ore is likely where I’ll start out, but the interesting thing is that each ore has its spec and it’s within that spec that you can learn to refine the ore. Bismuth, which is the common ore, has a 45 point spec and it’s at 20 points you can refine Bismuth — and only Bismuth! — from rank 1 to rank 2. At 40 points (out of 45), you can then refine Bismuth — again, only Bismuth! — from rank 2 to rank 3. Filling out the spec allows you to stop damaging Null Stones when gathering Bismuth. What’s a Null Stone? Looks like it’s going to be a very in-demand mining gather. I don’t think it’s exactly the equivalent of Khaz’gorite, because it’s not an ore, exactly, but it’s a byproduct of mining.

Okay, let’s look at how many points we can realistically get in mining in three weeks, like we did with herbalism. Again, this is an estimate:

  • 3 points from a profession quest
  • 1 point from an Algari treatise
  • 5 points from random gathers
  • 3 points from the epic random gather item

So that’s 12 x 3 = 36 points, which does not count the bonus for the first node of that kind.

For Mining, there are three kinds of base ore nodes:

  • Bismuth (the most common)
  • Aqirite
  • Ironclaw

Then, there are four (?) empowered types:

  • Crystallized
  • Weeping
  • EZ-Mine
  • Webbed
  • AND there’s Rich
  • AND there’s Seams

Now, assuming you can get each of the mines in each variant type (again, I’m unsure), that means:

  • 3 from the base nodes
  • 6 from the variants on each (3)

So that’s another 21 points.

That means that we can estimate about 57 points in the first three weeks, assuming things go perfectly and you’re able to get every combination of node and such.

So, what do we do here? What is going to be most in-demand? Like the herbs, I think it’s going to be the refined ores. I’m looking at putting in 10/50 into Plethora of Ore, then unlocking Bismuth and just slamming in the next 45 points into it to get me able to refine Bismuth at ranks 2 and 3 and get undamaged (?) Null Stones. That brings me to 55 points, and then I can start in on another node. I don’t know how frequently we’ll come across Ironclaw and Bismuth once we leave the Isle of Dorn, nor do I know how prevalent Aqirite will be elsewhere, so depending on market demand, we’ll see where my next 45 points go.

It’s at this point I would also consider maxing out the 60 points in Mining Fundamentals. With the initial rush out of the way, now we want to go for efficiency. Without a mount like the Sky Golem, we have no way to avoid putting points into this tree. You can just go for it after maxing out a single kind of node in Plethora of Ore, in my opinion, and I’m thinking about it, too, since it will save so much time on every. single. node. for the rest of the expansion. We’ll revisit this in the future.

As such, my plans for my four miners:

  • 1 Miner to go 10/50 in Plethora of Ore to unlock Bismuth, then max out that node
  • 1 Miner to go 10/50 in Plethora of Ore to unlock Aqirite, then max out that node
  • 1 Miner to go 10/50 in Plethora of Ore to unlock Ironclaw, then max out that node
  • Now that I can refine those three ore types to max, I will probably have my fourth miner start filling out Mining Fundamentals (to 40) and get Rich Deposits and Seams maxed out

… I don’t know about you, but I’m already tired thinking about all this. 😅

Kurn’s Alchemy Plans

We’re going to skip Skinning for now, because I have four planned Alchemists, so let’s get these multiples out of the way before we get to the singles.

Compared to everything else, Alchemy is ridiculously simple. I’m planning to put 10 points into Thaumaturgy and then 20 points into Gleaming Transmutagen, so I can make Blasphemite with the Gleaming Glory transmutation.

The only trouble here is that you need 80 Gleaming Transmutagen to do that. This took me about two hours of research to figure out: You need to use Thaumaturgy until you discover one of three new transmutes: Ominous Herbs, Ominous Call or Ominous Gloom.

You also need to drop another 15 points into Thaumaturgy: 10 more to unlock a new subspec and then 5 into Ominous Materials, so that you can discover those things. So it’s only at 45 points total in Thaumaturgy that you can start doing Thaumaturgy to discover one of the transmutes above. I finally discovered Ominous Herbs. The wow-professions page says you have to do it on certain mats, but it may be outdated because I did it on Ominous Transmutagen and it just took A SINGLE use of Thaumaturgy on 20 Ominous Transmutagen and I learned Ominous Gloom.

Doing Ominous Gloom granted me a bunch of stuff including 23 Gleaming Transmutagen. And then it promptly went on CD for 24 hours. Luckily, I can reset that on the beta. Another one gave me 21 Gleaming Transmutagen. 22 Gleaming Transmutagen on the next. Then 23 on the next. So we’re looking at a minimum of four transmutes to get enough Gleaming Transmutagen to create the Blasphemite.

… or are we?

Turns out that if you push Thaumaturgy to 35/55, “Performing acts of Thaumaturgy now grant Gleaming Transmutagen.” So I tried it out on 20 Luredrop and I got… 3 Gleaming Transmutagen. 20 Gloom Chitin got me… 3 Gleaming Transmutagen. 20 Blessing Blossom? Yep, you guessed it, 3 Gleaming Transmutagen.

The good news is Thaumaturgy doesn’t have a cooldown. The bad news is it’s 20 of each item for 3 Gleaming Transmutagen. While we will definitely want to get to 35/55 in Thaumaturgy eventually, it’ll really only be when mats calm down a little in price or if we have a ludicrous number of spare mats. It’s probably best to go back to Thaumaturgy to get to 35 after you’ve started making your Gleaming Transmutagen regularly through the transmutes.

So, my four alchemists are all going in this direction unless there is A LOT of Blasphemite on the market. As far as I’m aware, only alchemists can make Blasphemite… Could be worth a lot.

That said, flasks and potions are both smaller trees now than they were in Dragonflight, so if you’re not all about the transmutes, or if gold is a bit tight, Potent Potions looks great especially if you’re out there raiding or pushing mythic +. The Bulk Production potion subspec, at point 20, says: “The first potion you craft per day will grant you 5 soulbound conjured copies at max quality.” That is going to be so much cheaper for those of you doing fun raiding/dungeoning things!

Still, I’m aiming for the transmute game for now.

What next…?

Kurn’s Inscription Plans

Oh, right. Having two scribes is kind of a late decision, all things considered. To say that I have made a lot of gold over the years by virtue of Darkmoon Cards and Inscription would be the understatement of the century. I think I topped out at like seven million gold at some point?

So, they’ve changed how Inscription works with Darkmoon Cards in The War Within. You no longer craft the cards, as I understand it. You find them. Like… out there. In the world. 😒 How dare they make us LEAVE THE COMFORT OF THE CITY? 😂 And as you spec into each deck, halfway through you get a point that gives you a 50% higher chance to find the damn things. And then at 30 points, you can “learn how to transcribe other Khaz Algar Darkmoon Cards into Darkmoon Cards of (the deck)”.

Given that my scribe is my Evoker, whom I cannot play worth a damn, as previously noted, I was not thrilled. I was basically just going to give up on making tons of gold with Inscription… and then I levelled my druid on MOP Remix and now hi, hello, I have an 11th character to do something with. Since it’s a druid, obviously it’ll be an herbalist (also as previously noted), but it’ll also be a scribe. The druid will be my “go forth and see what drops” toon for Inscription. So I’m going to:

  • Take Archival Additions. Oddly, as of Beta (11.0.2 (56110)), once you open Archival Additions, you can go through Cryptic Collection and then select any of the decks without depositing any points in any of them. I don’t know if that’s intended. If it is, heck, pick a deck and drop 15 points into it so you can start getting cards to drop. As you get more points, drop them into the same deck so you can basically recraft other cards into your cards.
    • If it’s not intended, it’s the same theory — max out one deck before moving on to the next. It’ll just take some extra points.
  • But for my evoker, who will spend her time herbing and crafting the new Algari treatises and such, she’ll go into Pursuit of Knowledge. Like Dragonflight, the treatises are discoveries while crafting treatises. Just selecting Pursuit of Knowledge gives you the Inscription treatise. On beta, I crafted my first Inscription one and then discovered Blacksmithing. Then I crafted that one and I learned Leatherworking. So it probably won’t be too hard to grab them all and it doesn’t require any points that I can tell so far. They are still BOP, so these will need to be requested through crafting orders.

(Honestly, I think something is weird with Inscription with the lack of needing to drop points in. I guess we’ll find out at launch.)

Okay, what’s next on the list… all the single-toon professions, I guess.

Kurn’s Skinning Plans

Oh, this is just rude. In the Tanning tree, we have Tanning and then Luxurious Leathers and Concrete Chitin. You have to max out both the leather and chitin subspecs to be able to refine both to rank 3. 😒 And in order to even get to both subspecs, you need to put in 30 points into Tanning. So that’s 40 points into both leather and chitin subspecs plus 30 into Tanning, which is 110 points. Bloody hell. On the one hand, may as well get started here because… I’m going to want rank 3 leather and chitin to work with as a leatherworker myself. On the other hand, ugh, it’s not appealing to me. But I’ll probably take it anyway and start with Concrete Chitin, just because I’m a mail wearer myself. So 10 points into Tanning, then 40 points into Concrete Chitin, then going back to Tanning to open up leather and continue the process. But I’m not happy about it!

I looked at the Harvesting tree and, frankly, I noped out for the time being. I love the idea of creating stuff I will need for cooking and stuff, but there’s so little information about cooking and fishing (no, I will not go into those in this post) right now that I can’t make an informed decision about picking up Harvesting at this point.

Luring looks fun, but I’ll worry about that last, I guess.

Kurn’s Leatherworking Plans

Okay, on to Leatherworking. I’ve had LW on Kurn since the first day I ventured out of Shadowglen. (Skinning is something I’ve dropped and picked back up a couple of times, but never LW!)

While I am interested in learning how to craft armor for leather and mail wearers, the awesome thing about leatherworking is how much profession equipment it can make, so that will likely be Kurn’s focus to start. In Dragonflight, leatherworkers could make 8 pieces of profession equipment or accessories: LW Smock, Skinner’s Cap, Floral Basket, Durable Pack, Protective Gloves, Jeweler’s Cover, Smithing Apron, Alchemist’s Hat… and the blue versions thereof. It looks to be the same in The War Within, with 8 green recipes (all learned from your trainer) and 8 blue recipes (all purchased with Artisan’s Acuity).

As such, Kurn’s first 10 points will go into Flawless Fortes (note that’s pronounced fortays, not forts) and then I’ll go ahead and max out Epic Ensembles. Of note, at the max rank, you’ll use 5% less Concentration when using concentration on professions equipment. Not sure where I’ll go after 40 points, but that’s a problem for Future!Kurn.

Kurn’s Blacksmithing Plans

Similarly, Blacksmithing also has 8 profession equipment recipes and looks to be the same as Dragonflight, so that’s the direction I’ll go with Blacksmithing. However, it gets much more complex in Blacksmithing. Because of course it does. 😅

First up is 10 points into Means of Production, then unlock Tools of the Trade. Doing this unlocks your own blue hammer, so you don’t have to pay any Artisan’s Acuity to learn this one.

Then, there’s a choice between Trade Tools and Trade Accessories.

Of the 8 profession equipment recipes, five are tools and three are accessories. So I’m going to go with Trade Tools first and max it out and then move into Trade Accessories, although it looks like you have to max out Tools of the Trade to get the other subspec, so we’re looking at 60 points in Means of Production before we can open up the other of Trade Tools or Trade Accessories.

I’m suddenly really glad I have like 11 days off work around the launch… 😅

Kurn’s Engineering Plans

Engineering, like Blacksmithing and Leatherworking, has a number of recipes for profession stuff too! It’s got 7 types of things, unlike the 8 for the other two. It’s somewhat even, with 4 tools and 3 accessories. Thankfully, the tree is less complex than Blacksmithing.

First, I’ll drop 10 points into Engineered Equipment to open up Inventor’s Necessities. Drop 5 points there and then I can move to Profession Gear, where I can max that out for 30 points. Boom. 45 points and done for now. Again, I’m not sure where I’ll go after that, but it’s still Future!Kurn’s problem.

Kurn’s Jewelcrafting Plans

Jewelcrafters can make four profession accessories, but I don’t think I’m going to spec that way at first, shockingly. Given my army of alchemists, I am probably going to go into good, old fashioned Gemcutting. So I’ll drop 10 points in there and then move to Ruby. All the cuts (Emerald, Onyx, Ruby and Sapphire) will improve your ability to cut Blasphemite as well as the type of gem, so it’s really what you prefer. I think I’ll go Ruby just because I like crit as the main stat. So I’ll learn that and then I can automatically open one of the subspecs from there, which will likely be the Quick Ruby because who doesn’t like crit and haste? I’ll then max out Ruby and continue to put points in Quick Ruby. That’s 60 points in and beyond that is, you guessed it, Future!Kurn’s problem. 😂

Kurn’s Enchanting Plans

Okay, we’re getting into the last couple professions here and, let’s be clear, I’m a noob at them. I have very little idea what the hell I’m doing here.

Truthfully, when it comes to Enchanting, I’ve been looking at Gleeful Glamours. This kind of stuff is always somewhat popular, but it’s not necessary like actual enchants are. That said, these are in the same spec (Ephemerals, Enrichments, and Equipment) as things like Mana Oils… And those will be needed by raiders and such.

So I might just go 5 points into EEE, then 10 points into Material Maestro, followed by 0 points (to start) in Optimal Oils. This gives me the Oil of Beledar’s Grace recipe, which is for healers.

Then I might go back to 10 more points in EEE and pick up Deceptive Decorations for the Gleeful Glamours, and we’ll see if the healer mana oil outsells the glamours, I guess.

I could go straight for Everlasting Enchantments, except that I don’t know squat about who needs what. There will always be a huge market for those, so I don’t mind taking my time to learn about them and get into the market Later ™.

I will want to eventually get into Supplementary Shattering to get the multicrafting bonuses for the Deceptive Decorations, but that can wait. And I don’t know that I need Designated Disenchanter unless it’s super hard to get enchanting mats. Again, we’ll have to see.

Kurn’s Tailoring Plans

Okay, finally we come to Tailoring. My tailor is also a miner and is a mage, so I kind of know how to play him and he’ll be Out There in The World. As such, it’s very tempting to just go all out and max out Textile Treasures to maximize my chances of getting cloth while out in the world. Note that Nerubians count as humanoids, so “your chance to find cloth from humanoids” includes them.

Then again, dropping 10 points into Quality Fabric and then opening up Spellthread to learn Weavercloth Spellthread is bound to be worthwhile.

I will probably pass on Threads of Devotion for the time being since I only have three cloth-wearers in my arsenal and the priest and warlock won’t be doing too much of that “fighting” thing.

This leaves us with From Dawn Until Dusk. This is where the cooldowns occur — the Dawnweave Bolt and the Duskweave Bolt. Either way you go, it’ll be 60 points to fully max out one of the two: 10 points in From Dawn to Dusk, then 30 in Duskweave or Dawnweave Tailoring and then 20 in Duskweaving or Dawnweaving. To pick up the other, you need to drop another 20 points into From Dawn to Dusk, then another 50 to max out the other one, for a grand total of 130 points to max out both. As such, it’s probably best (at least to start) to only focus on one or the other.

I think I’ll max out Textile Treasures, then head to From Dawn to Dusk and get one of the two (unsure which yet), then max that out. That’s like 120 points total, so that’ll keep me busy for the foreseeable future!

Don’t Forget your FREE 200 Artisan’s Acuity!

The War Within’s equivalent of Artisan’s Mettle is Artisan’s Acuity. Here’s how to get 200 free acuity in a very short video I made from beta.

Your Turn!

What are you planning on for your professions in The War Within? Check out the Wowhead TWW Profession Calculator and share your builds with me!

Is it August 22 yet??? 😄

[Wrath Classic] Gems & Enchants for Holy Paladins

All right, folks, we’re coming up to the launch of Wrath Classic, so this will be an overview of Gems & Enchants for Holy Paladins.

But before we get into it, I did it. I dropped Herbalism and picked up Jewelcrafting and have gotten it to 368, which is close enough to maxed out for me. It’ll be cheaper to get to 375 with Wrath materials, but I’m pretty glad I made the decision to pick up Jewelcrafting. I think it would have super bothered me if I hadn’t. All-told, it wasn’t too bad. The worst part was the mithril. Oh god, the mithril. It was also super expensive at the AH. So I got on Kurn and spent a couple of hours doing laps around The Hinterlands. Yo, that was painful. But it saved me about 300g on the AH. So my total cost was around 800g or so, out of the ~2000g I had. Plus I was able to recoup some costs with leftover mats or things I created.

All right, so gems is probably the best place to start here.

Wrath Classic – Holy Paladin Gemming Strategy

  • Intellect
  • ???
  • Profit

That’s basically the size of it. If you get more intellect, do it. Let’s dive into the details!

Meta Gem Choices & Requirements

Surprisingly, there are a few different meta gems that are interesting.

Insightful Earthsiege Diamond – This is pretty much my top choice of a meta gem throughout Wrath, but in reviewing things, some others look neat, and I’ll get to them. Despite the tooltip, it appears as though this gem restores 600 mana when it procs, which is double the 300 mana it’s thought to give. I’m not sure if they’ve fixed this in Wrath or whatever, but if it does restore 600 mana when it procs, this is great. Bear in mind that this procs on spellcast. Basically any spellcast. Beacon of Light. Sacred Shield. Divine Favor. Divine Illumination. Flash of Light. Holy Light. Etc etc etc. The more you cast, the more mana you get back.

Requires at least 1 Red, 1 Yellow, 1 Blue gem. Now here’s the thing about meta gem requirements like this. This is all three colours. You can use a single prismatic gem to satisfy the requirements of the meta gem. An Enchanted Tear will grant +4 to all stats, for example, which is (and let’s be fair), super underwhelming. But it alone will meet the requirements of the meta gem! This means you do not need a Reckless Monarch Topaz or a Luminous Monarch Topaz (which are orange) to meet a red gem requirement. Nor do you need a Royal Twilight Opal (which is purple) or a Dazzling Forest Emerald (which is green) to meet a blue gem requirement.

And, most importantly, a prismatic gem does not need to go in a prismatic socket!!! The Eternal Belt Buckle is a prismatic socket, but you can put anything (except a meta) into that socket, and you can put a prismatic gem into any gem socket (except a meta socket).

Let’s look at an example, using the Gear Planner from Wowhead:

In this gear planner example, I have the Helm of Purified Thoughts, the Titanium Spellshock Necklace and the Ferocious Pauldrons of the Rhino and I have the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond in the helm. Let’s look at the other socket in the helm.

It’s a blue socket and the socket bonus is +8 intellect. Now, we can ignore this and drop in a Brilliant Autumn’s Glow, or we can put in a Dazzling Forest Emerald, which is 8 intellect and 4mp5, for example. If we ignore the socket colour and bonus and we put in 16 intellect, we get 16 intellect. If we put in the Dazzling Forest Emerald, we get 16 intellect and 4 mp5. So to me, the right choice for this socket is a Dazzling Forest Emerald as we get the same amount of intellect that we would with a Brilliant Autumn’s Glow plus the 4 mp5. So let’s put that in there and look at the updated planner.

Next, let’s look at the necklace. It’s a red socket with a bonus of 4 intellect. Underwhelming. Putting in a Luminous Monarch Topaz (9 spellpower and 8 intellect) is less intellect than just dropping in a Brilliant Autumn’s Glow. So, 16 int it is and here’s the updated planner.

Finally, let’s look at the shoulders. Yellow socket and the socket bonus is 6 stamina. Also underwhelming. But it’s a yellow socket, so we may as well drop in a Brilliant Autumn’s Glow for the 16 intellect and now we have an extra 6 stamina. Whee.

So here’s the updated planner.

If you hover over the meta gem, you can see we’re missing a red gem. We have not yet activated the meta. If you have no other sockets on your gear, it would be best to put in the Luminous Monarch Topaz into the necklace because it activates your meta. No other reason to do that. But let’s take a look at a more geared person with an updated planner link.

You can see here that there’s not a ton of sockets in this gear. Do we care about +9 stam as a socket bonus on the legs? Nope. Do we care about the +6 spirit on the chest that comes from the socket bonus? Absolutely not. But, if we have to use a Luminous Monarch Topaz anyway, why not take advantage of the socket bonus in the necklace? I get 9 spellpower and 12 int from that gem in that socket, with the bonus. Then, I can add a Brilliant Autumn’s Glow to the Eternal Belt Buckle socket. Doing it this way activates the meta and it gives us the max intellect by getting the socket bonus from the necklace.

So when to use an Enchanted Tear? Well, if you lack sockets, for one. For another, if the bonuses aren’t good enough to put in other gems. The other good thing about the Enchanted Tear is that it will always ensure this meta gem is activated. Always! Swapping gear can mean changing gems and bonuses and sometimes you’ll raid an entire raid week without your meta being activated… So be on top of things for sure and don’t forget to use a prismatic gem if all else fails to activate your meta.

Another meta gem possibility is the Ember Skyflare Diamond, which requires three red gems. You may think this is great, 2% more intellect? AMAZING!!! And you would be kind of wrong. If I had that meta in my gear planner paladin, I’d have less intellect than I have with the Insightful and I’d need to change out some Brilliant Autumn’s Glows for other gems to get the three red gems requirement. So let’s see what that looks like here in another version of the planner.

I’ve changed the meta and the gem in the helm. The gem is now a Royal Twilight Opal because it gets us the 8 intellect from the bonus and it counts as a red gem because it’s purple. I’ve still got a Luminous Monarch Topaz in the necklace. Then, I’ve swapped out the Brilliant Autumn’s Glow in one of the leg sockets with a Luminous Monarch Topaz. This gives me… 9 stam. Why didn’t I go for the socket bonus on the chest, instead? Spirit is useless. Stamina may keep you alive, one day. (I remember being ice blocked on Heroic Sindragosa with like 100 health left. Do not overlook the importance of stamina as a “nice to have” stat.)

So I have a total of 1017 intellect now. And my meta gem is active. And in my prior version, I had 1040 intellect.

Messing with the gems and gaining 2% intellect granted me a net loss of 23 intellect. 2% of like 1000 intellect is 20 intellect. This is not as huge as you think it might be, at least not at this point in the expansion. Let’s say you have roughly 30,000 mana (~1700 intellect), you’re still only getting 34 more intellect with that gem. At 15 mana points per 1 intellect… that’s 510 mana. Not ideal, not when you can get 600 mana back every time the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond procs. So definitely rule out this one.

Relatedly, the Beaming Earthsiege Diamond is also no good. 2% intellect is greater than 2% mana because Divine Intellect, which increases our intellect by up to 10%, is based on intellect and not mana. If given a choice, as a holy paladin, to pick something with intellect or mana, please pick intellect!

Tireless Skyflare Diamondrequires at least 1 Red, 1 Yellow, 1 Blue gem. 25 spellpower and a minor run speed increase? You must think me mad! But no, I’m not. Minor Run Speed Increase is a game-changer in this game. I’ll get into that a little more with enchants later on. Long story short on this one, though, it’s easy to activate (one Enchanted Tear), 25 spellpower ain’t bad, and run speed is godly. This is also likely to be cheaper. So don’t completely rule this one out, just know there are better ways to get run speed and Earthsiege is still better.

Revitalizing Skyflare Diamond, requires at least 2 Red gems. Well, 11 mp5 doesn’t wholly suck, but the Earthsiege is better for mana regen. (The procs mean about 50-75 mp5 depending on how much you cast.) But what about that 3% increased critical healing effect? That means it doesn’t “proc”, it just adds 3% healing to any critical heal. Probably best-used for a disc priest (what with their fancy shields). But what about us paladins? Let’s do some math!

In my crappy healing gear at level 70, my Flash of Light will hit for about 1579 and will crit for about 2428. Holy Light hits for about 5000 and crits for 7331 or so. Holy Shock hits for 2267 and crits for 3288. So let’s look at these numbers if there was 3% additional healing to the crits.

Spell   Normal  Crit      3%
FoL     1579     2428     2501
HL      5000     7331     7550
HS      2267     3288     3387

So the difference on FoL is roughly 73, HL is 219 and HS is 99. Note that this is a very small sample size and results may vary, etc, etc. What I’m saying is that 3% additional healing to crits is not presently a lot. Again, this may change later in the expansion, but at the start? Nope. Not this one.

And that’s it for gems and metas and such. Basically, do whatever you can to activate your meta gem, ignore any socket bonuses that don’t give you at least 16 intellect after you put in a matching gem (unless it’s to activate your meta gem) and go forth and enjoy your intellect.

Oh, and if you’re a blacksmith and have extra bracer and glove sockets, MOAR INTELLECT!!! (You also have more flexibility to activate your meta.)

Wrath Classic – Holy Paladin Enchanting Strategy

Shockingly, this is largely the same as gemming! Intellect! All the intellect! Is there more intellect? Please, give me more intellect!

Okay, here’s the gear planner link for the enchants.

Helm: Blissful Mending because 20 crit rating is not quite even 1% crit and 10 mp5 is just more reliable and useful.
Shoulders: Master’s Inscription of the Crag for the same reason as above.
Cloak: Ugh, these are awful choices. If you’re not a tailor or engineer, gotta go with Speed (15 haste)
Chest: Powerful Stats (+10 to all)
Wrist: Exceptional Intellect (+16 int)
Gloves: Exceptional Spellpower (28sp)
Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle
Legs: Sapphire Spellthread (50sp/30 stam) because spirit is useless
Boots: Tuskarr’s Vitality (15 stamina and minor run speed increase) because run speed increase > all other stats. It is SO much easier to dodge the lava wave on Sarth, or do the Heigan dance, or dodge the crash in TOC, or any number of other things. GET RUN SPEED. Engineers have Nitro Boosts, but it’s on a 3m cooldown which may not be enough for some of these scenarios. Personally, I would rather a persistent run speed increase than one on a cooldown.
Rings: If you’re an enchanter, greater spellpower is the way to go. If you’re not an enchanter, you cannot enchant rings.
Weapon: Greater Intellect (30 int)
Shield: Greater Intellect (25 int)

Whew. And that’s it, folks. Next post about holy paladins in Wrath will cover T7 gear that you want.

In the meantime, I wish you a pleasant time in Northrend. See you out there in Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra!

Cataclysm Meta Gems (and the Holy Paladin)

(Edit: 12/14/10, math is hard!)

One of my very first posts here at Kurn’s Corner was about jewelcrafting. It’s woefully outdated, obviously, but demystifying the jewelcrafting profession has always been something I like to do.

I was on the beta the other day, before it shut down, and I had copied over a fresh character copy in 359 epic level gear. As I was trying to gem her up, I realized two things:

a) … what the hell do I stack?

b) Oh my God, the Insightful meta cut doesn’t have a level 85 version!!

I’ll worry about how to gem as a holy paladin later on, but let’s talk a bit about the meta gems.

My Insightful Earthstorm/Earthsiege Diamond cut has been my go-to cut for Madrana since Burning Crusade. That’s, you know, four years. And now there is no Insightful Shadowspirit Diamond cut. This freaks me out.

Here’s a list of all the meta gems at 85.

Right off the bat, we can eliminate a lot of them. Austere (tank), Chaotic (caster), Destructive (PVP), Enigmatic (PVP), Eternal (tank), Forlorn (PVP), Impassive (PVP) and Powerful (PVP) are not on-par with the remaining options for a PVE-based holy paladin.

So here are the gems that I think could be useful to a holy paladin.

Bracing Shadowspirit Diamond – 54 intellect and 2% reduced threat. Typically, one would scoff at this, but were you aware that holy paladins no longer have an innate 50% less threat on their heals? Yeah, that changed at 4.0. So we’re causing a lot more threat than we did. Of course, in a raid situation, this should never be an issue, so this isn’t amazing, but if you’re honestly pugging all of the time and don’t have a solid tank with you, you may want to investigate this as a possibility.

Ember Shadowspirit Diamond – 54 intellect and 2% maximum mana. This is the big brother of the current Ember cut and it definitely looks beefy! In lieu of Insightful (proccing mana returns), Ember certainly looks like a useful meta gem. Remember that Replenishment is still based off of maximum mana, as is Divine Plea, so this is not a bad balanced meta, since it affects our regen and also increases our output (54 int is equal to 54 spellpower).

Fleet Shadowspirit Diamond – 54 mastery rating and minor run speed. The instant I moved to my RL friend’s guild, I was instructed to enchant Tuskarr’s Vitality for the speed boost. I have been a convert ever since. I am going to be asking every member of my guild to have some kind of run speed bonus, whether in their spec or their meta or their boots. Normally, the run speed metas are very PVP-related, but Fleet gives us mastery rating. While we’ll have mastery rating gems (Fractured. They’re yellow.) and mastery rating enchants, meaning mastery rating won’t only be available via reforging the way it is right now, this is still a potentially useful meta gem. Not only do you get the run speed and the mastery rating, but it frees up your boots for a potentially better enchant. More on this in a bit.

Revitalizing Shadowspirit Diamond – 54 spirit and 3% critical healing effect. Another balanced meta for us, since the spirit is pure regen and the 3% increased effect on crits is pure throughput. Given the new world of “no one is ever fully topped off” style healing in Cataclysm, this will almost certainly not translate into more overhealing. Further, for a holy paladin, our mastery rating will benefit from the larger crit heals, creating a larger Illuminated Healing shield.

So which one to pick?

Bracing and Revitalizing can both be activated with a single green gem, as they require 1 blue and 1 yellow. The Zen Dream Emerald, which is +20 mastery and +20 spirit, would probably be the best cut for a holy paladin out of the various green gems available. This would leave the rest of our sockets open to stacking intellect or whatever it is we will try to be stacking. Ember and Fleet require two yellow gems, which needs to be done in two separate slots. Granted, we’d probably use an orange gem to get 20 intellect and 20 of another stat. My favourite orange gem is the Reckless Ember Topaz for the haste, but we could also use Artful Ember Topaz or Potent Ember Topaz as an orange gem of choice.

So with the Ember or Fleet choice, we have to use two gem sockets for our meta versus the one with Bracing or Revitalizing.

Ember/Fleet = 2 orange = 40 intellect + 40 haste rating/40 mastery rating/40 crit rating

Bracing/Revitalizing = 1 green = 20 spirit + 20 mastery rating + 1 socket to do with as we please (probably 40 intellect from a Brilliant Inferno Ruby) = 40 intellect + 20 spirit + 20 mastery rating

Kind of on par with Ember and Fleet, no?

But then we look at Ember’s effect – 54 intellect + 2% maximum mana.

So Ember really looks like this: 2 orange + 54 intellect + 2% max mana = 94 intellect + 40 haste rating/40 mastery rating/40 crit rating + 2% max mana

Fleet’s stats need to be combined with whatever boot enchant you’d like that doesn’t increase run speed. So: 2 orange + 54 mastery rating + 50 mastery rating/50 haste = 40 intellect + 40 haste rating/40 mastery rating/40 crit rating + 50 mastery rating/50 haste

So Fleet is pretty much out of the running, if you’ll excuse the pun. ;) It does offer the most versatility, though. If you want 90 mastery or 90 haste, it would be easy to acquire those with a Fleet.

Bracing’s equation, with stats, looks like this: 1 green +54 intellect = 20 spirit + 20 mastery rating + 1 socket to do with as we please (probably 40 intellect from a Brilliant Inferno Ruby) + 54 intellect = 94 intellect + 20 spirit + 20 mastery rating

And Revitalizing looks like this: 1 green + 54 spirit + 3% increased critical heal effect = 20 spirit + 20 mastery rating + 1 socket to do with as we please (probably 40 intellect from a Brilliant Inferno Ruby) + 54 spirit + 3% increased critical heal effect = 40 intellect + 20 mastery rating + 74 spirit + 3% increased critical heal effect

It looks to me that Bracing and Ember are both sitting pretty in terms of intellect, with Revitalizing being more of an option if you need the extra regen. However, it should be noted that you aren’t getting intellect from Ember’s effect of +2% mana. You’re just gaining mana. So your mana pool grows (which is great) but you don’t gain spellpower or spell crit from its effect. So its effect isn’t really equal to the extra mana 20 intellect gives you.

Since I plan to heal primarily with tanks that I know and trust, I’m throwing Bracing out the window. Fleet has been eliminated. That leaves me with Ember and Revitalizing as choices.

As of right now, and bear in mind that this is before Cataclysm has even launched, I’m thinking of going with Revitalizing to try out the 3% increased critical heal effect and the fact that it’s easily activated with a single green gem. I’ll be sure to write another post if I decide to go with Ember or another choice!

Holy How-To #4 – Frequently Asked Questions

Welcome to my Holy How-To for PVE Paladins. This is the fourth of what I hope to be a great many posts aimed at helping holy paladins succeed at PVE content. I will focus primarily on max-level talent specs, glyphs, enchants, gems and the like, including tools, tips and tricks that I use, but I hope to touch on levelling content and advice as well.

Today, we’ll talk a bit about some of the most frequently asked questions pertaining to healing in current PVE content. This is NOT what I actually wanted to go over for my fourth Holy How-To. I actually have a half-written post sitting in Notepad at the moment about healing meters and why they suck. However, I’ve been looking for a new holy paladin for my guild (to replace the one who ninja-transferred) and I just kind of /facepalm when I see some of their armories. So inside, quick questions and answers for holy PVE paladins!

Continue reading “Holy How-To #4 – Frequently Asked Questions”

JC Vendor on PM, Rage Winterchill, Vashj.

So, my 70 priest is on Proudmoore, which is the first of all servers to finish Phase 4 and open up the JC vendor.

First of all, I respect the majority of players on Proudmoore as smart, good players. But dude, what pricks most of them seem to be. Alliance ninjaing nodes of everything from other Alliance, the vile Trade chat… It makes me miss Eldre’Thalas, even with its noobs. But the opening of the JC vendor on Proudmoore was… I can’t even express how loathesome it was. There was the usual flagged, mounted Horde, of course, but it was the behaviour of the Alliance that boggled me. People in General were complaining and they’d get told to shut up, to hit Ctrl-V and click on the quest giver’s bar to turn in the quest, told that it’s not a big deal, that they’re noobs… How is this any way to treat the people of your own faction? World PVP, isn’t that supposed to rally people of the same faction together against the opposing?

Instead, Proudmoore’s Alliance was rude, obnoxious and, frankly, it was embarassing.

I hope other servers will show a little more respect in the insanity that is the inn when their JC vendors open up.

And speaking of the vendor… 15 badges a gem. Seems like the official armory is wrong. And yep, at neutral, each pattern is 50g a pop. That’s 47.50 at friendly, 45 at honored, 42.50 at revered and 40g a pop at exalted.

Which is a lot of money. It’s over 1500g for all the patterns at exalted.

Which is why I’m really glad my guild went to play with Hyjal trash last night. I wasn’t able to be there on time, due to RL stuff, and wasn’t even supposed to be there, but they were short people, so they went to Hyjal instead of TK. Which is fine. ’cause I logged on, got a ninja-invite, a ninja-summon (in between Rage waves) and an hour and a half later, Rage Winterchill is dead and everyone in the raid is friendly, even me.

Woot, woot, 74g spent for all the friendly recipes (5g70s apiece instead of 40g!) and some unexpected progression. It was a good night for the guild. :)

Tonight: Vashj. must. die. We got her to 1% last week. 40,000 health. We put 2 DPS on east and west, 1 DPS on north and south, 5 DPS on the striders and melee on naga/leaked elementals. It worked out really damn well, to be honest.

Gems and You: A Guide

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to one of what will be many guides written by yours truly, Kurn. Today’s exciting topic, gems.

I’ve been a jewelcrafter on my paladin for almost a year, and to this day, it still astounds me how many people are missing the very basics of the jewelcrafting profession. This is not a guide about how to level up jewelcrafting (the three days I spent in Exodar, running from the AH to the JC trainer to get to 300, were not the most efficient or cheap days of my WoW career), but rather, to inform you about types of gems and cuts. Note that this guide will not be addressing any BOP gems and will only focus on green, rare and epic quality gems and cuts that are available from your friendly neighbourhood jewelcrafter. Further, it will really center on cuts for gems that are mined or come from prospected Fel Iron or Adamantite Ore or are epic-quality. (Pearls and meta gems will be addressed briefly.)

So, let’s get started.

Continue reading “Gems and You: A Guide”