Category: skinning

The Big War Within Profession Post

Kurn / / alchemy, expansions, gold, jewelcrafting, leatherworking, professions, skinning, the war within

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??? 😄

Legion, the Journey to 800 LW and Skinning Rants

Kurn / / leatherworking, legion, professions, skinning

(Spoilers abound for Legion, especially around Leatherworking. You have been warned.)

I’m quite enjoying Legion, but there are a couple of issues I have with professions. Don’t get me wrong, this is probably the best expansion since Wrath, I just have some… questions and comments regarding professions.

800 leatherworking

First of all, everything Gravenscale and Dreadleather for a Leatherworker goes grey at 780, assuming you don’t have any rank 3 recipes. By itself, this is fine, in my opinion. I knew we’d have a challenging expansion in terms of professions when I had to hurl myself off various cliffs and waterfalls, chasing a moose. (That’s a whole other story!)

The problem here is the acquisition of the various Rank 3 recipes. Let’s look at Gravenscale stuff:

  • Armbands: From elite Skrog Tidestompers/Wavecrashers at a ridiculously low rate
  • Grips: Drop from Advisor Melandrus in Court of Stars (Mythic only dungeon)
  • Hauberk: Drop from Latosius in Black Rook Hold only on Mythic
  • Treads: Drop from Cordana Felsong in Vault of the Wardens
  • Spaulders: ???
  • Girdle: Strap Bucklebolt in the Underbelly in Dalaran for 1500g and 500 Sightless Eyes
  • Leggings & Helm: Exalted with Valarjar

Of these items, the cheapest to make are the Armbands, which require no Bloods of Sargeras, though 110 Stormscale. The Treads, Girdle and Spaulders (who even knows where that recipe drops?!) all require 12 Stormscale and 2 Bloods of Sargeras, which is at least somewhat better than the Leggings, Helm and Hauberk, all of which require Felhide. (Though, interestingly, the Hauberk does not require Bloods…)

Of all of those items that drop in dungeons, none are a 100% drop rate.

It seemed to me that getting the Rank 3 belts for Dreadleather and Gravenscale were my best option. It took me a couple of hours, but I got all the crap I needed in the Underbelly and got my recipes (both Rank 2 and Rank 3, btw).

I was able to get to 790 pretty quickly, as my new hobby is farming basilisks for scales and Bloods of Sargeras, and then, disaster — the recipes turned green. Still, it wasn’t intolerable. I was able to get to 795 with a bit of effort and then 796 and finally, 797.

Ladies and gentlemen, getting from 797 to 798 required that I make nearly 40 belts. (I think the official count was 38, as best as I can tell.) That is 456 Stormscales (not a problem) and 76 Bloods of Sargeras. That’s where the problem was. Look, make it take 10, even 15 crafts to level up on a green recipe, but 38?! THIRTY-EIGHT. With two BOP items for each?! Ridiculous.

I guess RNG worked out for me though because I got from 798 to 799 on 13 belts and then, hilariously, I got from 799 to 800 with one single belt.

I hit 800 Leatherworking last night, before the Darkmoon Faire arrived, which was my goal. I don’t think that waiting for a monthly event should be your best chance of getting those last five skill points. I mean, it was good to know it was happening and, had I been stuck under 800 before the Faire left, I certainly would have taken advantage of it, but I don’t think it should almost be a requirement. I managed to get to 800 LW the old-fashioned way and I’m pretty pleased with myself, but the journey to 800 was difficult and I have spent way too much time killing way too many basilisks. (Current count is somewhere over 3000.)

And now, now we turn to Skinning, because there are some Issues.

First, I should note that miners and herbalists have it good, these days. No one can steal your node. Nodes exist for everyone and deplete for people individually. This is a great change. As someone with at least two herbalists and one miner, I can appreciate this. (I don’t want to talk about the quests related to these yet, though. More on that when I’ve maxed out those professions.)

Skinners, however, get screwed.

In this expansion, they got rid of mob tagging. On the whole, a great change. If you tag the mob, other people can tag it and you can all loot after you defeat the thing. (Well, same-faction tagging, anyway.)

Skinners, though, have the problem in that they need to have everything off of the corpse before we can skin. So if I’ve looted the body but my brother, Fog, who killed it with me, has not, then I cannot skin the corpse until my brother has looted the body too.

This is problematic for a couple of reasons:

  • Some people just don’t loot their mobs (which I do NOT understand at all! Looting is practically the whole point of the game!)
  • Other skinners will purposely tag all your mobs, let you do all the work and then deliberately will not loot, waiting for you to leave before they loot and then can skin.

The fact that when you loot, you loot ALL nearby bodies makes things even more difficult, because you can start skinning a couple of mobs and then other skinners can come running up and skin the rest. This used to be mitigated by not looting a corpse until you were ready to skin it, but that hasn’t worked since before AOE loot was introduced. This not only is still a problem, but is exacerbating the problem of other skinners purposely tagging your mobs, because if you loot one of them, you loot them all, giving them the ability to loot and start skinning when they feel like it.

That said, I’m pretty good at dealing with this nonsense, personally. If someone tags my mobs, I will go forth and tag ALL THE MOBS and just sit back and wait until they take off. I will feign if needed, I will get my pet to feign, and they may end up dead due to pulling all of the mobs. The lesson here is that if you’re a jerk to me, I will do whatever I can do to kill you in-game. Don’t mess with me, I farmed Elemental Plateau in Burning Crusade!

But we shouldn’t have to do that. If I have tagged a mob initially, you should not be able to prevent me from skinning it. Period. That’s where the problem lies.

Additionally, skinning in Suramar is a nightmare if you have a small cap on your Ancient Mana, because if there’s Ancient Mana on the mob that you cannot pick up, surprise! You can’t skin the corpse. That needs to be remedied ASAP and is, honestly, one of the main reasons I haven’t done a lot in Suramar yet.

Finally, Felhide. This is only acquired by skinning the Felhide Gargantuan when it shows up as a World Quest. This severely limits the number of Felhides that exist at any given time. On the one hand, that’s fine, because it means Felhides are valuable, but on the other, the demand and supply rise and fall with the RNG of the World Quests. I’d rather they be an extremely rare skin, even rarer than the Bloods of Sargeras, to be honest. There were two Felhide World Quests today and the price of Felhide is currently hovering around 300g apiece. Last Sunday, it was around 800g apiece. Do miners and herbalists have this RNG-World-Quest nonsense for any of their items? Honestly, I’d love to know.

Anyways. I’m enjoying the expansion overall. Kurn is 110 and I’ve still got a lot of quests to do in various zones. My shaman is 101 due entirely to mining and herbing and I’ve got Madrana halfway to 101 after opening up her class hall. (Loved the Dalaran Crater bit, check out this screenshot. We’re twins! Lightforge Armor and the Stormpike tabard FTW!)

twins

Oh, and I’ve finally hit more than a million gold. Yay! How’s Legion treating you?