In Vanilla WoW, I had a hunter named Kurnmogh. Kurn was my main. Did everything with him. I was a skinner and leatherworker and got Finkle’s skinner and skinned Core Hounds (when people would remember to loot their bloody hounds!) and I enjoyed farming Black Dragonscales for the Black Dragonscale Mail set…
And I created a paladin, Madrana, and decided she should get herbalism and alchemy.
When Burning Crusade arrived, I elected to drop alchemy in favour of jewelcrafting and drop skinning in favour of mining. So Kurn would supply Madrana with ore until I could afford to just buy ore outright.
It worked nicely but I swapped Kurn back to skinning to supply my own leather for leatherworking.
Classic WoW saw me actually change things up. I rolled a hunter, Kurnmogh, who was a miner and an engineer. And Madrana became… an herbalist and alchemist. Okay, so I didn’t really change things there. But I didn’t pick up JC when BC Classic came out. So now, a week away from Wrath Classic, I’m sitting here with mining/engineering and herbalism/alchemy on my two level 70 toons. I also have a level 62 toon who is also an herbalist/alchemist. (Sue me, I like transmutes in the later expansions.)
While perusing the various pieces of gear available for holy paladins, I deliberately skipped out touching things that are available to people with specific professions.
And then, this weeekend, I was going through the professions and found… the Figurine – Sapphire Owl.
Okay, to be clear, it’s not like I didn’t know about it. As a JC through from BC to present day (even if I don’t actually play retail much), I knew about the Sapphire Owl. I used the Sapphire Owl in Wrath.
I didn’t remember how good it was until I looked up the stats. +42 intellect? Two sockets? Add 16 int in each and you have a trinket with 74 intellect that will restore 2340 mana over 15 seconds every five minutes. Now the mana restoration isn’t all that amazing, let’s be fair. A Runic Mana Potion is basically double that. And, later in Wrath (Ulduar, while facing Vezax), I remember having a mana pool of over 30,000, fully buffed, with a Flask of Distilled Wisdom. So, like, 2340 mana is not the selling point. The 74 intellect is the selling point. I even used that trinket (along with my Pendant of the Violet Eye) for that fight, because it’s all about the size of the mana pool.
So now I’m looking at my toons… Kurn is 70 and mining/eng, Madrana is 70 and herb/alch and my priest is 62 and herb/alch.
So maybe I should make Madrana a JC…
I’m not going to be able to afford a Darkmoon Card: Greatness. I will probably make myself a Mercurial Alchemist’s Stone, but there are no other trinkets with any intellect on them in Phase 1. The next phase, Phase 2, has two nice trinkets, one from Algalon, and one from Mimiron. In Phase 3, there’s Tears of the Vanquished, off the Black Knight in TOC, which all of my lowbie healers used. But in Phase 1? Just the Greatness card and the Figurine.
But am I even going to play that much?! No idea. So not sure if it’s worth it!
For anyone playing a holy paladin seriously, though, I highly recommend Alchemy and Jewelcrafting as professions. Engineering is interesting too, if only for the haste tinker on gloves, which you can use every minute. Early in the game, the haste will be useful, but could be overkill later in the game when you naturally hit having a 1s global cooldown.
The reason I stick with alchemy is the mercurial stone that is a solid trinket to start with and gives you 40% more mana per mana potion. Instead of ~4300, we’re looking at about 6k mana per potion with the stone equipped. That is not bad. Plus, you get the Mixology perk, which is super nice.
If you decide to power-level alchemy or JC, check out the guides at wow-professions.com.
So, what do you think of my choices? What are you going to enter Northrend with as your professions? Let’s hear it!
I was thinking of switching my Ret Pally from Mining/Blacksmithing to Mining/Jewelcrafting, mainly because the grind to get to max level Blacksmithing in TBC Classic was absolutely nuts. I could argue something similar in Tailoring, but at least I could make Spellcloth and get something viable to sell (or use) out of it. With Blacksmithing, however, not so much.
I did remember doing Jewelcrafting back in the day on my Ret (formerly Holy) Pally, mainly because it made me gold on the AH. Well, that and that I could cut gems for the guild I was in; if I wasn’t able to raid, I could at least help support the team.
As for my Mage, probably gonna stick with Tailoring/Enchanting, despite being told by random players that “Enchanting should never be on a main.” (And yes, they were as annoying as you might have imagined.)
Blacksmithing is a weird, weird profession. I’ve always felt it should be two: armoursmithing and weaponsmithing. And it’s been so limited because it’s just warriors and paladins who can even wear plate — until DKs arrived.
I’ve never made full use of tailoring, but the cloth stuff you could make in BC was pretty great.
JC is pretty decent for gold, if you have some rare(r) cuts or a cheap influx of raw gems. I’m hoping to snag the Delicate Scarlet Ruby recipe on day 3 to try to corner the market on agi gems or something. We’ll see how the market goes. :)
I disagree — enchanting is useful on a main because are you REALLY going to grind all that rep or do all those runs where BOP patterns drop on an alt?? Hell no. Tailoring/Enchanting is a great, time-honoured combo. :)