8/1: Notes on WOW Professions

I have a batch of nine Alliance characters: one of each class, at least one of each race, at least one of each profession. Eight are level 60; the ninth is 62. (She is obviously the current project.) I've enjoyed playing this way; instead of "power-leveling" professions, I've played them as I've gone along. I also have appropriately-leveled cooking, fishing, and first aid. The crafting professions have made gear for everyone; the gathering professions have supported that. I've found that my characters were making appropriate gear for the appropriate level most of the time. (I'll see if I can discuss a few exceptions below.)

First of all, here's what I have right now:

Night Elf Priest Herbalist/Alchemist
Night Elf Hunter Skinner/Leatherworker
Night Elf Druid Tailor/Enchanter
Human Mage Miner/Blacksmith
Human Paladin Miner/Engineer
Draenei Shaman Miner/Jewelcrafter
Dwarf Rogue Miner/Skinner
Gnome Warlock Miner/Skinner
Draenei Warrior Miner/Skinner

(I am not involved in the beta, as I'd rather get my characters closer to a point where they can participate in WotLK when it comes out. At that point, since I meet the eligibility requirements, I will be creating a Death Knight of undecided race. She will be an Inscriber. I discuss her other possible profession below.)

(Yeah, some of those combinations are funny. Take a minute and laugh. Get it out of your system.)

*Herbalist/Alchemist obviously work well together. On my next batch of characters, however, I will not have this be the priest. I think it would make more sense to give potion abilities to someone who can't already heal herself. I'm leaning toward the mage, although the rogue might also be a good choice.

Since I never created another herbalist, I clearly had enough herbs to support alchemy without needing to supplement. Since we learned that Inscription will also use herbs heavily, I've been trying to remember whether one herbalist generated enough herbage to support two professions. I think probably not, although I'm giggling at the idea of a level 55 Death Knight skipping through Teldrassil picking Peacebloom.

*Skinning/Leatherworking work together naturally. I lucked out here; I would say the two best choices for a leatherworker would be a hunter or a shaman. (These two classes move from leather to mail at exactly the same point that the profession does.) Obviously, a rogue or druid would also work here, as they remain in leather the entire game.

*Tailor/Enchanter. I go back and forth on this one. In some ways, it was nice to have these two professions together: she could make cheap greens that were never going to sell on the AH and then DE them herself, getting two skill-ups for one set of mats (at first, and then later the materials for the second skill-up).

Tailoring does actually have a gathering profession associated with it, but by default, everyone is a cloth gatherer and doesn't have to train or level the skill. (My grandmother told tales of the Ragman who would come to the house occasionally to gather discarded scraps of clothing. Every character in WOW is a default Ragman.) Although the timing doesn't always work out just exactly as I'd like, I haven't had a problem having both cloth for the tailor and enough to level everyone's first aid and eventually some to sell or make into extra things to sell.

So in some ways, the tailor and enchanter went together naturally. In some ways, though, they were problematic. This character has *two* crafting professions, both of them expensive to level; she also has no gathering profession for easy money. She is therefore the clan's Welfare Case; most of the others are able to support themselves and pay for their own leveling in class and profession skills, but she sometimes needs a cash infusion.

Another advantage to having two crafting professions in one characters: one fewer character to drag through reputation grinds. (I may change my mind on this later, but right now, if a character doesn't need to have a good reputation with a particular faction to obtain a desirable schematic or item, I haven't taken the time to do that grind. I don't think it'll be fun to have to drag five people through the Timbermaw grind, where my poor leatherworker is working right now, instead of four.)

Another reason her income is low: when she finishes a quest or otherwise wins a new item, she DE's the old one. She therefore does not have the income from selling it that the others would have.

The flip side of that is that she contributes the DE materials that are below her level for sale, and they sell very well; she also contributes tailoring products to the AH, and they generally do well. So she makes the group more money than she takes, but she doesn't have as much ready cash of her own as the others do.

In my next batch of characters, I think I will separate these and combine both Tailoring and Enchanting with a gathering profession to help cash flow.

I've also toyed with the idea of combining enchanting with inscribing, since the materials for inscribing have natural use to the enchanter, but I think it'd be cheaper just to mail the parchments to the enchanter, or that'll be another character with two expensive crafting professions to level. I've really enjoyed having all the professions, and I think I've learned a lot doing it. One of the things I've learned: two crafting professions is a cash drain.

I also don't think I'd make the druid a tailor, since it's a more logical fit to give this to a squishy. When Inscribing allows Enchanting to sell its wares on the AH ("stoked" would be the word for the joy this gives me), then I don't think it'll much matter what class the enchanters are. Druid seems as fine as any of them.

*Miner/Blacksmith. Okay. This shouldn't have been a mage. By the time I figured that out, though, I thought it was funny, so I'm going to have a mage with a purple sword when the time comes. The two professions go together naturally and smoothly. This should have been a warrior or pally. (The other classes aren't particularly weapon-dependent, with the possible exception of the rogue.)

*Miner/Engineer. This was the paladin, and I actually liked that; having explosives gave the pally a way to pull, which she was generally lacking. The primary disadvantage: those wonderful cloth headpieces are wasted on a pally. I still liked the way this plays, though. (And a pally with a mechanical dragonling, advanced target dummies, and explosive sheep is wicked.)

Disadvantage: Pallies can already resurrect, so Jumper Cables aren't quite as cool or useful as they might be on a rogue or someone else.

*Miner/Jewelcrafting. This was the shaman, which was fine. It might also make sense to give this, with those handy healing statues, to someone who can't heal, like a mage, warlock, or rogue. The BOP trinkets were cool with the shammy.

*Three skinner/miners. Now I did this because having the crafters weren't generating enough materials on their own to level in a timely manner. This has produced way too much leather, but still not quite enough ore. (For awhile, between blacksmith quests and things I wanted to make, I needed something like 500 mithril and 300 thorium. That took forever. I did finish that, but now I'm trying to make both the pally and the warrior the Imperial Plate set. Even with six miners, I'm short on thorium, especially since the jewelcrafter and engineer need some, too.) In my next set of characters, I won't have so many skinners, and I'll have at least one more miner. (The tenth character will probably end up being herbalism/inscription, so she should be able to take care of herself.)

All of my characters are right around level 300, so I haven't done the final slog yet. That may change some of these thoughts. This is where I am right now.