Project Lore

When patch 3.0 hit, I dropped Engineering for Herbalism to prepare for Wrath. I thought it would better complement my Alchemy, and raw materials like herbs were likely to be in high demand as people level their professions. I thought that the Lifeblood ability would far outweigh the benefits of Engineering as far as usefulness goes, as the Engineering item enhancements do not stack. Months later, I'm wondering if I made the correct choice. Lifeblood is barely useful in PvE; healers don't expect me to cast a small heal over time and the health I regenerate in that period is unlikely to save me before a healer gets to me. It doesn't provide me with any stats. It is questionably useful in PvP, and I've been eying other professions like Jewelcrafting to provide me with more usefulness in raiding and arena. Blizzard has very much begun to treat professions like they treat classes: diverse, but all useful. Hardcore raiders will spend thousands of gold to squeeze out another dozen or so DPS, and Blizzard wants players to choose the professions they enjoy, not the profession that they should choose in order to best perform in content. All the different professions have comparable buffs to each class in both PvP and PvE situations, often in the form of bonus stats. These often take the form of special item enhancements, like Enchanter's ring enchants or Scribe's shoulder inscriptions, or passive abilities like Toughness. To me, Lifeblood is not nearly on the same footing. It has its uses in some situations, but having to use another action bar slot or hotkey as opposed to doing an enchant or getting a passive enhancement for a lesser effect gives me a sour opinion of Herbalism's PvE/PvP usability. As far as money making, some professions have some ability to make money by doing things you normally do while questing and exploring and an ability to make money by spending time on just the profession. Usually, this is in the form of gathering and crafting. For example, engineers can craft epic BoE items and collect from gas clouds they encounter in the world. Miners can mine from nodes that they find while out and about and can smelt ore into bars. Tailors can craft BoE items and have the Northern Cloth Scavenging to find more cloth while killing mobs. Either way, most professions are designed to be able to be lucrative both passively while roaming in the world or by investing time into them. Professions that satisfy this are Enchanting, Engineering, Tailoring, and Mining. I consider these professions to be much more appealing than the others. With the carpets from tailoring, I just may pick up Tailoring on my main (rogue). Its interesting to note that these professions are generally considered not to have a direct "complement", like Alchemy/Herbalism or Skinning/Leatherworking. For now, if Frost Lotuses weren't selling for 30 gold or more on my server, I'd be dropping Herbalism for something else right now, because it gives few benefits compared to other professions. The only benefit I would miss is being able to track herbs, which helps immensely for some of the Cooking dailies. As far as effort required, some professions are very easy and some are very difficult. Inscription requires you to stock a lot of herbs, pigments, and inks, and also requires you to sell a wide variety of glyphs to make the same amount of money as the other professions. Enchanting can be difficult to market - many players have an enchanter in their guild or someone they know rather than check the AH or shout in trade. Inscription seems very unappealing on a main for me for this reason and that its hard to "passively" make money. I think this needs work in the long run. What professions did you choose? Do you ever switch professions, and why?

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I haven't been playing a whole lot of WoW lately. I'll hop on vent every once in a while to hear the latest haps, or maybe log an alt and spy on the Totally Rad Guild (or their lower level equivalent, The Knights of Radshire), but I haven't spend much time doing anything meaningful in game. The one thing that really made me want to play last week, Brewfest, is no more. Of course, there are some other fun holidays coming up, but the Darkmoon Faire just doesn't do much for me. I turned in the Blessings deck a while back for the Crusader card, but now I don't even use it in enhancement spce (I've got a couple of trinkets that are better). So in light of this lull that many players seem to be noticing, I decided to look forward. The 3.0 patch is coming soon, which means there are going to be a lot of changes for, well, everyone. For some, more than others. Some classes, like Shaman and Paladin, are having set pieces reworked to play nice with new class mechanics. This will probably cause me a few headaches. To avoid those headaches, I have been playing around with Wowhead's recently unveiled Item Compare feature. In short, it allows you to compare a bunch of items or groups of items with built in stat weighting so you can decide which item would be best for you. For example, say I have two helmets and I need to decide which one is better for me. I take a look at this page and it shows me. What does this have to do with the changes to certain set pieces? Well, change the www. in that link to wotlk. and you get this page. Now, currently the feature doesn't seem to allow socketing or enchanting, but since, for an enhancement shaman, strength will be worth one attack power after the patch hits, even a lowly Bright Blood Garnet will be better than an epic Bold Crimson Spinel. So, let's say red socket will be worth 16 AP, a Bright Living Ruby. That offsets the AP bonus. Enh shaman will also be gaining 1AP per agi and 1AP per Int (talented). This means that, while crit chance will go down by a little under 1%, with the Cyclone Helm, AP will be much higher. Take into account a Meta gem and we have a winner. So, all I'll need to do is change to a Bright Living Ruby and I will be set for 3.0, at least in the helmet department. This tool will give me a chance to really figure out what I will need to change before the market gets crazy. Well, crazier, I guess.

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