Since we had a lot of changes around professions in DF, I am curious about your experience so far with crafting a gathering professions during this expansion? Did you struggle with professions and how much you committed in to them?
I heard that people with double crafting professions had a lot of issues at the beginning with limited daily orders, artisan mettle, knowledge power, etc. While gatherers, as usual, had a pretty good time with farming and selling materials on AH.
Personally, I always go with pairing one gathering and one crafting profession. My Shaman made a lot of gold as JC/min even without Lariant recipe (still donāt have it). At the other hand, my Mage was Alch/herb, but it didnāt earn much gold but was supplying both characrers with pots, flasks and that longer duration definitely helped to save few bucks. But I was not happy overal with alch so I switched it for Inscription since I like to play around working orders more then AH.
So now, I am thinking what to do in the future. Since I like to collect stuff and spending a lot of time in the old content, I am considering to ditch herbalism on my Mage and pair Inscription with Alchemy or Tailoring (looking all those recipes vendored makes me feel bad), but not sure is it a good decision and will I had a hard time with two crafting professions without gathering. Also was thinking to make Shaman a double gatherer, but losing all JC recipes doesnāt feel great and to be fair I spend most of my playing time with only one character and assuming I will pick Mage, so would like to not mess around with Shamanās professions for now.
Anyway, looking forward to hear your experiences in this expansion, how you āsurvivedā, did you get rich, poor or gave up of your professions at the end. 
2 Likes
I have not enjoyed aspects of the make over. The knowledge points system is awful. Iām still maxing professions this late on even though Iāve maxed them in skill a long time ago.
I have a small army of alts that cover all the professions. They usually have their corresponding gathering profession as I donāt like having to gather on a separate char.
The order system in principle is good but the fact that people can send empty public orders lacking even the gold to cover the cost of the materials let alone leave a tip is frankly useless. Having a weekly quest to do orders is just plain bad when there arenāt enough actual orders available listed publicly to cover it, well not ones that wouldnāt cost you. I mostly do guild orders these days because at least they provide all the mats and tip. I have to send myself orders from alts to do the weekly quest which is just a farce.
I have never made much gold from crafting but I believe you have to advertise in trade and put yourself out there and thatās just not my thing. I have friends who made a killing at the start of the expansion.
I remember getting stuck with some professions where you canāt skill up because you canāt make anything because you didnāt choose the most optimal route with your knowledge points. You either have to buy PvP recipes or wait for DMF for your skill up quests.
TLDR
- AH should be tied in to order system and all mats should be provided on public orders
- Points system shouldnāt be so convoluted and all professions should be equal
- Donāt make the weekly quests require you to do work orders
- Professions should flow with levelling regardless of where you spent your points
10 Likes
I picked skinning/LW so I can craft my own items and because Ion said skinning will be an adventure where you set traps and stalk rare mobs for valuable resources.
It was worthless since day 1.
I saved some money by crafting most of my gear, but I donāt feel like spamming channels all day, so Iām sitting on around 3.5k mettle.
Public ordersā design was rushed and twisted by compromise.
2 Likes
While the start was a bit bumpy in terms of crafting I persevered and camped public orders until I got my LW to max.
As I wasnāt advertising myself on trade I never really earned big on crafting, not on one go atleast.
Sadly I also missed out on the cobraskin farm train, though I did manage to sell one for over 200k before the market crashed down to 10k within the same week.
It was an interesting experience for sure, and overall I am satisfied with the crafting system changes.
I am still missing how the real crafting professions work. I havenāt manage to get the max skill of those either. I am ok on the gathering professions.
For my main i am usually sharing my screen on discord with the crafter who tells me what i have to do for a crafting order.
Next expansion, I will probably start playing an alt with double gathering professions just to try to make a lot of gold during the hype phase.
Once the raid/M+ season starts, I will play my main and go for alchemy plus some crafting profession. Alchemy tends to have useful passive buffs for PvE, so I like having it on my main.
This is something that I was thinking of with Alchemy. Alchemy has such a nice QoL things for PvE and can save some gold in a long run.
Unfortunately I donāt play my alts when expansion starts, I always put all my focus on the main and donāt rish with questing and exploring, thatās why I always miss the boat to get some good gold when the hype starts. Glady, this expansion I was very lucky with JC, made decent amount passively by crafting orders, but it was just a pure luck.
I canāt remember when I started levelling the alt support team but it wasnāt immediately. Preparing my main is always priority in new expansions.
TBH the only crafting profession Iāve maxed is cooking. The rest are all lagging behind and I really cannot be bothered with the updated systems.
Normally I have all professions at max with my alts but not this expansion.
1 Like
Comments like this from an MVP has pretty much put me off professions this expansion.
Iāve never really seen professions as a gold making exercise in any case, more a hobby really. Iād level it up later in the expansion when materials were cheaper and I was leveling alts which could use the items Iād make.
Although I didnāt do much with professions in Shadowlands either, so I probably canāt blame DF entirely.
Iāve been calling for a catchup on knowledge points since roughly 10.0.5, while I do enjoy the profession system I do feel like I have to agree with punyelf, no matter how fun the crafting is, the knowledge point system in its current state is completely keeping players who havnāt been caught up since day 1 away from it and is actively harming the profession system and peoples engagement with it
It is very costly to upgrade if you are not high enough to actually make gold with it.
And yes, I consider both a time investment as well as a gold investment as ācostlyā for those who say farm your own mats
In hindsight, the workorder system is also a joke, its just an extremely convoluted way to sell Bind on Pickup items as if they were Bind on Equip; just let us sell them as Bind on Equip rather then hamstringing us to a demand
4 Likes
Iāve barely tried too much of it but it seems to me they tried to copy a bit of what FF14 does on professions and gathering, then just half baked it and it came out all wonky and pointless at the end of it.
In my opinion, they should treat professions as FF14 does it and just allow players to have them all on 1 character if they so want to, as well as treat them more as their own class rather than an addition and build it from there.
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There is no significant or easy catch up. Iāve had the odd extra points but only as a result of grinding reputations and that is really bad and not enough points.
2 Likes
Honestly I wouldnāt even count those as catchup, cause theyāre accessible to anyone who does the rep. One time treasure is the same. Even those ahead can get the knowledge from them so its just knowledge Blizzard assumed you would eventually get anyway
Its pretty wild that we havnāt seen any to this day, I know I havnāt bothered with alts professions as a consequence
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I started out by pairing a crafting and gathering profession on every character I played, but the only crafting prof I ended up focusing on was blacksmithing on my paladin. Iāve never considered myself a crafter, but making my own stuff is fun, and I accidentally became a major source of blacksmithing goods within my guild.
After a while, as I started playing multiple characters and AH prices came down, I got alchemy on every character for the extended phials and the reduced negative effects of toxic phials and pots.
I like the new system a lot. Itās far more interesting than previous incarnations of professions, which were essentially just a case of levelling to max using AH mats and then forgetting about them. However, I am in a very big guild, and we have every crafted item covered within the guild. I imagine itās a lot more difficult for people who are in small guilds or not in a guild at all.
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The makeover is overall nice, but the forced RNG, lack of respec and catchup, along with some stupid decisions (like letting public orders be posted without provided mats) pull it down heavily.
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I will never understand that change with public orders.
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Pretty much no one does, except them and some keyboard warriors who most likely post Lariat orders with no mats and 1s commission.
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I think it could use some improvements going forward, but overall I actually like the new crafting system.
For me I would like to see a slight catch-up system in place (itās ok being a bit behind someone who caps each week, but right now anyone starting fresh will be really far behind) and while I donāt mind having some recipes be rarer than others, they went really overboard with the drop rates on some of them. (Elemental Lariat being the main offender, 3-4M gold I think it is without checking 
)
Agree. Thatās something I experienced with Jewelcrafting this season. Really liked to craft my own rings, necks and gems and also earned a good amount of gold, even without Lariant recipe (still donāt have it).
Currently I am playing my Mage more which was Alchemist/Herb at first but then switched Alch for Inscription and to be fair itās not bad at all. Thereās always some manuscripts or treaties to make, passively very nice money outcome. I also found out that gathering/selling raw herbs is not worth anymore and I thought to go back to Alch and pair it with Inscription, mostly for self purposes and improved QoL things that Alch brings. But my concern is that without gathering professions, jumping in to the new expansion could be a big money sink.