Professions in TBC

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
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I am for the most part advocate of #nochanges for Classic content.

The main reason being that although there are certainly things I’d like changed, I understand everyone probably wishes for different changes, and as such if it gets 0 changes, I will accept it as it is and deal with it.

However, if ANY changes are made, I expect them to be proper.

Profession perks are extremely unbalanced in TBC.
Fortunately, the worst aspects of that unbalance were successfully addressed in WotLK and can definitely be used as an example to follow if any changes are made.

It’s important to note that all of this is so obvious - so common sense - that a topic like this shouldn’t need to exist.
But the “upcoming” changes to the #nochanges prove otherwise.

1 - Gathering
Gathering offers nothing in terms of perks for a raider.
Therefore every raider needs double crafting.
This is not the end of the world as you can easily have a “gathering alt”, so it doesn’t warrant a change.
However, it could easily be fixed with the WotLK perks.
Even if it ends up not being optimal, at least it’s something.
Again, it’s not the end of the world. So I’m fine with it as it is.

2 - Crafting
Most crafting professions offer nothing useful that warrants keeping them on a raiding character.

The exceptions are Enchanting and Leatherworking due to Ring Enchants and Drums, respectively; and to a lesser extent Engineering with its perks.

To make it clear how night and day the usefulness of professions can be:
Blacksmithing has BoP specialization gear that takes a lot of time and materials to unlock & craft, and yet it quickly becomes obsolete, serving as little more than a “stepping stone”, making it an unattractive profession.

Example: Blacksmithing Lionheart Executioner, the FINAL upgrade of the Swordsmith Specialization 2H BoP craftable, is marginally stronger than TK/SSC drops, and much weaker than BT drops.
That’s a profession that is USELESS for 2 entire raid tiers.

By comparison, Leatherworking also has BoP gear with the same issue as Blacksmithing - but actually covers more gear slots.
However, it also has Drums which is mandatory for raiding.

SOLUTIONS

All Professions
For any given raid Tier, make sure all the endgame crafted BoP gear remains relevant and offers a reasonably similar degree of benefit.

Leatherworking
Option a) Drums - party-wide, 40 yd radius, no cd = 1 LW per group = 5 per raid.
Option b) Drums - raid-wide, 40 yd radius, 2m cd & 30s duration = 4 LW per raid.
Option c) Remove Drum LW requirement & add improved BoP Leg Armor Kit.
Option d) Remove Drum LW requirement & make the specialization BoP gear BETTER than the raid drops.

Blacksmithing
Option a) BoP extra gem slots perk from WotLK.
Option b) Make the specialization gear BETTER than the raid drops.

Tailoring
Option a) add improved BoP Spellthread
Option b) Make the specialization gear BETTER than the raid drops.

Alchemy
Trinket also increases effect from Elixirs/Flasks.

Jewelcrafting
It only becomes “obsolete” in SWP.
Simply add improved BoP versions of SWP gems.

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There is other gear than just pure power progression - like resistances or pvp oriented gear.

3

All professions offer something - that’s not the point of this discussion.

What I am saying is that there is no point in having Alchemy, Blacksmithing or Tailoring on your raiding character.
You can have it on an alt. But not on a raid character.

As it stands, Leatherworking + Enchanting are pretty much mandatory.
Even if Blizzard made Drums BoE, Enchanting would still be mandatory due to Ring Enchants (which are only usable by the Enchanter).

So either remove the class restrictions on all perks/make them BoE, or balance them properly so that all professions are equally relevant.

4

What if you don’t have an alt or don’t care if your raid character has herbalism + alchemy for example?

Lack of ring enchants won’t make or break boss kill while drums issue is still open and with current Blizzard idea you will not use drums until they release the bigger version for Sunwell.

If you increase the power level of other professions up then the problem won’t be solved, just magnified.

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Changes are for those that care - not those that don’t.

With what Blizzard has in store, everyone is pretty much forced to go LW/Enchanting.

To those that don’t care, it doesn’t matter, and this discussion is not for them.
To those that do care about having all crafting professions feel useful on their raiding character, we need changes.

So either a) remove perks across the board (Enchant requirement from Ring Enchants, LW requirement from Drums, etc);
or b) adjust the weak/obsolete professions

I’d rather not mess with those that enjoy LW and Enchanting as it is.
I also seriously doubt anyone would feel bad about not feeling bad about their profession choices.

6

Kind of do have to have Blacksmithing and Tailoring, but as you said, once you are equipped in T5 gear those two professions falls short of just about everything and what they do offer can easily be handled by an Alt.

Enchanting is like Jewelcrafting… Necessary for those BoP enchants/jewels you can make, but even this is unlikely to be required for most hardcore guilds (unless you’re going for World Firsts but… that’s so few guilds).

Leatherworking will be required by most hardcore guilds as it stand and that actually brings the professions out of balance… It’s going to be extremely boring game where everyone sits and alternates jewelcrafting/enchanting and have LW so you can progress marginally faster…
Worst part is that it will spread to PuGs.

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Jewelcrafting becomes obsolete in SWP because the Epic Gems there are no longer BoP.

It’s not okay to have a mandatory profession becoming useless later on anymore than it is to have a completely useless profession.

Blacksmithing/Tailoring aren’t “required” early on, but simply “useful” like any profession should be.
Alchemy also has pretty good Trinkets.
You quickly get raid drops that are equivalent from the same tier that gives you the materials needed to upgrade your BoP.

So the only professions with actual “benefits” are LW due to Drums, Enchanting due to Ring Enchants, JC until SWP comes out, and to a lesser extent Engineering with some useful gadgets mostly for PvP.

If changes are going to be made, they should be made across the board for professions, and it’s an easy thing to do by just looking at what WotLK is going to bring. Simply anticipate a few of those profession changes and everything will be good.

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Alchemy is a good gold maker, double duration flasks and some pretty good trinkets for healers come SWP (BiS for some even). BS I believe can make some pretty awsome BoP weapons for some classes. Tailoring can make sets from launch that are on par with tier 5 items and also has some patterns in SWP to make BiS BOP chests.

Wouldn’t really call that obselete

Only change I would advocate is a change to drums, so 80% of a raid isn’t pushed into LW under the modern min/max culture. Easy fix by making the buff raidwide or the drums useable by non-LW. Kinda would also advocate the same for bloodlust, so it’s easier to make balanced raid groups, but that’s probably going to far for most.

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Isn’t it the part of old WoW? In Classic I rolled mage, frost on start which I liked but then fire because it’s better and because early raids are immune to fire pretty much. Same will be in TBC where BiS builds are already predefined and if you want to perform you have to use them.

It will be near impossible to convince them to do so. It’s like asking for Retail 2.0.

So that so you need LW Drums, Enchants from Enchanting, trinket for alchemists and Tailoring bonus from new got-tier set? oh, and that super engi head piece… The theorycrafting will determine which is BiS and everyone will be “forced” into that specific combination. Even worse than before.

IMHO if Blizzard doesn’t want to make a QoL change on the drums nor do they want to do massive amount of changes across raids, professions etc then if they force drums to only the end of TBC the it will be the lesser evil.

And they may do this purposefully to show how their modern WoW is “better” and we thought we do but we don’t :wink: :wink: :wink:

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This is the sort of reason why I am honestly wanting fresh servers, or at least migrate some of the less-popular servers into fresh so we have the option…

Things like jewelcrafting, blacksmithing and so on will become more viable.

Do you remember how populated we were back in tbc/wotlk? And would create the low level items, like the level 21 green rings etc and they would sell like hotcakes because they were nice enough to have for alts and for those starting fresh on servers without much of a high cost.

We aren’t doing boosts, we aren’t doing gold bid runs in raids for BIS gear either, we simply grinded and it felt amazing when you got something, remember when you was an engineer and you would make the goggles for your headpiece before you got a better drop in dungeons at level like 22+? yeah that’s the exact thing i’m on about.

What people need to remember is with the current state of things, people are going to go in with thousands if not hundreds of thousands of gold, midmax everything and not want to raid after the first few times because there simply isn’t anything more to do other than throw gold at it.

We want something that is at least viable for the months to come, something that we can say when it hits Christmas at the end of this year, yeah i’m going to take 5 minutes off to have some food and family time but I really have progressed a lot as a whole, as a character, as a guild.

If we continue into TBC with the state we are now, there is going to be none of these exciting moments when you create these items as you’re going to simply burn through all the content before anything.

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Lionheart Executioner? Haste proc one-handers? Skillherald?

That’s three reasons to have Blacksmithing right there.

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How does JC become obsolete? If you were playing Fury Warrior you’d drop Blacksmithing for JC in Sunwell because the JC crafted neck is so much better than anything else (and that goes for other classes too), while the Blacksmithing chest piece isn’t even as strong as the leather drop.

Professions in TBC are completely fine, the only annoyance is LW and the only reason there is a big fuss about it is because Blizzard lied about changing it.

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How are they fine if you drop one for another in a heartbeat?

Fury getting JC because it has a BiS craftable in SWP is not a problem.
Everyone going for the same profession is.
Everyone ignoring the same professions is.

Enchanting provides Ring Enchants - no other profession has that.
LW provides Drums.

JC may gain a BiS neck for Fury in SWP but its BoP Epic Gems are made obsolete by the SWP Epic Gems that anyone can use.

Even ignoring Drums, the difference in usefulness between BS and LW is staggering.

Again, from a raiding character perspective.

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Trouble for you is that those that apparently don’t care (like me) are non minmaxers and vastly outnumber those that do care (minmaxers). I don’t want the game changing to suit a few percent of the playerbase.

Edit. Opinion, not fact.

15

The Enchanting bonus is smaller than the bonus of being able to equip that neck. And unless you’re in absolute BIS gear (long after progression) enchanting is also inferior to other crafted items from Sunwell, it’s only right at the end of gearing where items like the crafted BS chest or Engineering goggles become very marginally inferior in a full BIS set and where having ring stats from enchanting is preferable.

Then there is also the fact that ring enchants currently don’t require enchanting to benefit anyway, so you’d only really level it when you have BIS rings and then drop it immediately, something Blizzard should absolutely change.

Professions are fine because all of them have some form of benefit throughout the expansion and it’s extremely narrow/short sighted to only look at things from the perspective of how your char looks AFTER you’ve cleared ALL of the content in the entire game. Only LW lacks that distinction because you don’t want to take LW as a mage or a warlock, but you have to for a raid buff. The ring enchants are absolutely miniscule by comparison with drums, it’s like comparing a mountain to a molehill.

Also, there are no new epic gems in Sunwell. The epic gems are available in Hyjal and offer 10 stats, the JC BOP gems offer 12. And considering that JC offers the strongest BOP crafting item in Sunwell, you have no reason to complain… For you as a Warrior JC is inferior until Sunwell comes out, literally the opposite of how you’re painting the picture.

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The point being that changing the game to address these issues doesn’t affect those that don’t care.

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Oh but it does. It’s changing the game. The game has changed over time and we have retail. Classic doesn’t need to change

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But we can’t even agree that these are issues. Nobody is complaining that Blacksmithing is practically mandatory for DPS Warriors or that Tailoring is practically mandatory for Warlocks. Nobody is complaining that JC is worth less in Sunwell (other than you), especially given the great items added for JC in Sunwell patch (BIS necks + rings, strong catchup trinkets).

People are only complaining that

  1. Enchanting ring enchants don’t even require enchanting if you’re willing to spend the gold. They are a small bonus either way.

  2. Leatherworking provides no benefits or desirable items to most classes but is required for Drums, because 5% haste is massive.

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@Iggwilv
@Zumbakumbo

And my argument is that I want consistency.

I’m completely with Iggwilv on zero changes.
But we know some changes are going to be made, and if ANY changes are made, I want them to be proper and across the board.
Specially when they regard a situation that was vastly improved in WotLK.

What I am against is arbitrary recognition of one issue and ignoring others that are just as important if not more.

Fixing useless professions is at least as important as fixing mandatory professions.

Just because some players are okay with gaming a broken profession system, that doesn’t make it okay.

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