So, nine days ago I made the mistake of posting a new topic about professions in the professions subforum, and I am correcting that mistake by reposting it here. If you moderators don’t like it, then that is on you for failing to funnel activity to the different subforums we have.
Grinding dungeons for BoP recipes, I’m starting to miss the possibility for having a third Profession slot. This third slot should not work like the two others, because I see the value of limit the amount of professions each character can perform at the same time.
We have two main profession slots for fully utilising two chosen professions. Then a third profession slot should unlock when the main professions have at least 50/x skill points in each expansion. I figure 50 is a fitting casual requirement unless we want to make it a dead hardcore utility requiring all capped profession skills.
As example when main professions are Mining and Blacksmithing, one need at least 50/300 skills in Vanilla Mining + 50/300 in vanilla Blacksmithing, and through all the expansions to current 50/150 Shadowlands Mining and 50/100 Shadowlands Blacksmithing.
Now, what would be special about this third Profession slot is that you can only learn one single expansion profession, no more. Meaning you can chose to learn Cataclysm Enchanting, but you won’t be able to learn any enchanting from any other expansions. Also the slot is cleared by daily reset - you simply forget things. All your skills and learned recipes for this profession slot will be cleared, and you will need to learn everything for the given profession anew each day if you want to keep having it.
And in addition to the slot’s temporality, learning any professions for this slot should also not be as cheap as learning the professions for the two main slots. How costly it should be is open for discussion, but I imagine 1 000 gold is appropriate for learning the first skill point. (I don’t remeber whether it starts at 0/x or 1/x skill points.)
That is certainly also an option, but the challenge will have to be relevant to professions. Like have nothing unlearned in one of the crafting professions vanilla-Shadowlands that originated in vanilla AKA Alchemy/Engineering/Blacksmithing/Leatherworking/Tailoring/Enchanting.
Neither Inscription nor Jewelcrafting counts because that would be cheating compared to the other crafting professions due to their lack of BoE recipes in vanilla (- and TBC for Inscription).
I’d only okay it so I’d get SL engineer each day/week or whatever the reset period was, to be able to use Oribos AH. But I have an alt or two sitting there anyways so… not the biggest priority.
Using the combination of the dataforazeroth.com and the addons Ackis Recipe List and Altoholic I’ve been collecting recipes since first time when I alpha tested Ackis Recipe List. According to the Data For Azeroth site I know on my account over 67% of all known “current” recipes (over 5k of recipes for every crafting profession). I’m mentioning this because I checked the OP and frankly the idea he/she/they came up with can use improvements.
Like Skadefryden I’ve grinded extensively for recipes, and then I see items that go to waste when I go into a dungeon for more. The third profession slot could be added as a daily temporary buff that you get after doing a quest chain similar to the Broken Isles Archaeology quest chain. You can select one profession as a “third profession” as a reward and then use this in any setting (dungeons, raids, solo content). The buff could work similarly to the shoulder buff from Broken Isles Dalaran called Zookeeper that allows a person to gain extra pet tokens. If you select a buff where you know the skill by default you gain a 20% extra buff (20% more ore if you’re a miner for example).
I don’t agree with the idea of just having 50 skill points in each expansion to gain this extra profession, i.e. in my case that would be access to the quest line that gives the daily buff. I’m pretty “casual” as you get them and getting professions leveled up has really become an easy thing these days. Skadefryden needs to try getting 50 skill points in each profession in WoW Classic to see how easy it is in retail WoW. There are several “professional master” achievements under Professions in the Achievement list. I’d say that this suggestion would be better if you need to get 300 in the classic skill and then the same achievement in two of the professional master for expansions (so classic plus, for example, outland and shadowlands). When you have three Professional Masters (I mean the one where it’s ONE profession NOT the Master of All version listing all professions) the suggested quest daily unlocks. Maybe completion of Master of All adds bonuses to the quest chain and subsequent buff (such as 50% extra loot from the buff).
The buff would be compatible with the content you do. So if with this buff idea in place you do a Shadowlands dungeon you get Shadowlands materials, but if you did a classic run through Deadmines to boost a guildie and you chose the mining buff as a reward you’d end up mining the place of all the tin and copper you’d find on the map. Or you might utilize the herbing buff and find double yields in your Garrison or Panda farm…
A quest line along similar lines as with the Broken Isles archaeology quest chain but as a daily optional activity where you can select what extra profession buff you give yourself is more ideal than buying a skill point. If it exists as a buff, guilds can once again co-ordinate acquisition of mats for the benefit of the guild, like herbs for flasks, and which “COULD” make the Working As A Team of the Guild Achievement list relevant once again, perhaps with some reworking where the existing items become Feats of Strength and some new items relating to this “buff idea” get added.
There’s nothing wrong about the OP’s idea… I just gave my version here based on my own profession-related efforts where I’m aiming for at least 75% of all recipes known at a minimum.
I’m just throwing numbers and ideas in the air with my suggestion, 50 skill points being on the lower end in case we want the third slot to be more accessible than it otherwise would be. My original number was to require all skill capped, but I figured that would cause complaints by people who do not want to grind up their skills to cap point for different reasons.
That said, I am all in for Shayraia’s version too. The details in my suggestion aren’t important, but the constructive responses and improved variants from other posters are. This is how we eventually can get Community Council/Blizzard’s attention.
To be honest, your main idea is very good, but you made it very complicated for no reason.
My proposition would be alot simpler, and that’s just to scrap the cap for professions, and let people have as many as they want, I don’t see this being an actual show stopper.
The 2 profession cap was at the start of the game, so in 2004. So many things have changed and I don’t really see an issue for people having more professions. Here’s why (in my eyes atleast):
Professions are pretty meaningless nowadays. It’s just not the same concept as it once was. I don’t blame Blizzard for this, but just the game has evolved in such ways, it’s no longer wanted or needed this much. I’m coming from the time (I started in 2004), where enchanting took place in the trade windows, meaning someone actually gave you the mats, and put his weapon / armor in ‘Will not trade’, where herbalists / alchemists created consumables for the entire raid and so on. This is no longer the case.
In classic and TBC, maybe even WOTLK, it wasn’t really common for people to have many alts or even an alt to be honest. Right now, alts are super accessible, and you rarely see people that don’t have multiple toons. This essentially means that if someone wants more professions, they will just create an alt and do the professions there.
Professions rarely have any extra value nowadays, which is something that was present back in the day, now it’s just not anymore, so who cares? I’m talking about synapse springs, extra belt buckles, bonus for flasks, enginerring as a whole being superior to others (especially in MOP). Now it doesn’t matter as it doesn’t affect your playstyle that much or at all to be honest. The only thing I recall, is the combat ress for engineers. Rest I don’t know if there are any bonuses. And even that is skipped, because every group will have 1 of the 3 combat ress classes present anyways.
If you want to make gold / use the profession, you have to put in the work anyways. So it’s the same if you can’t do it on character x since you already have 2 professions, meaning you have to do it on character y, and instead you would do it just on character x. Noone would care, atleast in my eyes.
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