Upcoming profession guides - what do you want in them?

[Damien 1,514]

If time allows us, we would like to start releasing them between the release of Mists of Pandaria and the release of the first content patch.

These profession guides will take the form of leveling guides. We know that there are many profession guides out there, but we believe we can do better. The first step towards this is to ask you what you want to see featured in these guides?

So far, we believe that the guides should tell you how to level up the profession in the cheapest way(s) possible and what benefits they bring to the class you play.

Any other idea?

[Peelyon 416]

I have always been unimpressed with guides that give you a "set" amount of mats, and dont take into account RNG involved in the skilling up process.

Some guides expect you to level green skills almost perfectly, so I think an approximation of mats is always better than a rigid list of 20x Peacebloom etc.

With Level 22 being changed to 20% skills increase (currently) it will make it easier to level profs, but I think it would help certain players by having perhaps two options - the cheapest way being one, and for those that dont care of the gold costs and just need to power level, a quickest way.

I think it would also be great pointing out awkward "choke points" where mats are hard to come by (off the top of my head goldthorn is a problem to farm for most) and how to get around it, or perhaps providing alternatives to difficult levelling points.

It may be worth mentioning the most "sellable" items in terms of what you craft to level. For example in inscription it could be argued that it would be better to continue making glyphs that are "green" as they will still have a chance at selling, compared to say a "yellow" scroll of agility 3 etc.

I think a lot of the above could be forum lead discussion for sure, and perhaps have people commenting on the guide as they use it to mention any changes or particular problem points for low pop realms with bad auction houses etc.

[Alierya 94]

Yes something that indicates the most sellable product would be very useful, otherwise you can end up churning out a bunch of rubbish which is in turn needlessly costly.

As well as a 'cheepest' route a 'quickest' alternative - so you could have the choice between lowest net cost (taking into acount cost of mats/availability of mats + output value) or speed. By quickest I mean doesn't need excessive farming of hard to find matts or hard to buy matts if that makes sense? Also it may be cheeper to grind up through a green skill but actually faster to use a guarenteed upgrader.

Also I like when you get nice little farming maps - but it is useful to have them for most areas rather than just those with the most nodes. Nothing worse than trying to farm metals in uldum during the day!

Likewise it could be beneficial to indicate for those leveling a proff with a toon (my prefered way to do it) the sort of level you should be to gain the optimal bonuses from that skill level.

[Sarah1804 8]

Also I like when you get nice little farming maps - but it is useful to have them for most areas rather than just those with the most nodes. Nothing worse than trying to farm metals in uldum during the day!

This is the most important part for me. I am honestly not someone to speed level a profession, so I don't really care much for the quickest route or the least needed mats or anything like that. But as a tailor I would like to know what the best place is to get cloth drops. As an alchemist I would like to know all the best herbing spots, etc. And indeed, not just where I find the most, but where is best to farm taking into account the popularity of the area and such.

Oh, and we'll probably see the return of the elemental stuff, you know, fire/water/earth/erm... one more :D Where to get those would also be very helpful.

[Damien 1,514]

Alright guys, thank you for the comments! Everything has been written down and we'll take your opinions into account when we write our guides.

[Damian 26]

I found this site very useful http://www.wow-professions.com/ .

Reasons why it is helpful:

• Professions broken down into stages;
• Stages have their own maps for both Horde and Alliance;
• Tells you which NPCs to buy recipes off.

[Asakura 0]

Also if you want to see how much a certain profession will cost you to power level on your server try this > http://www.warcraftprofessional.com/

[Damien 1,514]

I found this site very useful http://www.wow-professions.com/ .

Reasons why it is helpful:

• Professions broken down into stages;
• Stages have their own maps for both Horde and Alliance;
• Tells you which NPCs to buy recipes off.

Thanks for sharing that. Obviously, the idea is to do better than wow-professions, so it's good to know what their strength is, so we build on it ;)

Also if you want to see how much a certain profession will cost you to power level on your server try this > http://www.warcraftprofessional.com/

That's really nice. They're probably using the Auction House API to compute all that. Is it me or their site is painfully slow?

[Swampertguy 5]

I think it would also be great to have the guide talk about lvling the profession as you lvl up the toon. This mostly applies to gathering profs, but it would be nice to know what herbs to look for as I lvl and if I need to farm a few more so i can farm in the next lvling zone.

[Damien 1,514]

I think it would also be great to have the guide talk about lvling the profession as you lvl up the toon. This mostly applies to gathering profs, but it would be nice to know what herbs to look for as I lvl and if I need to farm a few more so i can farm in the next lvling zone.

That's a good idea, thank you for suggesting it!

On a side note, I've done more thinking on these profession guides and I think we will first publish them as profession guides from 525 to 600 and then expand them to include the 1 to 525 bit. At the release of MoP, people will mostly be looking for this type of information and there is no point delaying the release of the guides until we figure out the first part of the leveling ;)

[Siniwelho 13]

On a side note, I've done more thinking on these profession guides and I think we will first publish them as profession guides from 525 to 600 and then expand them to include the 1 to 525 bit.

One suggestion: for higher level products (for example in tailoring/leatherworking/blacksmithing) you usually need extra ingredients, like 'Volatile X' in Cataclysm. Some people buy these extra ingredients from AH but some prefer to grind the items themselves. It would be helpful if the guide would also cover getting the extra ingredients instead of only showing good ways for getting the basic materials (cloth/leather/bars).

[Vladamyr 169]

I think it would also be great to have the guide talk about lvling the profession as you lvl up the toon. This mostly applies to gathering profs, but it would be nice to know what herbs to look for as I lvl and if I need to farm a few more so i can farm in the next lvling zone.

If you are looking for speed of leveling professions or characters then I would highly recommend leveling first then going back and leveling professions. It seems like you would save time by being in the same area doing both, but I have found that gaining flying and a high enough level to trivialize mobs makes powerleveling a profession faster. Now that being said there is the facet of breaking up the power leveling monotony by doing both at once that shouldn't be undervalued Edited September 10, 2012 by Vladamyr

[Damien 1,514]

One suggestion: for higher level products (for example in tailoring/leatherworking/blacksmithing) you usually need extra ingredients, like 'Volatile X' in Cataclysm. Some people buy these extra ingredients from AH but some prefer to grind the items themselves. It would be helpful if the guide would also cover getting the extra ingredients instead of only showing good ways for getting the basic materials (cloth/leather/bars).

I'll try to remember all that, although I will probably go back to this topic before starting any guide :)

[Imadork 0]

Remember to take into account the massive push toward world pvp, cross realm areas, popularity of areas, etc into making different options for lvling in MoP. It's going to be huge to have a gladiator tauren druid farming herbs vs. an under geared un-experienced player in the ways of pvping to try to lvl. It would be invaluable to maybe take a less direct route in getting those mats.

[Beeba 4]

For me while leveling professions, I found that a complete list of every recipe from skill 1 to 525 with links to the source of the recipe, as well as all mats, worked best. That allowed me to best decide how to use what mats I have on hand as well as should I farm a little or hit up the AH for some skill points. For example, I leveled my rogue to 85 and did herbalism and mining for the xp, storing those items in my private guild. Upon reaching level 85 I decided this one will do JC and alch with xmute spec. I leveled both to max with what I had gathered. I did a priest after, leveled the same way but did BS and used excess cloth from both toons for tailoring. For both I had to buy or farm a little here and there but my point is if you post the cheapest way to level a profession then you did not post the best way to because you would be omitting several recipes and only cater to those that plan to use gold to level the profession. If you post everything it would allow people to level how they want. Good luck on the guide. If it is as good as the rest of this website it will be the place for everyone to go.

[Storm 426]

You know what would be really cool? a calculator where you choose your profession, enter your starting skill level, and the desired level you want to reach. Then you enter the AH prices of mats needed in that level range, and the App calculates the cheapest/most efficient way to level your profession based on current prices on your servers AH. If done right you'd crush any other profession websites.

Edited March 21, 2013 by Storm

[Wurm 1]

Are there still plans to introduce Profession Guides :\?

[Vlad 411]

Are there still plans to introduce Profession Guides :?

Absolutely! It's a pretty big project, but it's something we're about to start working on very soon. We have a few technical tasks that have kept us occupied recently, but this is definitely the next big thing in the works! Hang in there!

[Zagam 1,982]

You know what would be really cool? a calculator where you choose your profession, enter your starting skill level, and the desired level you want to reach. Then you enter the AH prices of mats needed in that level range, and the App calculates the cheapest/most efficient way to level your profession based on current prices on your servers AH. If done right you'd crush any other profession websites.

Very neat in concept, very hard to employee. Most servers' economies are highly volatile (at least Mal'Ganis' is) to where you can sell various things for 10g at 5p server time and 50g at 7p server time. I've sold Golden Lotuses on Tuesday at 630p for 85g and they're only up for 40g on Saturdays. It's almost ALWAYS going to be less expensive for you to farm mats yourself for professions. I was one of the first on the realm to get all 10 professions to 600 skill level and it was because I mined ore, skinned leather, and sent BoE's to my enchanter. In terms of AH prices, you have to decide what is worth your gold/time. If you HAVE to max a profession by 7p for raid time, then gold is going to be your method, but be prepared to send TONS of gold out for rare mats.

For example, search for Azerothian Diamond on your AH...I'll bet this isn't cheap, but it's almost certainly the easiest way to get JC from 275 to 300. When power-leveling JC, I would see these on the AH for 150g per, but they were SO easy to prospect if you spent just 10 minutes in Un'Goro mining the plethora of Thorium Ore there. Thorium is in high supply there because it's out of the way and it's usually out of the range of players leveling there.

Same goes for Ghost Mushrooms. Anyone attempting Challenge Modes knows how vital Invisibility Potions are...but how much do you want to drop on them? 99g per in the AH? Did you know the Gorilla Cave in Un'Goro spawns 15 Ghost Mushrooms and respawns them about every 10 minutes? I made almost 25,000g in one day farming those mushrooms and using my potion master to turn them into Invis pots while rewatching a season of 24.

The calculator sounds REALLY awesome in theory, but I don't think it's practical to put in use. If you really want to drop gold to power level a profession, find someone selling a kit. There are tons out there. But if you REALLY want to get a profession up to speed (and make a ton gold at the same time), you should farm the materials. That's the most consistent way to form these guides. The one problem with writing a guide is this will have EVERYONE who is building a profession using that guide go to the same place. This will inadvertently drive up prices and cut supply as multiple people may be farming the same spot. Proof is that if two people on the same server go 'holy crap, Ghost Mushrooms can be found that fast and easy? GOING NOW!' then you'll see another level 90 there and bam, instant competition.

It might be worth looking into the add-on Auctioneer. There are probably far better qualified comments from others as I've not learned about Auctioneer in great deal, but I understand that you can pull mass data for prices on things. You could PROBABLY combine this with another source to find the general cost of your profession, but I imagine this will have a high variance going from Wednesday to Sunday.

[Lovaman 0]

What it would be nice to know would be how professions relate to each other/how you can make the most of them on multiple toons. It would have been very helpful to know that i should have kept mining/cloth mats for other professions or that I could have used the items created during leveling tailoring to disenchant rather than vendor them.

[Shine 144]

To add mine to the already sky-high stack of things you should take into account. A reference to usefull addons/macro's would be nice, just like you use in Class guides.

For example, Herbers and Miners might enjoy Gatherer or similar addons since it will remember what they have gatherer in the past. (This is some work to start it up, but once you have a set amount of nodes it is really helpfull) Linked to gatherer is an addon called Routes, that will make a shortest route between the nodes you have in a certain area. I used these addons back in WotLK so I'm not sure if they're still updated n such.

I like to use this macro aswell

/run local f=AtH or CreateFrame("Frame","AtH") f:SetScript("OnEvent",function() CallCompanion("MOUNT",1) end) f:RegisterEvent("LOOT_CLOSED")

it will auto mount you once you have gathered your ore/herb (not sure about skinns) To use it, make sure you have autoloot on and dismount on skilluse aswell.

For another mount change the number in the brackets after "CallCompanion" to the desired mount number.

You will only need to use it once, and it will work untill relog or reload of UI

If you are for exaple a leatherworker and an enchanter, you can use a macro to easily disenchant a bunch of items you often make.

/cast Disenchant/use Stonesomething Ring/use windwhatever wristband/use Plentyofstuffstillfitsinmacro

Just some examples, can be very usefull.

[Vykas 0]

This site is already becoming my one stop spot for all WoW related guides -- with the implementation of professions too I'll be in heaven!

One thing that may be nice to add is perhaps an addon's section, there are some really great ones out there that a new user may not know about. Things like Ackis Recipe List, Tradeskill Master, etc. May be useful from a completeness standpoint.

[zodiacg 0]

Leveling guide for professions ofc. There are lots of profession leveling guide from 525-600. But they are still using information in old expansions for leveling from 1-525.

Also I'm really interested in some funny toys. Engineering is fun, everyone knew it. When it comes to other profession, there is little information. IMO, the potions of illusion is a good toy, but nobody cares

[Sonocorneo 0]

As a tailor I would like to know what the best place is to get cloth drops. As an alchemist I would like to know all the best herbing spots, etc. And indeed, not just where I find the most, but where is best to farm taking into account the popularity of the area and such.

I agree! If you follow wow-professions ie tailoring they give great spots for farming cloth...problem is every person in the world is farming it so it's impossible to do. I would say multiple areas INCLUDING utilizing open world & instances.

Additionally I would say small hints wow-professions doesn't take into consideration, having racial or guild perks for +material gathering or utilizing the guild bank for longer farming sessions.

I would also say there is a huge difference between leveling your professions while leveling a toon and starting at a higher level.

Class specific profession leveling - ie Hunter going for skinning is quicker than a Pally for skinning / utilizing certain spells to gather a large quantity of monsters to do a quick AoE, etc...

Complementing professions/Dual profession leveling - ie leveling mining and herb at the same time (routes that benefit both sides)

And finally - utilizing the profession! I would say some professions are great, but certain items sell for more or can be used in conjunction with other items, which most profession guides don't care about. I also agree with the 1-525 having old information. I'm excited for an updated guide, i've been dying to level my engineering, but the guides out there aren't too great...

[Peelyon 416]

Also I'm really interested in some funny toys. Engineering is fun, everyone knew it. When it comes to other profession, there is little information. IMO, the potions of illusion is a good toy, but nobody cares

I think perhaps certain things from the "older" side of WoW are often overlooked sometimes. Sadly a lot of profession guides are very generalistic and if you dont really pay attention to what you learn (which happens a lot) some cool thing are missed out.

Perhaps a small "fun list" or "did you know" for perhaps a few obscure recipes that a perhaps still useful in some shape or form for end game content.