Thinking about resubbing.

[Sjofn]

As a DK, I would do BS/mining, although I fucking hate leveling mining (my DK is a skinner/miner). I have an inscription person, and if I had to do it again, I would not have leveled it on my paladin, but instead on some sort of cloth caster (my priest, I guess, since I hate DPS clothies for some reason). They make some nice offhands that are BoP, so useless to anyone who doesn't USE offhand caster shit (I seriously think they need to at least add some green offhand shit to craft for inscription).

Minor glyphs, on my server, are where the money's at.


EDIT: Also, for some reason Ingmar has a really irrational hatred of the Hodir rep grind. I KNOW it's irrational because I suck at rep grinding, yet I am exalted with them and Thorgrim, who spent time grinding up his Kurenai rep the other day, is not.

[bhodi]

If we're talking about powerleveling inscription, sure, but I thought we were talking about someone picking something to level as they go. The cost of picking the herbs you see as you run around doing quests is pretty low.

I really feel like I'm repeating myself at this point. Here, I'll make a list. Maybe it'll be easier to understand my thought process.

1. As a DK, you start at 50, your tradeskills start at 0. Thus, you are forced to farm at least into the 200s for any gathering profession.
2. If one of your skills is a gatherer skill, you can either gather and sell them or gather and use the mats to fund the tradeskill. Either way, you have X income from your gatherer profession (I would estimate about 2000 gold income from level 50-80).
3. Even if you put money from your gather skill into your tradeskill, it will not get you to 450. It MIGHT get you to 400. You will still have to additional farming to get it to 450.
4. Can the gold investment to get your tradeskill to 450 be recouped through AH sales once it's maxed? Some research will tell, but this varies by server.
5. Inscription's personal utility can be substituted by an alternate farming method, hodir rep.
6. If you're looking for personal utility only (and can't or won't plan on recouping any losses through AH sales) hodir rep is far superior to inscription due to not taking a tradeskill and providing actual income rather than a gold investment.

[Ingmar]

Well, yes, I did say that it didn't have the same overall financial benefit? You're right in that I was forgetting the DK grind from 0 to ~300 on gathering, although you can level herbalism really fast; I did it in an evening when I switched my ret pally.

In any case, saving yourself a grind at 80 is different than saving yourself a little extra time on the way up. Once you are at level 80 you have a lot of other things pulling at your time. That time you're not spending grinding Hodir you spend on other dailies that come with their own benefits, or other activities. It is a smaller amount of extra time while leveling vs. getting a step ahead of the gearing curve when you hit cap. That is not without value.

[WindupAtheist]

I've decided to more or less say "Fuck it!" to how I'm supposed to be playing the game. Fuck heroics, fuck PVE entirely outside of dailies for money, and fuck the arena. I threw on my crafted blue PVP set, slapped all the enchants onto it that Azaroth mentioned in that one paladin thread, respecced for PVP, and I'm just gonna do battlegrounds until I get bored and quit. If I get any of the 60k honor pieces, cool. But I'm not rat-racing for gear.

There are enough slobs and retards running around in quest greens and shit that I hand out way more assbeating than I take, even in my mere crafted set, so what the hell.

[Delmania]

Does any know the estimated cost of getting both Tailoring and Enchanting to 450?  My warlock has both of those at 375, and when I reactivate once the trial is over (and get wife approval!), those are 2 of my goals.   

Additionally, given my low finances at the moment, the skinning and mining route on the death knight might be the way to go for now.

[bhodi]

Tailoring is about 1.5k to get to 375 and probably 2k to get from 375-450. Use this tailoring guide.
Enchanting is more expensive; I would say 2k gold to get to 375 and 3k gold to get from 375-450. Leveling guide.

The bonus of extra cloth drops from mobs are included. If you aren't leveling 50-80 or 1-80 and are just looking at taking and pleveling tailoring at 80, it's even more expensive than enchanting. Tailoring requires an ungodly amount of cloth and frostweave is probably ~20g/stack on your local AH. It's so bad they gave people an additional 'more free cloth' skill. Downside: tailoring 325 required, so you can't just take tailoring on your DK and give all that extra cloth to your warlock. Sorry.

All these costs are assuming powerleveling. If you want to sit in Dalaran all day begging people to enchant their stuff, obviously it is more free. Keep in mind neither of those professions are particularly profitable, and only enchanting is really good for end-game bonuses.

You get full end game bonuses at level 400, so you may want to just stop there. It's about 1/4 - 1/3 the price to get to 400 and 2/3 - 3/4 to get the rest of the way to 450. The last 25 levels are the real killer.

Tailoring doesn't have anything better than what you can get doing heroics and most people won't pay the retarded price for the crafted items. Enchanting I would get to 400 for the ring enchants but I wouldn't bother with 450 unless you're doing your entire guild's enchants - even when you get 450 it's another 2k gold to buy all the recipes. You might as well get tailoring to 400 as well if you're already at 375.

[Delmania]

I had Tailoring from TBC when the Frozen Shadoweave set was the best set, and the only reasons I want to advance it is because of the embroidering  and the blue PvP set.  I suppose I could drop it and pick up herbalism instead and just buy the stuff I want.  Enchanting I want to max anyways so I can disenchant and sell stuff on the AH.  At one point I was heading in the direction of becoming a guild's enchanter, but in the year or so since I've been gone, my guild dissolved and I have no idea if it's worth trying to find giving my odd playtimes.

[K9]

They make some nice offhands that are BoP, so useless to anyone who doesn't USE offhand caster shit (I seriously think they need to at least add some green offhand shit to craft for inscription).

The offhands were changed to BoE a patch ago. Inscription is a pretty nice profession all-over at the moment. It's also one of the cheapest to level for the most part, even easier if you have herbalism too.

Tailoring sucks to level, you need not only a crapton of cloth, you also need a crap ton of dust to get past 425. Realistically though, there's little of use past 420 for the embroideries (which are ok, not amazing). The cheap leg enchants are nice, but they don't provide anything extra over what you can buy. I've been levelling tailoring with what I can find since November and I'm still only at 440ish, mainly limited by a lack of enthusiasm to get it to 450 (there's no point) and a shortage of dust. I dread to think how much it would cost to powerlevel it. If you already have 375 tailoring I'd say you have a choice between ditching it for something awesome like JC, Alchemy or Inscription (you'd probably want to pick up the associated gathering prof though, only problem). The main reason I'm holding onto tailoring at the moment is a lack of a clear profession to re-roll to, and the hope/expectation that Ulduar will drop some interesting crafting patterns.

Enchanting I have ~445 now, again without buying stuff. Getting the 435+ patterns isn't too bad really. If you're de-eing Icecrown/Storm Peaks group quest rewards, plus dungeon drops you'll have enough to get the useful ones (half the buyable enchants aren't worth getting until you have surplus shards and nothing better to do with them). The addition of vellums makes Enchanting much more bearable to level, and you can maintain a small net profit or break even on skilling up by selling enchants on the AH. There are a bunch of highly useful enchants that are also low on mats cost which makes for some nice skilling up. The ring enchants are nice, but nothing you cannot get from other professions if you so choose. The main reason I stick with enchanting is for the sake of my guildmates and for personal convenience. Plus I do actually make a small but steady income off it.

[bhodi]

I would get both to 400 and then re-evaluate. You'll get self-embroidering and enchant ring and be able to DE all blues and some non-endgame epics. I would hesitate to drop tailoring since it's already at 375 and it might get some new stuff in the next patch.

[K9]

5. Inscription's personal utility can be substituted by an alternate farming method, hodir rep.

The BoP inscription shoulder enchants are far superior to the Sons enchants. The benefit is equivalent to the benefit gained from most other profession-bonuses.

Greater Inscription of the Storm - 24 SP, 15 Crit
Master's Inscription of the Storm - 61 SP, 15 Crit

That is a benefit of 35 Spellpower, compare this to Enchanting (2x19SP = 38 spellpower).

Also I forgot to add that the profit potential from the crafted Darkmoon Cards is HUGE. Nobles cards are going for 1.5K gold apiece easily on my server atm, and you can churn the cards out fairly cheaply.

[bhodi]

True, it does give you almost what other tradeskills do. With the exception of JC/BS synergy. And Nobles cards vary wildly by server, as I warned.

[Vash]

True, it does give you almost what other tradeskills do. With the exception of JC/BS synergy. And Nobles cards vary wildly by server, as I warned.

JC/BS isn't better than JC/(insert other crafting profession here)  for a lot of classes and specs, it's just marginally better than things like JC/Echanting for Strength based mele dps because when you factor in blessing of kings 2 extra 16 str gems is slightly better than 64 ap from 2x 32 AP ring enchants, although with a 10% AP buff from MM hunters, mele shamans, or blood DK's they are almost dead even for everyone but Ret paladins who have the strength bonus talent.

The main reason people(theorycrafters) *think* JC/BS will become way better than other combinations is the assumption that epic BoE gems and cuts will become available similar to how they did for T6 conent in TBC.  If and when that happens those 2 extra gem slots will pull away from things like BoP ring chants, BoP shoulder chants, and BoP LW bracer enchants.

There is no doubt that JC is far and away the best though, the 3 dragon eye gems you can use with JC are just flat out awesome.  They are equal to other tradeskill bonuses in just stats alone but the fact that they count for any color lets you fill crappy color sockets with pure dps stats and still get the socket bonus and lets you meet metagem requirements w/o sacrificing certain stats.

[WindupAtheist]

The 60k honor for a piece of blue PVP gear isn't very high after all. I'm doing 10k honor a night easy.

[Hindenburg]

6 nights for a single piece of gear is too much.

[Xanthippe]

6 nights for a single piece of gear is too much.

Especially with a 75k cap.  That's just really silly.

[Delmania]

Think I am going to do JC/Mining on my DK, BS/Mining on my paladin, Inscription/Herbalism on my druid, and Tailoring/Enh on my warlocks.  Seems to be an excellent way to make money throw gold in the crapper.

[WindupAtheist]

I'm not even playing that long. I got 2k honor out of one "horde tries to turtle and we beat them all down" AV game alone.

[Delmania]

I'm not even playing that long. I got 2k honor out of one "horde tries to turtle and we beat them all down" AV game alone.

That was the question I had in the back of my mind: how long does it take to get 10k honor?  How many hours would you have to play to get a blue PvP item?

[Ingmar]

Note that the prices are kind of weird. A blue chestpiece is 60, but you can get epic cloaks, rings, etc., for like 38k.

[Gobbeldygook]

Note that the prices are kind of weird. A blue chestpiece is 60, but you can get epic cloaks, rings, etc., for like 38k.

Not so much 'weird' as they are the item level mechanics laid bare.  Every item has an ilevel which determines how many 'points' it can have.  The blue set pieces and epic off-set pieces actually have the same ilevel (200), just epic items get slightly more itemization points per ilevel.  Chests, helms, legs, and two-handed weapons get full itemization point value while rings, wrists, cloaks, and shields only get about half as many points.  This is why the end boss of the instance is always the one that drops helm tokens and why the easiest bosses drop bracers (e.g. Winterchill).

[WindupAtheist]

I'm having a blast just doing Icecrown dailies for beer money and spending the majority of my WoW time in battlegrounds. I made that "Gee honor comes fast!" post 2 days ago when I went from 20k to 30k honor in one night, and I expect to buy my first 60k piece tonight. It's fun, I can do it whenever I want, there's gear to get, and I don't have to pretend to like any guild full of dipshits.

EDIT:  Ok, timed it, and I made 5k honor in 30 minutes.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I'm having a blast just doing Icecrown dailies for beer money and spending the majority of my WoW time in battlegrounds. I made that "Gee honor comes fast!" post 2 days ago when I went from 20k to 30k honor in one night, and I expect to buy my first 60k piece tonight. It's fun, I can do it whenever I want, there's gear to get, and I don't have to pretend to like any guild full of dipshits.

EDIT:  Ok, timed it, and I made 5k honor in 30 minutes.

Wintergrasp is actually really good honor as well and is about as social as you want to be.

[WindupAtheist]

Doesn't that only start once every 3 hours? As it is, I can just sit in the war room in IF or SW and cycle through the BGs one after another and every few matches pick up the 900 bonus honor for turning in marks.

EDIT:  It might have been 5k honor in an hour. I fail at timing. Maybe. I dunno. Anyway, I'm hardly a poopsock for WoW gear and the rate of gain feels good to me.

[Delmania]

5k honor in an hour?  That's significantly better than from what I remember it was when I left during TBC.  Enough to get me to resubscribe.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Doesn't that only start once every 3 hours? As it is, I can just sit in the war room in IF or SW and cycle through the BGs one after another and every few matches pick up the 900 bonus honor for turning in marks.

EDIT:  It might have been 5k honor in an hour. I fail at timing. Maybe. I dunno. Anyway, I'm hardly a poopsock for WoW gear and the rate of gain feels good to me.

Not sure about alliance but in dalaran there's a war room complete with mark turn-in and bg daily questgiver. in addition there is the portal to wintergrasp when the battle is up and a mage that will tell you when the next battle is. Only reason you need to leave is to portal out to buy honor items and then hearth back to dalaran.

[Fordel]

Both sides have similar war rooms in Dalaran, yes.

[Xanthippe]

Wintergrasp is every two hours.

[Llyse]

If we're talking about powerleveling inscription, sure, but I thought we were talking about someone picking something to level as they go. The cost of picking the herbs you see as you run around doing quests is pretty low.

I really feel like I'm repeating myself at this point. Here, I'll make a list. Maybe it'll be easier to understand my thought process.

1. As a DK, you start at 50, your tradeskills start at 0. Thus, you are forced to farm at least into the 200s for any gathering profession.
2. If one of your skills is a gatherer skill, you can either gather and sell them or gather and use the mats to fund the tradeskill. Either way, you have X income from your gatherer profession (I would estimate about 2000 gold income from level 50-80).
3. Even if you put money from your gather skill into your tradeskill, it will not get you to 450. It MIGHT get you to 400. You will still have to additional farming to get it to 450.
4. Can the gold investment to get your tradeskill to 450 be recouped through AH sales once it's maxed? Some research will tell, but this varies by server.
5. Inscription's personal utility can be substituted by an alternate farming method, hodir rep.
6. If you're looking for personal utility only (and can't or won't plan on recouping any losses through AH sales) hodir rep is far superior to inscription due to not taking a tradeskill and providing actual income rather than a gold investment.

Sorry to derail the thread, but now that I've resubbed to join a work mate with a(nother) death knight on a new server.

What gathering professions should I take as a bankroll?

Is it worth going back and mining copper/skinning/gathering so that when I hit Outland and 70-80 I'm not losing out on available nodes?

Which one should I take?

I'm leaning towards mining, skinner but if mining/herbs are more profitable why not.

I'm on an established server if that helps (Tichrondrius).

[K9]

Mining/Herb imo.

[Ironwood]

It doesn't matter.  You can, of course, check your AH to see server variations, but I just made a FUCKLOAD on my DK Miner/Skinner and I haven't even hit the good stuff yet.

Light leather selling like a bomb totally caught me by surprise.

[Sheepherder]

If you take skinning don't bother levelling it until you get Death & Decay, which should be around level 60.  Then AoE farm worgen or something.

[Ironwood]

You can shoot skinning right up by going to Shadowfang on your own.

Get all the mobs to follow you (Yes, ALL OF THEM) then hit death and decay.

150 points right there.

[Merusk]

Low level instances just make you feel like a tiny god, don't they.

[Ironwood]

Well, you'd think so.  But I took my lvl 70 frost mage to Shadowfang and got a surprise;  Cold Immune Mobs at lvl 18.  What's all that about ?

[Nevermore]

It's the thick, luxurious fur.