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Insider Trader: Profession-specific buffs part 2

Amanda Miller
Updated ·7 min read


Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Last week, Insider Trader discussed the profession-only bonuses associated with Inscription, Jewelcrafting and Enchanting. This week, I'm going to walk you through the rest of them, and include a final summary and comparison at the end.

Tailoring Perks
Tailors have the ability to enchant their own cloaks. Other players can get cloak enchants from Enchanters, although the Tailoring ones are superior in many cases.

  • Darkglow Embroidery: Chance to restore 300 mana on spell cast. There seems to be a 60 second internal cooldown, with a proc rate of 35%, which is equal to 25 mp5.

  • Lightweave Embroidery: Chance on spell cast to increase your spellpower by 250 for 15 seconds.

  • Swordguard Embroidery: Chance for melee and ranged attacks to sometimes increase your attack power by 300 for 15 seconds.

There seems to be a 45 second internal cooldown on Lightweave and Swordguard, meaning that for 15 seconds out of every 45 seconds (+, if you don't proc it on the next hit, but they do seem to proc within a hit or three), you have the effect. This averages out to 83 SP, and 100 AP respectively, in ideal conditions. Depending on your luck with procs, the average decreases the longer it takes you to proc it again.

For example, after 45 seconds, each spell has a chance to proc the effect. If you managed it at the 50 second mark, the average becomes +75 SP.

Casters who are not Tailors can currently choose between Enchant Cloak - Wisdom and Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed.

Wisdom grants you a measly 10 spirit, as well as a now obsolete 2% threat reduction. The +23 haste rating is nice, but provides neither mana nor spellpower.

Enchant Cloak - Major Agility grants you +22 agility to cloak. Agility is inefficient to everyone except rogues, hunters, shamans and druid cats, who would get +22 AP from it as well as the crit/dodge/armor. In terms of attack power alone, the Swordguard enchant is the clear winner.

Leatherworking
Leatherworkers have the ability to sew fur linings into the insides of their own bracers, adding enchants that are better than what Enchanters can offer everyone else.

Aside from the resistance linings, here is what you can get:

Blacksmithing
Blacksmiths are able to add two extra sockets to their armor, and this modification does stack with enchants. This means that you could attach the sockets to your bracers and gloves, and still enchant those items. The sockets are prismatic, meaning that you can attach any color gem. This means that however sub-par the sockets on the rest of your gear might be, you will have at least two ideal gems. Of course, the Eternal Belt Buckle makes three, but because anyone can use those, it is not a Blacksmithing-only benefit.

Harking back to the upcoming Jewelcrafting nerf, which will render all Dragon's Eyes no longer prismatic, a Blacksmithing JC would be able to take up Blacksmithing, equip a belt buckle, and still have three prismatic sockets in order to work around the nerf.

Engineering
The Engineering bonuses are a bit odd. They are convenient in that, fun abilities such as rocket boots to boost run speed temporarily or certain trinkets are no longer items that you need to carry or equip in place of your regular armor. Now, they can be added right onto your raiding or PvP set!

Unfortunately, it seems that these fun abilities seem to use up itemization points in some cases. In addition to their quirky abilities, they offer the following enchants:

  • Nitro Boosts: +16 critical strike rating to boots. The most comparable boot enchant for non-Engineers is Icewalker, which grants +12 critical strike rating and +12 hit rating. Nitro Boosts are clearly superior if you are hit capped, or if hit is not important to you, as it would not be to a raiding holy paladin.

  • Reticulated Armor Webbing: +800 armor to gloves. This would be applied in place of +15 expertise rating or +35 AP.

  • Hyperspeed Accelerators: These would be a huge upgrade over the above armor webbing to gloves, especially for non-tanks (or non-plate-wearers!). They grant 340 haste rating for ten seconds every minute. This is about 10% haste at level 80. You can macro this by typing /use 10. The stackability is the main point here. There are plenty of abilities that, when procced together, would make you go wild! In addition, it is useful for healers, especially for when a big heal needs to be popped!

  • Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket: This may not be as competitive, but it's certainly fun. This will reset your swing timer. Ret paladins can use it to pull from range. The range is 45 yards, which is huge, and can also be used within melee range. Just like the accelerators, create a macro by typing /use 10. It is an instant cast, and has the ability to crit. This is especially good for PvP!

  • Springy Arcanoweave: This is a cloak enchant that adds +18 SP. There is no other spell power to cloak enchant in the game. The main option for non-Engineers is Greater Speed, which adds +23 haste rating. Unfortunately, the Lightweave enchant for Tailors is undoubtedly superior.

  • Flexweave Underlay: +15 agility to cloak. Unfortunately for Engineers, Enchanters can offer Major Agility to anyone, and it adds +22 agility. Of course, you can't parachute off of things with your regular cloak, but an extra 7 agility will be more useful to raiders.

Alchemy
Alchemists get a somewhat controversial benefit called Mixology. This will double the duration of your flasks and elixirs, as well as boost the effectiveness of those consumables. Mixology only works for potions/flasks/elixirs that you actually know how to make.

Mixology affects each flask/potion/elixir differently. The main reason that I call its benefits "controversial" is that, however well they might balance with the rewards from other professions, the effects are only active while the consumable is active, whereas gems and enchants are working all the time. Of course, with a two-hour flask duration, applying these buffs while raiding, PvPing and even questing, is not painstaking. Elixir Masters especially will benefit, as they randomly create extra, free, flasks and elixirs, reducing the cost even further.

  • Flask of the Frost Wyrm: Alchemists gain an additional +37 SP.

  • Flask of Stoneblood: Alchemists gain +320 HP. Because it is mainly tanks that use this, this bonus is really dismal. As I've said before, tanks gain more benefit from stamina. This is equivalent to 32 stamina for most players, and roughly 25-28 stamina for tanks, whose talents would boost that much stamina up to around +320 HP worth.

  • Flask of Endless Rage: Alchemists get an extra +64 AP, which is on par with the Leatherworking attack power to bracers enchant.

  • Flask of Pure Mojo: MP5 is a stat that is currently in high debate, with most classes now preferring spirit, intellect or critical strike rating for their mana instead. Because of this, Ghostcrawler has hinted that they may make MP5 cheaper (translation: there will be more of it on your gear, and/or it won't nerf other stats as much just by it existing on the gear), as well as other changes. An Alchemist gains an additional 13 mp5.

  • Flask of Distilled Wisdom: Alchemists get an extra +20 Int. This is currently better than the Flask of Pure Mojo, even though it does not come from Northrend. This is because of the (perhaps temporary) relative uselessness of MP5.

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