Community Blog Topic Results: Making professions better

Every profession should be able to make a mount, and they should all require that trade skill. The current situation is inconsistent and convoluted.

New armor and weapons should have unique models. There should be exactly ONE way to get some awesome looking models, wether it's for transmog or not, and that is a craftsperson.

Multiple recipes on a shared daily cooldown. Right now, my alchemist makesLiving Steel every day regardless. That isn't exactly interesting.

Maybe make those cooldowns weekly so we don't feel compelled to log in every day. Want to make 7 Living Steel on Tuesday and be done with it for the week? No problem.

The ability to repair things you can craft at a nice discount. Maybe put it on a 2-5 hour cooldown.

Change some of the profession mechanics. One thing that is not fun is skinning. I have stated time and again, skins should drop like cloth if you have the profession. They could even bake it into Leatherworking if they want. Another thing I would do is give every profession a "deconstruct" where you can harvest some of the core materials out of it. I would even make some of them things you could put on the Auction house or trade and other professions could turn that item into something useful. Call them scraps or whatever you want. Enchanters would be able to get those plus their normal dusts and shards.

So first I think we should be able to get some simpler to make pieces with each new raid tier. I know that Blizzard wants to gate things, but you can make equipment difficult to make without making people need to buy whatever item is dropping from the new raid to complete the items. Daily cool downs, rarely found/picked items all this can be used to gate new equipment.

I think there should also be more gear made purely for transmog. Since this has become a well know used and loved feature, there should be gear that can only be used/mogged by members of said profession, and other items with some flare that can be used by everyone who would normally be able to use such armor type (Mail, Plate etc...)

Alchemy, Inscription, Jewelcrafting, and Enchanting, I think, would do well to have specializations (re)introduced, but similarly to how Cooking had it–you can choose to follow one path at the expense of another. For example, in JC you currently have a very small chance to cut a Perfect-level gem, or craft a blue-quality necklace or ring–specialize in Gemcutting, Setting, or Trinkets(?) and increase the chances of a Rare quality craft of that type.

... the profession trainers could only teach green recipes. You learn those, reverse-engineer them, and learn how to make a blue version of the item. Some blue items could be reverse-engineered to learn how to make a purple one. There could also be the chance to learn something completely different.

This way, people could learn how to make better versions of what they wanted, rather than hoping for drops or research. It would also take some of the edge off of making a bunch of items you don't need just to level a profession.

Min-maxers will avoid gathering professions like the plague, because the bonuses are so weak in comparison to crafting professions. Maybe instead a bonus synergy between crafting professions -e.g leatherworking gives extra gem sockets, what if skinning made those sockets give double stats, and a different bonus if you don't have LW profession

Blacksmithing
Forged Soul - For the next 5 seconds, target player gains 20% physical damage reduction.
Skinning
Animal Precision - The next 3 abilities are guaranteed to be a Critical Strike
Jewelcrafting
Crystal Symmetry - For the next 5 seconds, all damage dealt to the target will be stored. Casting Crystal Symmetry again within 10 seconds unleashes the stored damage.
Herbalism
Fragrant Blood - For the next 5 seconds, all damage taken by target player heals friendly players in a 15 yard radius for 20% of the damage dealt.

... make certain pieces of crafted gear have the 10% xp bonus. Therefore old gear would hold some value. Instead of scaling gear lvlers would replace the gear when needed by purchasing or having someone craft the upgrade for them. In this way all parties benefit and old crafted gear would hold some value.

And of course each upgrade would still have the 10% xp bonus.

I would also make it so that you'd be able to gather items in lower leveling areas than you now can. Let me try to explain by example. Say you are a tailor and you can begin to wear items made with Mageweave at level 32. It's ridiculous that much of the mageweave is found in upper 30s and 40s zones. Crafters SHOULD be able to make and wear their own gear. In the case of mageweave, they should begin to drop in areas with level 26-27 mobs and become increasingly frequent from level 28-low 30s mobs. And while blue pieces are nice and SHOULD feel special, the drop rates for the rare items needed to make them are ridiculous in this day and age of fast leveling. Have them drop earlier and more frequently. You shouldn't have to farm for spider silk or the ever-elusve wildvine for so long that you go up 3 class levels while you get enough to make one piece of gear.

Dig sites w/growing narrative. Player can choose to focus on one race (with an increased find rate for that race) at the expense of a diminished return for other races. Instead of selling for gold, player can submit compiled common artifacts to the faction-appropriate museum (Silvermoon and Ironforge) for reputation and a special currency used to purchase unique items (similar to Lorewalkers), as well as access to special dig sites relating to the Old Gods and the Titans (new ultra-rare races only accessible through the racial museum and only at Exalted). Furthermore, as your skill in archeology grows, you can find fragments on mobs as well, and can discover secret treasure sites that while they don't increase your skill level, offer items directly from the loot table and therefore help you increase your rep with your appropriate museum).

No having to do combat for crafting - e.g. a crafting alt should not need to kill things for drops or do combat quests. crafting should be advanced by crafting efforts. Crafting should be an alternative advancement like pet battles. Being a raider should not help your crafting or vice versa.

Never do spirits of harmony ever again. Give us elemental stuff we can trade and sell if we don't need. Give us orbs we can get from dungeons that we can sell if we don't need. Just don't give us something geared towards being like "Remember this bag slot? it's mine muwhwaha!"