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Scattered Shots: Professional development
Last week David covered pet control, in case you missed it. This week I'll be talking about a question people ask on the forums quite often: "What profession is good for a hunter?" Each profession, of course, has its pros and cons. Most professions, in fact, have a variety of professionals involved at all levels, and in many cases you couldn't get two of them to agree on their career of choice for love or money. A cursory look at the professions forum will confirm it most days. But over the years, and with several hunter characters, I've picked up a few ideas from my own experience and from that handed out in the forums. Herein, I'll share what I know, and perhaps what some others have taught me as well!The "Basic Income"Not all players take pleasure in crafting. It can be tedious, time consuming, and the gear you produce can be replaced with drops in many cases at the same level. Hours can be spent running back and forth from auction house, to bank, to forge, to auction house, to forge, to bank, to Wowhead, back to auction house, and so on. If that doesn't appeal to you, the "Basic Income" might be perfect.The problem many crafters run into is an age-old problem of "independent merchants and distributors" everywhere. In many cases, the stuff you can sell for the most profit is also the stuff you need to consume to make things. In many cases, professionals in WoW have to decide between leveling their profession and being able to afford pet food. One way to avoid that conundrum is to take two gathering professions. That way everything you gather, you can sell without consuming it, and you won't be worried about using up your ore to make armor or using up your herbs to make potions. You won't be able to make either!
Wealthy elves I have known
It's probably true that the best way to make money in the game is to farm primals, but sometimes you just can't stomach the idea of killing yet another elemental or -- given how busy most of the primal hot-spots are -- having to compete to kill them. It's in trying times like these that your thoughts turn to quieter pursuits like flower-picking, finishing some quests you left lying around, or at least taking your mindless slaughter act on the road.For my money, nothing beats the manaforges in Netherstorm. The elves there are like hundreds of milling, unsuspecting piñatas, ripe for the clobbering. Over an hourlong grind session with not-terrible gear, and with occasional breaks to tell people that you will never set foot in Shattered Halls ever again even if it is the daily, you can get the following:
Shifting Perspectives: Your first steps as a Druid
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week John Patricelli, sometimes known as the Big Bear Butt Blogger, starts his series on leveling a new Druid from 1st level all the way to 70th. Before I begin my series on leveling your new Druid from 1st through 70th levels, I'm going to start with some of the things you can do to prepare. Why not just leap right on into level 1? My reasoning is simple, just like me. When you have been watching Druids claw face as bears or cats, or as a new player you read about the description of the class and the shapechanging capabilities Druids enjoy, you might just expect to walk in and start doing the same yourself right from the start. The promise of the class is the fun of shifting from one form to another, depending on your playstyle. Well, when you start your new Druid at level 1, you won't be clawing faces. Instead, you will be leveling as a caster... a ranged DPS caster for levels 1 - 10, and likely on towards 20. Just as Hunters don't get the ability to tame a pet until level 10, Druids do not get the chance to learn their first form until the Bear quest chain becomes available at level 10. If, as you were sitting at the character creation screen, you were thinking you were going to be a kitty, all up in the face of the bad guys right from the start, it can be a bit of a let down. Especially if you don't care for playing a caster class in the first place. Hopefully, however, by knowing how to set yourself up in advance with the in-game Options, useful User interfaces and Addons, you'll find yourself leveling up as a caster painlessly, and may even come to enjoy the versatility of some of the Druid's powerful casting abilities. While the focus of this series of articles will be to help guide a brand new player into the fun of playing a Druid, hopefully there will also be some suggestions that an experienced player trying the Druid for the first time will find useful.
Insider Trader: Gatherers behaving badly
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling and using player-made products. In the spirit of Amanda's genteel post on tipping etiquette (and how social networking gives you a distinct edge), Insider Trader brings you further discussion of two of the finer points of WoW trading etiquette: node/farming etiquette and transmute etiquette. Unless you're interested in building a rep as "Internet N00b Behaving Badly," you'll want to be sure you're aware of how your actions are most likely interpreted by players around you, both in the field and back in town.It's worth noting right off the bat that attitudes about farming etiquette vary from PvE to PvP servers, and even from server to server on the same server types. You may find yourself on a rather combative server, where crotchety players will slay players of the opposite faction before allowing them to reach a node first. On other servers (even some PvP servers), Horde and Alliance respectfully yield to whoever clears the area or arrives first at harvesting points. You'll definitely want to keep your eyes open and see what other players on your server are expecting. Try reading the server forums, too, to see if ninja-farming is a frequent bone of contention.
Around Azeroth: Dreaming Glory in odd places.
Reader Sphingx sends in this interesting screenshot all the way from Hellfire Peninsula to you. What are we looking at? Well, this is a specimen of the herb Dreaming Glory, and while, most often you find them growing out of the ground rather than mid-air... Of its unusual positioning, Sphingx comments, "like some abstract artist's composition that I took a shot of it against the Hellfire Peninsula." Have you managed to snap a screenshot of the impossible in the World of Warcraft? We'd like to see it on Around Azeroth! All you have to do is e-mail aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your screenshot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could find your pictures and story featured next!%Gallery-1816%
More Mad Alchemist's Potion buffs and testing
Jagoex sent a followup on the speculation around the Mad Alchemist's Potion that us Alchemists are getting in the next patch. We've already seen a few buffs come in, but Jagoex found a few more: Adept's Elixir, Earthen Elixir, and Elixir of Mastery and Major Fortitude all popped up from the potion proccing. It's pretty wild how random these buffs will get, and unfortunately, that makes them fairly useless-- there's no way a strength buff would help casters. However, as cheap as these are (we're told that it only takes a few Ragveil to make them-- AH speculators take heed), it might be worth it to make a bunch, and then just keep canceling buffs and drinking until the right buff is achieved.The good news is that the buff isn't completely random-- in his testing Jagoex found that most of the time, the potion put a complementing buff on the player. That is, if the player has a Guardian Elixir buff, the potion would apply a Battle Elixir buff, and vice versa. He's only tried it a few times, so more testing is probably necessary, but there are indicators that the MAP's buff is not completely random.Good news for Alchemists. This is definitely looking like a fun potion, and as long as it stays cheap, it could be a really useful for players who regularly need elixir buffs.
Learning a third profession at level 80
Nerrisa brings up an interesting idea on the forums that I hadn't considered before-- what if we all got to choose a third profession when we reach level 80? For some, handling two professions is more than enough, but there are also plenty of people who could definitely benefit from a third. And although the professions are paired off pretty well (Alchemy and Herbalism, Leatherworking and Skinning), there are definitely some trios that would work well also-- Enchanting goes great with anything, and Mining, Blacksmithing and Engineering would be a great combo, too, for power players who've reached 80 and are looking for lots more to do.Of course, Bornakk says no to the idea (actually, as Incgamers points out, he really says there are "no unannounced plans" for it to happen, which is quite a few qualifiers for him), so it's unlikely that we'll have an extra profession slot to face Arthas with. But don't forget that we will have a new profession, Inscription, and if Blizzard adds many more professions, maybe we will need a third slot to keep them all straight. I'd love for my characters to learn more, I'm just not sure if I'd have the diligence to get them all to 375-- I'm having enough trouble with two as it is.
Mad Alchemists' potion provides extra elixirs for Alchemists
You may have noticed a mention in the latest PTR notes to a pot called "Mad Alchemist's potion," which will actually require a certain alchemy level to consume, not just make. A lot of alchemists were wondering what this does-- considering the cool Engineering-only stuff we've seen lately, us alchemists could use a little pick-me-up. Nothing crazy-- I do admit that Engineers deserve lots of love-- but a little something to drown our sorrows in while watching Engies fly past on their new mounts.And now, Drysc has revealed exactly what it is-- it'll be a "trainable alchemist-only rejuvenation potion" (which means it delivers health and mana), and will provide a random elixir buff to the drinker. And what's more, the elixir buff won't replace ones you already have on, so if we read this correctly, that's three elixir buffs for alchemists. Very nice. And the best part: it's cheap. Drysc reckons it's about a crystal vial and two ragveil. Start saving up your ragveil now-- when 2.3 hits, they'll be in high demand.Players have already started tracking the random buffs given by the potion. Looks like a great little profession bonus for us alchemists.Update: The potion is still hard to find on the servers, so we're not sure what the random buffs are yet. Eventually, I'm sure we'll know exactly that this thing does, but for now, all we know is that alchemists are getting a potion for themselves in 2.3.
Insider Trader: Professions 2.3 -- The Way I Are
Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.What's in store for your profession in patch 2.3? Without further ado, Insider Trader is here to update you on what craftspeople should be looking out for, now on the test realm. (Sure, you could read the official PTR patch notes -- but then you wouldn't get links to all our helpful posts at WoW Insider!)The big news for professions, of course, is the new engineering mounts. Now that the mats list for these sweet little rides is out, we know you're all revving your engines to get those last engineering skill points. Early next week, we'll run a special engineering leveling guide with some inside advice on that brutal stretch of leveling from 300 to 375. Until then, here are the collected notes for profession changes in patch 2.3.
Encrypted Text: Tricks of the trade(skills)
We've covered many different aspects the world of Roguecraft has to offer thus far -- from class quests to gear to number crunching. However, one of the things I've heard from people who are new to Rogues is the question of what trade skills are useful to take up and why. As such, this week's edition of Encrypted Text will contain some of my views on what each trade skill can offer a Rogue. Obviously, short of starting a wiki -- this is not going to be a fully comprehensive version of all that Trade skills can offer. But hopefully between my experience of bouncing between many, many trade skills, and comments from the seasoned Rogues in the WoW Insider crowd, we'll be able to de-mystify one of the earliest choices facing the new Rogue.
Insider Trader: When good patterns go green
Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Nothing interrupts a peaceful night of crafting like a lunatic guildmate ranting about learning a coveted new pattern, only to find that it's already green in skill level – nothing, that is, except that sickening feeling in your stomach as you consider what you'll do when your favorite patterns go green. Skilling up a profession can be a rollercoaster ride, if you don't hit the right patterns at the right time. (Of course, all the professions have those infamous "dead zones," when skilling up seems to be based on either unfathomable luck or unfathomable finances – or maybe both. But we'll cover dead zones in another installment.)Skilling up in a profession can happen when you create an item that's listed in green, yellow or orange in your tradeskill window. Items listed in grey will not give you any skill points for creating them; red listings anywhere means you don't have the required skill level. Just as it does with creatures you fight, pattern color indicates difficulty and skill-up potential. Green items raise your skill occasionally, yellows about half the time and oranges every single time. (The exception to orange skill-ups occurs in skinning, in which successfully skinning an orange creature does not guarantee a skill-up.) As a burgeoning crafter, your goal is to find patterns that are relatively easy to get the materials to make while providing a solid shot at skilling up. While orange patterns offer a guaranteed chance of gaining a skill point, the best bang for the buck is often a yellow pattern.And that's where things start getting murky ...
AddOn Spotlight: Fizzwidget's Trackmenu
Do you suffer from buttonitus? (I'm amused that word didn't trip a spell-check alert.) Symptoms of this dreaded disease include having more spells and abilities than you have buttons, exploring assorted action bar add-ons that allow you to have more buttons than the default UI, and overall general frustration. Although this plague is not limited to a single class in World of Warcraft, hunters in particular have it worse than most. In addition to the usual combat abilities, the shots, the traps, and whatever other profession-based buttons a hunter may have setup they have an added burden: tracking skills. I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that nobody can track as many different kinds of things as hunters, especially if the hunter is a miner or herbalist as well, or even a dwarf. So, listen to me hunters (and others). Look at your action bars and all the tracking skills you have hot-keyed there. Now describe to me in a hundred words or less (in the comments section if you wish) the happy dance you will launch into if you could reclaim each and every one of those buttons and use them for something else. Allow me to introduce you to Fizzwidget's Trackmenu. Installation of the add-on could not be simpler. Simply open it in your archiver of choice and extract the folder into your \Addons folder as per usual. Then launch World of Warcraft and look where the tracking indicator used to be on your mini-map. In it's place is the Trackmenu button. Click this button, and a list of all your tracking skills will drop down allowing you to make a selection. Unless there are some you want to hot-key you can now safely remove all your tracking abilities from action bars. Enjoy one of my absolute favourite add-ons. You can look forward to further reviews of other Fizzwidget products in the future. He's got what you need!
Insider Trader: Bags for the pros
Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Need more bag space? It's a completely rhetorical question for most WoW players. Blizzard's tight rein on player bag space is a perfect example of what I only somewhat jokingly refer to as WoW's "relentless tuning." And nobody feels the pinch quite so strongly as professions addicts -- crafters whose bags are full of little bits of this and that for making, well, even more of this and that.Specialty bags to the rescue! Crafters have access to a whole host of beefier bags designed especially for holding crafting materials. These player-made bags do have some drawbacks. You can only carry one at a time on your person, and since they only hold profession-related items, they do cut down on the space you have for general inventory. You'll undoubtedly catch yourself snarling at the banker when tussling with the specifics of what items will and won't go into these bags -- but for all their prissy limitations, you'll come across some sweet surprises, too.No discussion of specialty bags would be complete without a mention of player-made ammo bags and soul shard bags for warlocks, too. We'll include details on those containers at the end of this article.
Blue Notes: Profession tidbits and new Darkmoon cards
The game changes are starting to come in faster and faster, as 2.1 approaches (my bet's on a PTR next week). From the European forums we have two new and interesting blobs of information. Ommra: Jewelcrafting: The cooldown times on Earthstorm and Skyfire Diamond transmutes have been reduced to one day. Herbalism: The chances to find a Fel Lotus while picking an herb have been increased. Tailoring: The Spellfire and Shadoweave tunics have been changed to robes. Primal Nethers may now be puchased from G'eras for Badges of Justice. These changes will take place in the next patch, 2.1.0.The previous cooldowns on Earthstorm and Skyfire Diamonds were two days, so this halves that cooldown. Fel Lotus is the new Black Lotus, in that it's used in all the new flasks. But unlike Black Lotus, it doesn't have its own plants. Rather, it has a small chance to spawn off any plant in the Outland. That chance is currently 1-2% depending on the quality of the plant you're picking. In theory, more Fel Lotus should mean cheaper Fel Lotus, which in turn should mean cheaper flasks. The Spellfire and Shadoweave changes are something tailors have been asking for ever since BC's release. And as for the Primal Nether change, it's...interesting. I guess it'll give me something to spend my badges on once I get my trinket. I wonder how many badges they'll cost, though. Edit: word on the street is the exchange rate will be four Badges for one Nether.And secondly, Aeus brings us news that the Darkmoon Faire will be offering new and better trinkets for new types of cards: After the upcoming content patch you will have the chance to find additional Darkmoon cards (Lunacy, Storms, Furies and Blessings) on high level creatures in Outlands, which you can turn in to the Darkmoon Faire to make powerful new Darkmoon card trinkets. This is nice, because the Faire is somewhat useless currently for level 70 characters (although I know at least a few people that are still using Twisting Nether cards). I wonder if they'll convert all the current card drops in Outland to new cards -- I've gotten quite a few old-world cards that I've just vendored because they're relatively worthless now.
My herbalism trainer is so disappointed
Ok, I'll admit it. I'm a slacker.My resto shaman is definitely my main, and he's very, very helpful-- he can heal like a priest, DPS close to a mage (or at least a well geared moonkin), and he's even got Mana Tide totem and that always useful Earth Shield. But one thing he doesn't have... is a 375 profession.He's an herb/alch, and therein lies the rub: I can't collect anything. Skinning, I'm great at-- I've gotten multiple toons to 375 skinning, just because it's so easy to take a second after a kill to skin. First aid, I rock, because there's so much cloth around-- my 63 rogue is already at 375. But mining and herbalism, I just can't seem to get done. By the time I level out of a zone, I haven't picked up enough herbs to get my skill up, and eventually I'm leveling near herbs that are red to me. Now I'm leveling a blood elf mage, and she's having the same problem with jewelcrafting-- I'm not finding the mine nodes on my normal journey, and as a result I'm falling behind.A high end guild would probably have kicked me out by now for not bringing potions to raids (fortunately, my guild is very forgiving). But it is wrong of me to show up to a raid empty-handed just because I've been lazy. So what's the problem here? Am I missing some secret method of collecting as I level up? I do forget to turn on my tracking sometimes, although I know there are addons out there that will help with that. Unfortunately, since I've already hit 70, it looks like I'm just going to have to go back and grind it out, but maybe that's the best way to do it. Did you level your collecting profession while you were leveling or did you do it all in one big run? And what tips do you have for me to keep me from slacking off in the future?
