Some time ago we did a post about the passive buffs you can get from several professions.  Profession Buffs are a good thing, especially the passive variety.  But when it comes time to really Dominate, there is something to be said for the item buffs you can get from the crafting professions.

So let’s take a look at the itemization bonuses from each of the crafting professions.  Now, we always tell everyone to take either mining and herbalism when it comes to making extra gold.  But if you have listened to us and have really begun trying to Dominate your server, you also know that you should be actively doing other things eventually to make money in world of warcraft.

Our complete system for Domination is to have a set of toons with almost all of the professions so that we don’t have to rely on the AH for anything.  This can take a TON of time for the casual player.  In order to get the good stuff from any profession you have to get to level 60, and profession skill 350 so that you can take the grand master training, and then the best stuff from each profession really starts at level 400 most of the time.

Lawbringer has 6 toons that have done this (horde side on a single server).  With 11 professions in the game, that means if each one has a different profession, there is still one toon with an open profession slot.  But when it came time to plan for raid spots for those alts and planning for making the most of each toon, some changes were in order.

Keep in mind that we can only really consider this because we make almost all of our gold from the AH anyway.  If you are relying on your professions to make gold you’re missing the point in the first place.  Professions should primarily be used because they help your toon.  Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t make gold with our professions (we rant about disenchanting all the time) but it does mean that you should pick your professions based on a slightly different set of criteria when it comes to end game content and making gold is not the first priority on your list.

You should still end up having a good number of professions on your toons.  That is, if you have several toons you are preparing for end game raids.  If not, then just use your professions in your quest for more gold.  Also, choose the gathering professions for the passive buffs as they will aid your leveling.  But as you get closer to 80, or on toons you plan on taking to 80, there is another path you should consider.

Every little thing counts when it comes to getting geared for heroics and raids into Naxx.  If you are looking for a spot in raids, professions may very well be the thing that gets your stats and DPS up to the point where you go from being the odd man out to the MVP.  Skill has a lot to do with raid sucess of course, but when you combine skill with extra bonuses from gear it will show.

We already covered alchemy, tailoring and engineering in the passive profession buffs article.  We also covered the spellthread items in Untangling The Spellthreads.  So let’s look at Blacksmithing, Enchanting, Inscription, Jewelcrafting and Leatherworking.  Each of these professions has item enhancements in the form of extra sockets, enchants, inscriptions and items that you can only get from these professions giving you a noticeable extra boost from many of your gear slots.

Blacksmithing

Blacksmithing is a great overall profession for the plate wearer.  We also suspect that in future patches Blizz will add some nice mail items as well that will be worth having.  Blacksmithing can also make you some gold from a few crafted items, but again, that’s not our point in this discussion.

What we do want you to see in Blacksmithing are two of the level 400 items:

At level 415 Blacksmiths also get the Eternal Beltbuckle recipe, but that one is BoE, so you can get it without doing Blacksmithing.  Everyone should purchase a few eternal belt buckles for the extra socket.  These three recipes used together will give you 3 extra gem slots on your gear.  If you were gearing up a tank to be uncrittable, you could use 3 Mystic Autumn’s Glow Gems in these slots and grab an extra 48 Defense rating in 2 minutes with at a very reasonable mat cost.  48 defense rating is nothing to sneeze at and could save you a ton of time trying to gear to hit the defense cap.

Enchanting

Enchanters get several ring enchants.  There are only three level 400 skill enchants, so you don’t get as much versatility as sockets, and only have 3 choices.