“A funny thing happened to Lawbringer yesterday.”

I was beginning to think everyone had fallen asleep.  It’s been a while since we stirred up any real controversy (ie. the rogue article by he whose name shall not be spoken) but let me tell you that when Law steps in something it’s a big steamy pile of Kodo poo.

It was the perfect storm of events that lead me to perhaps the greatest brain fart of my tenure here at DYS.  And what I REALLY wish is that I had saved it for 13 more days – it would have been the perfect April Fool’s gag.  So before anyone thinks I’ve lost my marbles here is what happened.

I’ve been kicking myself for a couple of weeks about not doing Jewelcrafting on at least one of my 80’s.  And since I don’t farm mats it’s been bugging me that I didn’t knock that sucker out while leveling instead of engineering or something.  So I’ve been chewing on how to fix the issue on not only the Horde side, but also on the little army of Alliance toons I have working their way to 80.

You see, I don’t like JC at all.  It’s a royal pain with very little profit potential overall (don’t argue with me on that one) compared to say enchanting.  So with my bankers’ mindset I have always ignored it like my wife’s smelly dog and avoided it completely.  But with my toons now getting bit after bit of 25 man raid gear and almost every single one with sockets to fill (and building that PvP and feral off set for the drood I might add) the gem costs were beginning to make me mad.

I also am not super fond of Death Knights.  I will never play one.  They just don’t interest me at all.  I know some of you guys think they are the best thing since sliced sushi but I can’t see playing another DK among the 5 bazillion DK’s on our server.

Next, I already have four level 80’s on the Horde side, and every single one has two profession maxxed at 450.  To add Jewelcrafting I was faced with the prospect of running some trash toon to 60, transferring a level 50 from another account and THEN leveling to 60, OR (sigh) biting the bullet and pushing up a DK to 60.   Then you have the problem that if I used the DK to do JC he would have to get to at least 70 to do the JC dailies and 80 makes more sense so now I’m pissed that I need to burn a profession on one of the 80’s and then do it all over again on the DK . . . . .frustration sets in.

Combine all of that with some serious wife aggro AND the fact that in the software we use to run DYS the “SAVE” and “PUBLISH” buttons are right next to each other in the preview screen and WHACK!  Lawbringer made a booboo.  But let’s set the record straight shall we?

It takes a little bit of mental agility from time to time to ‘think’ about the game like the average dude out there in Azeroth.  Now, I don’t mean that to say they are average players, we certainly know a LOT of our readers are fantastic – just read the feedback we get.  But in order to do what Gavin and I do we have sort of gotten a little – well – weird.

So when I wrote – “just nab 4 DK’s to do all the professions with and give your main the good stuff” it makes perfect sense to me because every single one of my 80’s is on a separate account.  So there I was watching Sports Center at 1am this morning when it hit me what a TERRIBLE article I had written because I do things kind of oddly and the whole thing was just pretty dumb to the guy with only one account.

So YES – I am aware that you can only have one DK per server.  So MY ability to drop a whole team of DK’s onto Fenris to do professions does not amount to advice that any normal human being could follow.  So let’s try this again, now that I’m back in a little place you guys call reality.

Maximizing Professions With Death Knights

We’ve always recommended that everyone should strive to have a toon with every profession in the game.  And since WotLK this has become a pretty steep challenge, especially for the new player.  The thought of taking 6 toons – to level 60 at the minimum can be a little staggering even with the changes to experience gains.

To really throw a few more rocks into the mix, Blizz decided to have a few professions give a toon such great buffs that a serious player can hardly ignore them.  So I’ve changed my mind a bit about professions (read above :roll: ) and there really is a better way to manage them than we’ve been able to before.

Enter the Death Knight.  The DK starts at level 55, and by the time you even leave the starting area you should be around 58.  DK’s also level wickedly fast, so even if you choose to go all the way to 80 with the guy you’ve got a 55 level head start on anything else.

Since you have to hit level 60 to train Grand Master level in any profession the DK is a sweet choice for filling up your ability to make just about anything in the game with professions without ever really having to depend on the Auction House.

So let’s start from the beginning with this.  We’re going to give you the whole list of professions, sorted in order of our own completely subjective and arbitrary system of importance.  Then we will tell you why we rank them this way and which ones you should probably give your DK as a part of a complete system of Domination.

  • Enchanting – the mother load of gold making.  If you only have 1 profession this is the one to have
  • Jewelcrafting – wicked JC only gems in 3 slots
  • Blacksmithing – 2 extra gem slots for those killer JC only gems
  • Inscription – by far the best shoulder enchant in the game, cya Sons of Hodir rep.
  • Alchemy – 4 hour flasks and a bigger buff from every flask you use, nice.
  • Mining – if you simply MUST farm, it’s hard to beat mining, plus toughness bonus.
  • Herbalism – another decent way to kill time and make some dough, plus an extra heal.
  • Tailoring – still a nice choice, some of the epic patterns are very good.
  • Leatherworking – on par with tailoring.
  • Engineering – sigh on the vendor mats for the cycle being 15k eh?
  • Skinning – last, and probably least, except for maybe a rogue.

Now if you’ve been reading DYS for a while we have always said that the way to maximize your earning potential is to have almost every profession so you can ‘feed’ yourself mats and make stuff to sell.  It will really put you on a whole new level of gold earning potential.  However, before WotLK professions were basically only really useful for making gold, but Wrath changed all that.

NOW, you definitely want to consider how much you may be missing out on your main if you’re doing something JUST to make extra coin with your profession with no thought to the buffs you could be getting from something else.  It is VERY hard to beat the Blacksmithing/Jewelcrafting combo for sheer killing power bonuses (or healing or tanking or whatever you want to insert there).

So our revised advice is this: you still HAVE to have an enchanter at level 375, but you should really consider JC, BS, Insc. or Alch for your main raiding toon.  It would be better to say and.  JC and BS, Insc. and Alch – something like that.  You really cannot afford to completely ignore just how much power you are giving up by not using two of those professions. (yes LW is not a horrid choice either, and Ench does get ring enchants).

And I know this is hard to swallow for some of you (like myself) who really REALLY hate JC.  But I may just have to bite the bullet and do it.  Substituting 3 Runed Dragon’s Eye for 3 Runed Scarlet Ruby is an increase of 39 spell power, and when you combine that with Blacksmithing so that you only give up one ruby over your current gear it’s an increase of 77 spell power.  77 SP is nothing to sneeze at.

Flask of the Frost Wyrm goes from 125 spell power buff to 156 with alchemy (and from 2 to 4 hours duration), and the difference between Greater Inscription of the Crag and Master’s Inscription of the Crag is 37 spell power.  Those two professions together give you 68 more spell power.

So the point here is that you definitely want to consider how professions help your raiding toons just as much (if not more) than which ones earn you the most gold.  Now, what the heck does a DK have to do with all of this?  Well that sort of depends on whether your DK IS your main or not, but you’re going to have to live with yourself on that one and sort through the rest of this the best you can.

If your main is NOT a DK, then you have two good options.  The first, and probably best option is to give the DK Enchanting and then Leatherworking or Tailoring, although you will probably want to get them to level 80 anyway if you go the tailoring/LW route just to make it easier to sort of max those two things out.  You have to hit Exalted to get the epic spellthreads from some folks so that might be more than you want to do – but chanting is a no brainer here.  Enchanting has a “buy the recipes” system that has nothing to do with rep, so a level 60 can hit 450 just as easily as a level 80.

Because we mostly use our enchanter for DE work as it is, there is no real reason to have our main be our enchanter, so a DK chanting alt is a great fit.

Next, you could also choose to have your DK be your farming toon.  Give that dude herbalism and mining and have him feed you with mats.  The catch to this one is a bit like the one above, in that this will work far better at level 80 with an epic flying mount.  Still, starting a toon at level 55 makes the run to 80 a LOT easier than leveling up a new toon from 1 and it certainly makes more sense than blowing a profession slot on your main for a profession better suited to an alt.

Now, up until now I’ve been speaking to the guy with one or two 80’s and a single account.  For those of you with something along the lines of “you have how many accounts?” using DK’s for your professions is really slick.  One DK on all of your accounts and you can have all of the professions covered in no time flat.  Plus, you can save the professions with the best bonuses for your level 80 raiding toons.

As I mentioned in my “omg I lost my mind” part of this post above – I have 4 accounts, so popping a DK on each one to pick up the straggler professions like gathering professions and Leatherworking will allow me to drop herbalism from my Druid main and pick up something really useful such as Jewelcrafting without really giving up much time.  I mean, honestly, nothing is easier to level than herbalism anyway.  A DK could do it in about 2-4 hours.  Plus I have plenty of gold for mounts and what not so it sure beats having wasted professions on toons I would like to raid with.

Instead of wasting professions just to have the professions around in case I need them, it certainly seems like a better plan these days to put those professions on a wasted TOON.  And I can’t think of a better place to waste a toon than a DK – just kidding actually.  But the DK does have the advantage of starting at 55, and that fact alone makes them worthy of serious consideration when it comes to Dominating with professions.

ps.  It’s a shame that the other post had to go the comments were REALLY entertaining to read.  Keep them coming folks, and yes, Lawbringer is very human after all.