I think a major part of the problem is that we have a lot of hardcore profession-psychos here (myself included) all gazing at this thread and hoping for something to happen. Except - unfortunately - the data is not available right now and there is very little to do that has not already been done.

Until something turns up in the beta that we can discuss rationally, this thread is basically going nowhere. Regardless of this, I fully intend to watch it like a hawk in the hope that something turns up that I have failed to notice. I fully anticipate much interesting discourse once data becomes available.

About using one potion a fight, you will want to wait as long as possible for two reasons, A) it keeps your options open, maybe that health pot might be necessary and B) potions can Crit. It would suck to lose out on 3k+ mana because you decided to take a potion early.

I may view this differently than others (Herbalist & Alchemist since release and never looked back), but I do like to think of professions like racials that you can choose.

Looking back sure I would have loved to go human, but I chose night elf for a reason and the 10% spirit is great and all but a choice is a choice. The true power of a profession can be seen with the min-maxing crew (high end pvpers, or high end raiders, specifically). Our guild witnessed this as we had a "Everyone re-spec leatherworking program", and how many of your guilds did that too?

Perhaps it will not be possible but I think it would be great if all the gathering professions received passive (spirit perhaps?, +stamina, +crit) and active skills (unique herb consumables, miner's revenge, scalping).

The crafting professions all offer their own offer unique ways of improving your character and I think Blizzard realized they do not want another leatherworking/alchemy problem (large percentage of DPS/Healers using drums/alchemist stone, respectively).

The one potion per fight is good, a great step in the right direction, as is the tinnitus debuff. We can only try to provide with more ideas ways to keep them balanced, yet diverse.

I personally, as a raider and a general player, would rather choose my profession not be required to have it.

Looks like miners/smiths got a cooldown creation in this new build:

"Smelt Titansteel", "Allows the miner to smelt a titanium bar and 4 eternal earth into a titansteel bar. Requires a forge. Titansteel can only be forged once every 20 hours.

Also new spellthreads added, "embroideries" (tailoring), blacksmithing socket-adding things:

"...increasing spell power by 35 and Spirit by 12"
"...increasing spell power by 50 and Spirit by 20"
"...increasing spell power by 35 and Stamina by 20"
"...increasing spell power by 50 and Stamina by 30"

"Embroiders a subtle pattern of light into your cloak, giving you a chance to cause an additional 800 to 1000 Holy damage when you damage an enemy with a spell. You can only embroider your own cloak and embroidering your cloak will cause it to become soulbound."

"Embroiders a magical pattern into your cloak, giving you a chance to restore 300 mana when you cast a spell. You can only embroider your own cloak and embroidering your cloak will cause it to become soulbound."

"Embroiders a magical pattern into your cloak, causing your damaging melee attacks to sometimes ignore 1000 of your target's armor. You can only embroider your own cloak and embroidering your cloak will cause it to become soulbound."

"Permanently add a socket to your bracers. Requires a level 60 or higher item."
"Permanently add a socket to your gloves. Requires a level 60 or higher item."
"Permanently attach a titanium belt buckle onto a belt, adding a socket to the belt. Requires a level 60 or higher item."

Also a massive (40+) smithing recipes, a few lw and a lot of jc recipes added. Also, paladin/priest/shaman and a few more druid glyphs. (Red Lynx cat form anyone?)

*edit* new glyphs are up on MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft Guides and Raid Strategies

*edit2* engineer "enchants":

"Permanently attaches a hand-mounted pyro rocket launcher, allowing a skilled engineer to deal 2070 to 2530 Fire damage to an enemy at range. The rocket can only be fired every 2 minutes."

"Permanently attaches hyperspeed accelerators to a pair of gloves, allowing a skilled engineer to increase their haste rating by 340 for 8 seconds. The gloves can only be activated every few minutes."

"Permanently attaches a flexweave underlay to a cloak, allowing a skilled engineer to turn the cloak into a parachute to fall slowly for 10 seconds. The cloak can only be used every 5 minutes."

"Permanently attaches overpowered nitro boosts to a pair of boots, allowing a skilled engineer to greatly increase run speed for . The nitro boosts can only be activated every 5 minutes."

"Attaches a permanent micro stabilizer to a bow or gun that increases your ranged hit rating by 40"

"Attaches a permanent scope to a bow or gun that increases its ranged critical strike rating by 40"

*edit3* new meta gems:

"Reduces spell damage taken by 2%"

"Reduces the duration of any Fear effects used against the wearer by -15%. This effect does not stack with other similar effects."

"Reduces the duration of all Stun effects used against you by -15%"

"Reduces the duration of any Silence effects on you by -20%"

"Decreases the duration of movement impairing effects by 15%"

"Melee/Ranged Haste Rating increased by 480" (proc?)

"2% chance on successful spellcast to restore 300 mana."

Reads like the first two are finally confirmed as for the blacksmith only, whereas the last suggests anyone can get the benefit from it. I was quite pleased about the prospect of *one* bonus socket for sticking with BS, two is massive.

A tailoring ability that's self-buff only for melee? There has to be a mistake somewhere. Is it only tailoring or do other professions get embroidering also?

Belt buckle has requires a decent chunk of resources also: 20 titanium ore, 16 saronite ore

Embroideries are probably just like spellthreads, and tradable.

"Embroiders a magical pattern into your cloak, giving you a chance to restore 300 mana when you cast a spell. You can only embroider your own cloak and embroidering your cloak will cause it to become soulbound."

Sounds like they're trying to indeed make it Tailoring only.

No, that's to prevent you from using it on other players. (Anti-twink mechanism.) The leg armors have the same wording.

I like the way they're attempting to balance professions with all the passive stats and prof-only enchants Right now it's so obvious to go ench+JC for Arena it's disturbing.

Herbalism healing is a bit week with it's 2k over 15 sec on 80. That's 8-15% HP max, and I don't think we can chew the BoP herbs inside the Arena.
Alchemy still lacks any PvP utility.
Tailoring got a nice buff, I hope thoose cloak enchants will be on the level of BoP gems, unique slots and ring enchants.
Engineering looks a bit OP. They get all the upgraded gadgets AND extra slots? Reminds me of S1-2 where everyone went engi.
Inscription: the glyphs look quite strong, much stronger than I thought. An additional slot looks #1 choice for PvP-ers.