The WotLK profession thread - Page 23

PSGarak · 08/20/08, 4:35 PM

(B) can be divided into two different areas.
B1 is a normal piece of gear that replaces or can be replaced by normal drops. The stormherald and frozen shadoweave fall into this category. They're good, but they're just pieces of gear, and they get replace eventually.
B2 is strict enhancements to your character which augment your character in ways that someone without the profession does not have access to. Superior armor patches fall into this category, since while they're replacing an armor patch that someone else has access to, neither armor patch get upgraded. Ring enchants, extra meta slots, drums, tailor nets, and JC-specific gems fall into this category.

There are a few that fall in-between. For example, the alchemy trinket replaces a normal trinket spot but offers a unique ability. I would say that falls squarely in B1 since the "unique" ability has an exact mp/5 equivalence, making the piece, in theory, upgradeable. While it's really good, it's basically at T6-SW what FSW was at T4: really good by cheating itemization, but still eventually replaceable.
The engineering helms also fall in the in-between, since they offer assloads of normal stats, plus some wierd bonuses like motes, stealth detection, and binoculars. However, I would say that the two could be cleanly divided since you could upgrade the hat to one with better stats and swap out the engineering hat for extracting motes.

Blacksmithing currently has nothing of note in categories A (weapon chains and sharpening stones) or B2. It has face-rocking things in B1, which makes it good at the low-end and even lasts until the mid-end, but B1 is by definition replaceable. The weapon and belt sockets fall into category A, the glove/bracer sockets fall into B2, rounding out the profession by filling in both things it was missing.

The wonky thing, though, is that blacksmithing doesn't actually improve the item itself--it allows a JC to improve it. I think it's a little unrounded for BS to only give more work to JC. Not that it's entirely unhealthy, if adding a socket costs a lot more than filling it (since JCs make money off non-BS sockets as well), but that dependency is very unique. I don't know how the player dynamics will shake down on that, but in order for BS to make money off it, certain gem slots have to be exorbitantly more expensive, for the same benefit. It might be nice for a few non-gem-slot belt buckles to make the profession more stand-alone.

Snowcrasher · 08/20/08, 5:12 PM

Originally Posted by constantius

And when you figure how much you actually gain from those two sockets, and add one additional "socket", it almost exactly balances the benefit from Enchanting, which is the baseline everything has to be compared against.

Personally, I hope that the weapon sockets are NOT tradeable. The system should be :
- Armorsmith: extra meta (probably in the chest) + socket in bracer + socket in gloves
- Weaponsmith (any sub-type): socket in weapon + socket in bracer + socket in gloves (possibly 2 sockets for a 2H, 1 socket for each 1H to make it balance out)

That's "fair". A metagem has the potential to have scaling effects (percentage-based crit increase, stun duration reduction, run speed, etc), while regular sockets are just static. Getting 2 extra sockets in your weapon versus getting a second meta, even if the metas don't stack, is actually a hard call ... and that's how it's intended to be.

That isn't true and that wouldn't be equal. 2 sockets bonus (bracers + gloves) for blacksmiths roughly balance out against the 2 ring enchants. eg. 2 40AP ring enchants vs. 2 extra 40AP red gems. Both cases are exactly 80AP gained.

If anything, just getting 2 bonus sockets from blacksmithing is already superior to the enchanting bonus since you have a far greater selection of stats to choose from with gems, many of which scale with kings.

3-4 blacksmith only gem slots would make it the best min/max profession by far.

Valerian · 08/20/08, 7:09 PM

Originally Posted by Snowcrasher

3-4 blacksmith only gem slots would make it the best min/max profession by far.

I wouldn't say by far. With the few inscriptions we've seen so far, an extra one of those is a very large boost and that cannot often be replaced by pure stats. Tailoring seems to be giving both spellthread and some sort of cloak enchant which again seem to be unique. In fact Enchanting with just providing ring enchants seems to be being left behind. An extra metagem/inscription/unique cloak ability seems far better than just plain stats.

Fragged · 08/20/08, 7:43 PM

Originally Posted by Valerian

I wouldn't say by far. With the few inscriptions we've seen so far, an extra one of those is a very large boost and that cannot often be replaced by pure stats. Tailoring seems to be giving both spellthread and some sort of cloak enchant which again seem to be unique. In fact Enchanting with just providing ring enchants seems to be being left behind. An extra metagem/inscription/unique cloak ability seems far better than just plain stats.

Depends entirely on the class, for example as a Protection spec'd warrior - I don't know what sort of Glyphs will exist for my class, but I wouldn't be surprised to find many/most of the glyphs uninteresting for tanking, I wouldn't be shocked if there really is only 1 important tanking glyph (and I wouldn't be surprised if it was similar for metagems.) Certainly they might give us amazing glyphs and metagems to pick between, but based on prior history I'm not going to be shocked if not (and we don't even know if metagems can stack, if they can it'd be a big boost, if they can't it'd be much weaker.)

Brio · 08/20/08, 7:57 PM

Originally Posted by Valerian

I wouldn't say by far. With the few inscriptions we've seen so far, an extra one of those is a very large boost and that cannot often be replaced by pure stats. Tailoring seems to be giving both spellthread and some sort of cloak enchant which again seem to be unique. In fact Enchanting with just providing ring enchants seems to be being left behind. An extra metagem/inscription/unique cloak ability seems far better than just plain stats.

I think the biggest thing that is kind of going with what you say; ring enchants don't scale. The one cloak enchant I saw looks like it will scale with haste, many of the meta gems obviously scale, and many of the glyphs will scale with various stats. Enchanting seems like it will not be as good as it is right now. Perhaps Blizzard will do something like it is with the other professions and require enchanting to use the enchant, while giving the ring enchants a boost. For instance, a percentage increase rather than a flat number. Now that would make enchanting worth considering in the end game.

• frmorrison · 08/21/08, 3:30 AM

Originally Posted by Fragged

we don't even know if metagems can stack, if they can it'd be a big boost, if they can't it'd be much weaker.)

I am guessing the devs will not allow 2x of the same metagem's special bonus, because a Mage with two CSDs (lots more crit damage) is too good. It is still useful though.

kysta · 08/21/08, 3:49 AM

Originally Posted by Jabez

No one likes getting a new item and _having_�*to contact a BS about a socket.

I dunno, I kind of like one side effect of having expensive enchants and related item enhancements. It discourages marginal/questionable upgrades and side grades. I guess some people like having 5 different items for the same slot each with a very minor benefit in some situation, I would rather have a system that discourages such behavior by enchants that require a cost that will be felt and which add enough to the item to override these very minor situational advantages.

RootBreaker · 08/21/08, 3:43 PM

Originally Posted by Brio

I think the biggest thing that is kind of going with what you say; ring enchants don't scale. The one cloak enchant I saw looks like it will scale with haste, many of the meta gems obviously scale, and many of the glyphs will scale with various stats. Enchanting seems like it will not be as good as it is right now. Perhaps Blizzard will do something like it is with the other professions and require enchanting to use the enchant, while giving the ring enchants a boost. For instance, a percentage increase rather than a flat number. Now that would make enchanting worth considering in the end game.

I'm not sure what you mean by saying ring enchants don't scale. Attack power and spell power both scale with crit and haste. The more crit or haste you have, the more DPS each point of attack power or spell power adds.

levk · 08/21/08, 4:51 PM

How do cloak enchants scale with haste? 50 bucks says procs will have an internal cooldown. If the ring enchants don't scale then nothing the other professions do scales either. Ring enchants are perfectly fine and they leave place for bigger and more huger ring enchants in the umpteenth expansion.

Percentage based increases are out of this world, everybody is going to be an enchanter then. Not to mention you're going to be pissed farming the same mats for the same ring enchant in long forgotten content in that same umpteenth expansion. OK if you'll need to farm so outside world mobs, what if you needed a drop off muru or something?

PSGarak · 08/21/08, 5:19 PM

Attack Power and Spellpower are relatively non-scaling stats since your crit range varies by a small margin. A caster's crit rate may go up 10% over the course of TBC, increasing the value of SP and AP by (less than) 10% in the course of a year, while spellpower roughly doubled in the same amount of time, making crit rating scale with spellpower about ten times better than the converse. While technically all stats are multiplicative, for the purposes of evaluating individual gear upgrades, it's a very safe approximation that AP and SP are non-scaling while hit/crit/haste are scaling. Nonetheless, AP/SP tend to be very good DPS per itemization point aside from cappable stats (hit and expertise) until very high gear levels, so it's a bit fallacious to say that that they're worthless because of that. They may not be scaling but I'd rather have some non-scaling 24 spell damage than some scaling 20 crit rating, and it becomes a wash with 20 haste rating somewhere deep in T6 (melee classes mileage may vary).

All percent-based increases scale with level. All rating-based increases do not. That is why ratings were introduced. The only crafting-based items with a %-based increase also have a rating, SP, AP, or 'normal' stat on them so that they can have some sort of upgrade in future expansions that at least uses expansion crafting materials even if it's not a big upgrade. See in particular: meta gems, run-speed on boots.

Metrosexuelf · 08/22/08, 6:14 AM

Well the engineering stuff is finally out but I can't say I'm overly impressed. They did a nice job on the items that combine the function of other mundane thing (skinning knife, hammers, etc.) but the cape and glove enhancements seem pretty weak unless they are able to stack on top of enchants. The two belt enhancements I see are pretty lackluster.

Roywyn · 08/22/08, 7:26 AM

The Tailoring Embroideries have 50% proc chance for "1000 APen for 5s" and for "800-1000 holy damage", and 35% for "300 mana".

According to Post 15 in WoW Forums -> Tailoring: Feels like JCing now they "do not proc very often".
So I'd guess they have a long internal cooldown. If I had to guess, I'd guess 45s/60s, but I have no only at all whatsoever.

[Edit]: One of the plate goggles have stats, and there are two cloth, two plate and two leather googles at least.
I think they're just not itemised yet, they have a meta slot and no socket bonus.
Their names sound like some are DPS, some healing and some tanking goggles.

Random "of the XYZ" goggles with a meta slot seem a bit awkward.
The Snow goggles seem like a candidate for "of the XYZ" gear though.

Valerian · 08/22/08, 9:08 AM

Some of the new engineering items are pretty decent.

The Gnomish Army Knife is a fantastic item. No more carrying around a ton of stupid tools.

The mailbox generator, if it makes it in, will also be pretty damn nice, though it looks fairly pricey at the moment.

All of the unstated helms with the meta sockets I'm going to assume are like Cogspinner goggles and get a random suffix added to them. In which case they might be useful (with the combo suffixes like bandit/soldier/elder etc).

The trinkets are interesting. The stam one is nice, since its other ability is decent in PvE (unlike the current poultryizer/rocket launcher). The Spellpower one looks nice for PvP, with the free shield every now and then. The other damaging one could be good if it scales with your crit. Currently, assuming no resists and no crits, its around a 30 dps trinket which is not terrible in and of itself.

The enchants for belts seem more like fun items at the moment but presumably there'll be some actual stat boost ones at some point. Similar things for the cloak I'm guessing. The haste glove enchant seems pretty weak averaging about 22 haste rating. The other glove enchant though if fairly significant. Quick calculation has it around 19 dps average not including possible crits. Thats a fairly large chunk obtained from a single enchant.

Dancing Wu Li Master · 08/22/08, 11:57 AM

The new Jewelcrafting trinkets are almost certainly placeholders, given several are worse than their blue level 70 counterparts, and the text is incomplete (no cooldowns listed in a few cases).

I assume the Focusing Crystals are meant for roughly the same purpose as Flares?

levk · 08/22/08, 12:16 PM

Originally Posted by Valerian

Some of the new engineering items are pretty decent.

The Gnomish Army Knife is a fantastic item. No more carrying around a ton of stupid tools.

The mailbox generator, if it makes it in, will also be pretty damn nice, though it looks fairly pricey at the moment.

All of the unstated helms with the meta sockets I'm going to assume are like Cogspinner goggles and get a random suffix added to them. In which case they might be useful (with the combo suffixes like bandit/soldier/elder etc).

The trinkets are interesting. The stam one is nice, since its other ability is decent in PvE (unlike the current poultryizer/rocket launcher). The Spellpower one looks nice for PvP, with the free shield every now and then. The other damaging one could be good if it scales with your crit. Currently, assuming no resists and no crits, its around a 30 dps trinket which is not terrible in and of itself.

The enchants for belts seem more like fun items at the moment but presumably there'll be some actual stat boost ones at some point. Similar things for the cloak I'm guessing. The haste glove enchant seems pretty weak averaging about 22 haste rating. The other glove enchant though if fairly significant. Quick calculation has it around 19 dps average not including possible crits. Thats a fairly large chunk obtained from a single enchant.

I think the goggles are place holders since there're multiples of empty ones in the same armor category. The mail bot looks like it's reusable hence why it's expensive. One day cooldown is really prohibitive though, I think the most use for it is if you're out grinding stuff and just want to mail the grays to vendor instead of dropping them, that cooldown is pretty harsh, 2 hours would've been pretty good. I was really hoping for return of reflectors, here's to hoping they're still coming.

PS. Haha gnomish x-ray specs!

RootBreaker · 08/22/08, 12:39 PM

Originally Posted by levk

I think the goggles are place holders since there're multiples of empty ones in the same armor category. The mail bot looks like it's reusable hence why it's expensive. One day cooldown is really prohibitive though, I think the most use for it is if you're out grinding stuff and just want to mail the grays to vendor instead of dropping them, that cooldown is pretty harsh, 2 hours would've been pretty good. I was really hoping for return of reflectors, here's to hoping they're still coming.

PS. Haha gnomish x-ray specs!

If you just want to vendor greys you could use the new scrapbot construction kit instead. 15 minute cooldown instead of 24 hour.

nevesola · 08/22/08, 1:14 PM

Nothing terribly overwhelming in engineering, but I am glad to see we get more 'fun' stuff with the xray specs. I wonder how good the res is on the gnomish army knife(better, worse, the same as the current cables).

What I'm wondering now is if you can but the flexweave underlay on an existing parachute cloak, and if so, are the CD's shared? Could you possibly chain effects such as putting 'nitro boots' on a pair of rocket boots and effectively get twice the speed boost?

I already have a parachute cloak and rocket boots, I don't know why I would use enchant slots on normal gear for those 'fun' effects.

Hildegard · 08/22/08, 1:55 PM

Originally Posted by nevesola

I already have a parachute cloak and rocket boots, I don't know why I would use enchant slots on normal gear for those 'fun' effects.

The Nitro Boost looks quite decent for the arena, supposing it works there. The long cooldown on the parachute is a bit annoying. For fights like Archimonde where fall damage is possibly an element of the fight it can come in quite handy if you have more stats and an "oh shit button". Considering the long cooldown I don't really think, that it will be used a lot.

Wafzig · 08/22/08, 2:50 PM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

I am guessing the devs will not allow 2x of the same metagem's special bonus, because a Mage with two CSDs (lots more crit damage) is too good. It is still useful though.

I'm betting all Meta's will become Unique-Equipped to prevent this.

What will also be interesting is the color requirements on meta's. It might be very tough to meet the color requirements for two meta gems at the same time.

PSGarak · 08/22/08, 2:56 PM

Don't recipes that give a random mode usually say <Random Enchantment> on the recipe? I'm leaning towards the NYI explanation unless/until someone has made one of those hats and it did something.

Also, haste scope. World's best scope, or too goddamn much haste for hunters? I think there's already issues with 2.0 steady shot bumping up against the GCD, but I would love to hear from a hunter.

• Daler · 08/22/08, 3:55 PM

Originally Posted by Wafzig

What will also be interesting is the color requirements on meta's. It might be very tough to meet the color requirements for two meta gems at the same time.

Well the current crop of metas on the WotLK wowhead site are uniformly not of the "more X than Y color gems" variety. They are all simply minimum gem requirements of a particular color(s).

If that goes live, it seems a safe bet that it will be fairly simple to meet those requirements, esp. since you can have an extra two colorless sockets by virtue of being a blacksmith.

Copernicus · 08/22/08, 4:17 PM

From this thread - WoW Forums -> New Jewelcrafting Dailies - the Jewelcrafting dailies are live now, and are using the new token system apparently but not showing up anywhere.

The Dragon's Eye can be purchased for 1 token each. The metagem recipes off the vendor cost 8 tokens, while the rare gem recipes cost 5 tokens.

PSGarak · 08/22/08, 5:40 PM

Are there other ways to obtain these Dragon's Eyes yet, or do JCs currently have to make the choice between profession progression and profession perks? It's a good thing that they have something to drop these tokens on other than recipes because the recipes are finite, but if it's something else irreplaceable that's sort of a rock and a hard place =/.

Alerian · 08/22/08, 8:09 PM

My understanding is that you do the JC daily and get a token. After you do enough dailies, you can buy a Dragon's Eye or recipe. Then you can do more dailies and buy more Eyes or more recipes.

Copernicus · 08/22/08, 8:21 PM

Originally Posted by Alerian

My understanding is that you do the JC daily and get a token. After you do enough dailies, you can buy a Dragon's Eye or recipe. Then you can do more dailies and buy more Eyes or more recipes.

The issue is a jewelcrafter will have to choose between their perk (awesome gems) vs their possible profit (making gems for other people).

It only matters in the short-run (when there are many valuable recipes to take as well as the powerful upgrades) and the long run (the potential of half a year spent doing dailies for the obsessive). I suspect it won't matter for the vast majority of WoW players - they will start getting patterns as they level up and they won't want to waste an epic gem on non-epic gear. Thirty dailies should be enough to begin a jewelcrafter on their path to profit, especially if they're in a consortium. One of the interesting things about the system is that it will only take a week to cover a perceived hole in the marketplace.