The WotLK profession thread - Page 9

Larisroth · 07/30/08, 1:17 AM

Originally Posted by Isla

Are there any speciality blacksmith trainers implemented yet?
i.e. Swordsmith trainers, Armorsmithing etc.

I'm also curious about the specializations. Arguably the only ones that actually worked very well were the alchemy ones, and (similarly) the double cloth production of the tailoring ones.

If you're going to have the professions specific rewards in the form of BoP items then it does kind of limit you if you have to change specialization if you wish to use your crafted items which you respec.

Tailoring seems especially problematic as it seems unlikely that they'll repeat the mistake of having school specific spell power available on the items. I guess you could make the specialization more cosmetic like the top end version of tailoring, or leatherworking (my main recently picked up leatherworking, and I haven't bothered to specialize). If you just have BoE gear then that's fine.

Hypatia · 07/30/08, 1:19 AM

Well, one thing to think about is that if everybody gets two specs, it's no longer rude to throw large numbers of damage-type-immune bosses at people.

While I look forward to the possibility of having a bit more choice (with the two spec thing) in how I take care of business, I'd be terribly upset if "choice" was so free that not respeccing for every fight was actively stupid: if there's no cost to any of this, then min-maxing for every situation becomes expected. And that means there'd be no choice at all any more.

Anyway, I'll stop now. Sorry for crapping up this thread with a religious debate.

Prinsesa · 07/30/08, 1:51 AM

My problem with a single set of Inscriptions has nothing to do with people looking the same, specs losing flavor, cookie-cutter builds, etc., and has everything to do with looking for an Inscriber with the Inscriptions I need, looking up the mats, buying the mats, and having them made.

If we set aside the 50g cost of respeccing, constant respecs aren't all that bad, because the Paladin trainer will always be in Thrall's throne room at all hours of the day. However, let's suppose that respecs were caused by using a "Respectful Earthstorm Diamond", created by a JC.

Even if the mats were much cheaper than 50g, if you couldn't find the mats on the AH and you can't find a JC who'll make it for you, either because they're all offline, they don't have the recipe or just plain can't be arsed to get to a capital city, you're stuck.

Huge hassle, right? That's how much of a hassle permanent Inscriptions would be.

Tavik · 07/30/08, 2:10 AM

What if the glyphs were semi-permanent with a limited number of uses? Allow them to have X number charges, and each time they get put into the glyph interface it would consume a charge. You could have your PvP glyphs and your PvE glyphs and you could swap them out, using a charge on each glyph each time you swapped them. People who respec and reglyph daily have to buy them more often, but not daily, and people who respec weekly/monthly will have them for much longer. You wouldn't be as dependent on finding an inscriber with a particular glyph you need whenever you respec, as some have been concerned about, and it would still have economic consequences for those who want to respec twice daily.

Shakes · 07/30/08, 2:42 AM

Why do we need "economic consequences" for respeccing? All it does is disproportionately hurt hybrid classes, who already have the "economic consequences" of having to gem/enchant multiple gear sets (and in the case of healers or tanks, the "economic consequences" of their farming set lagging behind in quality to those of their DPS peers).

I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation for a healer or tank to want to be able to participate in all aspects of the game as easily as a DPS player. Blizzard seem to be slowly getting it, first with the 1/3 damage on healing gear, now with the unified spell power and the 2 specs. They've almost got it right (I'd argue the only tweak required is adding a third spec, so you could have a PvE/PvP/solo choice for those who want to both PvP and PvE as healers/tanks). Why on earth do people want them to take a big step backwards and make inscription a barrier to it?

Sabyn · 07/30/08, 3:30 AM

Originally Posted by virtuzoso

I certainly hope that Inscription doesnt work like gems do, I dont believe it would be fun to have to redo glyphs with every respec. Yes, you do change gear when you respec to a different role ( DPS, Tanking, Healing) but you have a set of gear ( or are working on one) for that role. When you spec back, that gear set doesnt just dissapear and you have to collect it all over again. That unecessarily making it a tedious moneysink, even if they are not very expensive.

For example, I personally tend to change specs every few weeks. One week I will be some dagger spec, the next week I will be hemo or Combat Swords. If I had backstab incscripted, that inscription would be completely wasted if I ever specced to Combat Swords and when I specced back to Daggers, I'd have to repurchase the Inscription. I'm pretty sure if a Warrior specs to Arms, his Prot gear doesnt dissapear!

In my opinion, Glyphs should become Soulbound once 'equipped' but they are swappable like trinkets or any other type of gear ( perhaps even with a cooldown, but I dont see the necessity of it)

And in a related matter, I have been an herb/alchemist on both of my rogues since release and this is the first time I looked at it and thought it was pretty much useless and something my bank alt could handle as well as I could. The Alchemical Blood not affecting flasks is dissapointing, and it may very well be a bug, but I am extremely tempted to drop Alchemy for Blacksmithing or enchanting once more information comes out. It's a great change for mana users, but as has been pointed out, it makes haste pots or destruction pots near useless ( or at least, unpopular). Alchemy had steadily becoming a bit boring for me, but now I think that it really is. I definitely will be watching how professions shape up very closely

You are comparing apples to oranges. When a war switches from arms to prot his gear doesn't disappear, but it would still need their own gems / enchants. When you switch specs your gear doesn't disappear either, and you may not even need to re-enchant / regrem. Now say you both respec, you both may end up needing to reglyph. Blizzard is making it easier to do an actual repsec in WLK, but that doesn't mean they want switching specs to be trivial / painless. Tying enchanting / JC / Inscription to specs would tie in to that. I am not saying that this is a good or bad thing, but I think its important to try and understand their motives.

Another agrument against "keeping" old glyphs is that over time people will be buying less and less glyphs as their accumulate them. Forcing people to repurchase glyphs (or just anything, such as parchments) keeps the profession alive. Think of it as being able to take out gems from old gear. That would absolutely kill JCing.

Shakes · 07/30/08, 3:39 AM

Jewelcrafting does one thing: make gems. Inscription makes both scrolls (consumable) and glyphs (potentially not consumable). If they make glyphs not be consumables, all it does it bring it in line with the model of something like leatherworking: you make armor (not consumable) and leg patches/drums (consumable).

Sabyn · 07/30/08, 3:48 AM

Originally Posted by Shakes

Jewelcrafting does one thing: make gems. Inscription makes both scrolls (consumable) and glyphs (potentially not consumable). If they make glyphs not be consumables, all it does it bring it in line with the model of something like leatherworking: you make armor (not consumable) and leg patches/drums (consumable).

Correct, but it all depends on how big a deal scrolls are. Right now they don't seem to be fleshed (their only market is enchanters, which is fairly narrow, and could potentially cause some interdependency issues) out enough to be on par with something like leg patches. With how specialized they are I hope they are fairly painless.

*edit*

Forgot about the "normal" scrolls they will be able to make, along with the temp item buffs. Those will may be enough renewable stuff to keep it viable long term.

yossar · 07/30/08, 4:51 AM

Originally Posted by Shakes

Jewelcrafting does one thing: make gems.

And non-consumable rings, amulets, and trinkets.

Morlark · 07/30/08, 4:58 AM

Originally Posted by Shakes

Jewelcrafting does one thing: make gems. Inscription makes both scrolls (consumable) and glyphs (potentially not consumable). If they make glyphs not be consumables, all it does it bring it in line with the model of something like leatherworking: you make armor (not consumable) and leg patches/drums (consumable).

Ah, but that's just it. Armour gets replaced every time you hit a new tier of content. And some of that armour will naturally come from crafting, whether from BoP crafter-only pieces, or raid-drop materials, or from raid-drop recipes. So in a sense, gear can be thought of as a rather long-term consumable. But from what we've seen of glyphs so far, the way they're incredibly scaleable, if they're non-consumable, then they will be truly non-consumable. You literally won't need to replace them until the next expansion, unless they make the raid-dropped (or later in progression, regardless of source) glyph recipes that much better than the earlier ones. And given that the glyphs we've seen provide a scaling non-static bonus (unlike the armour you compare it to), that could get very silly very quickly.

Prinsesa · 07/30/08, 5:12 AM

Originally Posted by Morlark

Ah, but that's just it. Armour gets replaced every time you hit a new tier of content. <snip>

Your argument holds water if and only if we also assume that Glyphs are intended to be the in-constant-demand product of Inscription.

It could very well be that Blizzard completely expects a player to only need one set of Glyphs once, then have Inscription's "moneymaker" be something else.

Scrolls of Agility (and others) could very well be Inscription's analog to Tailoring's spell threads, Leatherworking's leg armor, and (most closely related to) Alchemy's Flasks/Elixirs.

Zurgat · 07/30/08, 5:22 AM

Originally Posted by yossar

And non-consumable rings, amulets, and trinkets.

True, the BoP versions were mainly at the high end though.

In summary what we're looking at so far is :

* Leatherworking : 31-149,75 stats + BoP armor
* Enchanting : 40 stats + BoP Wands
* Blacksmithing : 40 stats expected + BoP weapons or armor.
* Tailoring : 31 stats expected + BoP Clothing
* Jewelcrafting : 30 stats expected + BoP Trinkets
* Mining : 25 stats
* Skinning : 25 stats
* Alchemy : ~10-20 stats + BoP Trinkets
* Inscription : Unknown + Extra glyph
* Engineering : Unknown + BoP Goggles?

How inscription compares in DPS difference is still too early to tell, and neither engineering or tailoring is fully certain yet. Hopefully there will be a new update next week. Leatherworking, Enchanting and Blacksmithing are all good choices currently. Inscription will be a major point as well depending how they balance out the extra glyph slot.

Shakes · 07/30/08, 5:46 AM

I think "can make money from gathering" is a fairly obvious benefit too, which assuming inscription "prospects" herbs only alchemy, tailoring, leatherworking and blacksmithing lacks. Although alchemy has the extra procs which offsets it a bit.

Fabinas · 07/30/08, 5:52 AM

In essence, glyph inscriptions are TATTOOS on your character. The word "Glyph" has greek origins and means "something that is carved". I understand the WISH of all of you to have a fully customisable character (especially the 3-role hybrids), but i find it silly to wish for interchangeable tattoos. While it has no logic behind it, think about :

Gear: it is farmable content, being able to tailor your character. It costs time and/or money to make them. Enchanting/gemming the gear appropriately elevates the cost.

Talents: they are abilities, skills and spells you LEARN, paying the appropriate cost. Now that we have gold inflation, respeccing is relatively cheap, but that doesnt mean Blizzard intened to have characters do daily respecs, hence the high and elevating respec costs in Vanilla WoW.

Inscription: will be the means to tailor your character FURTHER more into a certain path (something you can already see in many talent trees being bloated to their last tiers. For example, Druids cant be the perfect dps/tank combo in WotLK like in TBC, they now have to make choices, being more cat-dps or bear-tank talented.).

Also think that Blizzard doesnt want you to have a character that does ALL in game (2 professions only), but wants you to be more or less specialised in a certain role. The TBC PvP gear (vastly different than Vanilla WoW) and the discussion about the potential of 2 interchangeable specs (is there a definite source for that? i havent seen one and seeing people basing their swap-able glyph wish onto that rumor annoys me) also shows the Blizzard´s wish to have people specialised. Even the homogenising of the talents some have pointed out in threads shows the same way (seems strange, but e.g. all tanks will now have the same abilities, more or less, albeit constucted in a different way and having glyphs making the difference in their performance).

Zurgat · 07/30/08, 5:53 AM

Originally Posted by Shakes

I think "can make money from gathering" is a fairly obvious benefit too, which assuming inscription "prospects" herbs only alchemy, tailoring, leatherworking and blacksmithing lacks. Although alchemy has the extra procs which offsets it a bit.

For raiding most will try to maximize their raid dps rather than looking at profits.
There's generally plenty to be done with herb, mining and skinning alts. Or just grind with your main.

Certainly inscription will be able to provide a decent bonus for early contenders much like jewelcrafting did.
But, for most raiders that's relatively unimportant.