Way back when i first hit level 60, i realized just how worthless a profession Skinning was for me, and decided to drop it for Engineering to make PVP toys and other neat gadgets. As a result, I have two crafting and no gathering professions. I'm sure I'm not unique in this situation, and I'm sure with the cool new BOP weapons and other gear there's a lot of people who are contemplating swapping to a new crafting profession when the expansion comes out (or already have), especially those who have "disenchanting", now that it requires actual skill ranks to shard things.

My question for discussion here, then, is for those people who have worked to level professions past 300 on beta - what old-world patterns and materials are still effective for leveling up in the expansion, and thus what would be useful materials to stock up on before january when everyone's scrambling to skill up? Things like Rugged Leather are super cheap right now, but when everyone wants it to level up (you know, all three leatherworkers on every server), the prices are sure to go up.

What old patterns are still orange/yellow, and when do they turn green/grey? I haven't actively leveled up my professions at all on beta due to lack of materials, but i've noticed some recipes changing colors from where they are on live (thorium shells goes green instead of orange at 300, for instance), so i'm sure there's been some shifting around to keep leveling professions from being to easy or too hard.

Almost everything switches to new base material types right off the bat at level 60. Leatherworking has Knothide Leather, Tailoring has Netherweave Cloth (was that what it was called? I forget), Blacksmithing and Engineering have Fel Iron Ore/Bars...

The big thing I would recommend you start hoarding immediately would be Runecloth. The first new bandage type is Netherweave Bandages at First Aid 330. To get to 330, you need to make Heavy Runecloth Bandages...a ton of them. The last 10 or so First Aid levels require making those while the recipe is green.

Other than that, I didn't observe much need to stockpile any old material types to level past 300.

only stockpiling you need to do is for jewelcrafting, and for that are tons of 0-300 shopping lists floating around

i'm not necessarily just wondering what old world materials you *need*, but rather what old world recipes/materials are still effective for leveling. if i can go from 300-320 on rugged leather rather than knothide, i want to do that, because i don't have skinning to get the knothide leather. :-P the more old world materials each profession can use to level, the easier it is for those of us without gathering professions - and that's the question i'm getting at :-P

Right now on live, a number of leatherworking patterns: Core Armor Kit, Devilsaur Leggings, Runic Leather Pants, and Wicked Leather Belt (?!) all yellow out at 320 and gray out at 340. (This is Thottbot data.) I certainly plan to check the veracity of that once I get my main to the beta servers (if those keys ever go out...)

Take a look at what recipes you have now that are orange/yellow. Typically these will stay that way for about 10-15 levels, especially if you got the pattern at lvl 295+

Enchanting is one of the ones that I found would benefit from stockpiling.

At 300 Enchanting Wizard and Mana oils are still Orange, as is Enchant Bracer: Superior Stam.

Wizard/Mana oils require some large brilliant shards and Stam to Bracers requires Illusion Dust.
I'd suggest at least grabbing a few stacks from the AH while they're cheap, it'll get you 20-30 skill points easily.

Interestingly too I haven't seen Nexus Crystals to be used much after 60 so I liquidated a lot of mine, and got some Large Brilliants instead.

I spent some time this weekend levelling engineering.
I am a goblin engy, so ymmv.

After going through bascially everything I had mined making it to 70 (having maxxed mining around level 66, a hell of a lot of ore), I am sitting at 326 or so.
I'm now either stockpiling mats to make mechanical yetis to level with or dropping engineering, depending on the quality of the recipies found before the xpac goes live.

Grats on reading his post...

For cooking, the Smoked Desert Dumplings made by Sandworm Meat keep giving skill ups for quite a while, even longer than some recipes you find on Hellfire Penninsula.

It is easy enough to check the thottbot.com/beta page for the item you're thinking of skilling up with to make sure it hasn't changed.

Presuming they don't modify things, of course.

For Blacksmithing: Light Obsidian Belts grey out at 340 and Elemental Sharpening Stones grey out at 320. Both are very easy on the mats (anyone doing AQ is going to have a few hundred small obsidian shards).

Funny, I spent quite a while looking for precisely this information just the other day - couldn't find it. Also couldn't find information about when a given recipe turns green (thottbott only has information for orange/yellow/grey).

Not all greens and yellows are created equal. If you look at some of the good crafting guides they're able to tell you which yellows almost always give a skillup and which greens almost never do.

is there any reasonable way to tell? i doubt many crafting guides have information past 300 these days :)

I've found that the next 5 skillups after an item turns yellow still always give a skill point. After that though it's a crap shoot.

This is probably why there's no definitive answer, because I've also notice that last point always seems to take longer.

I think http://thottbot.com/beta?t=Leatherworking is a good source of information.
I personnaly stock Light Silithid Carapace, Silithid Chitin and Essence of Fire to make Spitfire items, for the new ally shaman

It seems to me, the cheapest way to skill up Leatherworking will be Wicked Leather Belts, 14 Rugged, rest vendor items. I don't understand why anyone would skill up on Core Armor Kits. They technically require less materials, but each piece of Core Leather is worth at least 2 stacks of 20 rugged leather, so the effective gold cost is much higher.

Probably because a whole lot of guilds have a crapton of Core Leather rotting away in their banks - this is at least a useful way of getting rid of it.

For engineering, the "no tought required" choice for skilling up is repair bots. Craptonnes of repair bots. It goes yellow at 320, and grey at 340, so personally, I am planning to make 50 or so and mail the lot to an alt. Why? because they wont be wasted. Doesn't matter how many I make, eventually I will use them all. Now, to stock up 50 fused wirings...

I don't know how bad felsteel will be to get, so I've stacked a twinkload of Thorium and will make a lot of imperal plate chests for the first 20 skill points.

I was thinking of stockpiling to level jewel crafting.
But it looks like the entire playerbase is planning to do that so I might just not bother.

Agreed, Judia. There have been far too many people who've got magic gold coins dancing in their eyes when talking about the profits they'll make in the expansion.

The guides that have been out for a while are pretty well known and just about everytime the conversation comes up someone confidently advises the group that they've "dropped herbalism on my alt and are levelling up mining to stockpile ores/bars/gems for jewelcrafting".
---

I think it'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the current popular items to be replaced and assign stockpiling priorities accordingly. For instance, Brilliant Wizard Oils look like they'll be replaced pretty quickly since the mats for Superior Wizard Oil look pretty easy. Whereas the Major Spellpower weapon enchant looks like it'll be difficult to obtain, the mats look tough to accumulate, so I'd guess that the demand for the normal Spellpower enchant for weapons may be around for a bit.