Spell hit rating is the new hit with spells. Spell penetration is as far as I know the new -resistance.

The shadoweave stuff is loaded with hit though. That's the main reason it looks so attractive to locks and shadow priests I guess. Lots of hit and spell damage, no wasted itemization points on crit like everything else seems to have.

Uhm, loaded ? There is grand total +9 spell hit rating that comes in a form of socketing bonus. It is around 0.7% spellhit at level 70.

The set bonus is +24 Spell Hit Rating (roughly 2% at level 70). It's a nice little set. It's far and away better itemised than the Tier 4 and Tier 5 Priest nuker sets. Alas though, the set bonuses on the Tier 4 and 5 are rather nice so you'll probably have to break the set anyway.

Including the set bonus, it's slightly more than 2.5% hit on 3 pieces. For crafted pre-raid gear, that's pretty strong in my eyes. It certainly beats the T4 (and if the temporary design is a good measure, T5) they have thrown us.

Poultryizer is instant cast and usable in arenas... I fully expect it to be nerfed.

Last I checked, you could equip two at once :P (I think that's already been fixed, though).

I'm going to go with tailoring and enchanting on my main and most likely herbalism and engineering on my first lvl70 alt. I am currently tail/ench on live and I don't have any reason to change it. Besides, I think I'm one of those high-end enchanters that people know they can trust with their mats so why not keep enchanting and make use of that reputation. Herbalism to alt is a no-brainer. Flowers for my main's potions. Engineering will be used for PvP and also engineers will have an extractor to help mote-farming.

I'm still unsure what i want to do with my new Shaman profession-wise. To date i've taken every single one to 300 at least once, although i've never obtained anything really rare (enchanted thorium lol). I do not want to do two gathering professions since they're not fun at all and i don't really care about money in WoW. I also don't find Tailoring and Alchemy very fun so i won't be doing those. But i've narrowed it down to Smithing/JC/Eng, with Leatherworking as a potential end-game backup option since there should be plenty of Mail i can use and benefit greatly from.

My reasons for choosing each are as follows:

Engineering: Bombs, headgear, trinkets, mech.pets, they all help a lot early on and allow you to survive and dominate in encounters you might otherwise need to be a higher level to do, thus making the 1-70 grind much less painful. End game does seem to be lacking (epic mail hat + the extractor, what else?), which is nothing new. But at least there's a few semi-ok reasons to keep it besides the obvious PvP advantages. Barring any nerfs, the rocket launcher alone might make me take this to 70.

Smithing (some form of Weaponsmith). It's a horrible tradeskill while leveling since nothing is useful at all during the low levels for a Shaman given the lack of Mail. But the end-game i think is potentially what will make me take this. Those big weapons look awesome, and i can see obtaining them as a feasible alternative progression path which we haven't seen before in this game.

Jewelcrafting: This will provide significant benefits while leveling up which have previously been denied to us completely: rings, neckpieces and trinkets from very low levels. It also has those silly statue things which work like heals which will be very handy. Endgame JCing doesn't look all that great from what i've read here and on the thott beta page.

I'm unsure as to which will be better for leveling a Shaman, JC or Engineering. Past Eng experience tells me Eng would be awesome, especially power leveled. But JC might be better. For me it will boil down to which one i think will allow me to level quicker and easier.

Perhaps i'll go JC since it's something new.

Herb/alch for leveling. I love picking flowers as I level and being buffed out the ass at all times. I play in the stupid hours of the morning and im an incredibly annoying class to gank so my elixirs usually last the whole duration.

When I hit 70 and finish my rep grinds, I see myself dropping herbalism for something because I can't stand running around just looking for herbs. Might level engineering for the second time for bombs, but if there are any good druid-soloable bosses in BC I'd definitely go enchanting for DEing. Ring enchants are a nice side bonus.

Most the proffessions in BC seem to have "something useful" tied only to that proffession (minus the gathering proffessions)

Engi-Grenades
Tailor-Nets
LW-Drums
Alchemy-Stone
Enchanting-Ring Enchants
JC-On Use Necks
Blacksmithing-Weapons/Armor/Glimmering Insignia

Almost wish they would just try to balance those proffesions unique items out and allow them in the Arena, could add another level to the 5v5 game, though of course would probly have to limit each person to only one type.

While they're at it could possibly add some unique uses for Cooking/Fishing to reward players who spent time leveling those up, possibly BoP food that you can use in the arena?

I'll be staying what I've been from day one, mining and engineering. Though I might switch to gnomish engineering for the sheep trinket. Are the 2 +45 sta trinkets the only difference between gnomish and goblin at the moment?

I might later switch one to enchanting for the ring enchants for arena.

Gnomish ports to Toshley station, Goblin ports to Area 52. The helms they can each make are also differant Goblin gets the 10% Silence/spell interupt and 10% stun resist helms, Gnome gets the pure DPS helms.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to drop Engineering for Axesmithing; I can't think of any weapons I've seen drop in BC that out stat the BOP axe plans. The closest contender, The Quantum Blade (from heroic Black Moras), is only on-par with a Felsteel Reaper, the BOE axe.

Engineering just doesn't offer that much anymore - especially to me, being the cheapskate that I am. Even the best crafted ammo is only minorly above vendor, and there's no ammo->arrow conversion. Also if you use a bow or xbow, the best arrows are vendor bought (CE Rep in Zangarmarsh).

There are two reasonable suggestions that I've made for engineering that would get me to consider staying with it - BOP Guns that are akin to the BOP weapons from smithing, and allowing the Mote Extractor to work on elemental corpses.

Q: is it feasible to have both enchanting and JC on the same character? I believe that the master trainers are on opposite factions in Shattrah City, but I believe that rep change is fairly easy to do. Any comments?

The Quantum Blade is ilvl 95, the Lunar Crescent is ilvl 100. The Quantum Blade has 8 more AP, 30 more stamina and 17 less crit rating than the Lunar Crescent. I don't really see how the Quantum Blade is "only on-par" with a Felsteel Reaper (which, coincidentally, is also ilvl 100, similar to the Lunar Crescent).

In any case, the reason why I'm picking up JC is that I don't know of anyone else in the guild who really wants to become a Jewelcrafter, so that'll increase the chances of myself getting the rare recipes that'll churn out big bucks. Also, everyone's going to need gems, sort of like how everyone needs enchants even at end game, so that in itself is a low, but steady, source of income. When you're overflowing with gold, it's easy to drop a gathering profession and grab whatever profession is good at the time in the game (for example, dropping mining for enchanting/tailoring/herbalism/what-have-you).

With stuff like the Dreaming Glory buff (30hp/5 for 15mins), Fel Blossom (750-1250 absorb shield) and Flame Cap (+80fire dmg for 1min)... and the whole gathering part of herbalism, heh, i cant see myself dropping it ever

Alchemy... i guess its more by habbits that i wont drop it. I've had every single recipe in the game for a while and when i get my epic flying mount the second i hit lvl 70 i know itll be because im an alchemist.
But i find the only alchemist-only item, the Alchemist stone, rather lackluster, for a mage. Is 40% more mana from mana pots and 15stam/int/spirit really worth losing out on +dmg/crit/hit ?
Nef tear, Restrained Essence of Sapphiron, Mark of the Champion...
or from TBC, Shiffar's Nexus-Horn, Icon of the Silver Crescent(REoS v2), Mark of Defiance all seem quite more powerfull... and owning the first 3, and 2 of the TBC ones being blues... heh, yeah :/


The logical thing to do would probably be to get my alt rogue to 70 with alchemy, while my mage went herb/ench for the rings enchant but... in the end it seems like alot of trouble and alot of lost recipes for what ? 20 dmg or so ?

Maybe we will do loatheb again in TBC and ill laugh as my healing pots crit heal with alchemist stone for more than the absorb of the major shadow protection potions heh ;)
Wouldnt it make more sense if potion injectors took 345 alchemy to use (but engineering to make) ?

I hope not! Those injectors are one of the larger reasons that I am keeping my Engineering. :zoid:

there are masters for both in other areas - another master enchanter is in netherstorm for example, in the 2nd town (forgot the name but its run by the shimmery guys)

Awesome, thanks.

Same here. Additionally, I'll probably one of the first 70 healers in my guild, so I'll be running dungeons earlier and more often than most, so (theoretically) I'll also be repping up quickly, giving me access to the faction recipes. The Stone is also pretty damn good for a druid trying to fulfill multiple roles with single pieces of gear. 15 to every stat is no joke, while the potion bonus is just icing on that delicious cake.

It really depends on if Tailoring/Leatherworking are going to get upgrades at the same pace as Blacksmithing. I'll gladly take those professions on the appropriate characters if it meant I could keep pace with my raid or arena level gear. But if Tailoring/Leatherworking are always going to be stuck at Tier 4 equivalent, I'll probably go double gathering. :/

I forsee stealthing Coilfang dungeons for Ancient Lichen being extremely profitable.

There are no upgrades to the LW recipes. There likely will not be any upgrades for them, since Blizzard introduced the drums as LW's "thing". Unfortunately, the drums are horrible. Their buff radius is absolutely abysmally tiny, unless it was changed in the latest patch - I havn't checked.