Does the Zap Throttle Mote Extractor have any utility?

I'm considering dropping Engineering to pick up enchanting and I just wanted to know the full picture.

How well does it work? How does one obtain motes - which seem to be required in everything - otherwise?

Prior to 2.0 I was herb / engineering. Herb for obvious raiding utility, and engineering just for toys and gadgetzan teleports.

I've recently dropped engineering and leveled enchanting to 300. Call me an OCD power-gamer but +12 dmg on each of my rings sounds pretty nice to me.

I don't see potions ever not being an integral part of raiding, so I'll keep herbalism as I don't intend on having a 70 alt for a long long time.

Its' utility is very limited. Zangarmarsh & Shadowmoon Valley have clouds that spawn in which you can use the extractor nearby them to get 3-5 motes of life (zangarmarsh) or shadow (shadowmoon valley). The clouds are somewhat rare and life & shadow motes are two of the easier, if not easiest, motes to farm.

You can also find clouds in netherstorm which you can extract motes of mana from, but you either need to be wearing These goggles or have a see invis buff on you. Mana motes are a bit more worthwhile & used in a number of things, but they're not terribly difficult to farm either.

All things considered, it wasn't enough to get me to keep engineering. I was hoping for a last minute addition of BOP gun recipes or allowing the mote extractor to work on elemental corpses, but I ended up dropping it for axesmithing over the weekend.

Ah, the question milling about my brain amidst thoughts of pie and larceny.

Currently Skinner complete with Finkle's and a glove enchant, and max Herbalism with my spiffy Tauren Planthunter racial. I've used them mainly for cash, though I don't get a whole lot out of them. If I knew an Alchemist or LW familiarly, I'd send them mats and get some finished product sometimes, but most of the time they end up on the AH.

Advent of the expansion, and I'm currently debating heavily now that I have a week to prepare. One order of business is bringing Cooking (and Fishing by proxy) as high as possible because of some of the nice eating benefits. But I have no idea what I want to do. Keep mine for cash flow? Lord knows you get cash in the expansion (at 70 especially), but racking up 6k is not an easy task in any case. Maybe those will help me in that direction? But I feel somewhat unsatisfied as people run around with delicious nectars of potionry or amazing crafted BOP weapons... I feel left out if I'm only working for the weekend, if you know what I mean.

I'm thinking of:

1) Keep Skinnerbalism. Easiest, I'm already set. Use em for cash and the occasional potion if possible from combines.

2) Drop Skinning, get Alchemy. Not too hard, I have a stockpile of high end herbs and riding around or buying low ones isn't horrible. Alchemy has some really nice things, Super Mana pots, AP pots, +heal/dmg pots, etc. Not too shabby. But are they worth it? Do I really even need Alchemy on a main when many things are just from trainers? I could level it on an alt, possibly.

3) Drop Herbalism, get LW. Lord knows LW isn't that thrilling, but there's some things I wouldn't mind, and there's beasts everywhere in Outlands to skin. But again, worth losing a profitable venture like Herbalism (especially how important pots are for high end raiding)?

4) Drop both, get Mining/Smithing. I have no illusions about my ability to get good high-end gear. Raids require a guild and I don't see myself getting in any on my server, I don't really know people on Horde. PVP requires... a desire and the skill to PVP, neither which I can attest to as strengths of mine. So some of those amazing BOP weapons look just juicy beyond reason. But levelling those, especially Smithing, looks like the most arduous task possible.

I feel... so lost... DAMN YOU, EXPANSION.

I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I hate the idea of dropping skinning, but I think I'm going to pick up jewelcrafting instead. On the side, i've been leveling Alts with the professions I want. I've been working on alchemy/herb for my mid 20-'s priest and enchanting/mining for my high 30's warrior. Hopefully by the time the xpac hits and is playable, i'll have enough mats to jewelcraft to 300 and beat the wave of high-priced jewelcrafting items.

well for the top of the line crafted weapons that are BoP they require nether vortexs that only drop in 25mans :/

OTOH you can probably make decent money from selling legs enchants from leatherworking (the primal nether drops in 5man heroic) if you have the patience to grind scryer/aldor rep before everyone else :)

I considered that as well, but I'm of a mind that one of two things will happen vis-a-vis Jewelcrafting:

1) Everybody does it, so much competition that decent gems are cheap on the AH and I can just reap their efforts instead of doing it myself.

2) Everybody does it, so every Outlands mining node and gem on the AH is either camped, nonexistant, or exhorbitantly priced by farmers and pure miners that I'd never get anything done if I did it (think Dreamfoil).

So I'm just going to avoid it a bit.

Anyone know if any of the new potions in TBC last through death other than the flasks? Just curious becaue to me at this point alchemy is useless for pvp. (aside from healing pots) Lets just say I die a lot :P

The Alchemist's Stone looks phenomenal and in the early part of the expansion where consumables might be needed to make up for shortfalls in gear I plan to work towards getting one as soon as I can. It seems to work out at 40mp5 when using Super Mana potions every cooldown, plus some stats- from a healing point of view I'm not sure there will be any better trinkets for a long time.

Must admit I've pondered levelling Alchemy solely for that trinket. Would be amazed though personally if it doesn't get adjusted at some stage though, that much regen in situations where it counts (chain potting) is just far too good to pass up plus as you say there's the other stats too, so somewhat hesitant about levelling a skill just for it given the potential for very heavy adjustments as soon as it becomes obvious that all serious min maxers are using one.

Well another good thing about Alchemy that might sway me is that endgame basically requires it, historically, and there seems to be no change in this regard. You are almost guaranteed that you or other players will need potions made. Again, OTOH, of course, many guilds have their own alchemists doing it, but not everyone has that advantage.

Currently herbalism + enchanting.

Definitely keeping enchanting since it was such a pain to lvl I can't face dropping it. Of course the ring enchants will be a nice bonus.

I'll probably have herbalism for levelling and then switch to alchemy once I hit 70. It should be rather straightforward to lvl alchemy 300-375 with the stockpile of herbs I have from the 60-70 grind. The +stats on alchemist's stone alone are pretty nice, and the potion bonus is just icing

25 man raids have been done. Gruul did not drop a nether vortex.

Maybe you missed a possibility: they simply are not in game yet. Primal Nethers were added to the game after people started doing content that provided them (level 70 instances). There's no reason Nether Vortices can't be as well.

Again, no one knows where they will come from. 25 man raids would be one possibility. 10 man raids and rare drops from 5 man heroics is another possibility. Spreading rumors pretending you know is counter-productive, however.

Sorry, forum hiccup made me double post.

It seems like the whole point of the decent crafted weapons is to help with the gear gap between hardcore raiders and middle of the road players who might not want to raid. It would defeat the point to have the parts needed drop from 25 man raids.

My greatest fear is that I drop engineering, make myself the guild enchanter and then they release Gnomish Flying Machines and make Engineering required to use them.

Just wanted to add that the Materials for spell thread is bop meaning that it has extra value as the profession of your main.

It was said by blue poster that next tier of blacksmith upgrades wont be available until players well into t5 gear. Grull = t4. Its a safe bet thet nether vortex drop in tempest keep and serpentshine cavern. Maybe from some future raids too. btw your denial is not productive either.

Personally I think a lot of people are overstating the benefit enchanting will bring. Judging by the items dropping from level 70 5-mans the spell damage ring enchant for instance is a boost of about 2.5% to your total spell damage, which is going to be a bit less than a 2.5% increase to your overall damage. While it'll probably provide you with the best overall stats, unless Blizzard keeps including new ring enchants as gear gets better the relative gain of enchanting your rings will get less as your gear gets better. The absolute gain will remain comparable, but getting 24 extra spell damage when you have 800 total is more impressive than when you have 1200 total.

Are you sure? I made a few spell threads on beta a few weeks ago, and the raw materials AFAIK were all BoE - netherweave, arcane dust [DE from greens], a ton of primals, and some rune thread. So you can easily farm all the mats yourself and then trade them to a tailor.

It is very tough deciding what profs to finalize on, there is the tug of wanting profs that help you level contrasted with the effort involved in using them while leveling. For example, unless you have herb/alchemy together one or the other isn't that useful - the herbalism boosts are fairly trivial, and without any auction houses in outlands you don't want to be running back and forth to get mats to create potions with. I leveled to 70 without any potions with no problems, so perhaps people are trying to min/max a little too much.

With that said I'll probably be herbalism/enchanting while leveling, easy to DE all those greens and stockpile herbs. Then at 70 drop herbalism (alt to farm) and replace it with either alchemy, tailoring, jewelcrafting, or something else depending on guild progression (how far until ready to raid), reputation and recipes, and how much PVP I end up doing.

The blue spell thread doesen't require anything bop but the epic ones like most endgame tailoring craftables requires Primal Nether which drops in instances on heroic mode afaik and is bop.

http://www.thottbot.com/beta?t=Tailoring

The same post said that arena weapons/armor will also be upgraded after the first season. I'm expecting Blizzard to actually change what the vendors sell, and not have them drop in Serpentshire Cavern or Tempest Keep. When there are numerous options with them, from a raid drop as common as Hourglass Sand, a rare drop as rare as Sulfuron Ingots, a transmute on a long cooldown that anyone can get, or even a questable reward that requires something done in a heroic 5-man... there's no point in insisting that they will drop in Tier 5 dungeons until it actually happens.

And I'd still take Blacksmithing if Nether Vortexes dropped only in Tier 5 dungeons, because they let people's weapons or armor skip up a Tier at that point. And before then, it gives people Tier 5 weapons/armor before they even set foot in Kharzahn or the 25-man raids.