Starfire

Anything good for Shadow will generally be good for Discipline. Holy benefits from pretty much anything and everything. All professions give roughly the same spellpower, give or take 1-2 points or so. The primary difference is Tailoring gives the spellpower in a "burst" (via proc).

Now, there are some other side-perks. For instance, both Jewelcrafting and Alchemy offer trinkets (which are by no means end-game trinkets; however they're decent trinkets for NEW characters).

Additionally, Jewelcrafting allows a person to do the Jewelcrafting daily which can be converted to Dragon's Eyes; this tends to sell for decent gold (average 125g / daily on my server, YMWV).

Alchemy on the other hand enables you to save money because of double-duration on Flasks (and Elixirs). Alchemy also grants access to Alchemist-only potions which function as Rejuvenation pots but also have random other bonuses (usually gives +haste, sometimes +speed if your health is low).

Now beyond those perks (and there are others for each profession) there are some intangibles. Besides the primary spellpower given by all professions, some professions give the advantage of flexibility. For example, a Jewelcrafter, Blacksmith and Alchemist can easily swap from spellpower to stacking Intellect (or Spirit, or Stamina if you really wanted too).

Personally, I couldn't be happier with Jewelcrafting and Alchemy; though if I spent more time as shadow I would consider Engineering or Tailoring in place of either Jewelcrafting or Alchemy.

 

Kashir

All professions give roughly the same spellpower bonus, with a few quirks;

- Tailoring: Spellpower cloak enchant is overbudget on average, but it's a proc rather than a constant effect. Can also choose a regen enchant instead, and regen procs are fine for healers.

- Jewelcrafting or Blacksmithing: Very flexible by allowing you to socket either Int or Spellpower (or other stats if you particularly need them)

- Engineering: Weird

- All gathering professions: Pretty useless for healers.

If you're willing to sink the gold, Jewelcrafting + Blacksmithing is almost always the best answer because it allows you the greatest flexibility in your bonus selection. The only exceptions I can think of is tailoring for DPS casters (the +spellpower proc is great for DPS) or leatherworking for tanks (the +resistance enchants can be very powerful for particular fights)

 

Starfire

Pretty sure they nerfed Tailoring. It's not longer 45s on the internal cooldown but a full 60s on it.

Alchemy also provides flexibility to getting Intellect (either via [Flask of Distilled Wisdom] flasks or via using [Guru's Elixir] + [Elixir of Mighty Thoughts], though I personally prefer [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom]. Additionally, Alchemy is the only one besides Leatherworking which can provide substantial resistance (in theory, Blacksmithing can provide a low level amount).

Engineers also get a minor bonus to their Mana Potions, using Injectors they get 25% more mana. I believe this is worth something like 17.5 mp5 for a 5 minute flight. (But keep in mind this is a one time bonus).

 

Miarose

I'll have to disagree that engineering as a profession is "weird". I personally like it, and use it to my advantage, and play style.
-24 crit to boots, plus speed boost
-27 spell power to cloak
-on use, 1 min CD, 340 haste to gloves for 10 seconds
-As well as the above poster mentioned, 25% increased use to each mana pot injector

Granted, these are not extra sockets, but I find these to be fairly useful as a disc priest. As well as the little perks like Jeeves that always help when stuck down in the TOGC pit.

 

Kashir

Actually now that I think about it, how does Alchemy work with elixirs and low-level flasks like Distilled Wisdom? Is there an actual formulae for calculating the +bonus, or is it a fixed amount for each item?

 

pocketmage

According to wowhead commentary, the bonus varies from 25% or so to 50% or so depending on what it is. A few examples:


Flask of Supreme Power = +93 sp = 43% better
Flask of Distilled Wisdom = +85 int = 31% better
Flask of Mighty Restoration = +38 mana5 = 52% better

And it only affects elixirs and flasks you can make, to prevent people from rerolling Alchemy and not skilling it up.



Personally, I have thought of going engineering for the glove haste enchant more than anything. On a 1 min CD it would be fantastically useful as a holy priest. And the rest of the profession is just silly fun. I've had it back in vanilla, briefly, and loved my bag of toys >..>

 

Glasswizard

Rocketboots are vastly underrated, I'd choose engineering again alone for this ability to sprint. An additional oh shit button to get out of bad situations, catch up to out of range tanks, change positions faster, etc. A on use ability is just a lot more valuable than a little extra spellpower. And most of the time they don't even backfire.

 

Starfire

The bonus isn't a percentage better, it's done by stat points. Also, I think your numbers are outdated. The pre-3.2 bonus was 20 stat points better.

Also, that 93 spellpower seems absurdly wrong, Alchemy would be the best caster profession hands down if it was 93 spellpower. Alchemy bonus should be ~47 spellpower (it's the amount in the Flask of the North). (To compare, Jewelcrafting grants 48 spellpower). Alchemy bonus for non-spellpower stats is a bit more complicated, but comparable.

 

Feebis

Those numbers from WoWhead are for the Pre-BC flasks.

The actual numbers are as follows for commonly used flasks and elixirs:
Flask of the Frost Wyrm provides +47 spellpower to an alchemist
Flask of Distilled Wisdom Provides +20 intellect to an alchemist
Flask of Pure mojo provides +20 MP5 to an alchemist
Elixir of Mighty Thoughts + Guru's Elixir provides 28 intellect and 20 spirit to an alchemist

 

c4tuna

Engineering is a very viable profession simply because nitro boots are lifesaving. On any fight with movement phases, they end up being significantly better, from personal experience, than Tuskarr's (or spirit if you're still using it). You can't measure on a sim program how many saved lives and prevented wipes unparalleled mobility for a healer can be. If you pull aggro, you can just run away. If someone's dying 50 yards away, you can get there with a second to spare over another profession. Yes your throughput may be slightly less (though hyperspeed accelerators are amazing for burst phases) but healing has always placed more of an emphasis on ability over stats.

 

Uzziel

I agree that engineering is a good profession for an extra "Oh %#*@&" button. However, the nitro boots and arguably the Glyph of Dispersion, while awesome, merely make more wiggle room for bad play. If you are consistently having to use a save/ability/CD in order to get out of sticky situations, there might be a bigger problem at hand than needing to switch professions.

 

c4tuna

The discussion, if I'm not mistaken, is about the best professions for healing, not shadow, and pulling aggro is a much more real challenge for healers than shadow. I've got math in the shadow theorycraft thread showing Engy as the BiS profession for shadow throughput regardless, with on-demand burst and an extra oh shit button (and jeeves ).

EDIT: And sometimes you just get bad luck twice in a row. The argument that having more emergency buttons promotes bad play is a misnomer, as why would anyone willingly handicap themselves into not having a "get out of jail free card" when one is available? If it causes certain players to suck more, then that's on them, not the availability of the cooldown in question.

 

pocketmage

You are not seriously saying that threat is an issue for healing priests? Compared to vanilla and TBC, Northrend threat is a complete non-issue. To the point where nearly all PvE specs skip the threat reduction talents completely. Back in MC, I could pull off tanks with full 5/5 talents. Even at my absolute best HPS spikes, fresh spawns are easily contained by tanks who are worth their weight in today's raiding environment. Not to mention... Fade =)

And in ToC, range is nearly never an issue. Nothing like Mount Hyjal.

In high movement fights, a passive minor speed increase that is always active seems better to me than a once on a rare occasion nitro induced dash. The few engineers I have in my guild tend to use it as show off time during Anub hard mode kitting or random lulz.



The reason I'd go engineering is for glove enchant. A nice, nontrinket, onuse haste buff on a short CD is very advantageous.

 

c4tuna

Pulling healing threat from the MT target is, obviously, a non-issue. Pulling healing threat from Nerubian Burrowers or Onyxia Whelps or other adds that rapidly spawn mid-fight (or targets with odd threat mechanics such as faction champs) happens, and it's happened within my guild on several occasions. Ulduar had many more "oh shit I need to get in range quickly or that mage dies" moments than ToC does, and from what I've seen, Icecrown has lots of movement more similar to Ulduar. The passive bonus provided by Tuskar's is likely better than nitro boots - assuming you are constantly moving the whole fight. It's more likely that you have punctuated periods of movement of significant length -- think changing portals on Twin Valkyrs, running from the melee pain train on Champs, Anub burrow phases, running back to Icehowl after a charge.

 

Miarose

Nitro boots are only part of the tinker enchant though. It provides 24 crit in addition to speed boost, which is better than Icewalker.

 

Senres

Of those situations you mention, c4tuna, only on Onyxia have I consistently had adds aggro on me and actually hit me. My tanks are great at picking up adds quickly. I also know instantly when I have aggro. It's easy enough to find the add running towards me and hit Fade if needed. I've never been in a situation in WotLK where I had aggro and wished I had a sprint buff to run away.

There are fight mechanics that make having a sprint buff incredibly useful in ToC, though -- every one you mentioned. The only fight I can think of where the permanent 8% is a definitive win is on Twin Valkyrs. Since I cast only instant spells I run around and collect balls to prevent them hitting melee. Having an extra 8% run speed for the entire fight is really useful. That said, as a holy priest, I've spec'd in to Body and Soul for exactly those fights you mention. I've found having a quick (targetable!) sprint buff to be invaluable.