Hey Big Spender

I’m going to do it. Tonight, I’m going to spend the gold necessary to finish leveling Enchanting from 440 to 450. Ten points doesn’t sound like much, but it will probably cost me the better part of 1000 to 1500 gold.

Just doing some quick math using Wowecon to gather prices on Enchanting mats, I compared three recipes that will take me to 450: Enchant Boots: Greater Assault; Enchant Boots: Tuskarr’s Vitality; and Enchant Bracers: Superior Spellpower.

Whichever enchant I use, I will have to buy the recipe, so right there is about 120 gold unless I have a few shards in the bank (I’m not sure if I do). Then, comparing mat costs on my server, I get the following breakdown:

Greater assault = approx. 120 g per skill point

Tuskarr’s Vitality = approx. 100 g per skill point

Superior Spellpower = approx. 144 g per skill point

Without a doubt, I’ll go with Vitality and (hopefully) spend only a little more than 1000 gold to get those 10 points. Since I will definitely be putting the enchants on Vellum to sell on the AH, hopefully I can make some of that money back.

I might even make a profit. The price for a Tuskarr’s Vitality scroll varies pretty widely, but on the high end I might make as much 125 gold. That will be a pretty slim profit margin, but considering that at one time I’d have had to eat the loss entirely, or else stood barking in Trade all day, I don’t mind.

So why am I suddenly so intent on leveling my Enchanting to cap? Two reasons, really.

Formula Enchant Weapon: Bladeward

and

Formula Enchant Weapon: Blood Draining

Both are zone drops within Ulduar, and I am going to Ulduar for the first time tonight. If either of these drop, I do not want to be denied the chance to roll on them.

I still recall with some pain being excluded from a roll on an Enchanting recipe because my Enchanting was a few points lower than the 340 required to use it. I think the recipe was Dexterity, because it dropped in one of the Auchindoun instances.

That was in a guild group, and the only other group member who was an Enchanter was the group leader’s wife. I remember he asked me what my Enchanting skill was at, and without realizing where he was going with the question, I told the truth. And his wife’s glee was almost evident through my monitor as she said, “Well that decides it. I get the recipe.”

Up until that point, I didn’t realize that a person’s profession level should matter at all when handing out recipes. But I can tell you that after that, I made sure my Enchanting was maxed as soon as possible. I wasn’t about to give anyone else an excuse to deny me a roll on a recipe.

Even so, I’ve always had terrible luck on rolls. I never won a single Enchanting recipe from Karazhan, for example. Moroes still has my Mongoose recipe.

Blacksmithing, money sink or worth every penny?

Have I said how much I hate Blacksmithing? Probably only a half dozen or more times recently. Used to be I reserved “profession hate” for Enchanting, but Blacksmithing has now surpassed Enchanting as the most difficult and expensive profession to level.

Before taking my Orc Death Knight to Northrend this weekend, I finished skilling Blacksmithing up to 300.  It cost me several hundred gold to buy the needed Thorium., and I still had to make a couple farming runs through the Plaguelands, too, because I ran out of gold. One hint I do have for someone skilling up by buying ore is to buy bars instead of raw ore. Thorium Bar can sell for almost half the cost of raw ore, because the ore is more valuable–Jewelcrafters need raw ore for their profession.

At this point, I am leveling Blacksmithing solely because I’ve invested too much gold and time to drop it for Jewelcrafting. There is nothing else keeping me in this profession. At 450, I’ll be able to make some nice armor and weapons for myself, plus add Blacksmith-only gem slots to my armor, but right now I hate this profession with a passion.

There is simply no other profession more worthless when leveling, except perhaps Leatherworking. Compare it with Alchemy on just one point: I finished leveling Alchemy from 290 to 300 making Greater Frost Protection Pots, a worthless item that cost only one Elemental Water and one Dreamfoil.

I leveled Blacksmithing from 290 to 300 making equally worthless but far more expensive items: Imperial Plate bracers and Imperial Plate boots. The first cost 60 Thorium bars to move from 290 to 295 (it was yellow and I got lucky), and the latter cost 90 Thorium bars to move the remaining 5 points.

That’s hundreds of gold in ore, or hours of farming, right there. I only hope it’s worth it in the end, because right now, Blacksmithing sucks.

The Joy of Herbing

In continuation of my previous post on Death Knights and professions, I thought I’d look at another potential profession for DK’s, Herbalism and its associated crafting professions.

Herbalism has always been my favorite gathering profession. In my opinion it’s the easiest, with mining being the most time consuming. Some people say skinning is the most difficult, but one can always find large groups of level 55 to 60 beasts to skin for those last few points between 275 and 300 skinning. One will never find a large group of Rich Thorium nodes, where one can stand in small area and level 25 skill points in a half hour to an hour.

Herbalism occupies a middle ground between mining and skinning, not too hard, not too easy. Here are some tips which could probably apply equally to any gathering profession.

1. Buy a pair of cheap cloth gloves, preferably of common (white) variety, so you don’t accidentally vendor them. Or have your tailor make you a pair of Heavy Linen Gloves. Or just use some random useless “Of the Whale” gloves you get in a drop. Buy the +5 Herbalism enchant and put it on the gloves. You can buy this enchant on the AH now, or ask an enchanter friend to do it for you. If you wait until 80 to level your gathering skill, you can get the +5 Gathering enchant, which gives 5 points to all gathering professions, just in case you change your mind and decide to level something else.
2. An even better idea for Alliance: there is a pattern for Herblist’s Gloves available to Alliance Leatheworkers, and they give +5 Herbalism. Add the enchant, and you get a solid +10 herbalism. That makes a huge difference when leveling your skill. Trust me, if you can get your hands on a pair of these with the enchant, you won’t regret it. Now if only there were a simple way for a Tauren to get a pair, that would mean +20 Herbalism for my Tauren Druid!
3. Combine Herbing with exploration. I’ve discovered most of the Eastern Kingdoms on my Draeneii DK, so I am well along on getting that achievement. I never cover the same ground twice. If I level from 1 to 50 in Dun Morogh, I then move on to Loch Modan for the next 25 or so points. And so forth.
4. Ghost Mushrooms and Grave Moss: these are two herbs that are always found in a few predictable places. You can count on getting a few points from Grave Moss at Ironbeard’s Tomb and in the cemeteries in Duskwood. Similarly, you can count on a few points by visiting Skulk Rock in Hinterlands and the cave at the top of the Jintha’Alor troll temple, also in Hinterlands. There is a cave in Zangarmarsh with some of these mushrooms as well, though I’ve never understood why. Supposedly Maraudon is a good place to gather the Ghost Mushrooms, but Maraudon isn’t exactly easily accessible, though it’s a little better for Horde. Ghost Mushrooms require 245 skill to gather. Since the removal of the Warlock Dreadsteed quest, they don’t sell like they used to, but they are still used for the Elixir of Demonslaying so they might give you a few points in Alchemy, if that is your crafting profession.

Speaking of crafting, with herbalism you have about three choices as I see it: Alchemy, Inscription, and Enchanting. Enchanting may seem an odd choice, but it has no gathering profession associated with it at all, and if you want to just gather herbs to sell, Herbalism/Enchanting is a profitable way to go. I suppose one could say the same of Mining/Enchanting, etc.

I chose Alchemy for my Draeneii DK. Unlike Mining/Blacksmithing, you will level Alchemy pretty much concurrently with your Herbalism, without much need to buy or farm herbs specifically for leveling Alchemy. Alchemy levels fast, much faster than any other crafting profession. Also, potions and elixirs sell pretty well. You won’t get rich, but you won’t be sitting on a bank of crafted greens that won’t sell on the AH, and which you can’t disenchant because you don’t have an alt with high enough Enchanting.

You can’t underestimate the power of Mixology, either. It is the best passive profession buff in the game.

I haven’t leveled a Scribe past 150, but it also seems to level pretty quickly. Unlike Alchemy, though, it has some alternate paths to wealth besides selling Glyphs and Off-Hand frill. Quite often the inks sell better than the Glyphs or the pigments. And from what I’ve read, once you reach a high enough level to make them, you can rake in quite a haul off the craftable Darkmoon Cards. Some of the best, or near-best trinkets at end-game come from the Darkmoon Cards that only Scribes can make.

To sum up, Herbalism/Alchemy was a no-brainer for me, after the trials of leveling Mining/Blacksmithing. I still haven’t got my Orc DK to 300 Blacksmithing, though he is within 15 points of it. I’ve decided to hold off on leveling that profession any more until I am 80 and have a steady supply of gold for buying the Thorium I need. And in the meantime, I’ll just stockpile the Outland and Northrend ores that I am gathering.

Herbalism/Alchemy has so far been a breeze, though, and I don’t think anyone would regret taking these as a DK’s primary professions.

A Guide to Death Knight Professions

For me, the least enjoyable aspect of playing a Death Knight–the one thing that keeps me from leveling one to 80, in fact–is the fact that a Death Knight has to power level gathering and crafting professions. Power leveling professions is one of the least enjoyable aspects of the game for me, period.

Nevertheless, I’m doing it because I enjoy playing my Orc DK, and I do enjoy professions generally. I just don’t like doing things out of sequence, and that’s how power-leveling a profession feels to me–out of step with the rest of the game.

Anyway, since it’s likely we will have to revisit this issue in the future, as new Hero classes are added, I thought I’d share some advice from my experience leveling my Death Knight’s mining and blacksmithing. The same advice can probably apply to other professions as well.

First mining. As with any gathering profession, there is no easy way to skill up except by getting out in the field and mining. Smelting can provide you with a few skill points, but for the most part, you’re going to be hoofing it through all the lower level zones, looking for ore.

1. After paying for your initial training and your mining pick, it’s time to choose a starter zone to level from 1 to 75. In my experience, the best zones in the game for copper are Durotar and Tirisfal Glades. If I had to choose one of those two, I’d choose Tirisfal. It’s a larger zone ringed by hills and surprisingly not as crowded with miners.
2. At about 75 skill, you can easily move on to Silverpine Forest. You can move on earlier since there is copper in Silverpine, but you’ll be frustrated at not being able to mine tin. Also, don’t bother heading across the large lake in the center of the zone to the island with the fortress on it; there are no ore nodes there as best I can tell. Just stick to the mountainous edges of the zones and the caves.
3. From there, your progression should go something like this: Hillsbrad (Copper, Tin, Silver, Iron), Arathi (lots of Iron and Tin), the Hinterlands (Mithril), Western Plaguelands (Mithril and Small Thorium Veins), and finally Eastern Plaguelands. You are especially going to be spending a lot of time in the Hinterlands and EPL. In the Hinterlands, don’t forget to cross the river to the elite Dragon area, Saradane. There are mithril nodes all around the edges, but be careful. You may be a Death Knight, but you aren’t immortal and those dragons will kill you.
4. WPL and EPL are areas where you can actually combine your questing and mining for the first time, and I advise you to do it. Finally, you can feel like you are progressing. Of course there are other areas where this can be done as well–Un’Goro and Silithus, for example–but my experience, having mined both of those zones, is that ore is much more plentiful in the Plaguelands. Winterspring is the only zone on Kalimdor I’d consider spending any length of time inhabiting while leveling mining.
5. My final piece of advice: try to maximize your skill ups by smelting as much as you can while you can still earn points that way. If that means buying ore so as to take advantage of yellow smelting, DO IT! My playtime is valuable, and I appreciate being able to spend gold for skill ups rather than running around player-forsaken places like the Hinterlands.

Now for Blacksmithing. I have mostly general advice, here. There are plenty of power leveling guides. The one I use is at Ten Ton Hammer. Whatever guide you use, any crafting profession is going to be either expensive or tediously time consuming. If you can buy all your mats, fine. You’ve got it made. If you can’t, that leaves farming.

But didn’t you just gather all the mats you need while leveling mining? That’s the ironic thing: no. No you didn’t. Your mining will level much faster than your Blacksmithing. It might not seem like it at the time, when your on your fourth circuit of EPL and skill level 300 is still 35 points away, but mining can be leveled relatively quickly.

Blacksmithing requires more mats than you could ever imagine, especially in the latter stages from about skill level 235 to 300. Right now, my Miner/Blacksmith is at 270 Blacksmithing, but well over 300 mining. I making absolutely useless Thorium Belts and bracers and weep audibly every time I think of the beautiful profit I could make selling the raw Thorium ore on the AH. The crafted products don’t sell at all.

It will get worse for me. The Imperial Plate pieces that will take me to 300 will require 12 and 18 Thorium bars.

Although the Thorium belt and bracer are dropped patterns not listed on the Power Leveling guide I use, they are common drops off mobs in the WPL and EPL. If you don’t get the patterns just killing things while leveling mining, you can find the patterns on the AH cheap because no one wants them except for leveling BS. One of the reasons I resorted to these dropped patterns is that there are no good trained leveling patterns between 260 and 275. The Ten Ton Hammer guide doesn’t even suggest any.

All in all, there are times I have wondered if it’s all worth it in the end. Mining is definitely worth leveling, but I am uncertain about crafting professions—any crafting profession. Practically the only value in a crafting profession is in its BoP end-game items. In the case of Blacksmithing, being able to add another gem slot to your gear is a huge advantage.

Yet the expense and time investment is so enormous that many, many times I have wondered if I’d be better off just leveling two gathering professions. I’ve thought that about Blacksmithing, and I’ve thought it about Tailoring and Enchanting. But in the end, once you’ve invested so much time and money, there is no going back. You need to see your chosen profession through to 450.