Focus Magic: Profession Choices

In this Episode of Focus Magic, OMF covered Profession Choices for the Mage.

NOTE: Please be aware that this information, like all Focus Magic Shownotes, was current at the time of recording. The numbers on many of these profession benefits will have changed, but the basic info is still correct.

Intro

This intro is mysteriously missing. WTF?

Yay for Professions!

This week, because the craft faire is so very near, we're covering profession choices for Mages. We're going to cover what you can make with crafting professions that are good for you, but we're going to especially take a look at what each profession gives you and only you, be it passive buffs or things you can only make for yourself. Most of these profession specific buffs will require high level in the profession, so you lower levels can consider it something to work towards!

Enchanting

We'll begin with enchanting, since many mages take this one.

Enchanting allows you to disenchant green-quality or better items into raw materials like dusts, essences, and shards. You then use various combinations of all of these to add certain stats to various armor slots and weapon slots.

But the one thing that enchanting gives you and you alone is ring enchants. You cannot give these to other players, but you can enchant your own. There are two ring enchants that matter to mages. Enchant Ring - Spellpower, and Enchant Ring - Greater Spellpower.

The first is available from the Keepers of Time vendor at Honored reputation level, requires an enchanting skill of 360 to learn, and adds 12 spellpower to each ring. Unless you want to grind out the rep, you're better off skipping this one.

The second can be learned from the Enchanting Trainers at a skill of 400 and adds 19 spellpower per ring.

That's a grand total of 38 extra spellpower you wouldn't have otherwise. Keep that number in mind.

Jewelcrafting

Lets move on to Jewelcrafting. Jewelcrafting lets you make rings, trinkets, neckpieces, and of course gemstones of various colors, but what the high level JC really loves are the Dragon's Eyes. Dragon's Eyes are (as of now) gems which are prismatic, add super high numbers to specific stats, and have an equip limit of three for all your gear. The Prismatic part means that they count for any color, so you can stick them in any slot, and they'll count towards the socket bonus, as well as the meta gem requirement in your helm, should you have one.

Now, be advised. In Patch 3.2, Dragons Eyes will no longer be considered prismatic, they will revert to a single color, likely matching the color of the descriptive prefix. For example, a Runed Dragon's Eye, which adds +32 spellpower, will likely become a red gem, since all gems which begin with "runed" are red gems. This means you may lose some socket bonuses you previously had or your meta gem may no longer function.

For a mage, we're likely to use these Dragon's Eyes to make Runed Dragon's Eyes, since they add more spellpower. Now, assuming that these gems are used instead of the Runed Scarlet Ruby, which is the best red gem that non-jewelcrafting mages can get, we get a difference of +39 spellpower for being a JC.

Inscription

Next, let's take a look at Inscription. Inscription allows you to make some good off-hand pieces, and of course, glyphs. But the real self benefit comes from the shoulder enchants that you can make for only yourself. These shoulder enchants are better than the best ones out there from the Sons of Hodir.

They require a skill of 400 Inscription, but they rock pretty hard. The caster one, Master's Inscription of the Storm, adds +61 spellpower and +15 Crit strike rating to your shoulders.

If we compare that to the corresponding enchant from the Sons of Hodir (at exalted rep, no less), there is a +37 spellpower difference in favor of the Scribe.

Noticing a pattern here?

You can start to see some of the net benefits to you as a mage. All of these professions are plenty good in crafting purposes: being able to make your own enchants, glyphs, or gems when you need them will certainly help you, but these special extras are really what cement a good profession choice.

Tailoring

Lets move on to Tailoring.

Tailoring is probably one of the best mage profession choices available, in my opinion. You get so much that is good here, especially at the higher levels. High level tailors get Northrend Cloth Scavenging, which increases Frostweave drop rates, the ability to make their own bags, craft special flying mounts in the form of flying carpets, make extremely cheap versions of the spellthreads (a mere one Eternium thread apiece!), but the absolute killer is the embroideries.

There are three types of Embroideries out there for tailors. The one you want as a mage is Lightweave Embroidery. For a mere one piece of Moonshroud and one eternium thread, you can enchant your cloak to give you a chance on spell hit to increase your spellpower by 250 for 15 seconds. There is a 45 second cooldown on this, and once that cooldown expires, it seems to proc very quickly thereafter. Lets assume that every 45 seconds, 15 of those you will have Lightweave active. This averages out to a bonus of +83 spellpower! Even assuming it takes you 5 seconds to get it to proc after the cooldown is up, that's still an average of about 75 spellpower. This is easily the best cloak enchant a mage can have, and the huge average spellpower bonus makes it probably the best choice for the mage.

Leatherworking

Leatherworking was at one time a great choice for the mage. I know it seems weird, but do you remember, back in Burning Crusade, those drums you could make? There was one that essentially acted like Icy Veins, giving your group a massive haste buff for a few seconds. Many high-end raiding guilds stacked those haste buffs, which means the more of the DPS that had them, the better. Well, those drums are gone, they don't work beyond level 70, so the only real bonus for Mages with Leatherworking are the Fur Linings. These are essentially enchants for your bracers that only Leatherworkers can have. Fur Lining - Spell Power would be the one you want. It adds 67 spellpower. The best spellpower to bracers enchant in the game is +30 spellpower normally, so you get a difference of +37. However, you have to offset that with the fact that absolutely nothing in the Leatherworking profession is good for you as a mage otherwise. This makes it probably the worst profession choice for you. Others give you a better passive benefit.

Blacksmithing

Blacksmithing might not seem like a great Mage profession either, yet Elitist Jerks for a while recommended it as one of the best professions for mages (along with Jewelcrafting). Why? Aside from a few caster weapons you can make, there isn't much you can craft for yourself here. Because Blacksmits can attach three additional sockets to your gear, one of which they can share with others (the Eternal Belt Buckle). The other two go to your bracers and Gloves. Keep in mind that a Blacksmith/Jewelcrafter mage can have three extra Prismatic sockers to use their Runed Dragons Eyes in, leaving them free to use whatever gems they need to meet their socket bonuses and Meta gem requirements, once the jewelcrafting nerf hits. Again, assuming you use the extra two slots left over for Runed Scarlet Rubies, that's +38 extra spellpower you'll have. But that is dependant on the two extra slots being there, and that you can use them as such. If you have to use say a blue gem to meet your meta requirement in the extra slot, the bonus will decrease.

Engineering

Engineering is a little harder to justify. This profession is FUN, there's no doubt. You can make all sorts of goofy fun stuff, and there are even a few Engineering only enchants you can get. Unfortunately in terms of just raw stats, the only one we mages care about would be the Springy Arcanoweave. That adds a mere +18 spellpower to cloak. A tailor's Lightweave Embroidery is far superior.

Alchemy

Alchemy is a really good choice too. Making your own Potions, elixirs, and especially flasks is always nice, and you'll always have people wanting more of them, so you can keep a brisk trade going. The benefit you personally get is called "Mixology". It increases the duration of any flask or elixir that you make (usually doubles it), but it also increases the effectiveness as well.

The raiding mage is likely to be drinking loads of Flasks of the Frostwyrm, normally an increase of +125 spellpower. An alchemist mage who knows the recipe gets the benefit for 2 hours, plus it will add +162 spellpower instead!! That's an increase of, you guessed it, 37 spellpower that you normally wouldn't have.

Lets take a look at some of the elixirs we'd likely use Spellpower elixirs will give you 77 spellpower instead of 58, and last for an hour Elixir of Accuracy gives you 61 hit rating in lieu of 45. Elixir of Mighty Thoughts will be +64 intellect instead of 45.

Spellpower Numbers Recap

So that's all the crafting professions. Lets recap a quick comparison of bonus spellpower (our favorite stat) that we'd get from all of them.

• Tailoring: 250 for 15 seconds every 45 seconds. This averages to 83 spellpower under ideal * conditions, with a more realistic average of 75
• Jewelcrafting: +39
• Enchanting: +38
• Blacksmithing: +38
• Leatherworking: +37
• Alchemy: +37
• Inscription: +37
• Engineering: +18 (and a parachute! Oh right we have slow fall....)

So as you can see, Tailoring is far and away one of the best choices for a mage thanks to Lightweave. All the others are about equal. Right now, since Dragon's Eyes are prismatic, the combination of JC and BS might be the best choice for a mage, but with the changes to JC in 3.2, this will no longer be the case under most circumstances, so I don't recommend you try that.

Gathering Professions

Let's take a quick look at the bonuses of the gathering professions. Aside from being able to gather nodes and selling them for profit (or using them in your crafting) they provide these side benefits.

• Miners get Toughness. At the max rank of Mining, this gives you +50 stamina. Great for tanks! Not so great for you as a mage unless you're PvPing primarily. Still, it's a nice side benefit, and we all know Ore/Bars sell for plenty.

• Herbalists get Lifeblood, a self heal. At max rank, this heals 2000 hp over 5 seconds, with a 5 minute cooldown. That's pretty nifty for leveling and soloing needs, or to help out your healers in groups and raids!

• Finally there's Skinning. Skinners get Master of Anatomy. At max rank, your critical strike rating is increased by 32. That's about a 0.7% extra crit chance. Good for a mage, as crits are always awesome for us. Leather, however, is really tough to sell. The market for this has gone down pretty bad, and we rarely need it for ourselves.

Outtro

So that's our look at Professions and the bonus buffs they give you. Take your pick on what you want, its completely your call. You'll have to figure in what professions your alts have that you might not want to double up on, what you want to do with your mage, and what you're willing to level.

My personal pick? I've been a tailor and enchanter for the longest time, and I'm not switching anytime soon. The two synergize really well (making gear from cloth you've gathered and then disenchanting it for raw materials for enchanting), and after 3.2 will be really high up there as one of the best combinations for overall spellpower increasing as a mage.

That's it for this week, guildies. The craft faire is this Sunday, June 20th, so whatever profession you are, come on out and have a good time socializing with guildmates and maybe even working up your professions!! Please see the Professions forum of the AIE forums for all the info you need! This is Dahkar, aka Old Man Franks, reminding you, help control the gnome population, roll a troll today!!