World of Warcraft®

Given some of my recent posts, I wouldn't be surprised if I got trolled for asking this, but here it goes. Is blacksmithing and leatherworking now obsolete? This is not an attack but a question. In the old days as many of you aware of, the best way to get a whole suit of gear was via blacksimithing, leatherworking, or pvp. The quest rewards then were not horrible but not great. Now we have vendors for raid gear, dungeon gear, pvp gear, and heirloom gear. So aside form missing out on my fel iron plate, and imperial plate armor. Are these professions obsolete now?

While leveling...yes. Though the crafting professions have been gold sinks ever since vanilla wow experience was reduced, with heirlooms simply making the issue worse.

There was talk at the start of Cata how Blizzard was re-vamping the profession leveling system, which made since given the destruction of vanilla content. Though it turned out that only the Cata portion of the system was revamped.

With the implementation of transmog, old school crafting patterns have picked up demand, though that is primarily from level 85s. Unfortunately, your best bet while leveling would be to simply pick two gathering professions, with mining and herbalism also providing experience, and waiting until the level cap to pick two crafting professions.

At that point, both LW and BS are good for making entry level PvP gear that is upgraded every tier and either belt buckles or melee leg patches. They can also make a piece or two of tier gear every tier from raiding, though the mats in Cata made the items less then ideal for the average player.

I make between 500g and 1000g (gross; 200g-400g profit, probably) a day selling 377 blacksmithing pvp pieces. It's not a lot, but neither is the time investment, and it's pretty consistent. Since pvp gear is the quickest way to get a new 85 over the heroics-hump and into HoT's and LFR, there has been a consistent demand for them even this late into 4.3 and will continue to be so long as people are leveling new alts and playing around with other things pre-pandaland.

Some good points, but are they keeping to that set up for endgame BS and LW, when MoP comes out?

05/02/2012 05:31 AMPosted by Catam

In the old days as many of you aware of, the best way to get a whole suit of gear was via blacksimithing, leatherworking

When exactly were these old days??? Professions provide far more useful gear now than they ever have. In the old days, you could make a whole set of gear, but rarely was it useful. You might have been able to get a useful piece or two, but certainly not a whole set.

If your going to troll and quote me, then quote the whole thing not just a piece. You seem to forget back in the orignal world of warcraft there was one set of armor above all else that was both useful and crafted allot. Imperial plate. You saw it in battlegrounds all the time, as a prelude to getting the pvp gear. Imperial plate was a whole set. A armorsmith could make it even more useful by crafting the two pieces of blue truesilver gear., if you would bother reading the whole post. You would notice now people can simply run bgs, dungeons, or raids to get whole sets of gear with bonuses attached to them. Or get Heirloom gear to help out there low level alts.

I asked a simple question if you want to help by giving an opinion feel free to do so but drop the attitude. I am just looking answers.

Yes.

The only things I see sold on the AH, for substantial prices still, are the newest player made PVP items.

Those still hold at fairly high prices, on my server.

The problem with those professions is the same as its been for quite some time. Blizzard doesn't seem to want someone to get "good", or very much epic gear, which tradespeople make and sell.

This is very backwards. It would be a huge boost to the economy if tradespeople could make such gear, with some stuff they might have to buy from the AH, to then sell to other players.

I would much rather have my two "mains" buy ilevel 378 PVE purple gear from the AH, made by tradespeople, instead of trying to get it through instances or by exchanging honor for justice (which I find easier, in some ways.)

For some reason, Blizzard has always been dead set against this. I still don't know why. The more avenues there are to gear up, with the more choices for players with different playstyles, the more successful their game would be. I think they've just gotten lazy. Being number one, forever, must have its price.

I chose blacksmithing way back at level 5 as a way to make armor if i was missing a good piece. Sadly with the exp boosts, BOA heirlooms, and guild perks you rapidly outlevel crafted profs. Im still a blacksmith, mostly because of all the rare plans i know. If i was starting out now i would probably pick jewel crafting.

I still make a little coin selling gear, mostly transmog stuff and pvp gear. I would probably make more if i was more aggressive.