Profession examination

Cataclsym is around the corner (or three) and it's time to start taking that good hard look at my chosen professions. OK, it's not really a long look, but more of a "well this is going to suck" type of thought process.

I have a stable full of alts, and now that I'm leveling my priest (seriously, the priest is so sexytime I can't believe it) as a miner/JC - I should have all the professions covered come Cataclysm time. Of course my Blacksmith and LW are still on my old server, but I suppose I could pay to xfer them over when I'm ready to play them.

We don't know for sure what the bonuses to each profession will be come Cata, and I'm certainly torn as to which way I want to go. Some of this will depend on Mongrr (my healing partner and the inspiration behind my own priest) returning to WoW and solidifying our little 10m group (we're splintered far and wide at the moment), and the rest on what I'm doing. I love raiding, and I'm sure that will be my focus again come Cata - the only question is where.

So who to level

I generally prefer (obviously) to level whichever toon I plan on making my "main" raider first. Right now the Paladin and Priest are looking about equal, though my Pally will certainly have an easier time of things since she's decked out in 264 gear. To be fair though, the ICC gear can only take you so far. While I expect we'll see the world firsts pushing raid zones in their ICC gear (Similar to Nihlum with Naxx/Maly/Sarth in early WotLK) - I don't know how much of that we'll see. I recall a post saying that 277 gear probably won't be replaced until late in the leveling process or the first raids, and to be honest, that's probably how it should be.

I'm getting off topic though.

So back to who I'm going to level, and their professions. My current stable of professions looks like this. Assume any class that can tank, I tank with - and healing goes the same way. You'll notice a sever lack of DPSers in my stable of players.

• Warrior - Herbalism/Blacksmithing. WTF!??! Back when I first made Tarde in early Vanilla, he was an Herb/Alch so I could make my own tank pots. This was back when you could easily use 3 or 4 elixirs, a flask, and chains of pots in a single boss pull. Do not miss. I picked up Blacksmithing when I was going through some burnout in BC, and switched to doing arenas with W-Crusher and Frog (quite possibly one of the best players I've ever known). I needed a smoking 2H, and in S2, the mace was the hottest thing out there.
• DK - Skinning/LW. No real story here.
• Mage - Tailor/Chanter. Seems pretty vanilla. Don't ask me why I picked enchanting up when my shaman already has it.
• Shaman - Inscription/Enchanting. Min/Max for raiding, the ring enchants and the shoulder enchants were pretty hot. They were beat out by JC/BS, but I already had Enchanting leveled from BC. This was my first raiding toon in Wrath, but she's since been collecting dust.
• Paladin - Alch/Eng. Again, WTF!?! I picked up Engineering becuase W-Crusher was my Paladin idol, and it was something he'd stuck with from the beginning. In Wrath it actually became fairly decent, and having a permenant parachute cloak has been worth every dime spent leveling this. With a mailbox and Jeeves, I don't see me dropping this come Cata. Alch I picked up for the double flask durations and increased elixir/potion effects. Mmmm.
  
• Druid (72) - Herb/Skin. Picking flowers while flying. Nuff said. Oh, and I don't like druid healing much at all.
• Priest (65) - Mining/JC - Expensive. I picked these two for this alt simply because I didn't have them anywhere else.

So, with the Paladin and Priest being my front runners for raiding mains, only the Priest has the gathering profession to support her crafting one. It's a tough choice to be sure though. I suppose the advantage to leveling the Priest first is that her mining can support the Paladin's Engineering later. Leveling the Druid will supplement the Alchemy and the Inscription on the shaman, and the skinning will support the Leatherworker (my lowest of the low priorities).

In the end

None of this really matters to be honest. If Mongrr returns and the Punchout Gang comes back to ride again, I'll be on my Paladin. The only real question is, should I then drop my Alchemy now to level mining before the xpac?