Alchemy:

# Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)
easy, if you have levelled herbalism it is really easy to get to 375 alchemy in a day or 2. if you are not a herbalist its a bit harder due to not many low level herbs being on the auctionhouse(and if they are they are expensive) but the same goes for every crafting profession.

# End-game (level 350 to 375)
easy to level, and really useful.

# Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)
alchemy is an excellent profession for this. potions, elixirs and flasks are in high demand in the raiding scene. and it is really easy to make money with it.

# Profession exclusive (BOP craftables)
for alchemy there arent very much BOP craftables, there is a somewhat decent trinket for lvl 70s, and a funny potion, but nothing major. this could be improved(special BOP flasks, transmutes etc for example)

# Reagents (number of and difficulty of acquiring reagents)
most reagents arent hard to get, only the lotus's are hard to get due to the low droprate, there usually are plenty of herbs to be picked and it doesnt take too long to get a full stack.

# Missing craftables (does prof X miss certain things)
BOP consumables, thats all thats missing really.

# Misc (anything else you can think of)
Alchemy is a very nice profession to have if you raid or willing to make quite a lot of gold. the discovery and proc system introduced with TBC is really nice. The procrate of the specific masteries can be upped a bit though, especially for transmutation, the chance you get a proc isnt high, and it has a cooldown aswell.

Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)
very easy if you've lvld herbalism or lvling it at the same time. though if you're not a herbalist, it might be abit harder, though still not expensive compared to other professions *though i personally do lvl the profession i want, not the one i find cheapest*

End-game (level 350 to 375)
cheap compared to other professions.. though nothing really exciting about it.. but alot of usefull stuff if you like the PvE aspect of the game.

Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)
that's all out profession is tbh ... sad thing about it is that with the discovery system introduced, even if you do have a rare recipie, you'll not be able to make any real money from just crafting it, as people expect to get proccs, they expect it to be free... as you might get a discovery and there's always someone else out there who've not had all discoveries who will be happy to make it for free, aka we provide a great service to others, but can't really get anything out of it ourselves.

Profession exclusive (BOP craftables)
a trinket, usefull for a few classes with certain speccs... and a BoE alchemy only pot .. this pot is quite usefull if you're not using any elixirs, but it's thus worthless in most pve encounters as you have a flask already, and if you need both mana and HP you've got the super rejuv~ pot that's a discovery, and expensive, but way superior to the mad-alchemist potion, the thing i like with the pot is the bonus effect, and the fact that it's cheaper to craft.

Reagents (number of and difficulty of acquiring reagents)
only hard thing to come by is the fel lotus.. which have had it's droprate lowered .. alot, thus making it hard to come by these days, and giving it a huge price-boost, that is not reflected in the flask prices.

Missing craftables (does prof X miss certain things)
i think alchemy needs more BoP or alchemy only Flasks, pots and elixirs... there's been various examples on this forum about what could be done, but alot of them seems in my eyes fairly over the limit... with the flasks bought from "mark of the illidari" the demand for flasks have lowered, aswell as the usefullness of being an alchemist, as every other person around could just as easily get such a mark and buy a flask for raiding... i'd like to see superior alchemist-only flasks, elixirs and pots, for the same mats as other flasks, pots and elixirs, but with a buffed effect, pretty much like the Jewelcrafter's BoP gems thatr recuires a blue BoE gem, but crafts them an epic BoP gem which is way superior to any other gem currently in the game. these flasks/elixirs/pots could be bound to the mastery the alchemist chose to specc into, or just free for any alchemist *i dont like the idea of "specc-bound" items like the tailoring sets or BS weaps, but guess that's the way blizz wants it, thus why i did suggest it here*
hmm.. now i've been over the "gief powerfull bop-flask" part .... which should be looked upon as a "make alchemy a viable main-character profession" .. as tbh, in it's current state, people just aswell have it on their lvl50 alts as it gives them no benefit on their mains.
another thing i guess alot of healers will bring up ... a flask that gives you +healing and maybe a flask that boosts only stats *sortof like elixir of mastery.. i know there's the cromatic something flask, but that's imo a resistance flask and you would gimp yourself if u used it for the stats*

Misc (anything else you can think of)
more usefullness or effects of your chosen alchemy specialization.. a way to do this could be adding a passive skill bound to your mastery that gives you improved effect of elixirs/flasks as elixir master, improved effect on potions as potion master.. the problem with this idea though will be visible when you look at transmution mastery.. for which i've not solid idea how to solve this, as it'd have no effect in PvE which would make most players specc out of their transmution specc if they've not already done it, if they play for the end-game pve.

sidenotes
... to the ones who claim alchemy is a money-maker, check your AH prices on fel-lotus, and then on the different TBC flasks, atleast on my realm ALL herbs is more expensive then the pots/elixirs/flasks they are reagents for is..
.. if devs forgot to think about it, there's no blinding light/pure death flask available from "mark of the illidari" .. looks like dps-caster discrimination imo =P *not that this really helps my point of "give alchemy main-char viability" but it should be posted somewhere and i might aswell do it here ... even if it's not rly a problem for alchemists*

Blacksmith:

- Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)
If you have mining its still very time consuming. If you dont its just insanely expensive.

- End-game (level 350 to 375)
Slow to level, either you grind primals after you got rep recipes or you farm for felsteel recipe's wich are slightly cheaper. The last 360-375 is a ##*!%.

- Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)
Almost null. The only service people require from time to time is a rod wich they use for there enchanting. The gear you make is weak troughout all level brackets with the exception of the BoP 2handers. Anything you can craft BoE is to weak to make up for its insane costs to both the one to get it crafted and the blacksmith.

- Profession exclusive (BOP craftables)
The 2handers are pretty good, but one could wonder if they are worth all that gold and a profession slot...
They can atleast be upgraded to a certain point where they just fall behind. Only the epic lv70 weapons/armour is of any interest. All the other BoP stuff is crap.

- Reagents (number of and difficulty of acquiring reagents)
Mining just means endless farming, to go past the late stages of 250-300 and into 300 you need tons and i mean tons of Thorium. Youll spend hours and hours in EPL or WPL (some prefer silithus) grinding thorium. Appart from this it doesnt require particular difficult ingredients that other professions dont need.

- Missing craftables (does prof X miss certain things)
Descent BoE gear to sell. Something to actually make money off. Also, the gear you get to craft as you level your character is crap and very expensive. Not worth picking up blacksmithing with the intend to provide your character with gear as you level up, to many gaps and to crappy/expensive gear.

Also, preTBC elemental sharpening stones should be made TBC available.

- Misc (anything else you can think of)
Blacksmithing is a time consuming profession with basicly only 1 goal, the bop epic at the end of it all. Its not a money making profesion, heck its the oposite. It has very little interesting stuff (sharpening stones are nice, but weapon chain got nerfed) and offers no use at all to most professions.

Furthermore, it seems like 9 out of 10 pieces are made for warriors. Very few pieces for paladins, and then most are just healing plate pieces. Didnt see much for shamans either. Has almost nothing to offer to druid/priest/mage/warlock/hunter. Rogue's im not to sure off, but cant be much.

It needs tweaking, something more then just the bop epics, and something to actually bring in some cash.

I'll keep it short:

Alchemy (got it with this shaman):

Easy to lvl, maybe a few BoP craftables would be nice. Fel Lotus is pretty hard to get, which means the price for it on AH is at least 30g.


Blacksmithing:

I'm lvling BS with my warrior now and to be blunt: it's hell. It's really slow because you have to run miles from vein to vein and you needs loads of bars before gaining another skillpoint. Currently my BS is 210, so i don't know anything about the TBC-BS.

Blacksmithing

Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)
Time consuming but do-able, Without Mining expensive as heck but your shooting yourself in the foot to be fair without it

End-game (level 350 to 375)
Again Time consuming but thats what its all about. Maybe make some cheaper recipies, Scryer ones needing so many Shards kind of makes it so you have to grind the Felsteel patterns

Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)
Pretty much non-exsistant. You might get lucky and sell a Felsteel piece or some Arcane Res gear for Tempest Keep guilds, and decking your tanks in Frost and Nature res for SSC, but theres no real trading being done

Profession exclusive (BOP craftables)
The Blacksmithing weapons are all very nice and serve thier purpose well. I think thier good enough for the time and materials you put into them.
The Armorsmithing could use more love, Only one Mail and Plate chest, serving only one spec really for the classes that can use them

Reagents (number of and difficulty of acquiring reagents)
Sharpening Stone, somewhat useful and making them just for the hell of it, But would be nice to see the Pre-TBC elemental ones re-introduced like the Enchanting patterns

Missing craftables (does prof X miss certain things)
It misses more things to be made really, Two of each type for your choosen Blacksmithing spec seems a little low, Two types of Axes, Swords, Maces and Armor that are all upgraded in a similar way
Maybe a few more protection type items for the Tank Classes, a few more DPS items aside from Weapons and a Chest Piece and make some of these BOP and some less powerful ones for BOE selling.

Misc (anything else you can think of)
I really liked the upgrading system for Blacksmithing and would like to see more chances for something like it.
More options for things to make such as a Shield maybe.
Luckly alot of these gaps are being filled with new Heroic badge items and Zul'Aman which would make it hard to balance too many new Blacksmithing items without someone complaining.
Maybe more weapons to make for each spec or a chance for Blacksmiths do a service for people such as Repairing in an instance, some buff items or such.

Thanks for the chance of a Profession review, Hoping to see some good ideas from the community

Blacksmithing:

# Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)
- Very hard, since you need much more materials than in any other professions to train this skill. Not only that, materials are really expensive if bought from AH.
- Blacksmithing quests are a pain. You need to bring tons of raw bars for certain people, like in mithril order. This does not increase blacksmithing at all, but takes lots of time to do. Its more like mining quest rather than BS quest. After these bar quests you have to make the items yourself. That usually means you have to spend like 300 bars just for quests, and from those bars half doesnt even train your skill. After all that you can make items, but after all that mining you dont need them anymore, since you have levelled past the point they were useful.
- Most Blacksmithing items are really weak. And by weak I really mean it. You could actually drop whole skill and level only at instances and get much better items all the time. Most of the quest items are better than BS items too. For example you make some mithril armor to yourself, it costs lots of gold/time to make since you need so many materials for it. When you finally get the items done, you check AH just to find out that theres items similar to yours only with few golds, but give alot better stat bonuses and even little better armor than your self made greens.

# Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)
Only things that really can be used to make profit as a BS are enchanting rods. Thats because you get better drops from monsters that you can make with BS. The few items that would be better than AH drop items are BOP or need certain BS skill to use.

# Reagents (number of and difficulty of acquiring reagents)
Most of the time, if you want to keep your equipment updated you have to run among very high level monsters. For example you get to level 35 and need some mithril on your next armors. Most of the time you find mithril from level 40 areas. There is only little of it at 30-35 areas, but you need tons of it to train your skill and do your BS quests, and if you fight all the mobs around the ores, you get level ups before getting the items that would be some use for you.

# Missing craftables (does prof X miss certain things)
Shields

# Misc (anything else you can think of)
- Ability to repair your own armor and weapons at forges would be most welcome. You can make armors and you can smelt ores....but you cant repair them, even if you have forge and anvils with you? Thats just strange. Its not like it would replace the engineers repairbot, since you would need the forge and anvil for repairing. Tank classes usually take the most beating on instances, so repairs would only be fair to them.
- Remove "bar" quests where you have to bring bars to npcs from blacksmithing questchains or replace them with something where you actually have to make something to train your skill.
- This is actually problem with mining, but since BS is so dependant of mining I list it here too. Mining is hard to raise up. Most of the time ores you need to mine are green in difficulty and wont raise your mining much. Thats why you cant start mining materials you would need for new armors untill you have spent lots of time to train your skill high enough. And all that time you miss out all those red ores you cant mine, because all things on where you can train your mining are only green.

Edit. Currently my warrior has level 261 BS at the moment, so I dont know much about TBC stuff.
Edit2. Added thing about mining.

Edit3: Alchemy:
Very easy to level up and easy skill to make money. My priest (level 39) has alchemy and herbalism at 300. Healing potions, mana potions and some special potions needed for quests and items (like ogre strenght potion and troll blood potion) are always good for moneymaking. At low levels most potions are pretty useles (like wisdom potion), but at higher levels they start becoming extremely good.
There is lots of almost useles potions, like detect demon or undead. I havent found much use with them. Protection potions, like protection from holy, nature etc are very situational and have long cooldown to make them useful.
Some binds on pickup items would be nice.

Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)
No complaints. Works fine the way it is.

Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)
Although there's quite a fair few items that alchemists can make and sell, pretty much all recent patches has introduced alchemy consumable available through other means. It's not the cutting into that part of the profession I object to, it's the fact that we're not given anything to compensate for it. You carve into our business, and with the exception of Mad Alchemist potions, our business is all alchemy has to offer, meaning the Gruul flasks/potions as well as the Shattari flasks are direct nerfs to our profession.

Profession exclusive (BOP craftables)
Improving, but still fairly low. The Mad Alchemist potion is a step in the right direction, but looking at the raiding benefits that can be gained from, say, tailoring or enchanting, there's just not nearly enough to warrant picking alchemy as a profession on a main character.

Reagents (number of and difficulty of acquiring reagents)
Works fine except for the funky way Fel Lotus interacts with the faction related flasks; i.e. poorly. If you want lots of flasks to be used, increase the droprate of Fel Lotus, instead of providing non-alchemy alternatives. Or better yet, make the faction flasks require different reagents than normal flasks, but make them still crafted by alchemists using reagents only found in the same places you find the faction flask tokens.

Missing craftables (does prof X miss certain things)
Poor selection of items enhancing the character with the profession; Pretty much all bonuses gained from alchemy can be aquired without having alchemy. More BoP items and/or alchemist only items are sorely needed.


Misc (anything else you can think of)
A fix for transmutation mastery would be nice.

Blacksmithing:

Painful to level, especially the mithril and thorium order quests. Not really a lot to sell while you are levelling apart from enchanting rods and some of the imperial plate.

The specialisations (armourcrafter/axecrafter/swordcrafter etc) are rubbish. On any other profession, the specialisation means something more useful. On blacksmithing, it means you can make one nice epic BoP item which costs stupid amounts to upgrade (10 nethers for the armourcrafting chest? That's crazy), and then it's meaningless.

BoP items are kind of wacky anyway (not so much now because of pvp gear but still) -- it's silly that all clothies are pressured to be tailors, warriors pressured to be blacksmiths etc.

Armourcrafting in particular is limited because the one BoP breastplate doesn't cater to tanks or healers who might want it.

BoE gear: The felsteel and ragesteel set are both good and in demand from new level 70s. It doesn't necessarily pay well, but its very useful for alts and guildies. I'd like to see something similar for WotLK.

The rep recipes are mostly pointless. Resistance gear is useful in what, 1 raid fight that most people will never see?

Consumables:
sharpening stones are good and get used. runes of warding are interesting but way too expensive (1 bar of khorium for a 1 hour consumable?). runes of shielding don't seem worth the effort.

Alchemy

Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)
Fine.

End-game (level 350 to 375)
Fine.

Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)
Fine.

Profession exclusive (BOP craftables)
The current Alchemist's Stone is quite expensive but only useful for a few classes. It might be nice to have several variants around. A possible way to implement this is being able to transmute "shards" (each based on a Primal) and then being able to combine shards into the final stone. That way everyone can customize his own stone.

Reusable cauldrons would be nice (with a long cooldown, of course).

I like the Mad Alchemist!

Reagents (number of and difficulty of acquiring reagents)
Maybe alchemists should be able to do something with Primal Nether...

Missing craftables (does prof X miss certain things)
It might be fun when alchemists can create simple food/water-like potions, only taking a single herb, which have minimal effects dependent on the herb used.

Misc (anything else you can think of)
Potion and transmutation masters could have a cooldown per potion type or transmutation type, instead of a "global" cooldown. The duration of elixir masters' elixirs could just reduce at each death, instead of disappearing.

Brewmaking aka Alchemy

Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)
Very nice Indeed. While the road on adventure and futher greatness this proffesion is very handy.
Some brew's in your backpack can be your best friend in those dark hours!

Picking up herbs on the road and meeting various alchemy trainers trough Azeroth and Outland
9/10


End-game (level 350 to 375)
One of the most usefull proffesion for endgaming me thinks.
Flasks,potions,elixirs and now cauldrons. 10/10

Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)
I allways send my mates some brews since Im elixir master. Which they appriecet quiet much :->
Also in the trade channel there is many ppl who ask for if someone can make them som brews.

Also transmuting primals and http://thottbot.com/i25867 / http://thottbot.com/i25868

9/10

Profession exclusive (BOP craftables)
Not much to say here, except for the Alchemist stone http://thottbot.com/i13503
Tho I love this one. Allways equipped in my trinket-slot.

5/10


Reagents (number of and difficulty of acquiring reagents)
Finding herbs not a big problem I think. Only thing I wish that was easier to find was
Mana Thistle.

8/10

Missing craftables (does prof X miss certain things)
More Bop stuff :-]


Misc (anything else you can think of)
A very handy proffesion indeed :->
I love the variaty of Alchemy [potion,elixirs,flasks,cauldrons,transmutes]

Top Draw
9/10

Happy Hunting From Uncle Balin

My story is about Alchemy this time.

Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)
I leveled alchemy while leveling this character (Which is my second character - Avalast being the first) and I found it rediculessly easy to level this profession as long as I had Herbalism at the same time.
The biggest problem was getting enough Goldthorn and similar herbs at that level to skill up and cover my needs (I used consumerables all the way to 70 on this one so now she can't enter an instance without needing a fix of several chemicals).

End-game (level 350 to 375)
I found this rather easy. The worst was the last 5 points and completing the Elixir mastery-quest, but that wasn't that hard (Even though at the time competent groups weren't yet common place for Black Morass).

Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)
I don't really sell much of what I make and I generally find that most of the people I hang out with have their own alchemist parked somewhere on their account (Or on their second account if they have one), so my services are generally not needed. Not even within the guild dispite the fact that I've had quite a few discoveries (Flask of Arcane Fortitude (Now changed to Flask of Blinding Light), Flask of Relentless Assault, Flask of Fortitude, Super Rejuvenation Potion, Cauldron of Fire Protection and a few more I just can't remember of the top of my head).

Now - I could make a decent living out of this profession no doubt as elixirs sell pretty well (Could be better ofcourse, but what can you expect on a "Recommended" server), though I generally find myself too lazy or busy to go out and farm herbs for 3 hours to make potions for selling.
Generally I don't have 3 hours to spare for this purpose - I normally need to run instances as a tank or I'm on my mage in an instance, so I generally don't have the time. Only when I put down the foot and really say "Now is grinding time" can I do this, and in that situation I normally need it for myself... Like the planned herb-grinding session tomorrow (Need to replace my entire raid-supplies in one go >.<).

Profession exclusive (BOP craftables)
Too few things here really. I love the trinket, especially when I'm in healer mode, but it would be nice to be able to find the recipe for improved versions of it (Higher stats are very welcome - Or maybe some different stats).
More specialized trinkets would be golden - Like a tanking trinket, dps trinket and healer trinket.

Reagents (number of and difficulty of acquiring reagents)
There are very few reagents that are hard to come by, Fel Lotus being the worst and then Ancient Lichen. After that it's just a matter of being patient.

Most reagent needs can be covered with a 2-3 hour grinding session in Skettish these days if you can match respawn rate to your killing speed (I would usually bring a friend for this and simply tank them while they kill... Worked wonders last time and my friend didn't leave empty handed... Gave her all the primals).

Missing craftables (does prof X miss certain things)
Hm - Not much is missing except maybe upgraded version of the different elixirs, potions and flasks as you progress through endgame content. I was thinking maybe making some items that can only be used after reaching a certain reputation level with a faction. For example Improved Adepts Elixirs that require exalted status with The Violet Eye. But other then that I find Alchemy pretty okey.

Misc (anything else you can think of)
Would be nice if more locations were added with trees like in Skettish. It is really preferable to acquire herbs this way compared to flying about in gray-slow mode scouting for herbs that take an age to repop.

So reduce the respawn time on herbs in general or add more farming grounds like Skettish.
Oh and higher proc-rate on bonus- elixirs/potions/transmutatiions would really be appreciated. I've at times made 100+ elixirs only getting a grand total of 4 bonus elixirs which I find a bit too low.


- Wildleaf

I will give feedback on BS:

Leveling from 1-375 is a BIG Hazzle compared to the other crafts. It's especially expensive and for some of the points the mats required are very hard to farm so buying from AH seems to be the only option.

Now this would be ok if the rewards was worth it but it's not! I specialized in armorsmith as I thought it would help me as a tank, but to my big dissapointment armorsmith speciallity is aimed for DPS???!!! I thought that was for weaponsmiths. I think that at least epic shields should be added for armorsmiths.

Also a bit dissapointed over the lack of Paladin plate for holy and protection. The only useable are either world drops or 25-man drops. I am not sure what you expect the khorium set to be but it's not very usefull as healer set.

Also the higher lvl recepies requires more primals then metall which I find kinda strange.

I'm not an anchemist or Blacksmith myself but, I have pretty close contacts with this professions since it's 2 that my wife (who obviously play with me) has.
This means that while I have some points I'd like to talk about, I don't have an insight depth on the finer points of the crafts (This means, take this with a grain of salt).

Alchemy

I really love Alchemy and I can't help to think that all the people who claim Alchemy to be dead are missing something.
The thing is that I don't see professions (as in crafting professions) as money makers. I see them as providers of an Edge to reward the crafter in high end game. Alchemy is seriously lacking in that aspect and, truth be told, I see very little reason to spend one of the precious profession slots a main character has in this profession.

But, the single worst things Alchemists have to suffer, in fact, the worst feature of any profession in the game, is the Discoveries system.
Every profession suffers in terms of money making in the beginning of an expansion. Everybody will be making the same stuff and flooding the AH with them.
With Alchemists, even after the leveling is done, the process continues, in the hope a discovery is made.

Blizzard acknowledge this fact in Blizzcon and the profession's guy said (quoted from memory) "The thing with discoveries is that people wouldn't feel their profession completed without having all the discoveries so we're planing on making the discoveries fun only - Looking back, the savory deviate delight would have been a good discovery".

Having something like the Flask of Pure Death (+10 spell power than the Supreme Power) by random Discovery is going to lead to obvious consequences, none of them good.

Last, but not least, alchemy suffers from consistency issues. Take a look at Fel Potions.

I like the idea of a Potion that's cheaper and that forces someone to make a choice among stats but, this idea has 2 problems:

- Fel Potions aren't good enough
Money isn't an issue while raiding (end game). Any raider worth his salt would be kicked faster than the blink of an eye if he didn't go prepared with the top of the tart into a new encounter because "I don't have money". I will never take a Fel Mana Potion because Super mana is simply better (same mana, no downside). If the fel mana gave more mana or had a shorter cooldown, then I would really have to make a choice. (The Fel Mana pot was only an example the same can be said prety much with any other Fel Pot).

- Fel Potions aren't consistent
Again with the Fel mana potion. Hunters will bypass the limitations on Fel Mana simply because they don't use spell power. IMO this was an oversight that shows that more care is needed in the future.


Blacksmith
Nothing much to say about this profession but, I would like to see more low level recepies in the game.

Paladins can't really take much out of Blacksmithing and, as a caster myself, I would love to see some Green / blue recepies with some situational use (ex. A sword with spirit on it).

Last, but not least, blacksmith's main purpose should be (IMO, of course) to make tanking job easier and, c'mon, it's not like these guys have an easy life as it is.

Alchemy:

Very fast to lvl if taken with herbalism, wouldnt recommend doing it as a re-spec tho xD

Only one niggle about mats, Fel lotus...... MEH! Seems to have gone out of season (if thats possible lol) and since patch 2.3 the pickup rate sucks, the price has rocketed and subsequently the price of flasks has also shot thru the roof.

Mats for elixir of Major defense are a bit high, 1x terocone and 3x ancient lichen? which has to be farmed in instances?....
That could do with changing to 2x terocone and 1x ancient lichen maybe?
Bearing in mind a complete sweep of an instance yields around 10-12 lichen (3-4 pots per run as it stands) it seems a fair compromise.

End game specialisations are a big problem.
Most professions choose around 225 or 350, have simple easy quests to follow or just a trip to a vendor...
We get either 5x primal might (a good few hours grind) or botanica (flying mount required) or Black morass.
Spec is meant to be selectable at lvl 68.. how?

Botanica - flying mount.... lvl 70 required.
Black Morass - lvl 68 instance but unless you get dragged thru by Post Kara geared ppl it aint happening til you are 70 and geared well enough.

That means the player can't solo their spec quest.



BoP items. (or lack of).

Alchemist stone? mats arent proportional to the benefit of this trinket.
Ive used it twice.
Once for Murmur when I was out of range of healer and once in BG's.
the stats do not give an advantage over the +dmg and crit off the other trinkets I need for raiding.

Mad alch potions : Love it but... why no chance of crit on mana side?
Also heard complaint that the side effect buffs arent always appropriate for the class of player. Rogue got strength buff???


Recipes:

There are so few recipes for us from faction vendors.... JC's get absolutely stacks!
We get half a dozen at most, there are a few vendors with nothing for an alchemist at all!

Can we get an arcane resistance potion pls???????





Summary : Spec quests are NOT proportional to the other profession.

Revamp Alchemist stone.
Fix Mad alch to give Mana crit chance and correct buff for rogues :)

Change mats for elixir of major defense.

Give us something fun :)

Blacksmith:

- Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)
even when you have mining it is very time consuming and expensive

- End-game (level 350 to 375)
very slow and very expensive to level, especially the last 25 skill points

- Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)
Almost zero except for an enchanting rod now and then

- Profession exclusive (BOP craftables)
I took sword mastery because it has some nice weapons for fury warriors. But the cost to craft one is so incredibly huge it isn't worth the effort at all. When I have to pay up to 1000g on materials to craft a weapon then I expect it to be extremely good, at least as good as the top arena weapons. But sadly they aren't. Ok, they can be upgraded but again the costs are tremendously high.
And why do they have to be unique items so I can't have 2 of the same ? I'm DW fury FFS.
Better go for the pvp gear !!

- Reagents (number of and difficulty of acquiring reagents)
Or you spend days grinding for the needed materials or you go bankrupt when you have to buy the mats from your AH.

- Missing craftables (does prof X miss certain things)
Descent BoE gear to sell. Something to actually make money off. Also, the gear you get to craft as you level your character is crap and very expensive. Not worth picking up blacksmithing with the intend to provide your character with gear as you level up, to many gaps and to crappy/expensive gear.

- Misc (anything else you can think of)
I don't reccomend this profession to anyone, it is absolutely crap !!!!!!
You spend insane amounts of money for crappy items that aren't worth the cost at all.
On top of that you can't even sell the items you crafted for the total price of the mats you needed. Especially in the higher levels I couldn't even get my craftables sold for half the price all the mats costed me.
Good advise : sell the mats you gather through mining on the AH, you will make much more money and won't be so disappointed in the end.
This profession really disgusted me in the end

I was a blacksmith from Level 1 to 70, starting at release. My blacksmithing skill was up to about 355. Now I am an alchemist so I'll comment on both.

Blacksmithing:
- Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)

The amount of time and/or money consumed are just hilarious. The amount of mats needed for skillups is simply too high. 20 bars and 3 primals for 1 skill point? And 5 skill points later it is 20 bars of the next, more expensive and more rare kind of metal and 6 primals? That's just too much!
Also levelling the professsion today is hard for some people as some recipes like mithril spurs or thorium bracers aren't always on the AH (for reasonable prices). This is especially a problem if you have been a blacksmith before and unlearned the recipes for imperial armor.

I recommend cutting the mats needed for recipes from 1-330 into half, making several recipes trainable and decreasing the amount of primals needed at 330+.

-End-game (level 350 to 375)

Training cost is simply too high, decrease the amount of primals needed. Furthermore you need either high reputation or luck to get the recipes needed for skilling up.

- Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)

Not really worth it. Most blacksmiths just sell the nether, which won't make you rich. Furthermore the demand for BoE craftables and services decreases even more as the equipment market is flooded by easily attainable and cheap arena and honor items. Nowadays you can't sell your services or BoE items anymore.
The craftable stuff from 1 to 350 is also pretty worthless. Nobody goes through the work/trouble or wants to spend an apropiate amount of money to gear up their alts as they will have surpassed that kind of equipment very soon. Not even blacksmiths wear their own equipment as there is cheaper and easily attainable equipment from quests that has either the same or most of the time better stats.
Things like shield runes and wards were a great idea but they are simply too weak or too expensive. Make them stronger or decrease their cost! Give blacksmiths their own consumable market!

-Profession exclusive (BOP craftables)

Well, I think this varys with what class and specc you are.
Warrior, offensive: Weapons are very good, breastplate is ok.
Warrior, tank: Weapons are ok if you can't find anything else, breastplate is ok for getting started but will be replaced in T4 content.
Paladin, retribution: Weapons are very good, breastplate is ok.
Paladin, protection: Weapons suck, breastplate is ok for getting started if you can't find anything else.
Paladin, holy: Weapons suck, breastplate sucks.
Rogues: Weapons are good.

Furthermore there are some recipes for BoP-stuff in raiding instances, most of it is very good if that person bothered to keep blacksmithing long enough. There are tanking boots for both warriors and paladins, dps plate boots and later even plate healing shoulders. The boots are nice but the shoulders are quite pointless, as no holy paladin that far into raiding (Tier 6) will have kept blacksmithing for such a long time and there are several alternatives from serpentshrine cavern, tempest keep and zul'aman.

Another problem is that blacksmithing BoP stuff doesn't pay off anymore. Arena weapons can easily be attained through BG pvp and they are about the same level as the standard weapons, so why bother farming all those mats.
Arena2 weapons also don't cost that many arena points anymore. So why farm 8 primal nether and buy 2 nether vortexes for DKP or like 2k gold?

What I want to see for the future in those departments:
-When comparable items in the game are made easily attainable the BoP-stuff should have its mats reduced and/or downgraded, like reducing the 8 primal nether needed to 2 primal nether or changing the 2 nether vortices to 5 primal nether + maybe something else.
-New recipes: Maximum level blacksmithing weapons are surpassed by arena3 weapons. There should be new recipes to upgrade them to at least the same level when new content is implemented, be it by trainer or drop.
-All plate classes should be treated equally!
There should be a healing and a spell damage mace.
Armorsmiths should be able to make their own 3-set of armor. There should be one for tanking (upgradeable of course), one for melee dps and one for healing. Get lost of that @@*#ty breathplate that doesn't know about itself whether it wants to be a wannabe-tank or dps plate.
-New awesome stuff only blacksmiths may use. Back in the days we had that trinked that made you immune to fear for awesome 30 seconds. Stuff like this is needed! 30 seconds of immunity is a bit overpowered of course. But what about a shield rune that isn't used up when attached to your shield and has a cooldown of 2 minutes or so? You can get weapons and armor everywhere, implement stuff that shows "hi I am a proud master armorsmith and I will even show it throughout tier 6 content!"




My story: I was a blacksmith in open beta, where I levelled my paladin to about 40. Then I was a blacksmith once more at the very beginning of release-wow. Looking back I can say that blacksmithing already sucked back then but because everyone was learning the game and we didn't know everything it was kinda ok. I sold several daggers, jade blades, mithril spurrs and used the armor I crafted myself. Of course the armor sucked for my paladin but I went max stamina and intellect and back then nobody cared about min-maxing for levelling speed or instances.
I was proud to be one of the best blacksmiths of my server! I had nice equipment (compared to others) with my name engraved on half of my items. I had a nice trinket when half the people didn't even know what to do with those 2 slots and 50% of all melees wielded weapons and armor crafted by me, they already knew my name before they had ever seen me. Great feeling.
At 60 my blacksmithing skill became kinda pointless. No new recipes, great items from instances (they also sucked but we didn't know it back then) and so I didn't really craft much untill bc, except the occasional stronghold gauntlets, enchanted thorium tanking stuff for a tanking-newcomer or a few elemental sharpening stones.
Then came BC. I started to level, quest, levelled my favorite profession along and... didn't wear a single item of the things I could craft!
I levelled on and then came a barrier. I needed insane amounts of materials to skill up and everything I made went right into the dustbin because the stuff was bad!
I thought it might get better after a while but it got even worse, suddenly I needed either high amounts of reputation or luck while running instances over and over again!
Then I looked up the BoP-rewards I could make and found out that as a healing and tanking paladin there was absolute nothing for me of even mediocre use (was before everyone knew about the recipes from raiding instances)! I was so frustrated...
so I unlearned the profession I had loved since the beginning of this game, of which I had nearly all recipes pre-TBC and learned: Alchemy.
And this is where my next post continues.

Alchemy:
-Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)

After blacksmithing this was very easy. I had herbalism, a epic mount and my crusader aura.
I collected herbs for a day, skilling up herbalism and deposited the herbs on my gnome-slaves. I also bough some cheap herbs on the auction house. I had a guide from the forums and knew roughly what amounts of herbs I needed and had additional, just in case.
Then a half day of standing inside darnassus: Buy vials, brew elixirs and potions, learn new recipes, sell elixirs and potions to vendor, buy new potions... was kinda boring.
Then I travelled to that elf-island in feralas, spend a quarter day there doing the same. When I had calculated wrong I logged to my gnome-slaves, bought a few herbs and sent them to me.
Everything I made from 225+ was either of use to me, my alts or my friends (+25 agi for free is still pretty nice @70).
After I was 300 I went to outland and after a few minutes I was 350. From there I didn't skill up, I just transmuted and made elixirs for raiding and after a short while I was 375.

To sum it up it cost me like 80 gold and like 2 days. This is a joke, considering I could have made like 200 gold selling everything produced on the auction house. This can't be compared to other professions. It is either far too easy or other professions are far too hard. I'd say other professions are far too hard and alchemy is a bit too easy. Levelling a profession should take you about 4 days and 500 gold, this would be perfect, imo.

-End-game (level 350 to 375)
It's a joke. Everything you can make means a increase in money for you, whereas other professions lose money!
Learning the new recipes isn't that hard either, it just requires a bit of luck (I can brew all new flasks and got 2 non-standard transmutations and all I did was transmuting earth -> water and producing elixirs and potions for my own use!)

-Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)
You won't really sell anything. Herbs tend to sell for more than the end product but I know a potion master that seems to make kinda nice profits from selling mana potions.
You'll have a low, but steady income that doesn't require any work if you just transmute something every day.
Also don't forget that alchemy is actually needed for raiding. Without enough alchemists in your guild you'll have very expensive evenings and those tips will also sum up.
Considering it takes very little amount of money and time to level this profession this is very nice.

- Profession exclusive (BOP craftables)
Well, you only have the alchemist's stone. It is kinda nice if you need the mana and tend to drink many potions. As my healing-style is kinda mana-intense I like my stone.
Like with blacksmithing, just the other way around, non-mana-classes don't have any use for it normally. Why the bias? Why can't every class/specc profit the same from a profession?
Now we also have those new mad alchemis's potions. I think they are nice, they offer a good mix of hp and mana for little money and they are just nice for tanking paladins or healers on encounters where the healer also takes some amount of damage. But somehow I tend to get elixir buffs like 30 resilience (pointless after being crit-immune) or even worse: 160 AP -10 stamina while tanking. Also get a lot of 35 agility or strength while healing. But I still like it.



To sum it up I think that alchemy is the perfect profession for anyone that wants to invest just little effort (time and money) for a nice effect. Of course the use of being an enchanter and having additional +40 healing or being a gemcutter and having 6 stamina, some agi and so on more than others is also very nice. But all other professions are kinda hard and/or expensive to level and their effect isn't that big in times where tier 6 gems are sold on the auction house and everyone out there can equip themselves by arena.
For anyone that isn't sure what profession to pick, test out alchemy! Low risk, low stress and you might like it!

Blacksmithing

# Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)
With my alt, I've found it very difficult and costly to keep blacksmithing at a level where it's actually of any use. The problem as I see it now has only grown since the introduction of the leveling patch, which makes it very difficult to have mining at the appropriate level to get the mats to keep leveling blacksmithing.
The problem is that without really going out of the way to find ore I can't possibly get enough bars to level blacksmithing to the point where I can craft stuff that is useful @ my current level.
This I see as a problem with mining as well, much of it owning to the leveling patch. Most of the times I have to stay behind in zones that I've outleveled, just to keep mining @ a the level I need to keep mining the newer ores in the higher zones.
And if I fall behind with leveling blacksmithing, the items that can be made are outdated by either cheap world drops from the ah, or quest rewards.
This of course is not only a problem with blacksmithing, but more of a general problem.
A small review on the whole subject would be a very good idea imo, because right now I don't really see any point in leveling blacksmithing.

# End-game (level 350 to 375)
Cannot comment on own behalf, but it seems to be somewhat useless. Especially now with the introduction of arena season 1 weapons for honor and such.

# Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)
Some stuff, like enchanting rods for example always sell nicely on the ah, but armor/weapon craftables doesn't really seem to appeal to the general public.

# Profession exclusive (BOP craftables)
Could use some more exclusives that would be on a par with the fact that leveling blacksmithing is considered to be one of, if not the most expensive crafting profession there is.

# Reagents (number of and difficulty of acquiring reagents)
First thing that comes to mind is the huge cost in primal nethers, for say the weapons which aren't even that good anymore when comparing to other choices and ease of getting them.
Also while leveling, it's become increasingly difficult to mine enough ore to get bars to keep blacksmithing at the level where the craftables are of any use to my character.

# Missing craftables (does prof X miss certain things)
Well for one: Armorsmithing epic end-game craftables for all classes/specs (shields!), and make them comparable to what say frozen shadoweave is for tailors.

# Misc (anything else you can think of)
Ehm, well should all be there in my post, tried to keep it short and simple.
I haven't really put myself into the end-game aspect of the profession since I have it only on my alt and don't have it up to 375 yet, so my views on those subjects are more or less assumptions and hearsay that I've picked up on the forums.
Oh and finally: Make blacksmiths able to repair their own armor. I'm sure it could be worked out in a way to keep server economy stable. Add a small cost of some bars and other supplies. And take into account that say a raiding protection main tank doesn't really have the ability to grind money, so not really any harm done if you'd give them (who are blacksmiths) the ability to atleast keep repair costs to a minimum...
My 0.02 €.

Blacksmithing

Levelling the profession (from 1 to 375)
Simply too hard. As I rerolled from Alchemy/Herbalism (to get my ONE weapon, Deep Thunder, from Blacksmithing) to Mining/Blacksmithing, I even had all the ore from leveling mining from 1-375 when I started on Blacksmithing, and guess what - it still ended up costing me about 500g in the end, and that's even while I farmed everything for my Thunder myself

End-game (level 350 to 375)
350-360 is okayish, quite easy as there are some good reputation based plans to use. 360-365 is a NIGHTMARE, unless you are lucky enough to get some Felsteel plans from instances, you are stuck with the Aldor/Scryer plans, and those are incredibly expensive if you buy the mats on AH and incredibly time consuming if you farm the tons and tons of mats yourself (this is from an Aldor perspective).

Trading (BOE craftables and service providing to other players)
Too few and far between, and those few good BoE epics there are, are for the most learned from epic world dropping plans that cost from 1000-2000g on your average AH. Adding a few questline- or maybe some Badge of Justice-based plans wouldn't hurt at all.

Profession exclusive (BOP craftables)
That's pretty much the only reason to go through leveling Blacksmithing at the moment. The BoP epics are quite decent indeed, although the ones that you can get without going to 25-man raids became vastly less attractive with the S1-for-honour additions.

Reagents (number of and difficulty of acquiring reagents)
Ore is used by three professions, and three popular ones at that, and is therefore incredibly expensive and heavilyon most servers. So basically, for a leveling player that has to afford various other things while grinding his way through the levels, it's impossible to keep blacksmithing up to a level where he actually can make items that are useful for him, unless he hangs around in zones for longer than his level indicates to keep up with the tons of ore the profession demands.

Missing craftables (does prof X miss certain things)
Hmmmm.

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