Butcher, Baker, or Candlestick Maker?

[Brista]

So, I've been thinking about Ditching the Hundreds of Hours I've invested in the disappointing professions that make the most sense for a Hunter in an Role Playing sense, and picking up professions that make the most sense for a Hunter in the context of the Game that Blizzard's built... Namely, Mining and Engineering.[right][snapback]77573[/snapback][/right]

Count me as another engineering fan. I don't see why you would want mining on a level 60 character. I suggest engineering and alchemy, just buy the materials you need, you can probably arrange ongoing supplies with miners and herbalists. The ability to make your own arcanite would be massive on an engineer. I'm pretty sure that your revenue from your professions would exceed the value of the materials. Materials are worth more in the game economy while people are skilling up but at the end-game it's payback time. Even if they're not you'll be a lot more effective killing high end stuff for the AH and then buying copper than running around Durotar mining copper nodes

On Test I got to play in the new Alterac Valley battleground. There's an awful lot of rich thorium veins and herbs I'd never heard of in the valley so expect prices for them to tumble. Your end-game materials are about to get a lot cheaper

Goblin engineering is stronger than gnome engineering since you can go goblin and buy the stuff you're missing once, where a gnome would keep having to restock expensively. Just go goblin and buy a net-o-matic off someone else and rejoice in your ability to replenish your mortar and your endless supply of The Big One

Another thing in favour of engineering is the sheer comedy value. I had an entire enemy raid single me as their main target after bombarding them with a string of explosive sheep, I've had an entire friendly raid go "huh? what just happened, after a mind control cap backfire" (and no I still don't know quite what happened, but from my perspective everyone on both sides was hostile for 30 seconds) and I've stood there and laughed at a pally ganker with immune immune immune flashing up at her as she attacked me :)

Engineering is probably better on a pvp server where it helps, it helps, it goes horribly wrong is perfectly acceptable when everyone's dying a lot anyway but not something you'd want to introduce into a high level instance. Unless your name's Leeroy

As for alchemy I find that on my alchemists I almost always have buff potions and the top healing potion I can make whereas on my non-alchemists, even though I could buy potions at the AH or send some from an alt, I almost never have them. That to me makes alchemy very worthwhile. It may be less crucial for less lazy and disorganised people but I strongly suspect that whenever you see someone with 6 potion buffs active you're looking at an alchemist

The other nice thing about alchemy is that you don't need to put much effort in. You get useful potions at under 100 skill which you can use at the end-game. From 100-200 skill you get some very strong potions indeed