I'm feeling pretty disillusioned with Leatherworking

[NiteFox]

I've made it to 356 Leatherworking, mainly through loyalty than anything else. The cheap leather armour and kits were a huge draw for a beginning hunter. These days it seems that the only reason I've stuck with it these last lord-knows-how-long is the Riding Crop, which, unfortunately for the capitalistically-minded of us, has an obtainable-for-all quest reward equivalent alongside the rather expensive material costs. The Fel Scale set was attractive at first, but the stupid level requirement stagger coupled with superior quest rewards killed that off too (Though I still am 2/4 of the set). Drums are... Well, meh, though I can see the worth of them outside of groups.

At the moment, there's not much in my craftable list that's orange - Mainly the Aldor belts, the ever-popular (snrk) Riding Crop, and Glove Reinforcements - 18 Heavy Knothide and 14 Primal Earth for a measly 240 armour on a single slot? Get outta here. So I'm really considering a respec of my tradeskills.

Blacksmithing seems to be out of the question, since that seems fairly moribund for any non-plate class. Ditto for Tailoring on a non-cloth class (Well, yeah, I could wear cloth...). So I'm wondering what exactly to do with myself.

Keep Skinning, take up a second gathering profession: Not exactly how well this would work out for me, considering it would mean that my cramped inventory space would become even worse (One bag slot for ammo, one already for leather and such, one for consumables for both myself and pet, plus general overflow between the rest). I suppose I could prepare for this and cook up the super-duper Reinforced Mining Bags that I already have the pattern for (Lousy Tailoring, getting all the neato containers). Tauren Cultivation would also help out for herb gathering.

Keep Skinning, take up Enchanting: No doubt about it, Enchanting is expensive. That said, I could always sell the leather I make and strip the AH of cheap greens. There'll also be a lot of time soloing the lower-end instances just to get this off to a good start. How good is Enchanting to start up on a budget?

Herbalism & Alchemy: In retrospect, I might have been better off starting off with this. Alchemy also seems to have a fairly easy levelling routine compared to the other tradeskills, and I could always do with more mana potions and the like. The only affecting decision here is that I'm Aldor, which lacks Alchemy (Though the Scryers only get one recipe. Increase fire damage. Wheeeeeeeee.).

Mining & Engineering: Scopes and ammo, and teleports to some major cities. Somewhat appealing. Isn't there some added craftable ammo in 2.4 or was I dreaming again? That said, the whole Engineering profession seems a tad out-of-character for me.

Mining & Jewelcrafting: I hear that this is nowhere near as profitable as it could be, plus there's an inordinate amount of reputation grinds in order to get any decent reputations. Apparently not a good choice for an unguilded misanthrope such as myself.

Stick with Leatherworking: And hope that something improves it in my eyes. Maybe there's an ultra-cool high-level set or craftable that I'm missing. It's also not like I don't have the resources already.

Hope that Inscribing is leet and roxxor: So when is the expansion due?

So, as always, any suggestion from the Mighty Lurkers™ would be appreciated:)

[Trien]

As a disillusioned engineer, I'm here to say 'forget engineering' since it really doesn't give you anything 'useful'. Style and flavour, yeah sure, but usefulness... meh.

[Mirajj]

Stick with it. There is some sweet, sweet gear now that is BoP and only available to leatherworkers. Look up the Ebon Netherscale set, or the Shoulders of Lightening Reflexes. LW'ing is now very good/powerful for hunters. But like any profession, the grind from about 350 to 375 is painful.

[RTM]

I guess it depends on where you are progression- and gear- wise, but the BoP engineering goggles are pretty sweet. Mining air clouds is also very fun and can be quite profitable if the primal air prices haven't already tanked on your server due to everyone else doing it. Half an hour in Nagrand can net you a good chunk of change after you tally up the ore & Primal Air you end up with.

Also, Gyrocopters.:)

EDIT: I should say though, if I were you at this point in the game, I would probably stay with Leatherworking just because you KNOW the expansion is going to add some insane BoP set that's perfectly itemized, just like with Tailoring & FSW. At the very least I would wait until more info about WotLK professions comes out and make a decision then. It'd suck to have to grind out Leatherworking again.

[Taelas]

Don't be so dismissive of the +240 armor glove enchantment. It is by far the superior enchantment for warriors looking for more EH.

That said, I am not exactly a fan of Leatherworking personally. I was disillusioned as well and dropped it for Enchanting on my druid.

I still have Skinning, but that's only because I've been too lazy to get a different gathering skill. Both Mining and Herbalism are far better. (Especially Mining, but it takes so *long* to level...)

[NiteFox]

Stick with it. There is some sweet, sweet gear now that is BoP and only available to leatherworkers. Look up the Ebon Netherscale set, or the Shoulders of Lightening Reflexes. LW'ing is now very good/powerful for hunters. But like any profession, the grind from about 350 to 375 is painful.

Groovy. So now I can blame you for the minor dent in my bank account:P

I decided to stick with Leatherworking, having made a discovery regarding the fact that there are some actually very neat craftables at LW 360.

The pattern for the Bag of Many Hides is a drop from any Gordunni ogre above Laggrath, is a 24-slot UBoE Leatherworking sack, and is very easy to get the materials together for. I don't know yet how well this sells for yet, but it's worth stitching up a couple and testing the market, and if that fails I've at least got an extra 48 slots for leatherworking-related stuff in my bank.

The second is the Felstalker Set, available from Honored with Thrallmar, and the only thing that's difficult about materials are Primal Air. Hmm, if only I was playing a class that was able to track elementals and effectively tag from a distance, control them, and deal with multiple targets at the same time. Damn that I rolled hunter.

Oh wait...:lol:Is seven Primals in less than an hour good going, or am I slacking somewhat?

[nobbie]

Don't drop LW yet until the Lich King beta. I bet there's some exciting new stuff around the corner in terms of crafting.

[Sheep]

Low level thread necromancy at work, but ignore that.

If one were to have leveled to 50 with skinning and mining as professions, when would you recommend switching over to leatherworking? Perhaps enchanting is more useful to a druid; would you recommend leatherworking?

How well do the items available from professions compare to those that drop from heroics or Kara?

Thanks

[Taelas]

The only items from craftables that are worth talking about (outside resist-sets for tanks) are the Tailoring sets. The rest can be safely replaced with KZ/badge epics.

[Pantalaimon]

The only items from craftables that are worth talking about (outside resist-sets for tanks) are the Tailoring sets. The rest can be safely replaced with KZ/badge epics.

Well, that's not entirely fair. Some of the BoE patterns/BoP result that drop in the high end raiding areas are worthwhile; belt of blasting comes to mind but that's tailoring too:P But I believe there's some decent LW ones.

[Taelas]

True, I was thinking of stuff that'd be interesting to new 70s. The drops from SSC or higher isn't really that relevant in that context, but they should still have been mentioned. Mea culpa.

[Concillian]

The primary use of leatherworking in "end-game" is the mail caster gear for elemental shaman (a very nice 'starter set' much like tailoring) and Drums of Battle for completely maximizing DPS on raid encounters where DPS is critical. Some of the hardcore raiding guilds have had people taking up leatherworking just to get better raid DPS on Brutalis who is a major DPS check even for people with most drops out of Black Temple / Mount Hyjal. They'll rotate their best DPSers around to get them the buff 100% of the time

Neither of these cases should really concern you.

For a healing druid, alchemist's stone isn't bad (alchemy), for feral and balance I don't think there's much that's all that great, maybe engineering for helms? I don't really know how good those are relative to items in Kara and such.

Nether Vortex are now attainable by purchasing from the AH. I had one from raiding, but I bought 3 more for gold to get the T5-level belt crafted for 2 different toons. These just require that you know someone who has the pattern (and I think we have most of them in-guild on Terenas)

[nobbie]

Well, that's not entirely fair. Some of the BoE patterns/BoP result that drop in the high end raiding areas are worthwhile; belt of blasting comes to mind but that's tailoring too:P But I believe there's some decent LW ones.

Yup. Since Heart of Darkness, for example, can be bought off the AH, there's actually some very decent, T6-level LW gear you can make, like the Shoulders of Lightning Reflexes.

[NiteFox]

Yup. Since Heart of Darkness, for example, can be bought off the AH, there's actually some very decent, T6-level LW gear you can make, like the Shoulders of Lightning Reflexes.

... If you can get the pattern, that is:PNot many of those patterns are walking out of the Black Temple into the auction house, that's for sure.

[nobbie]

True, but since these pattern are usually used just once to craft the respective BOP item, they are actually quite cheap (at least on my server):)

[Pantalaimon]

... and Drums of Battle for completely maximizing DPS on raid encounters where DPS is critical. Some of the hardcore raiding guilds have had people taking up leatherworking just to get better raid DPS on Brutalis who is a major DPS check even for people with most drops out of Black Temple / Mount Hyjal. They'll rotate their best DPSers around to get them the buff 100% of the time

Oh man, can't believe I forgot that, /facepalm. Although I don't think it's applicable to you, Nitefox, but Drums are pretty insane... to the extent that I know on Emerald Dream (US) alliance-side the leather market has completely imploded, because of a few top guilds having everyone drop a profession to go LW (but not picking up skinning). 4 drums in a group can keep the buff up 100%, I believe...

[nobbie]

My draenei hunter twink in mostly crafted LW gear:

- Shoulders: Shoulders of Lightning Reflexes
- Chest: Ebon Netherscale Breastplate
- Belt: Ebon Netherscale Belt
- Bracers: Ebon Netherscale Bracers
- Boots: Boots of the Crimson Hawk

Additional gear that visually fits the above:

- Legs: Midnight Legguards
- Hands: Crystalhide Handwraps
- Shirt: Common Gray Shirt

Weapons:

- Sonic Spear
- Steelhawk Crossbow


Looks neat overall, right?:)

[NiteFox]

True, but since these pattern are usually used just once to craft the respective BOP item, they are actually quite cheap (at least on my server):)

On your server. But on my server, they pop up rarely, are expensive (350g starting bid, 450g B/o), and folks tend to put them on long sales. I've had a bid on the one pattern that's appeared on the Ravenholdt Horde Auction house for the better part of two days, and I just know that some Chinese gold farmer is gonna outbid me at the last possible minute:angry:

And I've yet to see a single Heart of Darkness on sale. Not one. Wind Scales are bad enough, but the HoD's ain't appearing at all.

On the plus side, I've almost got all the Nether Dragonscales, Primal Nether's price is in the basement, and when my bid falls through I'll have the cash back to practically buy all the Primal Fires and Shadows to get the Ebon Netherscale set up. Silver lining and all that.

[Swiss Mercenary]

And I've yet to see a single Heart of Darkness on sale. Not one. Wind Scales are bad enough, but the HoD's ain't appearing at all.

Try talking directly to some of the guilds that have farmed Hyjal/BT for a while. After the enormous grind of gathering 225 hearts for their shadow resistance sets, and roughly 80 more for everyone's craftables, they really have little use for them.

You'll likely pay through the nose, if you aren't purchasing in bulk, but it's something.

[nobbie]

Try talking directly to some of the guilds that have farmed Hyjal/BT for a while.

Yup, that's what I did. I even got a discount price on 5 of them:)