World of Warcraft Bestiary - Brady Games

I’ve already written a few posts on good gift ideas for WoW players, but I’ve already got emails from people asking exactly what they should buy for their WoW addicted friends.

So I decided I might write a guide on what to buy for certain types of WoW players, and how to find out what they want.

First off, you might need to learn a little more about your friends WoW habit, what aspects of the game they enjoy, what paraphernalia do they already have, and so on… so we’re going to be asking some questions.

My Step by Step WoW Question Guide:

1. Is the recipient of your WoW gift a casual or hardcore WoW player?

To find this out you can do 1 of 2 things. Either, simply observe (or ask) how much they’ve been playing WoW lately. Any more than 3 hours a day I’d classify someone as a pretty hardcore player.

The 2nd thing you can do is ask questions about what guild they belong to, and how often they “raid”. If the answer is more than once or twice a week raiding, then you can be pretty confident they’re a hardcore WoW junkie!

Casual players are generally more concerned with things like getting amusing achievements like “explorer”, getting exotic mounts, and socializing online. This doesn’t mean they aren’t going to want WoW presents, but it might mean they’re after a particular kind of gift.

You might try & work out if someone is a casual fan by asking things like, “I hear there’s an achievement system in the game? Do you complete a lot of those? Or are you more into doing raids?”

If they reply saying something like, “achievements are boring & useless, you have a gamer who is far more interested in the “end game” aspect of WoW, which is raiding or arena play.

Alliance Faction Wallet

2. Does your friend already own WoW paraphernalia?

Do they already have books, t-shirts, toys, etc?

As silly as this might sound buying more of what they already have is DEFINITELY the safest bet. Gamers who have funny WoW related t-shirts will always appreciate more of the same. This goes for books too… if you like science fiction or romance, chances are you’re happy to read more of the same… so go ahead & just buy more of the same.

3. Are you a complete WoW noob, and know nothing about WoW?

If so you might just go for the easy choice, and buy a time card, or a Blizzard authenticator. Both options can be used by ANY WoW gamer, and the combo of gifts will be appreciated by any WoW player.

The authenticator is an invaluable account protection device that provides a practically uncrackable extra layer of security, and is an especially awesome gift to give as WoW players spend months & years building up characters and don’t want to lose what they’ve got to a slimy scammer who hacks their account password.

4. How long has your friend been playing WoW (and do they have any level 80 characters)?

This should be a relatively easy question to answer – if they don’t have any level 80 characters, you might consider a good leveling guide to help them reach 80. Why? Because in WoW all roads lead to level 80, and many people consider WoW to “begin” at level 80.

Top Selling WoW Guide

If your friend isn’t already level 80, chances are all of their efforts and focus is on getting to 80, and helping them get there would be a great present.

Check out my Zygor leveling guide review, and my Ultimate WoW guide review for my two top choices of guides… or if you know nothing about WoW, buy Zygor’s just for information about getting to level 80, or the Ultimate guide if you want to give your WoW loving friend all the information they’ll ever need about playing WoW to their best.

The best part of this kind of present is that most WoW players will actually level several characters to 80 over the years that they play WoW, so its a gift that has great longevity (the guide owners also keep them fully updated and compatible with each version of World of Warcraft).

What Should I Buy, Then?

Those 4 key questions are where I would start, and from there, with my help you should be able to make some good decisions.

Here’s my suggestions on each “type” of WoW player.

Hardcore: people who raid frequently, or are in arena teams, and generally play to be the shining example of a powerful player.

Good Neutral T-Shirt For Any WoW Player

These people will love things like t-shirts which show how much they are dedicated to the game – you can try Jinx.com, and then navigate to the best selling World of Warcraft section.

They’ll also love the Blizzard account authenticator to protect their super valuable gear they’ve built up over their years of play time.

Your hardcore friend or relative might also appreciate hardware which enhances their level of play. Your everyday keyboard is actually very poorly laid out, and for WoW players who rely on lightning fast reflexes special mice and “gameboards” will have them swooning with joy.

Casual: people who might also play a lot of WoW, but love the social side, or the collectable/achievement based aspects of the game.

Your casual WoW player will love getting achievements, collecting mounts, or just getting items which not many other players have. They’re similar to collectors in real life, but obviously all their possessions are contained within the WoW universe.

So what can you buy this player? Trading card games are my number 1 pick. Not just any card games though… you want to get them the Upperdeck TCG, which most importantly gives your WoW playing friend of family member the chance at ultra, super dooper rare items in WoW that very few other players have.

There’s a side benefit to this too in that you can play an enjoyable World of Warcraft related card game using the packs… but to be honest, the best part is the cool in-game items you can redeem from the codes in the game.

Just a warning though – the chances of getting the super rare items is pretty low. You’ll very likely get SOME in game items, but the rare ones are RARE. If they get one of those rare items though you’ll be the most popular gift giver in the history of man-kind!

World of Warcraft Trading Card Game

Casual players, being collectors at heart will also appreciate WoW toys more than most. Murloc plush toys, Night Elf Hunter figurines, or Blizzard’s “Figure prints” (which makes a real life model of your in-game character) will all be super popular with collectors who will be more than happy to extend their collecting to the real world!

Casuals will also like t-shirts, dvd’s, books and the like, but if you appeal to the collector in them, you’ll do fine.

Avoid things like hardware though as its really not “them”. Authenticators will still be a hit (and they’re cheap), since the collector will be super keen to protect their collections.

Casual WoW players really do just want collections, or rare items that can’t be gotten from anywhere else… which is where the card trading game comes in as possibly the best gift idea you can get.

To Summarize!

Most WoW players will honestly love anything WoW related as a gift, but if you try and sneak in a few questions here and there to get to know their World of Warcraft addiction a little better, you’ll find your present will be an extra smash hit.

Best of luck and please feel free to contact me if you have any WoW gift questions.

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What makes this a particularly cool idea, from my perspective is that World of Warcraft is soon to come across a huge change in the form of an expansion pack called WoW Cataclysm.

Cataclysm is going to reshape the entire World of Warcraft geography, and the world will never return to how it was… How is that cool, you ask?

Well, I personally have a lot of fond memories of leveling up toons in the classic WoW world… Darkshire, Westfall, The Barrens… all these great places where you first came to and enjoyed World of Warcraft. So because of that, I’d love a momento of sorts of the world as it once was, with notes and explanations of what was going on there, what there is to see and do… that kind of stuff.

Because when Cataclysm comes out, there won’t be such an easy reference to the world, and of course this atlas will stop being published in favor of a new Cataclysm atlas.

So if you think a friend or partner who has been a long term WoW fan might enjoy a piece of history to reminisce about the “good old days”, I reckon the WoW atlas would be a totally awesome gift.

The atlas is also just plain beautiful. The maps are all high quality artwork in true Blizzard style, and you’ll find your friend will appreciate it much more than things like the cloth maps you get from collectors editions in most games.

You can buy the WoW Atlas, 2nd edition at Amazon.com.

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Back of the Calendar

This is one of the coolest gifts I’ve yet reviewed for this blog. If you or your other half is constantly scrawling important things to do on boring old calendars that have pictures of the same old grass fields or landscapes then you might appreciate this 2010 WoW calendar.

So what kinds of images will you find in the World of Warcraft 2010 calendar? Mainly high resolution, professionally edited concept art and screen shots from some of the best places in the WoW world.

This awesome calendar is unique too in that it comes with some little stickers that you can use to mark in game events or record memorable moments.

I know I personally will do my best to remember every guild event, but if someone would buy me this (hint hint!) then I could just use eye-catching stickers to mark each guild event I need to go to.

I haven’t been able to find this at any of my local stores, or any of those calendar shops you find in malls, but Amazon have got it and generally will only take a few days to get the order to you.

Enjoy and maybe this will be the start of an awesome new year of WoW for you!

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I’m personally almost impossible to buy presents for, so if anyone in my family is reading this, feel free to buy me any of these!!

Categories:

• World of Warcraft Books
• WoW Video Games (buy the game, expansions, or pre order)
• In-Game Items
• WoW Clothing
• World of Warcraft Toys
• Hardware/Electronics (for playing WoW with!)

If you need a little help choosing from these categories, let me offer some quick advice…

If you don’t personally play WoW, and aren’t sure what a friend has, the safest gift to buy is probably a World of Warcraft 60 Day Pre-Paid Time Card, or a pre-order of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, which isn’t even out yet.

Another safe buy for WoW would be stuff like clothes, which WoW players will love to wear even if its just at home or at LAN parties with other gamers. Jinx has my favorite assortment of Warcraft clothing with some hilarious “in jokes” that only WoW players would understand. Don’t worry, you can’t choose poorly at Jinx.

You also probably can’t go wrong buying a Talking Murloc Plush Toy either – they’re about the hottest WoW gift on the market right now, and I don’t know ANYONE who isn’t amused by Murlocs… we WoW players are always keen to have cute WoW related toys & nic-nacks littering our computer desks!

The World of Warcraft – Trading Card Game Starter Deck is also a good buy, as the cards themselves are a fun game you can play together, and each pack of cards offers a small chance of a super rare in game item like the Rooster mount.

If you really want to impress with the ultimate WoW gift though, I recommend getting a nice gaming board like the Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard, and/or WoW mouse like the SteelSeries Special-Edition World of Warcraft Mouse which will help your special someone perform even better in World of Warcraft (something we all like to do!).

If you want any advice at all, feel free to contact me via my contact page & I might be able to offer further advice… but in the mean time… I have some more posts to write about WoW Xmas gifts!

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I think the main reason for this is that finally players will be able to confront the Lich King himself, as well as a bunch of other amazing tools that make day to day WoW a little easier and more fun.

So anyway, the reason I’m posting first impressions is that right now I can’t play…. the servers have gone down about an hour after they came up for the first time, and understandably Twitter is crumbling under the pressure of #WoW posts from players QQing.

Before the servers went down though I:

• fought the Lich King
• checked out the awesome new quest tracking feature (awesome) ((awesome))
• used the random dungeon tool
• played through all the new instances
• didn’t get a single piece of shaman loot (QQ)

I think what I’m most impressed about is the new quest tracking feature.

I can just imagine new players that don’t have leveling guides will be so much happier being able to find where they need to go to do a quest, and I think its a feature Blizz should have had in a long, long time ago.

Another feature they should have done, perhaps at RELEASE, was to have their current help system. Its simply amazing compared to the old system, and gives players graphical and textual help along the way, guiding them on how to play the game much better.

Only a week or two ago I actually had two friends of mine (who aren’t computer game players apart from Facebook stuff) try WoW for the first time, and even with me trying to instruct them over their shoulders they found it a little rough.

Players like this that are completely new would almost find it impossible without guidance, but I think that the new system would have done a really good job at getting them into the game.

So… first impressions are that patch 3.3 is just fantastic.

New tools to make life easier & funner = big win for Blizz, WoW, and us! … so when are the servers coming back up, Blizz?

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However, I, perhaps like you have trouble keeping track of my cursor during big fights, or in fast moving PvP/arena matchups. That’s why I had a look around for a cursor addon for WoW that would help me find my mouse in the middle of the action – mainly so that I could click a new target.

Things aren’t always as simple as tabbing to find a new target, and sometimes you just have to click!

In my travels I came across “Cursor”, you can download it at WoW interface… I highly, highly recommend it because you can customize it heavily using WoW’s own stable of effects (which means the addon shouldn’t suck too much processing power).

This means that if you want an effect that only slightly lights up the space behind the cursor, you can do that, or if you want it to look like a massive nuclear war is following your cursor, then you can do that too.

I ended up using the setup you can see in this screen shot – a blue glow behind the mouse as a highlight, and then a relatively easy to see lava trail to help me pick it up when it moves if I can’t immediately identify its location.

If you have a bit more trouble than most at seeing your cursor in a fire fight, you can set it up as I’ve shown in screen shot 2, below… or just go to town yourself and find something you love.

Like most WoW interface mods this is free, and you should definitely install it & have a play around. I think you’ll be glad you did!

Also keep in mind that WoW DOES keep the default cursor… you just can’t see them in the screen shot for technical reasons… so the cursor does in fact overlay the effects you see here.

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The guys and girls that post and “hang out” in the forums a lot, such as Ghostcrawler et al must find it very, very difficult to not lash out sometimes, I imagine…!

Here’s the quote from the Blizzard forums.

I have no idea who is concerned about this matters , I honestly dont even care, just fix the damn drop rate peeps of Blizzard. I have been grinding the Dark Herring rare fish since last summer and its the only thing i have left for claiming my salty title. Talked more than once to Gms in-game and none couldn’t help with this issue. Make it drop or charge me the achievement done via mailbox i don’t care. This is rly anoyying and idiotic.

-Sweetface

And in response to this post, Ancilorn says…

This would imply the drop rate is broken. It isn’t, but you basically have a very very very small chance of getting it each time you fish in a location where it can drop. The chance is non-cumulative, meaning in time, the percentage chances of catching it are not increased. Each cast has the same low chance of getting it.

I have two, though.

-Ancilorn (Blizz community team)

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So you want to level a new Warlock… You love their demons, their curses and their crowd control abilities, and they’re just plain cool looking in high level gear.

SO… today I’m going to write you up an affliction spec for warlocks who love their DoTs (damage over time spells), which will level you fast.

First up I’ve read a few guides lately that tell you to swap spec at 60 or 70 and go demonology or destruction.

If you actually enjoy the affliction spec, just don’t do this. Your leveling times will be vaguely… BARELY faster, and you won’t be leveling a spec you enjoy as much.

Just choose affliction and stick with it. Its a super effective spec, and the jury is out on whether the other specs are faster.

What I’ll talk about in this leveling guide and affliction spec article:

• Races
• Professions
• Glyphs
• Affliction Spec for levels 1-80

So lets kick off with race selection for affliction locks.

Race Selection

Horde locks have what I think are the best warlock races – undead are just the coolest looking race for the class to my mind, but you’ve got flexibility with orcs and blood elves.

Undead: Will of the forsaken for fear/sleep/charm breakers is a great talent, but for affliction locks whose DoTs & pets will do plenty of damage even if you’re running away, its not the greatest racial in the world.

On the other hand you’ve got your corpse eating skill which can really speed up leveling & save you food by letting you regen health quickly.

On the whole I think undead are the best affliction spec choice we have. If you like undead, then choose it, you’re definately not gimping yourself.

Orcs: Neck & neck with undead for a good warlock leveling choice are orcs.

Blood fury, giving you a big spell power boost for 15 seconds, plus command which gives your pets 5% extra damage are a great 1-2 combo for leveling a little quicker.

Command would be a better Demonology warlock choice since the felguard pumps damage, but 5% extra is 5% extra… and a welcome addition to damage over 80 levels of grinding.

Blood Elves: Many people discard blood elves as good warlocks because they forget that their silencing ability also increases your mana at the same time. This is obviously excellent for leveling a new toon, as you don’t have to sit & drink as often to get your mana back up.

Simple, but effective… and a good choice that blood elf lovers should feel happy making without fearing a “gimped” leveling choice.

Professions

Like most classes I’ll make the dual gathering profession suggestion. Rather than going a crafting plus a gathering choice, I suggest you choose mining and skinning.

Mining can be quite useful for grinding your warlock, since the extra health from stamina is really handy for using with lifetap. Definitely go mining.

Skinning is a little more useful for affliction locks thanks to the extra crit chance, but herbalism isn’t so useful since your pet will be taking the lions share of damage as you grind (this is why locks are so great for leveling fast).

You might actually consider as a lock to go mining/enchanting, and use the small buffs to your gear as you level up, or just take mining and forget leveling another trade skill until you ding 70 or 80.

Its always easier leveling up professions when you hit 80, for obvious reasons… having lots of gold being one of the top… so don’t be scared to wait till 80 before you start leveling a profession.

Glyphs

Affliction Warlocks have some awesome glyphs, especially at high level with stuff like Glyph of Haunt… but what should you use for leveling up faster?

I recommend:

Glyph of Siphon Life. 25% extra healing from your siphon life talent.

Glyph of Corruption. 4% chance per damage tick to proc a 100% cast time reduction to shadow bolt.

Glyph of Agony. Lasts another 4 seconds, which is a nice extra damage boost for an ability thats constantly used.

1-80 Affliction Build

The affliction spec is what many people associate warlocks with, and because its such an effective build, you’ll find this spec is one of, if not the fastest leveling specs you can take.

Affliction:

1. 3/3 Suppression
2. 5/5 Improved Corruption
3. 2/2 Improved Drain Soul
4. 2/2 Improved Life Tap
5. 2/2 Soul Siphon
6. 3/3 Fel concentration
7. 1/1 Amplify curse
8. 2/2 Nightfall : Great to pair up with the glyph of corruption!
9. 3/3 Empowered corruption : If you’re an Orc use Blood Fury regularly before casting corruption to maximize this choice.
10. 5/5 Shadow embrace
11. 1/1 Siphon Life : epic ability that heals you fast and lets you constantly grind down mobs without stopping.
12. 5/5 Shadow Mastery
13. 3/3 Eradication
14. 5/5 Contagion
15. 3/3 Malediction
16. 3/3 Deaths Embrace
17. 1/1 Unstable Affliction – your high level bread and butter, huge damage.
18. 1/1 Pandemic – more UA love & a must have.
19. 5/5 Everlasting Affliction
20. 1/1 Haunt : one of the best spells in WoW imho. If you want to do a little PvP in AV spam this like crazy.

Demonology:

1. 2/2 Improved Health Stone
2. 3/3 Demonic Embrace (also excellent for doing some AV leveling)
3. 2/2 Fel Synergy : another killer leveling talent that rejuvenates your pets health
4. 3/3 Fel Vitality
5. 1/1 Soul Link : 20% of damage reduced is seriously useful, especially for PvP levelers where players will target you, not your pet.
6. 1/1 Fel Domination
7. 3/3 Demonic Aegis

As you’ll see, following this affliction spec/demo spec build will mean that you’ll do excellent damage, and most importantly for leveling fast, you’ll barely need to stop to regain mana, and you’ll always have high health thanks to your variety of life and mana regenerating talents.

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Paladins as of writing are widely considered one of the more “OP” (overpowered) classes in the game.

Able to both heal and pump out decent damage, paladins are leveling, raiding and PvP monsters.

So if you’re keen to get in while the gettin’s good, this ret paladin leveling guide will help you level your pally in the shortest time possible.

• Races
• Professions
• 1-80 Talent Build

Sword & Shield? *WRONG!*

Ret Paladin Race Selection

Horde Races:

Currently limited to Blood Elves, horde paladins are a relatively rare breed, as opposed to alliance who have been leveling THREE races worth of Paladins for some time now.

Blood Elves racial passive, arcane torrent, is a great addition to your paladin. Its equally useful in leveling, as well as end game dungeons and PvP.

It also has a small mana boosting element which is again great for keeping your leveling pace going when your mana drops low.

Alliance Races:

I understand Alliance players read this blog too, so briefly:

Humans: great pvp and reputation grinding bonuses, but pretty much nothing to speak of that will help level faster.

Dwarves: again, practically nothing. Stone form has very limited usefulness.

Draenei: the best Alliance leveling race – gift of the Naaru is a small heal over time that will hopefully help you get out of a few sticky spots and prevent some corpse runs, as well as giving you greater up time.

You also get the +1% to hit bonus which while you might barely notice will help a little.

Paladin Profession Selection

Herbalism: Best in slot for leveling professions – pick this and use lifeblood often to help you keep alive. Also handy to use this rather than your healing judgements – allowing your mana building judgements to keep your mob killing times fast.

Mining: Meh – its ok… but given you’ll still need to heal up your large HP pool, I’d go herbalism over mining any day of the week for leveling.

Skinning: This should be your second choice, as the bonus ability gives you greater crit strike. No brainer here – more crits = more damage = Paladin leveling machine.

Crafting professions: Leave them all unless you don’t mind leveling a little slower. In a rush to 80 though? Just take skinning and herbalism (you’ll also make way more gold).

Cooking: A possibility, but given it can be a royal pain in the ass to level up in some leveling brackets, you might (nay, you WILL) find it easier to back track once you hit 80… again, you’ll also have tons more gold at 80 to buy food that you can’t find.

1-80 Paladin Leveling Spec

The number 1 leveling spec for Paladins is definately the “ret”, or retribution spec.

Retribution is the paladins DPS tree, Holy is the healing tree, and Protection is the tanking tree. If you don’t care what spec you use as you level up to 80, I urge you to choose ret. It is the fastest — all DPS built hybrids are.

So assuming you’re agreeing with my ret spec for your paladin, here’s the 1-80 talent choices you need to make.

The 60/11 Retribution/Holy Build:

1. 5 ranks of Benediction – mana efficiency is key to more dps over time. Less time spent eating & drinking means more leveling.
2. 2 ranks in Improved Judgements – since you use your judgements so often, 2 seconds less on cooldowns is handy.
3. 3 ranks in Heart of the Crusader – good for solo and group play, increasing your criticals against judgement afflicted targets (aka all of them!)
4. 2 ranks in Improved Blessing of Might – BoM is the best blessing to use while leveling. AP (attack power) is one of the best DPS stats you can get, and IBoM gives you another 25%.
5. 2 ranks in Vindication – working hand in hand with blessing of might, vindication gives you a chance to reduce your targets attack power by x for 10 seconds.
6. 5 ranks in Conviction – stacking with Heart of the Crusader and brings your total crit chance bonus to 8%
7. 1 rank in Seal of Command – gives you a seal unique to the Ret spec, giving you a small bonus to fighting more than one mob at once.
8. 2 ranks of Pursuit of Justice – one of the simplest and one of the best leveling skills for the paladin. Increasing movement speed by 8% is a god send for levelers who have to traverse large areas of Kalimdor & the Eastern Kingdoms, and is an even better talent with the easier to acquire and faster ground mounts.
9. 2 ranks in Eye for an eye – this is another great ret ability that lets you return 10% of all damage cause to you to your attacker. MOAR dps!
10. 3 ranks in Sanctity of Battle - another crit increasing talent, further taking your crit bonus to 11%. Also ups damage caused by Exorcism and Crusader strike (two of your most used abilities) by 15%.
11. 3 ranks in Crusade – another simple but excellent talent +3% damage caused against all opponents. Don’t scoff at this, it all adds up as you move down the tree.
12. 3 ranks in Two handed weapon specialization – another 6% damage increase when you wield a 2h weapon (which you should ALWAYS be doing while leveling).
13. 1 rank of Sacrified Retribution – gives ret aura a handy 50% boost in damage.
14. 3 ranks in Vengeance – yet more passive dps (always handy) for your pally whenever he deals a critical strike… if you’ve been following my recommendations then that should be OFTEN.
15. 2 ranks in the Art of War - passive dps again here, take 2 ranks and get another 10% extra dmg from Judgement, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm abilities.
16. 1 rank in Repentance – great for when you accidentally pull more than you bargained for – put the target to sleep for 1 minute… and make sure you don’t use AoE nearby
17. 3 ranks in Judgement of the Wise – JoW is possibly one of the best leveling talents – 100% chance to get replenishment every time you use a judgement, which immediately greants you 25% of your base mana.
18. 2 ranks in Sanctified Wrath – despite the somewhat cool PvP effects from this talent, we’re concerned more with the 50% extra crit strike chance you get from Hammer of Wrath.
19. 3 ranks of Swift Retribution – haste for teh winz! Your auras give you and your buddies an extra 3% casting ranged and melee attack speed.
20. 1 rank of Crusader Strike – the staple of the aging Paladin is Crusader strike, you’ll use it often and with its relatively short cooldown its a great dps buff.
21. 3 ranks of Sheath of Light – similar to the Shaman’s Mental Quickness, SoL increases your spell power by 30% of your attack power, a great spell damage buff, not to mention the healing over time effect you get from crit heals.
22. 3 ranks in Righteous Vengeance – Moar dps again from crits, and with well chosen gear and talents, RV will be doing plenty of DoT’s on your critted targets.
23. Divine Storm – the end of tree ret paladin talent. This awesome ability is an insta weapon attack that gives 110% of weapon damage to up to 4 enemies within 8 years. Even better (and perhaps more useful for end game purposes), DS heals up to 3 party of raid members totaling 25% of the damage caused.

So thats my 59 points of Retribution Spec. My recommendation after you’ve filled out these abilites is to hit Proection for 12 more points.

Here’s how your pally should talent his remaining points:

1. Divine Strength – 5 points here for 15% extra strength (which will give you more attack power, spell power, and dps)
2. Anticipation – 3 points here for extra dodge rating, which will reduce damage taken, increasing up time/survivability.
3. Guardian’s Favor – 2 points here reduces your hand of freedom skills cooldown – nothing world beating but we need another few points to hit the next branch in the tree.
4. Improved Righteous Fury – 2 points here for another 2% damage reduction.

You’ve probably noticed this is a very ret heavy spec. I’m not heaping 15 or 18 points into prot or holy to balance it out.

When you’re leveling you simply want DPS. Later down the road I’ve chosen some damage mitigation for when you’ll inevitably start doing some Outland dungeons and then Northrend dungeons.

Follow this advice here and I guarantee you’ll never feel let down by your dps and leveling speed as a retribution paladin.

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Today I’m going to continue this series with the crafting professions, and whether I think any of them are worth your time from a leveling perspective.

• Blacksmithing
• Tailoring
• Enchanting
• Jewelcrafting
• Leatherworking
• Engineering
• Inscription
• Alchemy

Let me cut to the chase.

Don’t Choose Crafting For Leveling

Here’s why.

1. The recipes you can craft are rarely better than what drops from mobs
2. The time each crafted item is useful for is minimal because the level that gear is effective at passes quickly
3. You spend lots of time farming the materials and running back and forth to learn new recipes
4. You waste tons of gold because most crafting professions need a gathering profession to level up

With this in mind, I’m going to generally speak about a few professions I think are worth your while, and talk about why you might still want to take a crafting profession early on.

Blacksmithing:

Being a blacksmith is good if you’re a warrior or melee dps class, because you can make some simple but effective dps increasing items early in the game to help you chew through mobs a little quicker.

From time to time the gear you can make might be worth making, but as I’ve already said, you really want to avoid actually using most of this stuff because you’ll only have it for a level or 2 before something way better drops.

Tailoring:

Pretty much completely useless. Much like blacksmithing, the items you make will become useless quickly. But on the PLUS side… you can use linen you loot from mobs to level this profession, freeing up a gathering profession which means you can keep selling mats on the AH to save up gold.

Enchanting:

Also a bit like blacksmithing in that low level enchants can help you level faster by applying small buffs to various items of equipment. However, if you choose to go enchanting while you level up, understand that if you aren’t bankrolled by another toon, affording level ups and new gear will be difficult.

This is because you won’t be able to auction greens you find, they’ll all get disenchanted, and you’ll end up relatively broke if this is one of your first toons.

If you’re gung-ho on enchanting, level it up when you hit 80 – you’ll find it much easier to farm greens in low level dungeons than to grind it up while being broke.

Jewelcrafting:

Jewelcrafting is more similar to blacksmithing in that you’ll be eating your materials up to level it, but unlike enchanting/blacksmithing you won’t get buffs that can be applied to every weapon or piece of armor you can get.

Skip Jewelcrafting for leveling faster.

Leatherworking:

Another item crafting profession that doesn’t give you anything unique or useful for leveling faster. You’ll eat up mats too so skip this one too.

Engineering:

One of the more entertaining professions to level, with lots of amusing tricks up its sleeve (especially as you reach higher levels), but still of little use to leveling faster.

If you’re a hunter – maybe you’ll consider engineering for the small dps increase scopes gives you, but any other class should stay away. Again, you’ll be consuming mined mats (and more) for this profession.

Inscription:

Maybe the worst crafting profession for leveling of them all.

Glyphs can be bought cheaply on the AH with the mats you sell, and you get no personal benefit from going inscription.

Even worse, when you hit high levels of inscription the only thing that makes it worthwhile is the shoulder enchants – and even those can be had grinding Hodir reputation (roughly the same time investment).

Take a pass on inscription and save your herbalism mats for the AH.

Alchemy:

Not a bad leveling profession at all – you can make healing & mana potions to keep your up time higher… but if you take a gathering profession like herbalism, this probably won’t be a big problem.

If your class is known for chewing mana, then it might be a good idea to pair up alchemy with herbalism and keep yourself stocked with mana/health potions.

Otherwise, Blizzard is making the leveling curve easier and easier these days, which will likely mean all you’ll need is water and food for most of the time.

When should I pick a crafting profession then?

I personally think unless you’re happy to level a little slower, you should wait until 70 or 80 to start.

By the time you’re that level, you’ll have a) gold, or b) lots of mats to use for the profession you want to train up.

Doing dailies every day and completing all the quests in Northrend will net you thousands of gold a week, so there’s no reason to get a gathering skill to go with your crafting professions.

The only reason you should be choosing a crafting profession while leveling fast is if you really aren’t that gung-ho about leveling fast.

You want to level quicker, but you would rather have your crafting skills at 400 rather than 0 when you hit 80.

I personally took the hit to leveling and leveled up inscription while I leveled my last toon. It did take a bit longer, but it kept my days in WoW more varied and interesting.

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