Are My Monks’ Professions Min-Maxed?

Gameplay Professions
1

Hello all!

I’ve got multiple monks across different factions, races and servers, and I’m wondering if their profession pairings are optimal or if I should reconsider some of them. Here’s what I have so far:

Main Monk:

The Grandmaster Monk that I will be raiding Mythic raid and does all quests. My go-to Monk to play when I am called to tank, dps or heal.

  • Riou (Blood Elf) – Enchanting & Tailoring (Blood Elves has Arcane Affinity, Enchanting skill increased by 5 and I decided Tailoring to go along with it)

Main Alt Monks:

These monks might be raiding Heroic raid and possibly early Mythic bosses (They are better as Brewmaster), 8x M+10 and 4x Delves or when I am bored with my Blood Elf animation.

  • Mugen (Pandaren) – Skinning & Leatherworking
  • Gijimu (Dwarf) – Blacksmithing & Jewelcrafting
  • Milleuda (Night Elf) – Alchemy & Inscription
  • Gabocha (Highmountain Tauren) – Herbalism & Mining (Highmountain Tauren has Pride of Ironhorn, Increases your Mining Skill by 5 and Deftness by 25%. Deftness allows you to mine more quickly.)
  • Pahn (Vulpera) – Engineering & ???

I’m trying to balance efficiency, class fantasy, and potential gold-making for the monks above. Would love to hear some subjective takes whether the pairing for them make sense, or am I missing out on better synergies?

I also plan on expanding and making more monks of different races. If you have profession suggestions for the following monks, whether for thematic fit, min-maxing, or just fun combinations, let me know!

Seeking Advice for These Monks:

These monks will be played as and when I feel like it when I am bored with my main monk and main alt monks, so not much investment of time on them. They are just pretty decorations really. Maybe I’ll just take Herbalism and Mining on them or take some profession that are aligned with their race and helps out with my main alt monks?

  • Oulan (Gnome) – Engineering + ??? (Gnome has Engineering Specialization, Engineering skill increased by 5.)
  • Gantetsu (Orc) – ???
  • Aldarina (Human) – ???
  • Zaldari (Zandalari) – ???
  • Sasarai (Void Elf) – ???
  • Pohl (Earthen) – Herbalism/Mining/Skinning (Earthen has Hyper Productive, Increases Finesse by 25. Finesse increases the chance of gathering additional materials.)
  • Genkaku (Mag’har Orc) – ???
  • Zweig (Mechagnome) – ???
  • Gengen (Tauren) – Herbalism + ??? (Tauren has Cultivation, Increases your Herbalism Skill by 5 and Deftness by 25%. Deftness allows you to gather herbs more quickly.)
  • Belcoot (Worgen) – Skinning + ??? (Worgen has Flayer, Increases your Skinning Skill by 5 and Deftness by 25%. Deftness allows you to skin more quickly.)
  • Clive (Undead) – ???
  • Varkas (Draenei) – Jewelcrafting + ??? (Draenei has Gemcutting,
    Jewelcrafting skill increased by 5.)
  • Zamza (Goblin) – Alchemy + ??? (Goblin has Better Living Through Chemistry, Alchemy skill increased by 5.)
  • Wakaba (Troll) – ???
  • Zegai (Lightforged Draenei) – Blacksmithing + ??? (Lightforged Draenei has Forge of Light, Summon a Forge of Light, enabling Blacksmithing. Blacksmithing skill increased by 5.)
  • Geddoe (Kul Tiran) – ??? (Kul Tiran has Jack of All Trades so he’s up for anything really)
  • Genshu (Nightborne) – Inscription + ??? (Nightborne has Ancient History, Inscription skill increased by 5.)
  • Kreutz (Dark Iron Dwarf) – Blacksmith + ??? (Dark Iron Dwarves has Mass Production, Increases Blacksmithing skill by 5 and Blacksmithing speed by 10%.)

Would love to hear what you guys think—should I lean toward crafting for gold, self-sufficiency, or go full min-max? Let me know!

2

So the racial bonuses generally don’t make much of a difference now. The way concentration curves are made, 5 points won’t swing you very far.

For reagents especially, the curve is made of three splines. At 80% difficulty the slope is near zero (flat). This means that 5 points if skill added won’t change how much concentration things cost if you’re using concentration. This is done for simplicity–you know all you have to do is put R2 reagents (which puts you at 80% difficulty if all else is maxed) and you don’t need to fiddle with partial R2 and R3 to maximize profits.

But, the two racial bonuses that do make a difference you’ve got right on the money.

Blood elf racial bonus is good for enchanting because blizzard goofed and made one important enchant slightly too difficult. Authority of the depths cannot be maxed without either the skill bonus finishing reagents or the blood elf racial. It saves you a bit of gold there.

Highmountain tauren are absolute beasts for mining and herbalism. Both herbalism and mining have speed challenges (EZ mine and spore overloads), and highmountain tauren just blast those. You can’t even see the cast bar, it’s so fast.

My main is a night elf monk eng/mining. The night elf racial is for M+ (because I pull things when rolling what can I say… I am bad lol). Engineering was good in tier 1. I could put down a wipe reset, repair, and crafting table. But in this raid they have crafting tables at the front. You can mount in a lot of it for repairs. And other specs can handle wipe recovery… And now anyone can battle rez with jumper cables… So my eng stuff is less useful now. Kinda sad …

3

What are you thought for the rest? Should I still get another crafting professions for them or should I just stick Herbalism/Mining/Skinning on the rest and made them my gatherer to transfer to my factory-mode characters?

4

I think matching the racial bonus to the profession as you have is a good long term plan. You never know blizz might make them more important in the future and while it didn’t make a huge difference it doesn’t hurt either.

If I don’t know what to pair with a profession I usually just go with a gathering profession. In TWW, gathering professions would be the best way to get acuity for alts. You can easily get enough for all your blue tools. And then once that’s done you can just ignore gathering. It’s easy to catch up if you ever need it.