It doesn’t even come close to making price reasonable as demand for an item only one tradeskill makes is very nearly endless. No other tradeskill has access to a thing that has such demand.
I’m shooting for herb/Alch having roughly the same value as the other profs. If blizzzard wants to set that value to “garbage” well, I wouldn’t agree with that decision but at least they should all be that.
I don’t disagree that a unique strength for each profession would be ideal, but the OP highlighted a point at the root of the profession imbalance which is exceedingly difficult to address.
Alchemy & Herbalism have a fundamentally higher demand than any other profession as the products are universally valuable, have a short duration, and feature a wide enough variety of individual flasks/pots to keep competition at a lesser degree.
Pretty much every profession has some unique aspects, but as no profession makes items with universal value and which are frequently consumed, it would be an uphill battle to create similar value to Alchemy & Herbalism.
To create anything which provides a short duration buff with universal value for every other profession (which are the two things at the heart of Alc/Herb being so dominant) would effectively result in homogenization as, ultimately, a buff with universal appeal is all a flask is. Maybe the real issue here is the high demand for flasks - make each flask have multiple charges before consumption and increase the herb cost to create them. Let’s say a flask takes a number of herbs equal to 5x what it currently does, and has 10 charges - same deal with pots. Just artificially lower the demand by making production easier, driving up competition.
They need to buff the underused professions is all.
Put more gem slots on gear and give JCs gem settings to make that let you add a slot to gear.
Give Scribes back all of the glyphs they removed and put on vendors (WTAH with that?) and also give them back the utility glyphs.
Give gear/weapon crafters cosmetic gear/weapons to make to sell that look really good and they can make it in every color dye. I mean who doesn’t want a choice in the color of gear? Who hasn’t had gear they loved the design of but hated the color?
Give Engineering more utility items to make to sell, and even more mounts and pets to make.
Everything is supply and demand.
Potions and flasks are burned every single day of the week, in Mythic plus, along with raids. Maybe even in PvP, the stuff is being shuffled out of the economy at a rapid clip, which keeps up prices, despite multiboxxers keeping prices low enough that normal players still don’t make much off it.
The problem with the other professions is that demand is very very minimal, and they’ve lowered the barrier to entry for people wanting to get into crafting. In the old days, MOST people didn’t get into crafting, because it meant going from 1 to 600+ before they could make anything worthwhile, which kept supply low, which meshed okay with the low demand.
With legion and BFA, they removed barriers to entry, so if timmy wants to be an inscriptionist, it’s 30 minutes of time spent to be an inscriptionist. That means supply is almost infinite, but the demand for most inscription items is VERY low, which makes the professions almost worthless. The same is true for all of the other non-consumable professions.
I’d argue that they need to double down on ‘progression’ for crafting. It should be a month long effort, maybe even more to max out a given profession, that would address the supply issues that are going on with professions in general.
Second, they need to start adding either meaningful consumables to each professions, OR make crafting a legitimate source of endgame gear that can be SOLD. The legion BOE legendaries were a good template/start to that idea, the notion that a crafter can make a single really nice item on a cooldown.
If a crafter could spend weeks making a maxed out BOE, you’d see enormous value return to leatherworking/jewelcrafting/blacksmithing/tailoring. It would need to be an involved process, with some sort of cooldown gate to make sure it didn’t create excess supply, but would go a long way to making crafting in general ‘better’.
My fan fiction would be a complete overhaul of crafting into something closer to FF14’s system. Same with gathering. I’d give almost anything to convince WoW dev’s to actually make gathering/crafting it’s own engaging game.
They need to go back to the original model of item enhancement, where every tradeskill had something of value to offer on a largely indefinite basis.
Leg Armor for Leather Working, Sockets for Blacksmithing, Spellthreads for tailoring, etc.
Having an economy where every tradeskill has some indefinite, long term universal value is of infinitely greater benefit than people being able to immediately throw on gear for that N64 Kid Joy-Tantrum feeling.
yeah, true, TS should be better. I’m trying to get at the endless demand monopoly though.
Thanks, guys, have to break
I’ve been a JCer since it was added in BC. I know the pain. I remember having 6 transmute spec alchemists feeding my JCer epic gems back in the day… good times. 
Herbs fluctuate, but they’re often times a few gold or less each on my server.
I’d definitely like to see a return of the old consumables like leg enchants and such. But that doesn’t really work to bridge the gap between alchemy and everything else, unless you do something about how easy it is for EVERYONE to have a maxed profession.
Leg armor/sockets would be roughly as in demand as enchants are now. You would use them once in a blue moon, think of how often you get upgrades, and that is how often you’d need them.
You either attack the supply side (the complete lack of barriers to entry on becoming a crafter), or you attack the demand side (some sort of consumable that needs to be burned in every single high level mythic+/raid that someone goes to, like flasks and potions).
Anything else and you’re still going to see alchemy churn be MUCH higher than the other professions. The only reason alchemy consumables are even remotely affordable right now, is because you’ve got multiboxxers flying around farming at a VERY efficient pace, combined with how easy it is for everyone and their mother to have an alchemy alt.
Yeah… the only way to really bridge that kind of gap is to give all professions that kind of in-demand consumable, and… yeah yeah, boo homogenization, but “one profession is totally wicked profitable and the rest all get scraps” isn’t diversity - it’s feudalism.
And really, why should one profession get absolutely everything in terms of regularly recurring crafting value? What’s “diversity” from one angle is homogenization from another - everyone interested in selling crafted commodities can be an Alchemist, or … basically nothing else. Because they can’t create high-end crafted gear? Philosopher Stone trinkets are a thing, and that high-end, crafted gear has had a value somewhere between diddly and squat for a very, very long time now.
Really, though, looking at it from a gear angle, we have such a massive, host of broadly sourced and diverse gear that applying that philosophy to alchemy would bring it more in line and in balance with the other professions.
There is only one BiS Flask, and one source for it. And even then, there’s little else other than that one flask as an option. There’s no “decent, non-apex, Flask of the People” like there are a hundred, thousand sources of commonly available gear. Changing the narrative beneath alchemy, potions, and consumables would better balance out the whole discussion.
I’d pay even more money for them to do at least something to equalize the gathering ability of druids vs other classes. It is absolutely stupid that ONE effing class has such a huge advantage over Every. Single. Other. Class in gathering. How about a piece of mount equipment or something that lets you gather like they do?
Maybe have that mount slot useful for something other than forgetting I have the parachute attached and not being able to kill whomever was dumb enough to let me give them a ride as a Sandstone Drake…
Give everyone the same consumables? That doesn’t solve a problem it just masks one and adds another layer of cookie-cutter batter to already cookie-cutter characters. But I am not the type to really post to a problem without proposing a potential solution myself.
How about making Crafting great again with crafted BiS stat items from Blacksmithing/Tailoring/Jewelcrafting? By adding additional perks for a said profession or even synergistic perks with profession combinations. The developers can help infuse a much needed change to the profession trade by giving power back to the players.
There is absolutely no reason that an endgame crafting profession cannot make a crafted item of the equivalent level for the tier instead of making a single piece of gear with a fixed stat/item level that literally becomes worthless with the next tier.
To touch on synergistic buffs, these would be passive or even active buffs with cooldowns that can be used in conjunction with a profession. For example, how cool would it be as a Herbalist Scribe (Inscription) to have an on-use ability to infuse your herb-based inks used on your scrolls to add additional potency to a crafted Scroll. Now this consumable scroll adds a secondary or even tertiary effect (such as a duration-based stat boost/additional damage/immunity to status changes etc) in addition to it’s primary effect.
There is so much opportunity to sit down and talk to the community about changes to the crafting system right now and it would be a shame if it went to waste.
I just find it interesting they took many perks away from professions because people complained about them.
And here we are.
They need to rethink single use versus one use and make sure all trades have some of both.
this I agree with, something needs to be done about the multiboxing, and it always seems to be druids too. And it isn’t just new zones and this whole “1 key press 1 action” excuse no longer flies when you’re out questing and there’s very clearly 1 person running 10 druids standing in a fixed spot all throughout a quest mobs spawning area killing everything. Saw this with the elementals at Hyjal today on the Zandalari I’m leveling. Literally every spot the elementals spawned this guy had a boomkin plopped at, autokilling them as they spawned.
It’s time to punish multiboxers, it’s affecting the rest of the game for everyone
That pots still sell and for so much is kind of proof why some MMO economies feature gear that breaks and needs replaced. Even if everyone hates the idea, it’s a necessary evil for an actual working economy. Professions inevitably become worthless if demand for crafted goods drops.
Fortunately, Shadowlands is making real strides towards improving crafting professions, but considering the grim reality of my first paragraph, and I don’t expect Warcraft to adopt gear breakage, I’m not sure what the long term will look like for them.
Yep JC here, I’ll be honest when I see a Druid herbing I just want to kick them in the furries.
I don’t but it’s silly knowing the disparity I’m seeing. I still make gold, it still pays my sub and currently, as always since WoD, it’s paying for the next expansion, going to try for the $60 SL game, but it’s still a drop in the bucket compared to herb/alch.
Let’s see some more sockets, you know like 3 sockets and a prismatic slot on them pants!
Stay safe.
Strong disagree. Homogenization is what weakens the desirability and uniqueness of certain classes, and now you want to apply the same to professions?
If you don’t like the fact that you can’t sell gems for as much as flasks, then switch professions and level up your alchemy (or make an alt with alchemy).
Jesus Christ, none of that. That’s a meandering path to some version of Fallout 76.
It’s ok that Tradeskills have some limited usefulness, they actually did a decent job of making some TS useful at the end, I can craft a 370 ring. The crap idea there is that I can’t reroll the stats, it’s too expensive not to be able to do that.
What’s bad bad, is that one TS combination is ever and always ridiculously hilariously insanely above the others. Whether it’s the start of the xpac or the end. And it’s due to these buffing items. And even without those being unique to Alch, they could make plenty of other stuff and even have an endgame trinket as well.
It’s kinda not okay that tradeskills have limited usefulness, because then people just go back to focusing on the ones that will constantly be in demand, AKA, alchemy. You down a pot, now you need another pot. How can there NOT be a TS that is always ridiculously hilariously insanely above the others if it’s continually profitable while the rest have built in demand-cliffs? That’s economics 101.
Unless Blizzard plans to roll out newer, better reagents almost every few months for each crafting profession or the player base at large suddenly develops a severe case of altitis and guns for that 50 character limit with unnatural furor, obsolescence for most crafting professions is inevitable without continued support before too long. I’m fine with banking on Blizzard keeping TSs relevant with constant updates, and frankly gear breakage at this point would be out of left field for WoW unless it’s somehow another sub-system, but I’m not holding my breath they’ll keep most trade skills relevant.
And cripes, Fallout 76 is a disaster because Bethesda. Equipment breakage has been a part of Fallout for a while now, sans 4 (which was more just an open world shooter than RPG anyway.)
okay heres the thing flasks are only really expensive because people let it be people who control the markets will reset the prices of items to make them more expensive then they needed be. Jewlecrafting could easily be the same way if someone would just flip the market and people would stop posting at a low price. If you get people who sell the same item to agree to increase prices then it is do able. I have made alot of gold doing this.