For the first time in my memory, there is no good resource for WoW professions prior to the start of the expansion. This fact is a testament to just how complex and extensive is Blizzard’s overhaul on this system. Hopefully, this quick-start guide will help, compiled of all the information I could gather. This is not a deep dive into the Specializations of each profession or the Crafting Orders system, for which there are several guides that explain both of these new features. Apologies for the goofy formatting, these forums are not the best for this kind of stuff.
Skill: your profession level, comes from base skill lvl + mods from specialization, prof equipment, racials, and high-quality reagents.
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Leveling
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- Base Skill - while I couldn’t find any definitive source on skillups, the understanding is that Base skill level is gained the same way it is now- by crafting items that are still eligible to award experience (denoted by an icon next to the recipe in the profession UI that will change color indicating skillups ala the old colored recipe system). If World Quests are still a thing in DF, there is a chance that there will be Crafting WQ’s as well that grant +5 points. Also, Specialization crafting can grant up to +15 skill points.
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- Specializations- Knowledge points is the prime way to level your specializations, and these points will be time-gated with all sources (such as Dailies, World Quests, Treasure Chests, etc) refreshing with the weekly reset. At level 25, Inscriptionists will be able to craft “Draconic Treatise: [Profession]” that grants 1 Knowledge point also with a weekly cooldown that refreshes with the weekly reset.
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Skill modifiers:
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- Equipment: will give you bonuses to profession Skill, Multicraft, Inspiration, Crafting Speed, and Resourcefulness but also Gathering mods such as Finesse, Deftness, and Perception
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- Inspiration: allows you a chance to craft higher ilvl items, or to craft items with higher Recipe Difficulty than your current skill lvl
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- Resourcefulness: allows you a chance to use fewer reagents when you craft an item
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- Multicraft: allows you a chance to craft multiple items (consumables, etc, not equipables)
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- Finesse: allows you to gather/craft more reagents
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- Deftness: allows you to gather/craft reagents faster
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- Perception: allows you a higher chance to get Rare quality reagents from a node/craft
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Enchants: you will be able to enchant your profession tools with Draconic Deftness, Draconic Finesse, Draconic Inspiration, Draconic Perception, Draconic Resourcefulness for gathering professions
Reagents: Four primary classifications of reagents - Gathered, Rare, Optional, and Finishing. Can vary in Quality (Bronze, Silver, Gold, and 2 more levels yet to be identified) that will impact the item level on crafted gear, or the power level of the potion, enchant, etc.
• Gathered- standard mats from herbing, skinning, and mining, as well as the crafting byproduct Artisan’s Mettle
• Rare- “Rousing” mats drop from mobs and combine to make “Awakened” mats. There is also an Inscription spell called “Extraction: Awakened xxxx”, sure to be other similar methods offered by other professions
• Optional- created by crafting, used to set your desired secondary stats, craft higher ilvl items, and they can also add a couple of unique bonuses
• Finishing- created by crafting, can be used to get extra points in Skill, Inspiration, Multicraft, or Resourcefulness when you craft an item. For example, use 50 Artisan’s Mettle (byproduct of crafting, quest reward from dailies, etc) to create an “Illustrious Insight” reagent which can add +30 points to Skill, allowing you to craft higher ilvl items
Specialization: each profession will have up to 4 specializations that you can learn, with some specializations granting traits that make them more lucrative to learn first (example: in Enchanting, specializing in “RODS, RUNES, and RUSES” grants a 20% increase to your crafting speed). Wowhead has a special Dragonflight Profession Tree Calculator to help you plan your profession building (see Tureja’s post below for link).
Recrafting: you can recraft items to give them a higher ilvl using better quality optional reagents. Recrafting does NOT work with the Crafting Order system, you will have to have your items recrafted in person via the trade window.
I would post helpful links to my sources for this info, but apparently I’m still not grown-up enough 