The game’s a lot more fun if you don’t worry about all that.
I find the game the most fun when I am crushing content alongside competitive players, but we aren’t talking about that. We are talking about the norms, and why “Well I didn’t do this in the original TBC” argument doesn’t hold up.
- Gathering a full stack of world buffs wasn’t the norm for classic raiding, but it is now.
- Having 20 of 25 players minimum run drums wasn’t the norm at the start of TBC, but will be now.
Nothing will change the tendency of WoW raiding, even at casual levels, to gravitate toward doing whatever is meta. Can you find a guild that doesn’t care about LW? Probably. Will they be great at clearing content? Probably not, because that mentality is likely to bleed over into other raid prep like potions, flasks, or knowing what a boss does before pulling.
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Skinning / Leatherworking. Be a trend setter.
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I dunno. I managed to clear Black Temple back in the day without worrying about all that. We progressed through the content, sure. But we actually played our mains. Logging in only to collect buffs and to raid wasn’t a thing (and actually playing a main regularly makes sense, since it’s your main character, after all.)
Progression in Classic really isn’t a thing. Until Naxx, most guild were able to clear raids shortly after they launched. Even the casual guilds with players rolling “meme specs.”
For the most part, we’ll see content get cleared and GDKP PUGS clearing the content quite easily. Just like in Classic, people will sweat about the meta crap then complain that there’s nothing to do a month after the raids launch.
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Again your anecdote of what you did in the original version of TBC isn’t relevant. The drum meta wasn’t common knowledge at the time. It is common knowledge now. So what you did originally in TBC is of no consequence. I did all that as well, and didn’t pick up LW on my mage until I found out about it when moving into SWP.
Point is we all know about it now, and guilds requiring it will be more common than not, the guilds likely to be so lax they don’t are the ones who are more likely to struggle.
I’m aware of how players play now. My point is thst casusals won’t struggle.
Seriously, how many guilds struggled in Classic pre-Naxx? Even Naxx, some bosses took only 30 pulls. That’s not real progression.
Naxx is on farm for pretty much everyone in it. It’s regularly PUG’d.
It’ll be the same in TBC.
I get that, I’m one night farming Naxx on reset with my guild, however that’s not universally the case.
Given that I know casual guilds now that don’t have a KT kill and struggle to regularly kill Sapph as a guild. Its not like they don’t exist. How do you think other casuals are going to fare with much harder content, that allows for far less dead weight?
Naxx is generally rarely full cleared on a pug, and is more often cleared on a GDKP full of ultra decked out hardcore players looking to turn a profit off of each other. Not quite the same as a pug, as they are typically heavily planned and organized same as any guild run.
Facts remain that 15,000 guilds killed KT, true this is far more than Vanilla, but its been accessible for far longer and to folks with far more practice. Doesn’t change the fact that this is not everyone, and likely not even a majority of players, given that 24k guilds cleared AQ40, so thats 9k guilds that didn’t finish Naxx. If we regress back to BWL where 34k guilds cleared that… you start to see the trend.
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You have a tendency to have a lot of alpha posturing and digs. It’s hard to take that as “good faith” or even seriously at all.
Case in point.
My guild took 2 nights to clear Naxx this past week. But they do roll boomies, shadow priests and ret paladins. They’re pretty chill and seem to have fun. It’s a game, and it’s intended to be fun.
I personally liked progression back in the day. Killing a boss for the first time right after it enrages was a neat thrill. Now a days, folks want to burn it down before “phase 2” hits their first week in.
The resto Shaman getting swapped in to BL isn’t likely to have leatherworking. They are likely to have Alchemy due to the increased potion effectiveness being critical for mana management, and tailoring for BIS healing gear. So 80-90% of dps will be required to have LW. The healer group is the one least likely to require drums, because haste isn’t as critical for them.
Alchemy is not BiS for phase 5 and no Resto Shaman in phase 5 would have Tailoring.
Some guides recommend Tailoring for phase 1, but they’re wrong. PMC looks good until you start running the numbers on Drums (even Drums just for personal use) and taking into account Windhawk alongside the weak PMC shoulders. Since Whitemend is also terrible for Resto Shaman, this makes Tailoring an incredibly expensive and time-intensive way to get gear that could be - at best - construed as a sidegrade from much more easily acquired gear.
We aren’t talking about Phase 5. We are talking about launch, we are talking about the original state in which we will receive TBC. In which the +40% bonus on mana potions will be extremely useful, and PMC is far and away BIS.
HPS is about more more than just how fast you can dump heals with the drums bonus, you also need the mana pool to sustain it. Given PMC gives you 300% more MP5 than Windhawk and over 100 more healing power as well. Its not even close. The crit from windhawk doesn’t make up for those stat deficiencies.
Crafting from all of the professions eventually becomes far less worthwhile. Which is why it makes no sense LW gets special treatment making us all roll it for a maintenance buff. Just make drums not req leatherworking to use, or make them raid wide. The current design is just going to do what blizzard said they don’t want it to do.
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I really wish they’d change the drums. I know a lot of people want no changes, but I think the drum meta will have a negative impact on the game. A small change is all it would take too 
Plus I don’t really want to be forced into LW. I will if I must, but I’ll be salty about it the whole time
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We are talking about launch, we are talking about the original state in which we will receive TBC. In which the +40% bonus on mana potions will be extremely useful, and PMC is far and away BIS.
The 40% more mana potions ends up being inferior to commonly available trinkets like Essence of the Martyr and Lower City Prayerbook.
Given PMC gives you 300% more MP5 than Windhawk and over 100 more healing power as well.
The sets occupy different slots. The PMC Shoulders are weaker than T4/Season 1, so you won’t be using them. The remaining two pieces are nice enough, but 3p Windhawk + Drums > PMC Belt/Chest + Bindings of the Timewalker. I think you’re doing what a lot of people did - they look at those big +healing numbers and never bothered to look further. They didn’t account for socketing their gear or what else would be available in those slots.
PMC isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination. But if you go Tailoring as a Resto Shaman, you’ll be wasting a ton of money for sub-BiS gear that you’d replace in short order anyway.
Sure. So make all prof bonuses not require the profession as well. Free enchanted rings for all, free gemcrafting master jewels. Sounds a bit ridiculous in perspective.
Just make drums only work for the person using them. Problem solved.
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Except it isnt, because they would have to be buffed to a higher number to make up for them being self-only.
Which would still make them mandatory for all.
They wouldn’t need to be buffed at all. The other profession items are pretty much self only and only a slight buff. So keep drums as is and personal wouldn’t make them mandatory at all.
If they are considered balanced being group wide, then changing them to self-only would indeed make them under balanced and require them to have the benefit increased.
You have to remember, this is not a passive, always on benefit, that affects you in every instance of combat like the other professions. To get any benefit at all you have to spend resources by using a crafted item otherwise you get no benefit at all.
do whatever profession you want. you have the pros of each profession stated above, but dont let the word “mandatory” steer you in anyway unless you are looking to parse as high as possible on your dps. you dont have to be tailoring, you dont have to be LW.
Just make sure you plan your guild/end game progression with somewhat like-minded players and guilds if youre not someone who obsesses over numbers.
It’s ok, they need to feel like their tryharding is being recognized.
Your parses are just not going to be competitive ok?
(I’m sticking with tailor/ench, my guild never made it past mu’ru 15 years ago and if it was a few sets of drums missing than this game is garbage and I’m out. Ps it wasn’t).
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My druid is a tailor/enchanter. 
On your warlock, at least you’ll have buffs from your trades, and you won’t need to click on them.