Just came back and rolled a gnome warlock. Trying to decide between mining/eng or alch/herb. I’m just not sure which would benefit me more in the long run. I’m on a PvP server but my focus end game will be raiding. Gnome gets a bonus to eng and I’ve never really done eng at any point in the game, but do warlocks really need eng to do well in PvP? Or at least some WPvP shenanigans? Is Alchemy not that worth if you can’t get mats like black lotus?
I know tailoring is good too but my mage in retail is tailoring/enchanting and I wanna do something different here.
See that makes it sound like every single person on a PvP server is or should be eng and you can’t even put up a fight without eng, but I’ve never been a big fan of eng, just hard to ignore it with all the hyperbole about it and PvP.
Gathering. Don’t bother with any other professions while leveling. Tracking can be a pain if you do mining and herbalism together but they have the most payoff. I’d say do skinning and herbalism, you’ll end up vendoring most of the low-level skins.
At level 60 you might want to go tailoring to take advantage of the bloodvine set. Engineering is also good at 60.
Do alchemy on an alt. You can get them to level 35 and they can craft everything and mail it to your other characters.
I’m not interested in doing double gather for the billionth time. I hate chasing after nodes way off path, especially with herbalism, without a mount. My brother started at Classic launch with Alchemy right off the bat and did fine affording whatever he needed to and had a lot of fun being able to utilize it while leveling, and I wanted that experience, but was undecided between that or eng. That’s it. Any other options I am not interested in, but thank you.
Something worth considering, especially as a warlock, is that engineering gets you access to the green lens at level 35. +34-36 shadow damage as a level 35 is huge.
Do warlocks in particular have issues with bomb stuns breaking early due to dot damage, or are they mostly used as an opener or when you get opened up on first? I figured another benefit to taking engineering early was getting better at using bombs as I level instead of having to get use to incorporating them later.
Nobody needs engineering for PvP, its just a big help. Warlocks have such a loaded kit for PvP that eng is less important for their success but it is still a great help.
If PvP is a priority to you and you want to level your max level professions while leveling, then mining/engineering is your best choice. Follow an engineering leveling guide to not waste resources and sell the excess on the AH for extra cash to help support your eng.
If you decide you want to follow this route while leveling, then I’d recommend tailoring/mining. As a clothie you can make some good gear while you level, one of your lock quests’ text even incentivises you to craft your own robe for it, and at max level you can make the Bloodvine set for yourself. Then with mining you can look at an engineering leveling guide and find out what mats you need and stockpile those while leveling so you can drop tailoring at 60 after exploiting it for the cheaper gear and pick up eng.
I have this guy herbalism and skinning, and so far they’ve been a healthy supply of coin. (I have more on him, with no alts on the realm, than I do on my two 30s who are narrowing in on needing to buy mounts.) I go herbalism instead of mining just being I find it more frequent to pass herbs while questing than ore, as the latter is often out on the periphery or in caves. Skinning is a seriously good money source even if you vendor it all, simply because non-skinners often leave buffets of beasts.
Engineering has a few okay things while leveling (earlier helm, possibly, but just armor and cool look) but pretty much requires mining or a gold source to keep apace. It’s likely to be more efficient to power level it when you’re at or near 60 and can farm the gold to buy the needed mats. (Or if you’re an alty like me, just make an alt who mines and save up everything you’ll need, swapping to get rested XP.)
Not true. It’s only the sweaty tryhards that “need” engineering for pvp. As long as you have a good group and good gear you’ll win 75% of your games regardless of your professions. Herbalism is a much better profession than mining as far as gold making potential. Alch/tailoring provide consistent gold with their CD’s
Thanks for all the advice! I think what I’ll do is start as tailor/herb because I don’t like that mining drought between tin and iron and I can just do that at 60 if I still want to do eng instead of alch when I have a mount, but I’ll decide that when I cross that bridge.
Take up herbalism, then maybe once you hit 60, level alchemy. I received a greater fire protection potion recipe, and being able to make those pots from scratch myself has generated a lot of money for me.
I’d go herb/alch. It’ll serve you well, and it could make you money. Engineering has always felt too gimmicky to me. It’s also really annoying to level and seems to plug up your inventory more than any other profession.
Wise choice my friend. I’ve done a sht ton of pvp and got marshal, imo engineer is definitely not necessary to melt face especially with escape artist. I never had to depend on gnomish net, iron grenade, or any other gimmick that gives me an edge to win 1v1.
The best thing about being engineering is the catseye goggles bcuz of zealous horde rogues and even druids. But you can use catseye elixir with felhunter out nd just roll a prof thatll actually make you money. Another nice thing about eng is the tanaris or winterspring port trinkets. If those sound like things u can live without than forget engi lol