All Professions

Overall, Blizzard says they will be providing recipes for items where there is a gap in itemization. So if there's not enough Boomkin gear to go around, for example, Leathercrafters will get recipes for gear to fill that gap. Their goal is to make crafted items more valuable to prospective recipients in order to make the professions better. They specifically are optimizing the gear for leveling from 70 to 80. Blizzard says that the items used to skillup should actually sell.

Speaking of skillups, Blizzard is looking into making it easier for high level characters to change their professions without having to "noob it up", so to speak. In development is a plan to not have to go kill wolves in Elwynn Forest if you change to Skinning late in the game, for example. Also, Blizzard plans to smooth out the progression from 275 to 300. It was purposely difficult to get those last points when 300 was the max, but now this added level of difficulty is unnecessary -- so those last 25 points before 300 will be easier to get.

Blizzard has declared camping vendors for limited quantity recipes as unfun and is going to stop it. (Captain Obvious strikes again!) All vendors are going to have the same "pool" of blue and purple recipes which will randomly appear on them. It will be random enough so that you won't be able to guess when to camp them and any vendor can be carrying a rare recipe from that pool at any time.

Profession Daily Quests will be added to the game starting in Patch 2.3. Cooking will be the first profession to get daily quests, but Blizzard plans to implement them for all of the professions.

The Burning Crusade added one third more recipes to the game. Wrath of the Lich King is going to add another third on top of that. But we're also going to be seeing some goodies for professions in Patch 2.2 and 2.3. I have marked next to an item if Blizzard gave an actual timeline for implementation.

Alchemy

• Alchemist-only potions! Woot! Overall, Blizzard likes the "Best in Slot" profession-only recipes and plans to expand them for each profession, and add them to Alchemy.
• Transmutes will change to a daily cooldown. You will be able to log on at any time of day to do your transmute and it will reset the next day like a raid instance.
• Discoveries that are considered "core" recipes will be easier to discover or be obtained outside of the discovery system.

Blacksmithing

• At least one new shield pattern is forthcoming at some point.

Cooking

• Daily Cooking quests are going to be in Patch 2.3. These quests will not only give mats for cooking, but also randomly reward rare recipes that cannot be obtained any other way.
• New recipes for Melee Hit, Spell Crit and a fun random lightning damage one (Storm or Shockchops) -- the effects of which will change in the rain and/or near an ambient creature.

Enchanting

• Enchanting will be able to create items that players can use to enchant their gear. These items will be able to be sold on the AH. Standing around town hawking your enchants will become a thing of the past, except perhaps for high-end, super-rare enchants.
• New Enchant: Executioner -- "juicy" armor penetration proc with an effect that is at least as cool as Mongoose

Engineering

• Engineers will be able to produce more valuable gear that non-Engineers can use.
• Flying Machines are being added.
• If Blizzard can figure out how to remove the exploit possibilities, the engineered Portable Mailbox will return to the game. (It was removed during Beta.)
• Overall, Engineering is getting some "love".

Jewelcrafting

• Jewelcrafter-only gems! These gems will be of purple value, but will be made of blue gems.
• New recipe: Steady Talasite -- Resilience and Stamina gem that will be implemented in Patch 2.2.

Mining

• Blizzard is looking into increasing the mining nodes and decreasing the respawn time.
• More mines will be added to dungeons.

Inscription

• New profession being introduced in Wrath of the Lich King.
• Inscription will increase the power of skills and spells and will be usable on others.
• Inscription may also add an extra component to a spell, for example, knockback on Fireball. The extent of the flexibility has yet to be decided on by Blizzard.
• Items will be created -- one developer said it wouldn't be scrolls but another developer said it would. These items will be able to be sold in the AH.
• Because eventually everyone will have all of their spells and abilities inscribed, there will also be a separate item creation component to the profession that has not been finalized yet.
• While Blizzard says that Inscription "will not be like Enchanting or Alchemy", there is no word yet as to the mats required to inscribe.

I am pretty excited about the Daily Profession Quests and the Alchemist-Only Potions. Overall, I'm hoping that the changes to professions will mostly happen before WotLK -- but I'm impatient like that. Inscription sounds like it will be a pretty useful craft. What are you most excited about? What important profession change do you think is missing from Blizzard's plan?

Tags: inscription, professions, wotlk, wrath of the lich king

Filed under: Alchemy, Mining, Wrath of the Lich King, BlizzCon, Enchants, Jewelcrafting, Enchanting, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Engineering, Cooking, Blacksmithing, Inscription