Professions for a Tankadin

[Sur-Pseudo]

I wanted to get others input on what makes good professions for end-game prot tanks..


Currently I was looking at Leatherworking for the drums, as well as Engineering to round out the stun options we have -- as well as more threat generation through grenades.

But I was also looking at enchanting simply for the ability to d/e as well as ring enchants for agro..

As I said, wanted others input, as well as making sure I didn't miss anything that may be useful.

[Athon]

Definitely not leatherworking. Drums are nice, but they are mostly group buffs. The other items of this profession are not useful to you (except leg enchants, but you can buy them from anyone), so you would waste a profession slot to a profession which has very little benefit to you.

I'm happy with engineering/jewelcrafting combo. There are several very nice BOP JC trinkets and some of the BOP gems are wonderful too (although you can only have one of each in your gear).

[Eirny]

My 70 is an enchanter/miner. I love being able to enchant my rings, plus whenever I get an upgrade it is just easy not to have to spam trade to find someone to do the enchant for me. Also, you always have someone that can disenchant trash in instances. Mining is just my gathering for money profession.

My switch-faction paladin (49 currently) is engineering/blacksmithing. Eng for the goggles, and I just have to get a stormhearld for when I want to change specs and uh... take some aggression out.

I have to agree with Athon about the leatherworking. Perhaps engineering/enchanting might suit you. I don't know anything about jc, so I can't give you an opinion there. Good luck making the choice that is right for you.

[Athon]

Here is a list of BOP JC items:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=3:4;minle=100;cr=2:86;crs=1:7;crv=0:0

The most interesting ones for a tankadin are following:
Amulet of Flowing Life (epic healing amulet)
Facet of Eternity (+12 defense rating gem)
Falling Star (+18 stamina gem)
Figurine - Empyrean Tortoise (epic tanking trinket)
Figurine - Seaspray Albatross (epic mana regeneration trinket for healing set)
Kailee's Rose (+26 healing gem)
Figurine - Dawnstone Crab (blue tanking trinket)
Figurine - Talasite Owl (blue mana regeneration trinket for healing set)

[sahiel]

You missed one of the most godly trinkets of all Red Serpenty goodness!

[gworroll]

Engineering is amazing.

The goggles are just... WOW. Great stat distribution putting them well above anything else at the same item level, mats aren't tough at all, they just rock.

Other things of special interest to paladins

Rocket Launcher- Stamina trinket with a range attack
Explosives- Supplement our PBAoE with some ranged AoEs, many of which have a stun effect which can be quite useful.
Frost Grenades- We have limited CC options as it is, a ranged Frost Nova can really help.

There are many other things Engineering is good for, I limtied this to a few things that can cover our weaknesses or supplement our strengths especially well. Also left out the handful of things that can be used by non-engineers.

Enchanting is cool too, but not much that you get from it that non-enchanters can't just have somoene else do for them.

[uke]

I have both engineering and enchanting for my profs.

Of those two engineering is definately more useful (and just plain fun). Tankatronic goggles are the *best* helmet you can have until T6 content. Add in explosives, charges to blow locks, ranged frost novas, the engineering roflcopter, farming gas motes in outland for primal cash, repair bots to keep a raid going without having to take long repair breaks, and this professions just rocks more and more.

Enchanting is still great, however. It acts as a gathering profession (DE quest rewards for mats, as well as using Enchantrix and Auctioneer to buy, DE, and resell mats for a profit in bulk). Plus you find yourself with a glut of enchanting supplies to use at your leisure (what am I going to do with 32 large primatic shards...?).

[Aeverius]

Engineering FTW. If you can swing it (and I can't right now, no mining alts), Eng/JC is probably the best combo there is. BoP gems and trinkets, plus, well- goggles are all kinds of win.

I have an enchanter alt, so she gets all of my BoE crap (Shattered Sun Supplies FTW), which works nicely. It's not like I do a ton of questing at this point or anything, and there's always an enchanter in the raid to shard the pretty purples that no one wants.

[Warheit]

i used to be blacksmith/engineering at one point for the tier 5 boots/engi goggle combo back before i even considered raiding.

now I'm Engineering/JC, and i like it a lot, however, apart from goggles and rocket launcher, engineering is my fun Proffesion.

[Ariashley]

I have both engineering and enchanting for my profs.

My paladin is also enchanting/engineering. Loved having that engineering helm at level 65. Having mana problems in 5-mans at level 68 sometimes due to not getting hit hard enough through certain sections or by certain bosses.

My main is a miner/JC, so I mined all the mats for everything from Thorium up. Also very easy to get gems I need for items that way, without cost really (I just don't profit on certain stacks of ore I purchase to prospect). I think JC could be a really good substitute for enchanting though. It's quite expensive to level from 250-300, however. I spent at least 10k gold on recipes after I hit 350 JC, probably more, which pretty much all of those coming from the AH. With enchanting, a lot of the enchants people want are purchaseable from vendors and you can level it by convincing lowbies to either 1) loot everything and pass any greens they don't need to you at the end and pass any blues to you or 2) you loot everything and get lowbies to pay you for the runs with agreement that they would only get specific loot that drops (like the triune amulet from SM Cath).

Since nearly everyone is a miner and enchanter these days, it's not particularly profitable to try to enchant people's gear for cash. I get all my enchants free from guild mates (sometimes evening getting free mats from the guild bank for T6 pieces).

Of course, some guy tried to get my JC to cut 30 gems for him yesterday for 40g (as opposed to the normal rate of 5g per cut or 150g). I probably would have accepted 100g for his order (so a 33% discount for volume), but I was fairly insulted when I told him my going rate was 5g per cut for rare and meta gems and 10g per cut for epic gems and he offered 1.33g per cut. I have regular customers who mail me huge gem orders via in game mail and pay 5g per cut, sometimes for as much as 50 gems at a time. One guy will even ask me to commit suicide in an instance to cut his orders for him, will fly out to meet me, pay for the repair bill and 5g-10g per cut. So anyways, JC can make a lot of cash but requires a huge upfront investment, as the profitability is directly proportional to the volume of designs you know. As more people become JCs, the profitability steadily declines.

[halabar]

Engineering for the goggles and mote farming. For any class.

After that, mining or BS or JC or enchanting, depending on your guild (or lack thereof).

[Mekanikos]

Alchemy and Herbalism.

Mad Alchemist Potions are so useful it's hard to believe they only take two ragveil... Plus you'll always be able to make mana potions, which are almost required if you're not taking all that much damage.

[Sur-Pseudo]

Good feedback from all, thank you.

here are my concerns:

I'm looking to join a top-notch guild doing sunwell content right now, with all previous instances on farm status. So goggles probably (i'm assuming) wouldn't last long in such a situation; however, the utility of the extra stuns & aoe might be nice.

After that, it leaves JC, Enchanting, and Leatherworking. I already have a JC'er as an alt with a huge collection of recipes (former main), and a D/E'er alt to take care of BOE greens & junk. Generally speaking I always have access to my own cuts (except for the unique-equip ones)...


What I'm losing out on is those unique gems, and self-only enchants. Are those items worth it? or would the group benefit of LW drums be better?

[Vareena]

I personally have loved jewelcrafting all the way up since I leveled protection. Tons of incredibly useful things for a prot pally, and the SSO trinkets are very nice. The only really useful epic bind-on-pickup gem I really care for is the 18 stam gem, though. I guess I should take a look at the defensive stat gems too. I leveled up with mining but dropped it for engineering for the helm, if you have other options engineering is not worth it. There's little chance I'll be able to make the helm upgrade from the Sunwell recipe either. I'm not sure how the upgraded engineering goggles compare to Sunwell drops but they may be worth it especially since the recipe may drop for you. But if I had a replacement for the helm I think the best option would be JC/Enchanting for the ring enchants.

If you don't need the trinkets [42 defense, 160 or so dodge rating for 20 seconds on 2 min cooldown] and [49 stam, X intellect, 150 spell damage for 20 seconds on 2 min cooldown] then JC is probably replaceable. Enchanting is also a pain in the ass to level and probably not worth getting now just for the small amount of spell damage. Why do you want the drums? They won't help you personally since I can't think of a whole lot of benefit from haste for a prot pally, right? It might make more sense for someone else in your group to take up leatherworking. There's also Blacksmithing to consider for the bind-on-pickup recipes but if you're already in Sunwell I'm not sure that's worth it either. I'll be sticking with Engineering/JC.

[Lakirby]

Any 2 of Engineering, Alchemy, Enchanting or Jewelcrafting imo, in terms of personal use. Alchemy is probably the weakest of those 4 in terms of personal gain, but it saves me a *ton* in consumables.