375 Blacksmith --- should I switch to engineering?

Short version: been @ 375 BS for a long time. Only a couple good items I can make (fel edge axe and blessed bracers, 2/3 felsteel). Went mace spec but hate pvp so i have no reason to make stunherald.

I have been sporting the ugly 50 badge mask for a looong time and am tired of it. I've been unlucky with T4 helm drops (1 in the past 3 months, lost to a holy pally). My group will be lucky to down the 4 animal bosses in ZA in the next 4 months ( I swear a couple of them ride the short bus directly to kara), so no realistic hope of the Tuskguard.

I don't need the rocketlauncher/chickengun, as i have both DMC stam cards and am trying hard for the commendation.

Would be nice to be able to make my own injectors, but I cant think of anything else I would use. Gadgets do amuse me at times though. How useful are the transporters?

Anywizzy: I'd kinda hate to give up a 375 skill, but I can't say its doing me any good currently. I'm directly on the fence on this one, please convince me one way or the other!

P.S. 375 miner as well, so I can probably farm most of the mats I'll need if i switch.

Herbe wrote:Short version: been @ 375 BS for a long time. Only a couple good items I can make (fel edge axe and blessed bracers, 2/3 felsteel). Went mace spec but hate pvp so i have no reason to make stunherald.

I have been sporting the ugly 50 badge mask for a looong time and am tired of it. I've been unlucky with T4 helm drops (1 in the past 3 months, lost to a holy pally). My group will be lucky to down the 4 animal bosses in ZA in the next 4 months ( I swear a couple of them ride the short bus directly to kara), so no realistic hope of the Tuskguard.

I don't need the rocketlauncher/chickengun, as i have both DMC stam cards and am trying hard for the commendation.

Would be nice to be able to make my own injectors, but I cant think of anything else I would use. Gadgets do amuse me at times though. How useful are the transporters?

Anywizzy: I'd kinda hate to give up a 375 skill, but I can't say its doing me any good currently. I'm directly on the fence on this one, please convince me one way or the other!

P.S. 375 miner as well, so I can probably farm most of the mats I'll need if i switch.

Hexlord drops a great hat that would probably toss in the trash if you already had your goggles. We downed doomwalker and he dropped a very nice helm. T4 hat is very nice for a long time. The goggles are great but its not like there isnt other options and i have a feeling BS will get hooked up in the expansion.
sometimes those drops seem impossible and then all of sudden you start seeing all of them at once. plus your right...there isnt anything else engi is good for (really) and the goggles were kinda expensive from 0-350+mats. but i didnt have mining.

if I were you id spend a lot of time farming mats then id switch mining to engineering or jewelcrafting for that matter and have yourself two professions.

Blizzard has said they intend for the crafting professions like Blacksmithing to be more useful for personal gear in WotLK. Given that BS is known to be one of the most expensive and annoying professions to level, I would highly recommend against dropping it.

That said, if you are reasonably wealthy, you can drop mining and pick up engineering, stockpile a decent amount of mats first and I think you'll find that it isn't all that rough to level (and you only have to get to 350 for the helm). Then you won't have so much invested that it wouldn't be terrible to drop going into WotLK. Personally, I'd expect BS to be of more value from 71 to 80 than Eng.

IMO, if you haven't already, roll an alt. Pick up at least one gathering profession on it (if not two), and then it will be easy to drop mining on your main. And stack your Kara groups in your favor so that when the helm token drops you are guaranteed to get it

No rush; engineer goggles will still be a great item when you're level 78.

Gathering prof. on main is quite inefficient. You'd want to get all the self buffing ones. Like eng for goggles, alc for trinkets, enchanting for ring chants etc.

Which is why dropping mining is better.

Except that unless you're a rich bastard, your main is the one with an epic mount.

PsiVen wrote:Except that unless you're a rich bastard, your main is the one with an epic mount.

Or if you're a poor bastard, and both your main and alts don't have epic mounts.

Nah then you're just a lazy bastard

Nottebella wrote:Blizzard has said they intend for the crafting professions like Blacksmithing to be more useful for personal gear in WotLK. Given that BS is known to be one of the most expensive and annoying professions to level, I would highly recommend against dropping it.

That said, if you are reasonably wealthy, you can drop mining and pick up engineering, stockpile a decent amount of mats first and I think you'll find that it isn't all that rough to level (and you only have to get to 350 for the helm). Then you won't have so much invested that it wouldn't be terrible to drop going into WotLK. Personally, I'd expect BS to be of more value from 71 to 80 than Eng.

IMO, if you haven't already, roll an alt. Pick up at least one gathering profession on it (if not two), and then it will be easy to drop mining on your main. And stack your Kara groups in your favor so that when the helm token drops you are guaranteed to get it

This.

I went to 275 BS (when I saw how much Thorium was required I started doing some research) before dropping for Eng. If I had actually collected the TONS of mats to get to 375, I would never consider dropping it no matter what. I just couldn't do it. You know better than anyone how long it took to get to BS 375. Wait for WoTLK and hope for goodness.

I like the drop mining idea. You can do dailies for gold and you'll be able to collect motes with Eng so you still have some farming. The mats to powerlevel Eng are not that bad. I had a lot of the Fel Iron & Adamantite from being a Miner, but it only cost me ~200G to power level to 350. (It probably would have been 300~400 if I had to buy everything)

i can tell u what i did

i farmed all the matts i needed to get 350 eng and the tanka.

farmed a bit more for bank or future needs.

when i was about to unlearn mining... i farmed a lil bit more in case of world mineral emeregency where a big bug ated all the respawns minerals. and bang got my engineering in a single day (like 3 hours moving around from here to there)

really, bs gave nothing to me but i wont unlearn a profession that costed too much lol! so im 375 bs 366 eng and the happy owner of a (good looking) googles. and hell of a head that pwns t5.

I am in the same boat but different. I have Mining maxed out and just farmed almost all the mats to lpowerevel engineering and get my goggles. My initial intention was to drop mining and have Enchanting/Engineering (285+ now) have tons of mats to get 350+ Ench. But with the expansion. Now i am thinking on dropping enchanting and keep Mining/Engineering to be able to level faster on Northred.

My main used to be a priest and took enchanting mostly to have mats for Primal Mooncloth and Imbued Netherweave which has worked great but i like my Paladin much more now so its safe to say its my new main.

Still dont know what to do.

PD. Sry for the necro i just think the topic is really good.

I have taken up blacksmithing and engineering. Engineering was blessed with some nice toys in TBC. At level 62 the goggles are T5 or better. I am sure the WotLK will have yet another nice set of goggles for engineers. The mote extractor has put me over the edge with the ease of farming air, water, mana & shadow.

It would seem that Bliz is very aware that blacksmiths were severely neglected in TBC. With colorless sockets, socket for your weapon or additional meta gem is just the icing on the cake.

If you don't have an alt farmer, it might be worth it to level one. If you like raiding then take herb\mining and get an epic flyer. You can supply all the materials for your main and raiding habbits.

Blue confirmed today that the XP requirements are dropping with patch 3.0.2 so now is the time to get cracking. I wouldn't drop 375 blacksmith as the work to get there (on my second go around) isn't worth it.

After giving it a good think i agree to the above ill drop mining when i get more a little bank of materials above the required to powerlevel engineering, finish up to level enchanting and level a gatherer alt.

Which one would make a better gatherer mage or warrior (suggestions)?. I have one of each about lvl 35 with almost the same level on mining mage is JC and Warrior is BS.

After the expansion i think a DK would be a great farmer.

mage imo of the 2, so if you get jumped while farming the mob dies before some ninja steals your node... , I went Lock for my gathering alt(ok so it will only be herbing as she's learning enchanting too) after I dropped herbing for engineering to have alchemy(elixir)-375/engineering-362iirc(I got lazy i'll level it soon enough for prep for WoLK)

has anyone tried to have a gatherer alt with both herbing/mining?

I think that could cause problems by only having one detection active at the same time.

Jobalq wrote:has anyone tried to have a gatherer alt with both herbing/mining?

I think that could cause problems by only having one detection active at the same time.

Yes, as a matter of fact I have one. The entire purpose since level 1 was to have a herb\miner. http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... &n=Recurve Mostly crafted gear and I don't care to do anything else but gather on him. I use cartogapher & gatherer. While flying around I have this macro bound to my scroll wheel. /castsequence Find Minerals, Find Herbs and it works like a champ.

Pros to hunter gatherer are pets that occupy the mob while you do your business, ability to freeze trap a mob (without pet out) herb\mine get out of pathway and feign death. Mount and fly away. Last is the ability to use eye of the hawk and scan areas across the map without having to move. Your mini map will update with the location of your spell.

I was a few days on wotlk beta( currently have a technical problem) but I manage to check a Blacksmithing trainer and to be honest there a LOT og awesome things u will learn just from the trainers so imagine the drops
I didn't check engineer but I would imagine that it hasgood things ...but trust me to all u blacksmithers like myself don't drop that profession u will most likely regret it on the expansion .

damn sounds like I'm gonna have to go from Miner/Eng to BS/Eng...so not looking forward to that, unless by some miracle the mining stam bonus gets buffed like crazy and dissuades me from getting BS.