One important thing to get right, and one thing I always look for in applications, is good enchanting, gemming and enhancing of your gear. If you only bothered to put +8 stats on chest, I notice. If you’ve enchanted hit and are over the hit cap, I notice. If you have a profession you should level it to at least the point where you can access the extras it offers – again something I notice. All together these will also increase your dps.
Where do enchants and enhancements come from?
Enchants come from an enchanter right? True. But there are several other sources of enchant and enhancement you also need to know about:
- Reputation based enchants (Head, Shoulder)
- Crafted enhancements all players can buy (Belt, Legs)
- Crafted enhancements that are specific to a profession
You should always aim to take at least one crafting profession that offers an enhancement of some form, be it Enchanting (enchants on rings), Jewelcrafting (more powerful gems), Leatherworking (fur lining on bracers), Blacksmithing (extra gem sockets) or Tailoring (cloak enhancements). Alchemy also offers a bonus in that you get more of a bonus from flasks (extra stats and they last longer), but this isn’t attached to an item.
Head
Arcanum of Torment (50 AP, 20 crit) from Revered with Knights of the Ebon Blade.
Shoulder
Greater Inscription of the Axe (40 AP, 15 crit) from Exalted with Sons of Hodir.
Inscription only: Master’s Inscription of the Axe (120 AP, 15 crit)
Back
Enchant Cloak – Major Agility (22 agility)
Tailoring only: Melee and Ranged attacks sometimes increase your attack power by 400 for 15 seconds.
Engineering only: Flexweave Underlay 23 Agility.
Chest
Enchant Chest – Powerful Stats (+10 stats (giving you 10 strength and 10 agility))
Wrists
Enchant Bracers – Greater Assault (50 AP)
Leatherworking only: Fur Lining – Attack Power (130AP)
Blacksmithing only: Socket Bracer (adds an additional gem socket to your bracer)
Hands
Enchant Gloves – Crusher (44 AP)
Blacksmithing only: Socket Gloves (adds an additional gem socket to your gloves)
Waist
Eternal Belt Buckle (adds an additional gem socket to your belt)
Legs
Icescale Leg Armor (75 AP, 22 crit)
Feet
Enchant Boots – Greater Assault (32 AP)
Enchant Boots – Icewalker (12 crit, 12 hit)
Rings
Enchanters only: Enchant Ring – Assault (40 AP)
Weapon
Enchant Weapon – Beserking (sometimes increases attack power by 400 at the cost of reduced armor)
Enchant 2H Weapon – Massacre (110 AP)
Beserking is best! But its very expensive so consider Massacre or even the cheaper Greater Savagery until you get a weapon worth the expense. I would use lesser enchants until I had the very best pre-raid and then use Beserking – unless I was guild progress raiding with a lesser weapon. Once you start raiding you should never scrimp with enchants.
There are no enhancements for Trinkets or Librams.
Professions and the buffs they offer
So which profession is best? Quick answer – Jewelcrafting which adds 42 strength (81.48).
Now for the long answer. All the professions offer something good. If you are starting a new char to raid as ret then JC is the way to go. If you have two gathering professions then I suggest keeping the mining (everyone takes mining) and adding JC.
After JC? Blacksmithing which adds 40 strength (77.6). If you have a tonne of cash run JC and Blacksmithing. And I mean a tonne!
This is followed by Alchemy, Leatherworking, Inscription and Enchanting, all of which offer 80 AP (60.8). Personally, if you have an alt with Mining or enough cash, then I would choose Enchanting as a second profession (with JC). I will probably do this when I have that alt. Mainly for the million times I’ve thought – damn I wish I was an Enchanter in various instances. But remember you will have to level that alt fast to keep you supplied with mines.
If you already have one of these other professions, then the dps loss from JC is tiny and you should feel free to stick with it for the other advantages it brings. Leatherworking in particular could be combined with Skinning which also adds 40 crit rating (42.4). The introduction of drums that buff Gift of the Wild and Blessing of Kings has made Leatherworking even more desirable and this would be a useful combination for a melee dps of any class at this time. The disadvantage, however, is that this profession doesn’t make anything you can use as plate gear wise.
The other crafting professions also add something. Engineering brings just a tiny increase in DPS (the haste glove enchant is barely better than the AP one or the rockets add just a small amount of DPS). Tailoring, however, gives you a cloak Embroidery that procs for 130 AP. Since you replace 22 agility with this thats a 76.8 point difference but only while the proc is up. This means ultimately its not as good as the professions listed above. Iif you want a viable pair of professions then Tailoring + Enchanting are a good combination. Both are crafting professions that give good buffs. The disadvantage is again that Tailoring can’t make anything you can use as retribution in terms of gear.
I personally feel that for guilds that aren’t going for server firsts on high population servers, theres nothing wrong with matching a crafting profession with a gathering profession. Any guild who demands two crafting professions without having the progress to back that up is asking too much of its players.
