Friday, October 2, 2009

More thoughts on Tradeskills

I got to thinking about enchanting more, and the whole comment Mandii made on the post from yesterday, and how people think they have a right to the enchanting mats because it's not a bonus, it's an instead of loot thing.

Unfortunately the only way I can think of to solve this problem is make it so that no gear can be disenchanted anymore, and mats only drop from mobs (there goes the lore reason for disenchanting). I guess until something better is being done I'll just be happy to be in a guild that understands how much of a pain it can be to level this trade skill, and petty the people who have to level this skill all by themselves and through pugs.

More trade skill ideas after the break.

Leatherworking


My hunter was started way back when on leatherworking, since I figured it made sense on a hunter. Since then she was switched to alchemy since LW seemed to have lost its shine. In BC they got drums which sort of brought the trade skill back a little, and of course immediately after in LK they took those out again. Now they're back in a different form, but there are certainly options to make leatherworking more fun.
  • Falcongloves: with these gloves you can go out and tame a pet falcon, but you need to wear the gloves to hunt critters with it. 
  • Dragonhide harnas: attach this to your drake, and you can give one other person a lift on your flying mount. One use only. 
  • Holster or Bow Sheath: Attach this to your belt and you will have faster access to your weapon, increasing ranged weapon damage.
  • Saddle Bags: Allows you to attach a bag to your mount. (counts on all mounts, shows up as a normal bag).
Blacksmithing

This to me has always seemed like THE trade skill for warriors and paladins. And now they gave extra gem sockets, and boom suddenly everybody is a black smith. I understand how they wanted to give similar bonuses to everybody, but somehow this doesn't entirely seem like the right idea. Even casters are black smiths, just to get the extra sockets.

Ideas for Blacksmithing:
  • Horseshoes (or mount shoes): Attach these to the feet of your ground mount, he/she will feel more secure while jumping, and your ground mound will now jump slightly further. 
  • Submarine: Since we'll be going into places that we'll have underwater stuff, I think BS should be able to create submarines....just don't give them to engineers..they have mounts.
  • Boomerangs: I've always loved this for a throwing weapon, the animation could be brilliant
  • Portable Anvil: Bring your own anvil, and craft whereever you like.
  • Everlasting Cup: Create a specific cup, if enchanted with the right enchant this cup will never run out of drink.
Tailoring

Tailoring was once meant for cloth wearers, but now it seems that tailoring is mainly meant to keep around in the guild for the few rare patterns, and handy items you can get with it, like thread for legs. Supposedly it's also the feeding skill for enchanting, but I think somewhere along the way Blizzard lost their train of thought with this trade skill.

To make one of the current legendary items you need so many cooldowns, that the only thing that is left for you is to buy the stuff of AH. Comparatively to Blacksmithing it's completely ridiculous. 20 mooncloth for a moonshroud robe...yeah, pretty, but even if you're a mooncloth tailor it would still take you 40 days to get that item made. With the speed of content refreshment nowadays your new shiny robe will be outdated by the time you can craft it.

And ever tried to gather cloth to make items for DEing? Almost all of them take eternium thread, which you need to buy for 2G40. Combine that with the costs of cloth in AH and it isn't worth crafting stuff for enchanting anymore. Just sell the cloth, and buy greens to DE....but honestly, is that really what Blizz wanted?

Ideas for Tailoring:
  • Take the cooldown of cloth making down to 24 hours, like titansteel, and no tailoring specialism, or cooldown to 48 hours and keep the specialism.
  • Oh, and get rid of the 'you have to go here to be able to make your cloth' thing already. Nobody has that, why do you burden tailors with it?
  • Make hats look prettier. Some sort of overlay for hats so that you can make hats look what you want them to look like instead of the ugliness they are now most of the time.
  • Veils, I know this would be welcomed on RP servers, we have wedding gowns, why not veils?
  • Hooded cloaks. They go into the tabard slot and provide warmth in the cold of Northrend, or for a chilly evening. They don't do much, except that they look good.

2 comments:

  1. You're so right about LW being boring... The other day, I was at Onyxia Lair on the launch day, and there was all those dragons waiting only me to be skinned. They give the leather you use to make the leather ball. Made three of them and spammed a few inventories with them...

    I wish there was more fun things with LW. The leather ball is the only one. I love your idea of a mount saddle. I don't really have idea how to make it more fun, I'm not in a very creative period these days but yes, more fun in LW would be great.

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  2. "guess until something better is being done I'll just be happy to be in a guild that understands how much of a pain it can be to level this trade skill."

    I recently leveled my alt from 350-450 via the AH since I don't have a guild. It cost me 6000g. That amount is no joke. I made about 1K gold back selling those same enchants because of all the AH dumping, so a net cost of 5000g. It's a good thing that I have mining on my main. I really and truly regret it now and if I had known how much it was going to cost me I would not have done it.

    BUt I don't agree with you about loot drops. The problem isn't looting that's broken. It's enchanting that's broken. As you point out, there were lots of ways to do enchanting other than loot drops. I think the main reason Blizzard did the way they did was because it enchanting the socialization factor. I shudder to think what enchanting is going to be like in the next expansion.

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