Filed under: Insider Trader (Professions)

A tradesman without tools would be challenged to create any final product. WoW isn't much different. If you're looking to master multiple professions across multiple toons, and make the most of your crafting time, you may eventually consider picking up a mod or two to help you.

I was recently introduced to Advanced Trade Skill Window by a guild mate who, like myself, has multiple characters with many, many professions. The idea in my alt farm is that I'm trying to produce myself any final product I might need. This includes enchants, reagents, and even the transmutes required to produce gems. As we were chatting about this kind of set up, she immediately filled me in on the basics of ATSW. Gregg first looked at ATSW for AddOn Spotlight back in October. But considering how helpful it is to profession-hounds, I wanted to spend a little more time with it now.

Advanced Trade Skill Window replaces your standard in-game trade skill windows. Whenever you hit the action button for your profession, Advanced Trade Skill Window will automatically open. Right off the bat, you'll get one of my favorite benefits of the mod. The screen is much, much bigger than the native interface, which gives you a lot more room to scroll through your recipes. But, obviously, there's a lot more to the tool.

Deciding what crafted gear to sell on the Auction House can be tricky business, even with the Ashen Verdict recipes now available. Items like Titansteel are limited resources, and you need to get the most bang out of your bar. If you have a limited number of crafting reagents, you want to make product that will get you the best return per reagent.

At the same time, you need to make sure they actually sell. Like the Big Deal said in the Priceline commercial, "Is it wise to allow a perishable item to spoil?" Titansteel and most other reagents aren't perishable, of course, but they sure as heck don't make you money chilling out in your bank. You want those puppies to move.

WoWPopular is a neat site that scans the Armory and pulls down data about the most popular gear, specs, and enchants sitting on extant characters. The Crafter's Tome got together with WoWPopular to put together a list of the popular crafted gear items on the Armory. We can use this information to guess how you should use your reagents to stock the Auction House, minimizing the number of reagents that go to waste by collecting dust.

As you would probably expect, a lot of our best guesses about the most popular classes goes a long way towards showing us what the best selling items probably are. Since everyone and their 5-year-old sister has a death knight, there's a lot of plate items on the most popular crafted gear list. When we're collecting money on the Auction House, an alt who's dressed in all crafting items spends money that's just as valid as any main's cash.

So, let's take a look behind the jump and talk about what the most popular crafter gear is for each profession.

One of the fine points of professions and Auction House trading is what's commonly referred to as your "bank alt." The art of creating a bank alt is founded mostly on personal preference, but there are still some fundamentals that will give your bank alt a little extra oomph.

There are a few reasons to have a bank alt. First, bag and bank space. Since you don't want to "flood the market" with any given particular item (because that drives prices down), you might need to put some items in cold storage until the market stabilizes. While your main character's bankspace might be gargantuan, most people find the additional bag and bank space of a bank alt attractive.

Second, if you're a member of a social guild, having a bank alt lets you focus briefly on the Auction game. Many players check their auction mail before they go to work, and don't want the awkward social action of ignoring their fellow guild peers when only on for a very short time.

Third, there's an inalienable style to the bank alt. Even now, WoW.com is cruising for submissions for the most stylish, awesome bank alts out there. It's a subculture in WoW. As Penny Arcade once so brilliantly illustrated: "Naked they run, level 1 banks: Clark Kents of Azeroth."

About a month ago, we had a discussion about the specific character bonuses that come with each profession. Then we jumped into a great deal more detail around Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing, whose profession bonuses are incredibly customizable when compared to the other professions. These bonuses usually rate the itemization equivalent of 60 attack power. While that's not a humongous number, it's certainly a meaningful bump in your character's potency.

However, the very basic reason to be a particular profession usually has to do with what you can sell in the Auction House. The character bonuses are certainly a huge perk of training a profession, and shouldn't be ignored by any player looking to cruise endgame content. But the driving reason for many people to pursue these skills had to do with other items which produce cash. Cold, hard, beautiful cash.

Let's jump behind the cut and talk about the saleable items from each profession. While you might choose your profession based on its character bonuses, it's still best to know what items will sell on the AH from each.

We've talked at length about the Icecrown craftables last week, but we were mostly focused on the driving, universal material required to make them. That is, we were mostly talking about the Primordial Saronite. The recipes for Icecrown craftable are given to you by the Ashen Verdict, in order to help you do battle with the legions of the Lich King.

This week, let's start looking at the items created by these recipes, and see how they perform in their respective roles. I think some of the craftable items will be pleasantly useful even over the occasional tier gear, especially if you consider that you can grab these items from the Auction House. (Primordial Saronite seems to have now dropped in price across the board, even selling for less than 2,000 on some servers.)

Take a look behind the cut, and let's start talking about the gear itself.

As thousands of screaming Alliance and thundering Horde storm the very gates of Icecrown Citadel, the Ashen Verdict is working hard to supply us all the only logical weapons and armor to fight Arthas. That is to say, they're taking the very essence of an Old God, his very bile and blood, and turning it into weapons and armor. There's absolutely nothing that could go wrong with that plan. So, charging nobly forward, let's take a look at the Icecrown recipes, how you get them, and how good they are. However, more importantly, whether it's worth your time and money to make the items, or simply sell the materials.

All of the recipes from Icecrown Citadel are learned by turning in Primordial Saronite. As has been mentioned before all over the site, you pick up Primordial Saronite for the cheap-at-twice-the-price cost of 23 Emblems of Frost, or by having the Primordial Saronite drop from the 25-man Icecrown bosses. You have to complete 12 random dailies in order to buy them through the Dungeon Finder, though doing the weekly raid quest will cut that time down significantly. Each recipe costs 1 Primordial Saronite. However, in addition to the Primordial Saronite, you also need to have a certain reputation with the Ashen Verdict.

We talked a few weeks ago about the ability bonuses exclusive to each profession. The idea behind this, of course, is that the majority of these bonuses are relatively equal to one another. If you're a master of your profession, you can expect to receive about 80 Attack Power or 47 Spell Power. You could also pick up an additional 60 Stamina if you're an Enchanter or a Miner.

These are the most common bonuses available to all the professions. However, there are a lot more stats in the game than just Spell Power, Attack Power, and Stamina. (Although, it's a fairly reasonable argument that these are three "sexiest" stats in the game, since they tend to be the centerpiece of many e-peen arguments.)

Especially when you're coming up in the ranks as a new character, there are other stats that are even more important. For example, Hit Rating is frequently regarded as a must have stat. If you're not at the appropriate hit cap for your class, you can never achieve your maximum damage.

This is one of the ways Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting really shine. These two stats have the ability to laser-focus manage exactly how your crafting bonus will buff your character. Let's take a look behind the cut and start breaking down these two crafting abilities.

Well, patch 3.3 has hit the ground, and we're all busy profiting from the vast number of people cycling through new characters, the Dungeon Finder, and new instances. Of course, the big news for Engineers is that there's a very significant new pair of recipes: Iceblade Arrows and Shatter Rounds.

These new items aren't without their own controversy, but it might be a little tough for everyone to understand. At least, it would certainly be worthwhile for us to check out the context of the issue. While some might call it a tempest in a teapot, many engingeers are disheartened with these new plans. Let's take a look behind the cut and examine why these arrows and bullets are such a big deal.

Crafting professions are already very well known for providing the unmistakable ability to add buffs to all characters. No one takes a serious raider very seriously if their gear isn't enchanted, for example, or if they're not sporting a stylish and effective Eternium Belt Buckle.

However, the vast majority of crafted character enhancements can be bought and sold on the Auction House. To help make professions a more meaningful choice, every profession has some non-transferable benefit to a character. Maybe they have access to superior versions of certain items (like Jewelcrafter-only Dragon's Eye gems), or a particular enchant that no one else can use (like ring enchants.)

Trying to choose which profession is best for your character can be difficult. Granted, it's pretty easy to see some obvious, immersive choices. Most Tailors I know, for example, are some kind of a cloth class. But if you're trying to base your character's profession choice on which of the unique-to-crafter benefits give you the most bang for your buck, it's going to get a little more difficult.

Let's take a look behind the jump and start discussing the crafter-only augments that come with each profession.

With the battle against the Lich King looming closer and closer on the horizon, the crafty craftperson is already getting ready to pepper the local auction house with crafted items. Guilds will need to slap on crafted items to quickly round out behind-the-gear-curve raid members, and the auction house will be the first place they turn to do that. The gear you build and prepare now will be quickly sold when it's time to fight Arthas.

More importantly, though, raiders are going to see a whole new tier of gear. That means the items they use to buff their gear is going to need replacing, and the prescient craftperson is going to be ready to meet that need.

This conjecture, of course, leads us to question what items we should be preparing for Icecrown Citadel. What items will be of any use to a raider? What will they be willing to cough up good cash to purchase? Which items will be meaningful, and not simply fodder for immediate replacement?

Take a look behind the cut to see what we think will be good stuff to sell when the new raid is released.

The shining feature of patch 3.2.2 will be Onyxia's return, and of course, the already infamous Ony mount, but there are some profession changes coming too. As always, they can be found in the latest patch notes, although you'll have to scroll past the Brood Mother to find them.

This week's Insider Trader will analyze these changes and tell you what they mean for you.

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Engineering has quite a few useful tools in addition to their famous repertoire of toys, but not every player knows how to make the most of them. There are many reasons for this, including:

• Not being informed on the latest improvements. Consumables may be less cost-prohibitive, for example, than the last time you checked.
• Believing the "Engineering is useless" hype that lingers from darker days, and feeling creatively blocked after an expensive and tedious leveling process.
  
• Being an irrational yet strangely normal cooldown and consumable saving individual. Awkward Zombie illustrates the latter nicely, and we've talked about stingy cooldown use in the past.

This week, Insider Trader is going to discuss a handful of the Engineering tools that you really should be using to the fullest, and why.

A week has passed since BlizzCon 2009 and we're still digging up more news, getting clarification from the blues, and analyzing all of the panels. Last week, Insider Trader discussed some of the major professions-related features coming up in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the next expansion pack.

Pass through the break to learn all about:

• Profession racial abilities and how they will be changing.
• The new direction for Alchemy.
• A totally revamped Fishing system!
• Archaeology details and speculation about the leveling process.
• The evolution of Inscription.
  

Then, continue on to part three of this discussion to learn more about:

• Reforging and (not) repairing our own gear.
• Woodworking.
• Profession specializations and the new direction for differentiation.

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Over the course of several BlizzCon panels, we've been treated to a preview of how professions will be changing in Cataclysm, the next expansion pack.

Pass through the break to learn all about:

• The new title and level cap.
• Revamped skill gains.
• Archaeology, the new profession!
• Reforging, a new dimension to crafting professions.
• Hints about the future of Engineering, Fishing, and Gathering.
• Information about things we wanted to see, but won't.

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about vanilla WoW and the way things used to be. Now that experience gains can be shut off, players can actually move through some of this content the way it was meant to be experienced. Well, it won't be exactly the way it was, but it's as close as we're getting.

Blizzard has also been implementing more elements from the old world. Naxxramas was a vanilla dungeon, and was redone to become the first raid instance of the second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, set back on Azeroth no less.

In fact, soon we'll all be battling Onyxia once again, deep breaths and all!

Professions used to be different too. Of course, most of the changes to the system have been for the better, but there were some elements that could be recycled for the future.

Last week, Insider Trader discussed a new, more progressive direction for professions, including some of the ways that this could be implemented. This week I'll be shedding new light on one particular vanilla element that has been phased out, exploring ways in which it could be reborn.