Last week, I talked about gear. This week... I talk about gear some more. You may have an entire seat, but you'll only need the edge! Woah, sorry about that. I seem to have gone entirely mad. This week, in looking at options for tanking and DPSing in Wrath, we're going to look first at crafted items and then, if we have time, we'll start looking at instance drops to get yourself up to speed for your chosen role.

As always, things can change in the Beta with blinding speed. You never know when they will make a change, allowing Berserker Rage to be used in all stances as an example. However, for now we're going with the notion that you'll need 540 defense to be crit immune at level 80 vs a boss, and that the Titan's Grip hit penalty on specials will require significant hit rating to overcome (roughly 500). Another assumption is that special attacks are using a two roll system instead of the one roll system of white attacks, meaning that you can't just stack a ton of crit to get around the miss penalty on your specials. (Note: I am not a statistician or a mathemetician. I barely understand the math in that thread.) I will say that, having taken my tauren back to Arms and then Fury, that things are not as dire as some comments and even my own past statements may seem: warrior DPS is currently low, yes, but it's not horrible, and you can level with either spec. (My draenei warrior is now 74 using arms as his prefered playstyle and I can say with relative security that the various Arms talents do make for solid leveling.) And while the TG miss penalty makes me cry, it is possible to overcome it, at least at lower levels.

Welcome back to Ask a Beta Tester, where we answer your questions about the Wrath of the Lich King beta! Most of our answers are short and sweet today, and we'll get started with Molly's question...

What's the word on passenger mounts? Will they be a whole new level of riding skill, or will you simply purchase them individually? How much do these things cost?

They use the same riding skill as regular ground mounts, but they tend to be on the more expensive side. The Engineering-made Motorcycles will be up to the market to price, but Traveler's Tundra Mammoth costs 20,000g. So the cost of the mounts themselves is what's going to be harsh, not an added level of training. That last one carries three people, by the way.

I met a player in the beta a few nights ago riding one of the brand-new Engineering ground mounts, and he was kind enough to pose for a few pictures and chat with me about it. At the time he confirmed that the mount was being sold in Dalaran for a fraction of its actual value, presumably for the sake of testing its passenger function (which unfortunately still seems to be bugged, so don't count on hauling a buddy along if you run out and buy one right now). He also said the mount was BoE, which both I and Alex had a hard time believing would remain a permanent feature. Blizzard seems to keep most engineering gewgaws in the family, as it were.

Well, it looks like we were wrong; CM Valnoth has confirmed that the new Engineering-made ground mount for Wrath is going to be Bind on Equip, so I'd advise making friends with a good Engineer sometime soon (by the way, don't miss Jaylynn's #68 comment on the next page of the thread). We're not sure how expensive the mats are going to be once Wrath goes live, although the player I spoke to estimated it would be less than the current cost of a Turbo-Charged Flying Machine (though quite likely to be more expensive before the Northrend-fueled economy settles somewhat). Daniel Whitcomb's also observed it's likely to remain BoE as having one of these babies is linked to the achievement Get to the Choppa!, so with any luck Engineering is going to be a somewhat more lucrative profession in the expansion.

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

Over the past few weeks I've been discussing the factions that hold recipes for the various professions, and how deeply liked you'll have to be to get your grubby hands on them. Almost all of the profession recipes have been covered, from the amazing and profitable acquisitions down to the pointless and boring.

Of course, there are still a few straggler recipes out there that are meant for players whose professions are not getting much faction love, and therefore cannot make up an article of their own.

This week I'm going to finish up the series by discussing the rest of the faction recipes, the ones for cooking and engineering. Although there are not many, and some are not even very good, the series just would not be complete without them.

• Formulas for enchanters
• Designs for jewelcrafters part one, and part two.
• Plans for blacksmiths.
• Recipes for alchemists.
• Patterns for leatherworkers.
• Patterns for tailors.

Gnomes are probably the easiest race to roleplay in World of Warcraft. They have a strong (and mostly accurate) stereotype that people just get instantly, and there's a childlike "blank-slate" quality about them that means that they don't have to have complicated backstories.

In fact, you could define the gnomes as a race without a history to speak of. They are so very curious and inquisitive that they ask questions about everything, that they try to unravel any mysteries they encounter, and consider their personal life stories to be of little account. They've written tomes upon tomes on the inner workings of multi-polar data transfer relays and eletro-magnified parallel power circuits, but it never really occurred to them that they should write down the history of their species. They are a people always looking into the future, and whatever passes beyond the infinitely precious present becomes lost to them in the unseen reaches of the past -- out of sight, out of mind.

That's not to say they have no memory -- they make use of their superb memories in carefully constructing their world-renown masterpieces of technological craftsmanship! Rather, it would be better to say that their minds only serve up memories relevant to the inquiry at hand. So if the orcs paved through azeroth a while back and destroyed everything in their path, well that was bad and all but it was a long time ago and who wants to hold a grudge? If the monstrous troggs came from the bowels of the earth and destroyed their cherished technological city of Gnomeregan... well, they'd love to get it back, but it's no reason to be unkind or uncheerful!

Just the other day, a fun little potential toy for Engineers cropped up. Wormholes! Wormholes? Yes, wormholes. What do they do? Think about Mages for a moment. They have both Teleport and Portal spells. Teleport spells take only them to a capital city of their choosing. Portals create a way for your entire party or raid to go to that capital city.

Engineers have Transporters, which work similar to a Mage's Teleport. They take you specifically to whichever Goblin or Gnome town your Engineering specialization likes best. Wormholes will be the answer to the Mage's Portal. You will be able to take your entire party to that town, not just you. The only one we've seen so far is a Wormhole to Gadgetzan, which may actually prove to be quite useful. While Shattrath has an NPC that will teleport you straight to the Caverns of Time, I haven't seen one of those in Dalaran so far in the Wrath Beta.

Currently it seems the intent is to have Engineers quest for these Wormhole generators, but they aren't available on either the live or beta realms quite yet. That could easily change before we see them ourselves. We may also see these in Patch 3.02 rather than Wrath of the Lich King as well, seeing as Northrend has Goblin towns of its own.

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New schematics are finally in for Engineers in the Wrath Beta, with the exception of the eagerly anticipated and widely speculated upon motorcycle. Despite the glaring absence of The Hog, there are a bunch of neat stuff for Engineers from the basic -- such as the space-saving Hammer Picks and Bladed Pickaxes -- to the cool and complex, such as MOLL-E, a portable mailbox. Check out the gallery for a quick look at the new schematics in Beta and an overview after the jump.

The debate over whether Death Knights should get a free hand up on their primary professions continues to rage, but what actually interests me most are some of the arguments put forth by those opposed to Death Knights getting "free" tradeskills. Some of them are saying that it doesn't matter that Death Knights have to wait, because people should wait until max level to deal with professions anyway.

This is a completely alien concept to me. On any new character, the first thing I do upon hitting level 6 is run to the nearest profession trainers to learn my chosen professions. I like being able to doing something about those herbs and mineral nodes I see while I'm leveling. I can go do some tradeskilling if I start getting bored of leveling, and I can use the final product for my own leveling process, or sell the raw materials on the AH for a nice chunk of change.

I can't really fathom waiting for maximum level before I started a profession in earnest. Why go back to Elwynn forest to harvest bushels of Peacebloom at level 70 when you could have done it from level 1-11 while you were there?

So here's something that may be considered somewhat of a companion question to yesterday's profession question: Do you level your professions while you level up, or do you leave them until after you've leveled up?

With Wrath's release inching closer and closer, we've had a flood of profession information coming in. The latest Blizzcast gave up some insight into the future of professions, and we've seen rumors and recipe lists for quite a few professions. Even gathering professions aren't immune to the fun, with some nice little innate bonuses being granting to mining, skinning and herbalism.

So, with Wrath coming, it's the perfect time to take inventory of your tradeskills and decide which way you're going to go. Will you drop Leatherworking now that you don't need the drums for raiding? Will you head over to Inscription so you can trick out your own spells and skills? Will you go strictly gathering for the buffs and for selling off raw materials to everyone trying to level their professions?

In short, what profession will be your primary pursuit in Wrath of the Lich King?

Despite a glaring lack of raid or communal functionality, Engineering has always been the "fun" profession. With stuff like Explosive Sheep (which totally needs an updated version, by the way) and World Enlargers, it was the game's craziest -- if somewhat unprofitable -- profession. Although Wrath of the Lich King Beta's latest build has new stuff for tailors and other, um, professionals, there's nothing for Engineering. Yet.

The WotLK Information Wiki has mined some interesting schematics that just might be available to tinkerers and bombardiers everywhere. The speculative schematics seem to confirm what Drysc elucidated about their direction for Engineering, which is to convert most of the fun stuff like the ever-popular Rocket Boots series into item attachments instead of items that may or not be better (usually not) than the Engineer's actual item for that slot. In the case of Rocket Boots, for example, there's Nitro Boosts, which can be applied over one's boots like an enchant. It still requires "a skilled Engineer" to use, of course. Let's have a look at some other cool stuff after the break.

Over the last few days, we've been given some exciting new details for craftsmen everywhere. Haven't been keeping up? Here's a quick summary of some of the more interesting developments:

• The alchemical discovery system might become a feature of all professions, although it would likely be restricted to "fun" recipes.
  
• Daily quests awarding tokens to craftsmen to use at a special vendor selling recipes might be implemented. In this way, there would be a bit more individuality between players.
• The best items you can craft for any given slot will be available around 350 instead of 375, as in The Burning Crusade.
• Tailors are getting their own flying mount, the Magnificent Flying Carpet.
• Fishing will become more interactive. Blacksmiths will be socketing.
  
• Enchanters will be able to sell their enchants on the Auction House.
• Engineers are getting a form of enchants, rather than having to cart around so many items.

The list goes on. In fact, there are several interesting and fun abilities and recipes on the horizon for all professions. Which changes are you most excited about? Are you thinking of switching trades because of some of the upcoming goodies? If you don't currently have a crafting profession, are you considering getting one?

Edit: The best items you can craft for any given slot in The Burning Crusade came at the skill cap (375) and Blizzard now feels this was too late. In Wrath, you will acquire them earlier.

Hot on the heels of flying carpets and spring-loaded cloak expanders comes word of a few more interesting crafted items in Wrath of the Lich King, especially some engineered ones, this time spotted by World of Raids in the latest beta build. Check their page for the full list, but here are some of my favorites:

• [Cooking] Delicious Roasted Boar - Creates a delicious roast boar platter for you and your friends to enjoy. Group food! Mages, look out.
• Blacksmithing gets recipes to socket bracers and gloves, each requiring four Saronite Bars and usable a level 60 or higher item. (For more new blacksmithing patterns, check out our rundown of recipes added in the latest beta patch!)
  
• Engineering:
  • Scrapbot construction kit - Creates a mechanical vendor that buys anything. The scrapbot leaves after 5 min. I hope the mats will be relatively cheap. This is a great idea, as it's one of the best parts of the new repair bots, for when you don't need repairs.
  • Nitro Boosts - Permanently attaches overpowered nitro boosts to a pair of boots, allowing a skilled engineer to greatly increase run speed for until cancelled. The nitro boosts can only be activated every 5 minutes. There's that rocket-boots enchant. There's also a parachute cloak one listed.
    
  • Hyperspeed Accelerators - Permanently attaches hyperspeed accelerators to a pair of gloves, allowing a skilled engineer to increase their haste rating by 340 for 8 sec. The gloves can only be activated every few minutes.
  • Gnomish Lightning Generator - Generates a bolt of lightning to strike an enemy for 2250 to 2750 Nature damage. This entire device is made of metal, and the bolt occasionally hits you.

There's more cool new stuff for engineers listed at World of Raids. This might even be enough to get me to take engineering on my upcoming Paladin; it's always seemed gimmicky and PvP-oriented to me, but Blizzard seems to have realized that they need to move away from that.

We've already talked about what was said in the latest Blizzcast: mainly profession details and music, as well as a few snippets on dungeons and raids from Kaplan (and some Starcraft II stuff). But there were some interesting pieces of information given away in an image linked on the podcast transcript page that were not discussed in the podcast, in the way of new crafted items. The image is replicated above; click for a bigger version. My favorite is definitely the Magnificent Flying Carpet. Yes, it's a flying mount for tailors, and I am pretty certain that it will be awesome.

Here's everything I found in that image that I don't remember having seen elsewhere:

• Magnificent Flying Carpet: Requires level 70, tailoring (450). Use: Calls forth and dismisses a flying carpet. This is a very fast rug. This mount can only be summoned in Outland and Northrend. Requires artisan riding skill or higher to use.
• Floral Foundations: Encrypted, requires inscription (50). A small collection of rare herbs. [No, I have no idea what this is, aside from something to do with Inscription.]
• Spring Loaded Cloak Expander: requires engineering (425). Use: permanently modifies a cloak so it can be activated by a skilled engineer, causing them to fall slowly for 10 sec. The effect can only be activated every 5 min.

This last item ties in to what Jon LeCraft (WoW's lead profession designer) was saying about engineering having items to give effects to gear, as opposed to replacing gear outright like the Parachute Cloak. Engineered enchants, basically. Overall, I continue to be more and more excited about professions in Wrath.

Blizzcast episode 4 is now live and available for listening, and with it, of course, has come a wealth of new World of Warcraft Information. Some of it is stuff we've gotten wind for before, but there's some interesting insights into the whole game. You can listen to it here and read the transcript here, or join us after the break for a breakdown of the juiciest information from the Interviews

I love motorcycles. Always have, and I probably always will. I was very excited to see that Blizzard is introducing them in Wrath of the Lich King. I'll probably spec engineering on most of my characters just to make my own little biker gang. Wouldn't it be great to see a guild rolling around looking like Fel's Angels? But how would others know you are a guild?

Stonewhisper of Scarlet Crusade suggested some additional accessories from other crafters. I like his idea of having guild jackets for raiding. He also suggested using engineering for performance modifications. Something like a rocket fuel for a nitrous-oxide-like speed boost.* I could see a world of after-market parts for WoW bikes: blacksmiths could sell sissy seats and wheelie bars. Tailors could make saddle bags to add to carrying capacity. Taurens and Draenei would probably need some kind of suspension upgrade.