Another fun little addition for tradeskills and crafters straight from the Beta realms is the ability to peruse the recipes that someone else knows. It works very simply, too. The crafter links his tradeskill like it were an item. You click on that link and a regular tradeskill window pops open, minus the option to craft, create or enchant what you're looking at. You can see all of their recipes and the materials required for them.

This seems like it's going to be especially useful for the tradeskills that have a large variety of things that people need. Jewelcrafting, Enchanting, et cetera. It would be much easier to link a guildmate the list of what I can do rather than look up everything they need myself. "Can you do Savagery? Vitality? Spell damage to bracers? MP5 to chest? Strength to gloves?" Maybe! Here, check and see!

Linking your recipe book over the Trade channel should help sell enchants and inscriptions as well, hopefully replacing the endless spam of three paragraph advertisement macros. Okay, so maybe those macros will never go away, but we can hope can't we? By the way, you can click on the image to the right to make it bigger, in case you can't see it very well as it is.

Thanks to the information slowly (we just can't get them fast enough around here...) leaking out from the Wrath of the Lich King Beta, we already learned that the professions trend started in The Burning Crusade will continue in the new expansion. The Burning Crusade (or Patch 2.0) introduced new items or enchantments that confer bonuses exclusively the character with the profession, such as ring enchants for Enchanters or Bind-on-Pickup gems for Jewelcrafters. This was a welcome change that rewarded players with their choice of profession -- almost to the point where such profession-only bonuses compelled many to choose professions somewhat incongruous with their class.

Hardcore PvP players pursued Enchanting for the ring enchants, for example, while hardcore raiders leveled their Leatherworking for the Drums of Battle. In Wrath of the Lich King, the different professions get even more exclusive goodies designed to keep professions more or less in tune with their intended classes. Eliah reported about the passive buffs for gatherers, and they seem to be in thematically tuned to some classes. Take Master of Anatomy, for example, which seems to be a benefit given to Skinners. Traditionally, Rogues, Hunters, and Shamans were the classes who pursued Leatherworking and its complementary profession, Skinning. The passive benefit to critical strikes are certainly welcome to those classes, so players who chose to stick to their Skinning will actually receive a pleasant boost in Wrath.

The Burning Crusade did quite a bit to make tradeskills useful. While some were more powerful than others, almost all of them got something pretty nice, even the gathering skills. Tailors and Blacksmiths got a bit of an edge in gearing up for higher content, Leatherworking drums are one of the single most desired crafted items around for raids, Engineers got fantastic goggles and a pretty cool mount, Herbalists can pick powerful consumables, et cetera, et cetera. This is a major step up from life in vanilla WoW, where any tradeskills except Herbalism, Alchemy and Enchanting were almost entirely worthless.

Still, though, it kind of feels like crafting in WoW is... empty. The tradeskills are useful now, but I'm a strange fellow. The tradeskills need heart. They need flavor. I like my tradeskills having a larger effect on how you play. Leatherworking is actually a good example of this, from a conceptual point of view. I love the idea of drums having an active effect on things. It isn't just a passive stat increase that you equip or cram in your mouth. It's something you need to be conscious of, something you need to actively use. I don't really know how you could do this for all tradeskills, but I'd love to see more of it. No, those crappy nets don't count.

Another thing I'd like to see expanded from The Burning Crusade is location-specific crafting. Making my Spellcloth, Primal Mooncloth and Shadowcloth every few days seemed like an adventure, if a tedious one. Spellcloth was especially fun! You had to arm and prepare yourself before you hit the 'create' button until your gear was good. Fishing before The Burning Crusade was not nearly as useful as it is now, but I liked time of day and season having an effect on things. Stocking up on Grilled Squid in the appropriate season and using it to negotiate deals with rogues and hunters was great fun, I think. I'd like to see that come back in some form in Wrath, though maybe not as extreme.

What would you like to see out of crafting in Wrath? Are you hoping for something more dynamic, or are you a (wo)man of simple pleasures and all you need is a great big sword to be happy?

The economy in WoW has some interesting nuances. Players spend oodles of WoW gold on their crafting professions, and sometimes manage to turn a tidy profit. I'm often surprised to see some items that are strongly in-demand, like Light Feathers. Shrewd players use the auction house to build their bankrolls. Lomentari of EU-Draenor is exasperated with people who fail to use the auction house "properly."

She is angry that other crafters are selling the same product she creates for several gold lower than her preferred price. The items are placed on the auction house en masse at the low low rate, which the original poster blames on Leather Workers skilling up. She feels powerless to do anything about her "massive money loss." The original poster is willing to accept small cuts in pricing, but has a hard time deal with steep declines in prices.

Blizzard has told us that the Death Knight will be the first of the heroic classes, and probably the only one we can expect to see in the next expansion. I haven't heard a word about what other heroic classes might be in the future. Therefore I started thinking of my own. Sure, sure we'd love to see Bards and Battlemages, but how about something new. Here are some of my thoughts:

• The Craftmaster- Any existing non-heroic class, but can have three or four trade skills. They'd have access to bind-on-pickup Craftmaster-only items. No hot-glue gun required!
  
• The Supertwink- No, I don't mean another rogue, but a character that cannot level past 29. The Supertwink may be able to access some abilities and skills from higher levels.
• The Gunslinger- Somewhere between a Rogue and a Hunter. Gunslingers do not use pets, and have a few up close trick shots. They can dual wield ranged weapons and stealth about.

Despite the overwhelming support from our readers during our brief but flower-tastic adventures as HKO-Insider, I will be unable to delve any further into the professions of the Flower Kingdom. That's okay; they were prejudiced against jewelcrafters anyway.

Two weeks ago, I posted Insider Trader's guide to the final stretch of Alchemy, and Runstadrey posted the following comment in response:

Excellent article, very in depth and thorough. I'm eagerly awaiting the same treatment for my stalled JC.

How could I resist a request preceded by flattery? I might have even produced this last week, had patch 2.4 not have dropped; after all, we can't have all of our jewelcrafters stalled mid-level. I am looking forward to reading the comment section for this guide, as the cheapest way on paper always varies because of unique server economies.

For the first part of the guide, which will show you how to reach 355 jewelcrafting in the cheapest manner possible, pass on through the break.

The long-awaited patch 2.4 is finally here, and if you're a crafting nut, you'll find yourself asking, "what do I do first?". Luckily, WoW Insider has you covered.

If you are a leatherworker, Insider Trader has not only put together a guide to maximizing your skill, but has ensured that it is up-to-date with the changes coming in patch 2.4.

We have also compiled all of the upcoming changes for each profession into two round-up posts, including linkage and summaries of materials and costs.

For miners, blacksmiths, engineers, and fishermen, check out your complete guide to crafting 2.4. If you are a jewelcrafter, enchanter, tailor, alchemist, herbalist, leatherworker, or cook, we have compiled all things 2.4 for you. Both post have news and information about crafting reagents.

Because the new daily limit for dailies is now 25, you might want to check out the new fishing daily quests available!

We love covering cool fanmade crafts here on WoW Insider, but now there's a blog that covers the dark side of "Warcrafts." World of Warcrafting is a new blog that... well, at first, I thought it was a joke, but now I can't tell. Something like this Green Dragon looks like a pretty good attempt at crafting (an attempt, anyway), but the stapleserpent seems just too funny to be real.

If it is a joke, whoever's behind it isn't showing their hand at all -- the about and submission pages talk pretty seriously about their conviction for crafting. Although they don't win any points from me for saying "Dungeons and Dragons is kinda played and we don't condone or support dorkyness in hi-school." The tone is almost too perfect to be real, though, and it seems like commenters are in on the joke.

If it is a JeffK-like parody, it is brilliant. And even if not, it'll definitely be a site to watch -- there are some hilarious submissions on the site already.

What do you get when you mix up a whole bunch of useless green gems? On the Public Test Realm you get Brilliant Glass. The most recent patch 2.4 notes state "A new jewelcrafting recipe has been added to transform many green quality gems into a single random blue quality gem. This recipe is available from grandmaster jewelcrafting trainers." Good news for those of us with stacks of semi-useless uncut green gems.

MMO champion posted more information. Brilliant Glass is created using three Azure Moonstones, three Blood Garnets, three Deep Peridots, three Flame Spessarite, three Golden Draenite, and three Shadow Draenite. The product, Brilliant Glass, can then be opened for the promised superior-quality gem. Bratac of Antonidas stated in the official forum that he created brilliant glass nine times and was rewarded with four Nightseyes, two Stars of Elune, two Dawnstones, and one Noble Topaz.

I already went over what's changed for the classes in the latest PTR build (not much); here's what's new in the items:

• Mats for the new Alchemist Stones have been reduced. Old mats were Alchemist Stone, 2 Nether Vortices, and 16 primals; new mats are reduced by 10 primals, i.e. Alchemist Stone, 2 Nether Vortices, and 6 primals. Which primal is required varies based on the stone in question: Assassin's = Shadow, Guardian's = Air, Sorcerer's = Fire, Redeemer's = Life.
• The Philosopher's Stone is now a trinket requiring level 35, and gives +5 to all stats.
• Jewelcrafters can get patterns for four new epic gem cuts (Reckless Pyrestone, Steady Seaspray Emerald, Quick Lionseye, Forceful Seaspray Emerald) both from the Shattered Sun Offensive at Revered and from the Scale of Sands (the Mount Hyjal faction) at Honored.
• The models have been changed for Vanir's Right Fist of Brutality, Crossbow of Relentless Strikes (pictured), Vanir's Left Fist of Brutality, Vanir's Left Fist of Savagery, Gavel of Naaru Blessings, Grand Magister's Staff of Torrents, Vengeful Gladiator's Pummeler, and Vengeful Gladiator's Bonecracker; see MMO-Champion for screenshots.

It looks like the new Philosopher's Stone is a cool little trinket; I don't remember there being much competition for that slot that early in the game. It's an interesting move to make those cuts available from two factions, and should appease the hardcore types who, presumably, are at least Honored with Scale of Sands by now. Looking at the Primal requirements for the Alchemist Stones, most of those are easy primals, but Air is significantly more expensive. Rogues get it easy. And all those new models look groovy; a good set of changes overall.

[via MMO-Champion]

In a post entitled BOE Vortexes a SLAP in the FACE to CRAFTERS Solarissa of Korgath claims that changes on the public test realm for patch 2.4 would devalue the efforts of crafters. She says that allowing players to purchase or farm their own materials would greatly reduce profits for crafters who have invested vast amounts of time in farming materials for their epic patterns, such as the Belt of Blasting. Instead of hefty auction house prices, they would receive meager tips for their crafting efforts. Disenchanted crafters believe that this change would make it so there is no way at all to earn money with trade skills.

Responses vary from stalwart agreement to arguments that this change would actually drive up the prices for crafted items. Sylindra of Moonrunner is pleased with the change. She feels that it unfair for non-crafters to have to pass on Nether Vortexes since they could only be used by players whose primary characters were crafters. The materials could go into guild banks, or be given to non-crafters to sell on the auction house for a tidy profit of their own.

Nethaera promised that patch 2.4 would be progressively tested, and we are now seeing that she was indeed correct. Some major changes have been applied to the PTR tonight:

• Nether Vortices can now be purchased for 15 Badges of Justice (and 7g20)
  
• Both Nether Vortices and Primal Nethers are no longer bind on pickup
• Retribution Paladin season one and two armor now has resilience
• Resilience now affects mana drain (by about 20% at 400 resilience, for example)
  

Vortices and Nethers being BoE is a huge change; my initial reaction when I saw the tip come in was "WHAT", in all caps, just like that. On the one hand, this makes top-end crafted items much more accessible. You no longer have to find a crafter who has both the pattern you want and a nether. On the other hand, it makes running heroics less profitable, since primals will probably not sell for as much on the open market as the premium that you can charge for crafting with them (often around 100g on my server). But I suppose we'll see. Overall, it looks like a good change, in the direction of making it easier for casual players to work towards high-end items. The game seems to be trending in that direction, for the better in my opinion.

News on more changes is forthcoming; I thought this was big enough to be worth posting ASAP.

Continuing our crafting parade for patch 2.4 is Leatherworking. Leatherworkers get a total of four sets, covering a myriad of class/spec combinations. There is a physical DPS set for both Leather and Mail, as well as a healing set for both of those.

The -of the Sun and the Sun-Drenched sets cover healing. The -of the Pheonix set covers the Mail DPS, while the Gloves of Immortal Dark and Carapace of Sun and Shadow handle Leather DPS. A couple of those are quite a mouthful!

As with the other tradeskills, the gloves of these sets require Sunmotes and the breastplates require Primal Nethers, so be ready to put some effort into acquiring these pieces. A lot of Wind Scales and Heavy Knothide Leather goes into these as well, so you may want to get a head start on those. Most of these pieces are very heavy with red sockets accompanied by relatively useful socket bonuses, which is ideal for most of the classes these are aimed for, though not all. For the classes that love their reds, this is a pretty sweet deal. For everyone else? It's not like you need those bonuses, this gear is impressive without them.

If you have any interest in these sets, hop on across the jump! Once again, my thanks goes out to Boubouille of MMO Champion for these images.