News: Arena Professions

[K1boRG]

A breakdown of different professions and their effectiveness in World of Warcraft Arena matches.



When a player hits 80, they can go ahead and start queing up for arena play.... but most likely they will not succeed as well as they want too. Hitting level 80 is just the first step on ones way to gain success in arena play, as there are many other aspects to cover, such as farming honor for gear, understanding other compositions you will play against and selecting professions to maximize performance.

The WoW 101 series will be a great guide to assist a vast range of players, those who are not even level 80 yet looking to get there, to players who consider themselves top tier players on top of the BG ladders.

For the first installment, GotFrag will help understand selecting professions focused on arena play. Every character has access to choose two of the eleven major professions, along with three minor professions any character can get access to. Leveling a profession up for it to be effective can be tedious, but the outcome will support your arena career ten-fold. There are two aspects of the game however in PvE and PvP, and certain professions will be more effective for one aspect or the other, and this is why a player needs to decide whether they want to fully maximize for PvE or PvP. In the end, it really will come down to preference from the player on what they choose to go with, as all professions do have an effect that will help PvP in one way or another, and GotFrag hopes this guide can help one choose.



Alchemy




Endless Healing Potion
Endless Mana Potion

Alchemy is probably the worst choice for Arena play when it comes to the non gathering major professions. Although having access to a potion in arena may seem like a great idea, the mana potion is basically useless because 400-600 mana is almost nothing, while the healing potion is very weak in itself with the amount of burst damage that goes out. All this professions gives is access to a healthstone on a three minute cooldown basically.


Blacksmithing



Socket Bracer
Socket Gloves


Essentially, blacksmithing gives a character access to two more sockets on their gear, one in the bracer and one in the gloves. These sockets are very easy and cheap to make, so upgrading consistently early should not be a big deal on gold. Depending on what class/spec you are, you would have to think of how much of a benefit this would be. So say a warlock or priest is trying to max out resilience so they can tank more effective, having access to two more sockets for two more +16 resilience gems, a total of 32 resilience. Again, may not seem like much, but its all about maximizing. Blacksmithing is a very strong PvP profession.


Enchanting




Enchant Ring - Assault
Enchant Ring - Greater Spellpower
Enchant Ring - Stamina

Enchanting gives a player access to ring enchants, which can be a very nice benefit. Enchanting is preferred more by casters in PvP because of the Spellpower enchant to rings, and any added bit will help. Such tank classes such as Warlocks and Priests as well can use the added stamina, as +48 stamina will result in 480 more life, again not huge but any added bit helps.


Engineering



Nitro Boosts
Gnomish Lightning Generator
Weakness Spectralizers

Engineering has always been known as the "having fun" profession, but come competitive arena, there are some very useful tools. Grenades are not allowed in arena, but all above tools are able to used. Nitro Boosts can be a great tool either defensively or offensively, especially when trying to get line of sight to stay alive. Engineering is usually the profession of choice in major dps teams, such as mage/rogue in 2v2 or 4 dps lineups in 5v5. But the boots are not the only reason, the Lightning Generator as well is a very effective extra burst tool and can be the extra damage to finish someone off. Rogues are known to use the spectralizers as well as an advantage against other stealth classes.


Herbalism



Lifeblood

The first gathering profession, just like the other ones, the effect one gets is so minor it really is not worth it as a main profession for pvp. The only reason to have this profession is to assist with Alchemy, which as said before, is mainly a PvE profession.




Inscription




Master's Inscription of the Axe
Master's Inscription of the Crag
Master's Inscription of the Pinnacle
Master's Inscription of the Storm

The new profession added for WOTLK, Inscription was very popular among a lot. As far as its PvP gain, it saves the farming time of getting reputation with factions to get shoulder enchants from them, along with these being much more powerful. However, a lot of players would prefer to get the resilience enchant from Wintergrasp, simply because stacking resilience as any class right now is vital for survival, and unfortunately there is no resilience enchant from Inscription.


Jewelcrafting



Runed Dragon's Eye
Mystic Dragon's Eye
Quick Dragon's Eye
Solid Dragon's Eye

There are more gems that Jewelcrafters have access too, however these are the more popular ones used for PvP. You can use up to three of any arrangement, and because of this its a very strong profession to maximize stats. Whether you want to stat for better tanking with resilience or stam, or you want to stat for more damage output with spell power or haste, it is a very effective profession.


Leatherworking




Fur Lining - Attack Power
Fur Lining - Stamina
Fur Lining - Spell Power

A stronger enchant to one item, it is the same idea of Inscription, except to get the enchant for bracers without Leatherworking all you need is another enchanter. The stats are very big for one item, but as for maximizing it probably is not the best one. There is one other nice addition to being a Leatherworker, your leg enchants can be made for much cheaper.


Mining




Toughness

+50 base stamina, so around 500 life. Again, nothing great, its awsome to see that blizzard decided to help out gathering professions in pvp, but it is not an idea choice if you are looking to maximize stats.





Skinning



Master of Anatomy

Prob the least likely profession for any PvPer, this stat is just so minor it doesn't make sense to get for anyone.






Tailoring



Darkglow Embroidery
Swordguard Embroidery

Cloak enchants that are procs, not idea at all for pvp. They are all on a hidden 45 sec cooldown, and waiting for procs on gear can be costly when it comes to most pvp situations. Not to mention the caster proc is near worthless for pvp, this profession is not suggested at all for pvp purposes.



That pretty much sums up all of the professions and their usefulness come arena play. As far as what you should choose, it really comes down to preference and whether or not you PvE as well. As for right now, maximizing for complete PvP, the idea professions would be Blacksmithing/Enchanting for Casters and Blacksmithing/Jewelcrafting for Physical, but again, it really comes down to preference and the difference between the two is very minor. Hope this guide has helped, and look forward on more in the near future!

[Rocker]

Wow, never knew professions played that large of a part in PVP

[Furball]

id just like to add that even though herbs lifeblood isnt that good for pvp, its helped me many times as a rogue because your able to use it in stealth, and it helps to get a proc with darkmoon card greatness.

[AJP]

Thanks for sharing mate I didn't know

[NegativeBeef]

As I understand many of the profession items can't be used in arenas?