Some thoughts on professions

I've been thinking a lot lately on what professions to have/keep as a tankadin, I'm making this post in an attempt to summarize the better tanking professions and hopefully answer some questions. To be honest, I am confused as well and nowhere sure on what professions to have so hopefully we could have a discussion here and provide some feedback to each other.

I apologize beforehand if this has been discussed before, and for any eventual mistakes


Enchanting

48 stamina from 2x ring enchants alone makes it better than mining in its current form. Enchanting also provides a lot of money just by disenchanting epics, you also have the possibility to change to more dps-friendly enchants on the ring should you chose to spec retri.


Alchemy

Provides mixology buff which is a passive buff that gives you 50 % increased effectivesness to flask and 25 % to elixirs and there is also the alchemist stone, which is, a good trinket, but there are better.

This, for example, increases the effectiveness of stoneblood flask with 350, making it a 1000+ hp buff.

Leatherworking

Leatherworking most likely was one of the best tanking professions (and still is very good) but with the new bracer enchant coming up, the stamina enchant on bracers "only" gives a 50+ stamina net gain, previously being much higher. It also has resistance enchants to bracers which would be really helpful on any upcoming resist encounters

Blacksmithing

Blacksmithing is one of the better professions simply due to the fact that it doesnt take anything from you (apart from a profession slot which makes it neccesary to compare it to other professions) but gives you two free socket slots. Now, thinking ahead of time but in line where we will eventually get, this can give you a total of 60+ stamina (two epic stamina gems) which makes it a very solid choice for tanking.

With the epic gems introduced this can potentionally give a tank: 30 Stamina/20 Defense/20 Dodge/20 Strength x2

or with the current rare gems: 24 Stamina/16 Defense/16 Dodge/16 Strength x2.

Keep in mind that blacksmithing is most likely nowhere finished as of yet, more items will most surely be available even for the ones who dont raid the contemporary end game content of that time.

Jewelcrafting

Jewelcrafting has some interesting BoP gems atm but if you compare them to other professions in a manner of stat gain, they arent that amazing.

Since you are limited to three prismatic gems, taking the stamina gems for example which give you 41 stamina each, for a total of 123 stamina, compared to the epic stamina gems (30 stamina each), you only gain a 33 stamina net gain.

However, the blue JC trinket is also worth to be mentioned, socketed with 2x 24 stamina gems (keep in mind that when epic gems arrive, there might be other trinkets available for JC'ers as well as non-JC'ers) it gives you a total of 111 stamina, or 99 stamina and 8 defense rating if socketed with a stamina/defense gem as well as a stamina gem. It also has an "oh-shit!" button.

There are "better" trinkets, but this one isnt bad, even kungen uses it.

Conclusion

Personally I think that the "best" tanking professions atm are Blacksmithing and enchanting.

Enchanting yields a flat bonus of 48 stamina on slots that otherwise cant be enchanted in any way. Blacksmithing is basically the same thing. With the current rare gems it is a total of 48 stamina as well.

Jewelcrafting "is" better than both blacksmithing and enchanting because the epic gems havent arrived yet. if you compare 3x 24 stamina gem (72 stamina) vs the jewelcrafting gems, 3x 41 stamina (123 stamina) you have a 51 net gain of stamina.

As you can see, there is a very little difference between these three professions, when epic gems arrive, blacksmithing will be even better. the total stat gain from enchanting will remain what it is, but a 3 net gain of stamina is futile to the ability of disenchanting your items (imo).

It is hard to tell what the future holds for us tanks. We know that epic gems will come and that will buff blacksmithing, we do not know if there will be an epic JC trinket that will be better than what is offered from the raid content. We do not know if JC'ers will be able to equip more than just 3 unique gems.

Needless to say; professions are very dynamic. Based on what we do know and of what we have at the moment, I would say that enchanting and blacksmithing are two very solid choices for a tankadin. JC is also a very good profession but it also involves a lot of speculation. It is more or less guaranteed that enchanting will stay the same with its flat 48+ stamina bonus. Blacksmthing will most surely be buffed even for the non-raider, but what do we know about jewelcrafting?

You skipped inscription and mining entirely.

Additionally you compared JC to only epic gems while ignoring that those are not out yet. Also a JC sockets their trinket with one +24 stam gem and one 41 stam one to pick up the stam bonus and to gem to the str of the piece.

Subtracting the additional stam for it being a JC only only gem (assuming rare gems) and the JC trinket gives 9 more stam than the second best JC trinket. With epic gems any non JC trinket would need to give 132 stamina for it tie the jc trinket on static bonuses.

There's also the matter of additional socket bonuses and easier meta gems for JCers.
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I would consider JC to be THE best profession atm, personally im not dropping alch or ench for JC. And ofc with new better gems arriving (epic versions) JC will become a tad less "imba".
However your:

Also you should include a break down of all the bonuses for elixirs and flasks combonations a tank could use.

And as the above poster said, the alchemy trinket is of a very high Ilevel as far as static stats go. If that dodge was to be converted into stam it would be a 150 stam trinket.
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All of the previous comments just go to prove that JC is the better profession now and most likely in the future patches with the release of epic gems, epic BoP trinkets, and possibly BoP rings and neck pieces.

Blacksmithing will no doubt get some BoP items in the later patches as well as armorsmithing and weaponsmithing getting very nice epic items. There is also a rumor going around that armorsmiths and weaponsmiths will each be getting the ability to add a meta socket to their gear (chestpiece for armorsmith and weapon for weaponsmith) For people who dual wield they will most likely have it that you can only have one meta'd weapon equipped.

Which if all this happens makes them both very equal and together unstoppable.
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Naecroknight of Reverb - 80 - Arygos

I can see BS getting some BoP items (the new DK tanking weapons for instance) but I can't see them adding metas on top of the two current slots because that would make it go from lead of the pack to undisputed winner of the stam race (much like LW is currently).
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You should save space for engineering in case it gets something useful someday.
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http://armorylite.com/us/frostmane/fridmarr/

I am Enchanter/Blacksmith which is nice.

But if I had a chance to start from scratch. JC & BS is FTW.
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I'm slightly annoyed at the lackluster effects of engineering, but I must admit I'm not gonna drop it.

Once I get an alt up, I'll probably drop my mining for blacksmithing, but that's nowhere near happening.
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I'm about to drop the hammer...
...and dispense some indiscriminate justice!

This is my armory profile

This is a very good idea from the maker of this thread to break down what you as a tank would benefit from the different Profs.
However a bit small and missing a few parts (and some Profs aswell)

And here I was about to ask a very similar question. Gotta love it when the forums work like this.

It sounds like Blacksmithing/JC or Enchanting/JC is the way to go for our professions currently? I'm currently debating dropping Mining in order to pick up Jewelcrafting for the 41 stam gems and trinket. My only hesitance is coming from the fact my Paladin is also my only miner - I do make a fair bit of gold from mining ore then paying someone to prospect it and out right selling bars.
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Well first of all Mining is currently slightly more Stamina than BS at the cost of some flexibility. As a result, right now Mining/JC is the absolute most stam you can get, but that may well change when epic gems are released. In general when it comes to changing professions, it depends on how absolutely maxed out you want to be. All in all, the difference between Mining/Enchanting/BS/JC is pretty miniscule, picking any 2 of the 4 will do you quite well. Dropping mining for JC is an upgrade (as is dropping BS for JC), but it's pretty terrible in terms of bang for your buck, so if you've already got mining leveled I wouldn't drop it unless you've maxed out every other option and still want a little more.
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