I get a kick out of funny situations that occur naturally. And, obviously, this picture implies that I was inquiring about a new profession. Why? Because, as the title implies, WoW is different when you are connection-limited in any way. Professions actually create a different "plane" of the game, one which is much more of a level playing field. For instance, if you are a 450 alchemist, you can ply your trade at 1500ms just as easily as the guy that plays with 25ms!
So, why enchanting? For 5 years I'd been exclusively alchemy and herbalism.
But while I started gearing up here in Iraq, I made a big mistake. I maxed out herbalism and skinning, thinking that it would be easier to make gold with gathering professions, because they are easier to level. The cold hard truth is simply that you have to do something gameplay-related to gather something. In an instance if you are high latency, you DO NOT HAVE TIME TO SKIN THE DRAGONS...your party will die or the other skinner will beat you to the punch every single time. In the world, with high latency and low bandwidth, you will miss a lot of herb spawns because they won't load before you fly out of range! And then, it takes you a considerable amount of time to demount and remount. And what if you have to kill a mob and you aren't in your shadow spec? Trust me, I would have been better off farming low level instances for greens to DE and sell rather than riding around indefinitely looking for herbs.
Also, look at the benefits from enchanting vs herbalism for a priest. Lifeblood? I know I'm not running ICC right now, but I'd rather have the ring enchants, which are a passive bonus to performance, than another ability that I could use to save my butt if I got in serious trouble but had a lot of time to get healed back up...wait...I could just shield myself and hit desperate prayer.
Plus, I've always been jealous of those healers that had that extra spell power on their gear when I didn't even have that option myself. And, be honest, isn't it SO much better to be in a 5-man group when someone can DE all the crap that nobody is going to use.
From an economic/latency standpoint, disenchanting plus auctioneer equals excellent income potential in game. I actually played for years with Zuggy of zuggaming, who has put together some excellent gold guides for WoW. Zug's best advice has always been to learn how to use the auction house to generate gold. Trust me, if you are playing on a limited connection, the AH can be your best friend and some of the most productive time you can spend in game! You can buy sell, scan, DE, re-sell, and really accumulate a ton of gold through the AH, regardless of your lag. If you only have herbalism, your main venue of making gold is spending tons of time, hoping you find a good number of herbs, then selling them on the AH for a very marginal profit. I know this because I've DONE this. It's simpler to mindlessly fly around looking for the yellow dots, but not easier or faster. And you can be an all-star at the AH with a really crappy connection. This comes down to playing to your strengths, once again!
A good parallel in my line of work? Oh, this is good. Most people would think that the most valuable skill to have as a pilot are spatial orientation, hands-on, active flying skills. Or, maybe, knowledge about your aircraft, the tactics, and the specific execution of today's mission. After this deployment, I am CONVINCED that the most valuable skills you can have are not the "active" skills I just mentioned, but rather people skills, leadership skills, teamwork, and a broader perspective. Why? Well, the obvious skills can get you from point A to point B, just like farming herbs can get you a predictable, linear ROI. But those less objective skills come with a "passive bonus." At the end of flying with the same 6 people for 120 days, you have improved each of those people, got along with them, fostered an environment for a team, and created a productive atmosphere for a long-term deployment. The Return on Investment in that case is considerably less predictable but greater, both immediately and residually.
Great blog, first time reader. I especially like the links you make between RL and WoW time. Personally I have 3 80's that share the AH love by having 6 professions between them. The JC feeds the Alchemist, who feeds the Tailor, who..well you see. I read a very good post at Elitist Jerks that said in short that Jewelcrafting and Enchanting were the best for caster DPS, with Tailoring as a possible third if you are already leveled.
ReplyDeleteHope you continue the very insightful posts, and wish you all the luck with your lag!