Gathering vs crafting and more on altaholism. . .

I spend a lot of my in game and out of game time thinking about/planning crafting. While I would agree with those who say Wow's crafting system isn't that fun, I look at my characters as somewhat of a community in an of themselves and I love being able to support my various alts with minimal assistance. I grind all my own mats, very rarely purchasing things on the AH. I look at it this way: everything is a time sink one way or another, grinding my own mats gives me a feeling of accomplishment. The exception to this is fishing. Can't stand it in real life (too long and boring) and the Wow equivalent isn't any more fun. If it was like any other gathering profession (click the node, see what you got) I'd be fine with it, but it's not.

Anyways, with the exception of engineering (just can't do it, I was going to level it on hunter, but it doesn't make sense for any of my other alts), I have every profession covered, sometimes multiple times. My lock is at 340 enchanting, going to need to gain those last 2 levels to get him to 65 so I can get into northrend enchanting. His other profession is alchemy, which I decided would be more beneficial on Shammy. I am thinking of keeping it, and just having one of them transmute specc'd and the other elixir. My warrior is a blacksmith and he's either maxed out or close enough that it doesnt matter. He has become basically epic gear provider to my friends and alts. I like having blacksmithing on him, makes him invaluable because lets face it, I never want to level blacksmithing again. He is also a flower picker, which I kept for the HoT, although switching to alchemy to get the never-ending healing potion would be a solid option too. My pally is of course my most advanced trade skill character, 450 jewelcrafting and I have a few of the more choice epic gem cuts (can anyone say epic +hit gems for my casters?). I leveled Leatherworking on my druid, when I intended to get him to 80. I will be missing out on the big mining bag, although thats not a huge loss because if I recall correctly, they're not that expensive. Also, there really isn't any crafted leatherworking gear that is helpful to my shammy past mid 70's (dark nerubian/frostscale pants and thats it, sad). My shammy is a straight gatherer at the moment, skinning and herbalism. I am definately switching out skinning for alchemy once I'm past the point where northrend leather helps. My big question is elixir spec or transmute. I've heard there is a good amount of money in elixir, but transmute will be useful too. I also am going to need to be transmuting titanium as much as possible (saronite is all over the place, but I can't seem to find titanium after 6am). Darn you titansteel weapons! I def want the titansteel mace for my shammy. I can make up +hit in other ways so it will be great double duty for a healing set and a caster DPS set. I also just recently switched my priest to tailoring (with herbalism) so I can have 2 tailors (my mage is one too). Again, I want to be able to crank out ebonweave, although my mage will need some assistance to do so since it's a mid 70's zone where you make it and he's 65. Lastly, speaking of the mage, he is my scribe. I think I hit 400 inscription last night, I have a book waiting, he needs to hurry up and discover glyph of Shadow for my priest. I actually have a pretty good selection of glyphs, although I have no desire to try to enter the glyph market for massive wads of cash. I think blizz caused all this by making the vendor price of glyphs too cheap. That means they're ridiculously cheap to post/repost so it leads to massive inflation. I would rather go without and wait to be able to make a glyph myself than pay 30g for something that takes no effort to produce.

Overall, in terms of enjoyment, I have to say inscription is my favorite. Even low level herbs are useful (have to do your minor inscription research every day), and it provides a lot of varied benefits. I love being able to make scrolls so I'm not just wasting enchants. I used to keep random pieces of gear around and just overwrite enchants over and over. Jewelcrafting is a close second. I love being able to customize gear and being able to make useful amulets and rings is such a godsend for my characters (I will prolly do another JC daily tommorow to get the ring of northern tears recipe for my casters). I also cant see how I would have been able to tank anything without the tanking trinket and JC only gems. I think that profession single handedly boosted me to tanking able.

Anyways, I guess that just goes to show that professions are a major part of my in-game time expenditure. I really like being able to make usable items for all my alts and I love how every alt fits into the equation somehow. I also love that some of my alts may not have traditional layout of professions, but much like in real life, thats just how they ended up.