What is the Best Profession for Shaman Gear in Dragonflight?
For Shamans in Dragonflight, there isn’t a single, definitive “best” profession for acquiring gear. The ideal choice depends heavily on your spec (Enhancement, Elemental, or Restoration), your playstyle (solo, raid, Mythic+), and your economic goals within the game. However, considering accessibility, potential item level (ilvl), and overall utility, Leatherworking and Tailoring stand out as arguably the most beneficial professions for gearing up your Shaman, alongside strong alternatives. Let’s explore why:
Leatherworking and Tailoring: Versatility and Gear Crafting
Leatherworking offers Shamans, particularly Enhancement Shamans, a direct route to crafting powerful mail armor. In Dragonflight, Leatherworkers can craft high-ilvl gear that directly benefits Enhancement’s melee-focused gameplay, providing the necessary Agility, Stamina, and secondary stats. Additionally, the profession allows for crafting embellishments, which are unique effects that can be added to crafted gear, providing further customization and power.
Tailoring, while not directly crafting mail armor, provides Elemental and Restoration Shamans with access to valuable cloth armor pieces. While not ideal for main armor slots, tailoring can offer BiS (Best in Slot) cloaks, bracers, and other slots where secondary stats are paramount. The key advantage of Tailoring lies in its ability to create powerful embellished items and its unique cloak enchant. It also offers bags, which are always useful, and various transmog options.
The combined benefits of Leatherworking and Tailoring for Shamans in Dragonflight include:
- Crafting high-ilvl gear: Both professions allow you to craft gear that can reach competitive ilvls, often on par with raid or Mythic+ drops.
- Customization through embellishments: Embellishments provide powerful and unique effects that can significantly enhance your Shaman’s performance.
- Economic opportunities: Crafted gear and consumables can be sold on the Auction House, generating valuable income.
Alternatives: Enchanting and Jewelcrafting
While Leatherworking and Tailoring are excellent for crafting gear, Enchanting and Jewelcrafting offer powerful supplementary benefits.
Enchanting: Enhancing Existing Gear
Enchanting allows Shamans to significantly enhance their existing gear with powerful stat boosts. While it doesn’t directly craft armor, enchanting provides a crucial layer of optimization, allowing you to fine-tune your stats and maximize your character’s performance. Enchanting is especially valuable for Elemental and Restoration Shamans, allowing them to maximize their Intellect, Haste, and Mastery.
Jewelcrafting: Gems and Jewelry
Jewelcrafting provides access to powerful gems that further augment your stats. Jewelcrafters can also craft rings and necklaces, which are essential gear slots. Jewelcrafting is particularly useful for all Shaman specs, allowing them to customize their secondary stats to optimize their specific playstyle. The ability to recraft high-ilvl jewelry with optimal secondary stats is a huge benefit.
Gathering Professions: Supporting Your Crafting
While not directly related to gearing, gathering professions like Herbalism and Mining can be extremely valuable for supporting your chosen crafting professions.
Herbalism and Alchemy
Herbalism provides the raw materials needed for Alchemy, which offers powerful consumables such as flasks and potions. These consumables are essential for raiding and Mythic+, providing significant stat boosts. While Alchemy doesn’t provide gear directly, it drastically improves your overall performance, making it a crucial component for endgame content.
Mining and Blacksmithing/Engineering
Mining provides the raw materials needed for Blacksmithing and Engineering. Blacksmithing is less useful for Shamans directly but Engineering provides powerful gadgets and utility items. It should be noted that neither provides class-specific benefits greater than Leatherworking or Tailoring.
Detailed Profession Breakdown for Each Shaman Spec
Enhancement Shaman
- Primary: Leatherworking
- Secondary: Enchanting or Jewelcrafting
- Reasoning: Leatherworking provides direct access to mail armor. Enchanting and Jewelcrafting provide crucial stat optimization.
Elemental Shaman
- Primary: Tailoring
- Secondary: Enchanting or Jewelcrafting
- Reasoning: Tailoring offers powerful cloaks and other cloth armor pieces, as well as bags. Enchanting and Jewelcrafting allow you to maximize your Intellect, Haste, and Mastery.
Restoration Shaman
- Primary: Tailoring
- Secondary: Enchanting or Jewelcrafting
- Reasoning: Similar to Elemental, Tailoring provides useful cloth armor options. Enchanting and Jewelcrafting enable stat optimization for healing output and mana efficiency.
Choosing the Right Professions for You
Ultimately, the best profession for your Shaman depends on your individual goals and preferences. If you prioritize crafting your own gear, Leatherworking and Tailoring are excellent choices. If you prefer to focus on enhancing existing gear, Enchanting and Jewelcrafting are more suitable. Gathering professions provide valuable support for crafting, ensuring a steady supply of raw materials. Consider your playstyle, economic goals, and personal preferences when making your decision. You can always re-evaluate your choices later in the expansion and change your professions.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Can I get all my gear from crafting professions?
While you can craft significant pieces of gear, it’s unlikely you’ll get all your gear from crafting. Raid, Mythic+, and PvP content all offer unique and powerful items that complement crafted gear. Crafted gear is often a good starting point and can be used to fill gaps in your gear set.
2. How important are embellishments on crafted gear?
Embellishments are incredibly important. They provide unique effects that can significantly enhance your Shaman’s performance. Some embellishments are highly sought after and can dramatically improve your damage output, healing, or survivability.
3. Which gathering profession is best for a Shaman?
The best gathering profession depends on your crafting professions. Herbalism is excellent if you plan to utilize Alchemy. Mining is useful if you’re interested in Engineering or Blacksmithing (although the latter is less directly beneficial to Shamans).
4. Can I make gold with Shaman crafting professions?
Yes! Crafted gear, consumables, and enchantments are always in demand on the Auction House. By mastering your chosen professions and crafting high-quality items, you can generate a substantial income. Keeping an eye on market trends and crafting what’s in demand is key to success.
5. Are crafted items always lower item level than raid gear?
Not necessarily. Crafted gear can be upgraded to high item levels using various methods, such as completing specific content or using special reagents. In some cases, crafted gear can be on par with or even exceed the ilvl of raid gear, especially when embellished.
6. How do I level up my crafting professions quickly?
Leveling crafting professions requires gathering materials and crafting items. Using profession leveling guides, completing profession quests, and taking advantage of any profession experience buffs will speed up the process.
7. Do I need to level a gathering profession to benefit from a crafting profession?
While you can buy materials from the Auction House, leveling a gathering profession alongside your crafting profession allows you to obtain materials more cheaply and reliably. This can save you a significant amount of gold in the long run.
8. Are there any profession-specific perks for Shamans?
There aren’t specific perks tied directly to the Shaman class. However, all professions offer unique benefits and advantages that can indirectly improve your Shaman’s performance.
9. Can I change my professions later?
Yes, you can change your professions at any time. However, you’ll lose all progress in your previous profession and will have to start from scratch. Consider carefully before changing professions, as it can be a time-consuming process to level them up again.
10. How do work orders affect crafting for Shamans?
Work orders are requests from other players for you to craft specific items. Completing work orders is a great way to earn gold and level up your crafting professions. It also allows you to craft items for other players, expanding your influence in the game.
11. Is Alchemy a good profession for Shamans, even if it doesn’t craft gear?
Yes! Alchemy provides crucial consumables like flasks and potions, which are essential for raiding and Mythic+. It significantly improves your overall performance, making it a valuable profession, especially if you have Herbalism as your gathering profession.
12. How does Engineering compare to Leatherworking or Tailoring for Shamans?
Engineering offers some unique gadgets and utility items, but it generally doesn’t provide the same level of direct gear benefits as Leatherworking (for Enhancement) or Tailoring (for Elemental and Restoration). Engineering can still be fun and useful, but it’s often considered a more niche choice.
13. What are the best embellishments for Shamans?
The best embellishments vary depending on your spec and playstyle. Research specific embellishments that provide benefits to your chosen specialization. Some commonly sought-after embellishments include those that increase your primary stat or provide powerful secondary stat bonuses.
14. How do I unlock high-level crafting recipes?
High-level crafting recipes are typically unlocked by completing profession quests, obtaining recipes from specific content (like raids or dungeons), or earning reputation with certain factions. Regularly check with your profession trainers for new quests and recipes.
15. Are profession tools important?
Yes! Profession tools provide bonuses to your crafting efficiency, such as increased crafting speed or a higher chance of crafting higher-quality items. Make sure to keep your profession tools upgraded to maximize your crafting potential.