Seeking Professional Advice
Honorshummer is my Hunter alt. I shall refer to him as Hummer for rest of this entry. Anytime I use Honors, I'm referring to my Main, Honorshammer.
As Hummer nears 80, I've been thinking about Professions both for him and for my main.
Honors is Jewelcrafting and Engineering while Hummer is skinning and mining. Actually part of the genesis of Hummer was to give Honors a miner to gather ore for his two production professions.
The only one I'm absolutely not going to change is Jewelcrafting on Honors. That is both useful and profitable.
Engineering on the other hand is neither.
What I am considering is changing Hummer to an Miner/Engineer and making Honorshammer Mining/Jewelcrafting. This would make each toon more self reliant. Hummer would get more use out of the Engineering helm since I don't plan to raid much with him. He can also make his own ammo until such time as Blizzard implements it's plan to remove ammo from Hunters.
It's sad to say, but the thing I will miss most from having Engineering on Honors is the Roflcopter.
Honors would get a minor stamina benefit from Mining, and I can use the ore he gets leveling up Mining to level up Engineering on Hummer.
Of course, as soon as I do this, Blizzard will announce a huge buff to Engineering helms, or come out with some awesome item for Engineers that will make me regret this.
I haven't actually gone through with this yet, it's still in the idea/planning stages. If you've heard anything on the PTR about Engineering. The last I heard was the addition of some minor stats to the tinkers, and the new 800 armor glove enchant. I'm not sure that's enough.
So to my 'legion' of loyal followers, is this a good idea or a poor one? If you woke up this morning and you were in my position (Main JC/Engy, Alt Skin/Mine) what would you do?
Comments
The nice thing about armor enchants is that they tend to become much more powerful at higher gear levels.
Stick w/ Engi if the other option is Mining.
Now, if the other choice under consideration was /blacksmithing/, this would be a bit dicier a proposition.
Now for Honor, mining is a nice hp boost, not a bad move for a tankadin, 50 stamina scales with prot talents and will give you roughly the same amount than 2 blue endurance gems added by two blacksmith additional sockets. Mining is also a great money maker, and if you play with your main most of the time, it could be a good move money-wise.
But, as it was suggested, if you have time for it (it requires a *lot* of mats from Azeroth, especially Thorium that you probably won't want to buy on the ah), skill-up blacksmithing.
There is no, for the moment, any BoP blacksmithing crafts, but that could happen later, and you'll get 2 free sockets for gems. You are already a jewelcrafter, so you can easily provide the gems, and it will give you diversity. With dual-spec coming, being able to change set from prot to dps or healing, and have then +48 stam or +38 spell power or +32 str will be something you love :P
If you really need to drop it, go BS, like Siha said.
There's a TON of synergy in Blacksmithing with Jewelcrafting (as you've said, you already have) that if you were looking for a RAID profession, then this HAS to be the way to go. Especially if you're spec'ing Ret on occasion, as BS benefits you regardless of spec.
WoW isn't entirely about beating the RNG, after all...
Tanking is not only about having the most stamina, despite what a lot of PuG's think, and getting the extra gem sockets can go a long way towards making sure you stay at 540 defense or block-capped.
I would personally wait until the changes get finalized before deciding on your professions. They may provide more buffs/nerfs to each of the professions.
@Siha
So far, it looks like the epic gems are going to be unique-equipped, so they wont matter too much.
Mining and skinning are profitable and nicely skilled up on your alt - it would be a ton of work to re-level mining on Honors. I would do as someone else said and take Blacksmithing if you really want to min/max Honors. Extra sockets + JCing = synergy.
Engineering on your Hunter - you can just buy the ammo out of his gathering profits, and the helms are comparable to stuff you can pick up any night of the week in a Naxx 10 alt PUG or something. Or PUG Sarth 25 with him and hope for a helm drop. You will use the goggles for an incredibly short period; it's not worth blowing countless hours and gold/material.
TLDR:
Hummer - as is.
Honors - drop engy for BS, if you must make a change.
Fedaykin98
Mining is.
Blacksmithing gives two sockets. 2x 24stam gems, 48 stamina.
Mining = 50 stam.
its not a huge difference, but Mining also makes you money while blacksmithing costs it.
Blacksmithing does give you flexibility of the sockets, and when non-unique epic gems come out, will be superior, but until then, no dice, Mining is superior.