Best Professions for PvP

Professions have always been a very important part of World of Wacraft. Offering a wide range of trinkets, armor, weapons, item buffs, gems, etc. The majority of these additions are readily available, especially for those players who have a good bit of time to farm or players who have large amounts of gold at their disposal.

Enchanting for PvP
It wasn’t until the expansion that blizzard added enchanting bop patterns for rings. They weren’t massive buffs, but certainly enough to entice the most hardcore players to make the gold / time investment to level enchanting and acquire these recipes.

Melee: +2 weapon damage / per ring
Casters: +12 spell damage / per ring
Healers: +20 healing / per ring
Stats: +4 all stats / per ring

I haven’t made the investment yet to level enchanting, though it’s certainly been on my mind. Obviously the biggest factor for me is the sheer gold investment, a friend who leveled enchanting several months ago estimated the cost of leveling the profession at around 2000g, seemed a bit high to me, and I’m sure it’s gone down since he leveled it. In any regard, that amount of gold for +4 weapon damage is somewhat staggering. For casters the +24 damage would have me a bit more intrigued, and I’ve certainly considered level it on my elemental shaman. Every little bit count, especially when it’s just that little extra that ensures you the kill.

Jewelcrafting for PvP
In patch 2.2 (which will hopefully launch sometime within the next 2 weeks) jewelcrafting gets a bit of extra love, BoP gems. So far the only two that I’ve heard of are the 18 stamina bop gem and 12 spirit bop gem. For all intensive purposes I don’t know many people who are stacking spirit for PvP, so we’ll ignore that one, though the 18 stamina gem is certainly a nice bonus for players who already have jewelcrafting.

Is 6 stamina worth leveling jewelcrafting, probably not. Though I fully expect to see more bop gems in the coming patches and expansion, so it’s certainly a profession we’ll want to keep an eye on.

Blacksmithing for PvP
Fairly self-explanatory here, if you are a warrior chances are you are a blacksmith. The weapons are simply overpowered, plain and simple. With great damage, speed, and procs it’s a no brainer for a warrior who has access to the nether vortexes.

Outside of the insane weapons found inside Black Temple, I cannot think of a better weapon than the T3 blacksmithing mace for warriors. The stun proc combined with warrior mace spec is just ridiculous. Even as a rogue with mace spec I understand how powerful that random interrupt is going to be when locking down your focus target. If you’re a warrior taking advantage of these weapons will be key.

Engineering for PvP
Before BC I considered myself to be the life long engineering, I loved all the situational trinkets and grenades, it made for very entertaining battlegrounds and world PvP encounters. Though the fizzle affect, which basically destroyed all my pre-BC trinkets, left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Though it seems engineering is finally making a bit of a comeback.

The biggest advantage for engineering has to be the 4k-invulnerability belt. Though as always with the engineering there is a chance to backfire, IE the reason Nekos (Troll Rogue of Shattered Hand) still has the highest (non-gimmicked) eviscerate record I’ve seen in arena, nearly 6,000 damage. Beyond the belt, which is certainly an enticing advantage to pickup engineering, there isn’t all that much. You can roll the dice on the reflectors and hope they don’t fizzle, and the new rocket boots aren’t bad, though there still are many improvements that could be made to the profession.

I’m looking forward to the alleged engineering revamp coming for the profession sometime around patch 2.3, I’d really love to see it brought back to the level it was prior to BC, though I doubt it’ll ever live up to those expectations.

Best PvP Professions - Conclusions
As with all professions and decisions you make in the game you have to weigh the consequences. The amount of gold to level these, the time investment, the pros and cons from dropping one profession and picking up another are all variables that will determine if a particular profession is right for you.

Of the four professions listed here I’d have to say that enchanting offers the most. The ring enchants will directly increase your killing / survivability power which may translate into more wins. When it comes down to the bottom line if gold = more damage, and more damage = more wins, then it’s an investment I’m willing to make and I’ll likely drop one of my current professions to pick up enchanting. I’m excited to see what’s coming for engineering and the possibility of new BoP gems for JC, though all that will come with time.