Let’s Talk: Professions

Professions are an integral part of the game, and they mean different things to different people. Do you want to become a popular crafter, known in the community for having a specific recipe? What about maximizing your character's potential and choosing the profession that gives you the most power? Or do you want to be a gatherer, traversing the dangerous parts of Azeroth for valuable trade goods to sell? At Project Epoch, we've made sure that we offer all of these things, so you can choose the path that you want.

With our open beta shortly on the horizon, we wanted to offer a deep dive into how we view professions, and what you can expect from them on the server. We won't be sharing specific recipes and items right now, but we will be giving you a look at what influences our decisions. If you're interested in exactly what new items and recipes we've added, be on the lookout for a future blog post sometime before launch that will cover that extensively. In this post we will be showcasing our profession bonuses as those will be present in our first Open Beta.

Our Philosophy

What makes professions meaningful? Is it that feeling of gathering all the materials for your Lionheart Helm and finally delivering it to the servers only crafter? What about going on a mining trip for an hour, and watching your gold tick up as your Thorium Ore sells on the auction house? Or even crafting your own Lesser Magic Wand as an enchanter.

One thing we noticed is that all of these connect the player to the community in some way. In retail, professions have been watered down so that nothing meaningful is gained by spending the time and gold to level them up. In Vanilla, players have fond memories of finally crafting powerful items, and have nostalgia for the grind it took to get them.

Our core philosophy with professions is to continue to add depth in unique ways, and ensure that no matter what profession you pick, it will be a meaningful choice for your character.

To ensure that players can get started on their professions early and make meaningful progress we have ensured that all racial secondary towns (Goldshire, Bloodhoof Village etc) have a full suite of gathering profession trainers available. If you are unsure where the new additions are asking a guard should point you in the right direction.

Profession Bonuses

One thing that Wrath of the Lich King introduced was bonuses given to players that had leveled primary professions. For example, blacksmiths could add a socket to their bracers and gloves, while scribes could craft special shoulder enchants. We really liked this idea, and so we put our own spin on it that we think stays true to the Vanilla principles.

One way you can add depth to professions is by giving them each something unique. Another way we can do this is by encouraging players to keep their professions up to date while leveling. We were able to accomplish both of these by giving bonuses to each primary profession in a way that low levels can benefit too. Each profession (with the exception of Engineering) has had an overhaul in profession bonuses that we feel stay true to the Vanilla spirit.

The following values are not finalized and may change before launch.
In addition, the profession bonuses only work while the profession is trained. For example, if you attach a belt buckle and then drop Blacksmithing, the belt buckle's effect will no longer work.

Alchemy

We took heavy inspiration from the alchemy bonus present in Wrath. A recurring theme present in our bonuses is that we want to give a power gain, and a quality of life increase for all of the crafting professions.

The original Mixology present in Wrath gave 100% increased effects also, but we felt this was too overpowered for a Vanilla world. Our new mixology is learned at level 1 for Alchemy, and applies to all Vanilla elixirs and flasks. We plan on changing values for flasks, along with adding new ones to properly balance our end game.

Blacksmithing

In original Wrath, blacksmiths got the ability to attach sockets to their bracers and gloves. Since Project Epoch isn't using sockets, we had to think outside the box. What we decided upon was Belt Buckles, permanent enchants the blacksmith can apply to their belt that increases all stats by a certain amount.

The belt buckles are broken up into four tiers, Silver, Iron, Mithril, and Arcanite. This way all levels get a chance to utilize the Belt Buckles.

In addition to the belt buckles, blacksmiths also gain the ability to repair all of their gear instantly with a new ability, Repair All. There are two ranks, the first rank has an 8 hour cooldown, and the second rank has a 4 hour cooldown.

Enchanting

Once again taking inspiration from Wrath, enchanters gain the ability to enchant their rings, divided into Spell Power, Attack Power, and Stamina enchants. We chose these three because they give every role a benefit. In Project Epoch, even though we're using the 3.3.5 client, spell power is reverted to both damage and healing.

Similar to the belt buckles, these enchanting rings are divided into five tiers, so low levels can benefit also.

We know that enchanting is a major gold sink, and is particularly difficult to skill up while leveling. To help ease this, we also added shard transmutes, on a shared 20 hour cooldown.

Herbalism

Being a gathering profession, naturally herbalists can't craft items. However, we still wanted to add something new to Herbalism to make it feel fresh. Taking inspiration from Season of Mastery, herbalists now have a chance to loot a Black Lotus from high level herbs. This new bonus is called Lotus Affinity and is learned at skill level 300.

Leatherworking

In Wrath, the Leatherworking profession bonus was wrist enchants. We wanted to give a more unique spin on the profession, and so we gave Leatherworkers temporary armor kits. They are cheap to craft, last one hour, and grant powerful bonuses to your bracers.

Giving Leatherworkers a way to use their excess leather while leveling was important also, so we added multiple tiers of armor kits.

We still wanted Leatherworking to get a quality of life increase also, so we added saddles that increase mounted speed! There are two tiers: Heavy and Rugged.

The Heavy Saddle is the level 40 trinket, and the Rugged Saddle above is for max levels, and grants 5% mounted speed.

We thought that a saddle fit the Leatherworking theme, and also made sense in a Vanilla world where travelling long distances is normal.

Mining

Similar to Herbalism, we wanted to give Mining something useful too. In original Wrath, Mining got a passive ability called Toughness, which increased your stamina by a flat amount.

However, on Project Epoch we wanted to switch to a percentage formula. And in following with our theme of giving low levels impactful bonuses, we gave the mining bonus 5 ranks, with each rank increasing your total health by 1%.

In addition to the passive perk, those who have chosen Night Elves will find we've taken the steps to populate Teldrassil with mining nodes to ensure you can get started with this from the start of your journey.

Skinning

Skinning was an interesting profession. Being by far the easiest one to level, we didn't want to make it too powerful, but we still wanted to give it a bonus. We decided to go with a more niche bonus, that still fits the Skinning theme.

Similar to Mining, there are 5 ranks of Beasts of the Wild, and each rank gives a 1% damage increase done to beasts. We thought this would be an interesting niche, and could really shine on bosses like Magmadar.

Tailoring

Being a core crafting professions, we wanted to make sure we had a bonus that would work for all classes. Taking inspiration from Wrath, we created embroideries to enhance your cloak.

There are five tiers of embroideries, one for each type of cloth. The tiers are further divided into Sorcerer, Warrior, and Protector. Sorcerer gives spell damage and healing, Warrior gives attack power, and Protector gives stamina.

A quality of life feature called Cloth Scavenging has been added also, which gives the tailor a chance to receive an additional cloth drop from most creatures.

Conclusion

We hope you now have a deeper understanding of our profession philosophy, and the types of changes we plan to make. At the end of the day, it's important to us that we follow the Vanilla theme, and make changes that emulate that. We're always looking for feedback, so don't hesitate to give us ideas and suggestions on our Discord!