Argh Profession Gating

I'm a profession junky.  I had all of them maxed at the end of Mists, and four alchemists at 600 (because you can never have enough transmutes).  So garrisons have been both awesome and frustrating in that regard - awesome because it's a new system tied in, but frustrating because you run into gating based on level or resources.

If you don't use ore, your gathering bonus options are limited until later than the mine at 92; you can't unlock the herb garden until 94.  Want more leather?  The barn requires more work for leather than the mine or the herb garden do for their materials.  I haven't started my leatherworker yet, so I'm not sure this is actually going to be a big deal, and now that I know how trapping works, it's not that bad to deal with.  I'm still accidentally killing some things when I try to trap them, and I'm still running into mobs that inexplicably won't set off the trap, but I can go grab seven or eight boars or talbuk or clefthoofs and be good for the day's work orders in fifteen minutes in the right area.  It does seem a bit unfair that you have to tie up a medium building for it, though.

I'm more frustrated by the gating of the intermediary crafting materials than anything else, though.  We've had recipe acquisition gated behind dailies since Wrath, and I hated it for jewelcrafting then, but these are innocuous dailies more along the lines of alchemical and inscription discoveries, so they're not really that bad - you even get to pick which recipe you learn.  But I'm sitting on so much ore on my engineer, and I can't do anything with it.  I've got Blingtron 5k and scopes and pets in my recipe list, but I can't do anything to make them yet.  Delayed gratification sucks, but it also means that there's not going to be any jumping in on the market of selling those pets and scopes any time soon, because I'm saving up to make myself that gun and some goggles.

And that also sucks.  I'm trying to get into Molten Core, but I had bad luck on quest item upgrades at an ilvl that mattered, and so far my dungeon drops have been for slots that I already had 615 pieces in.  My most recent upgrades came from Mr. Pinchy Sr. (who got me into heroics) and 615 shoulders from a garrison mission.  I'll get there, and it won't be horribly slow, but there's no more, "Oh, I'll just drop 5k on mats on the auction house and make myself a piece of gear for that one slot I really need to upgrade."  Having done the silver proving grounds required for heroic dungeons at a 584 ilvl, though, it's a bit frustrating.

But I made my Elekk plushie last night, and my blacksmith has a forge in construction (actually it finished sometime last night), and this weekend I'll probably get all my alts a level 2 garrison so I can have their profession buildings made well before I actually get around to leveling them, so I can stockpile materials for when I do.  Other than herbs, I think I can keep them mostly supplied with raw materials for their cooldowns just from my main.  My death knight might get bumped up in playtime just for herb gathering.  Once I have a follower in the herb garden, that may end up unnecessary, though.

I like the tie-in of hunting down a follower of the affiliated profession and, now that they've got the mission levels fixed, leveling them up to the point they can go to work for you in the profession buildings.  I'm also liking the "cook to learn more cooking," although not so much the five meats/filets to make anything.  The talbuk have been scrawny.

All in all, it's not a bad system; it's just frustrating after several years with only the major pieces requiring delayed gratification for crafting.  Titansteel cooldowns, living steel cooldowns, sure.  Scopes being gated by cooldowns?  Not really sold on that, but it's what we've got.  I've been reluctant to put a scope on my leveling ranged weapons, because who knows when they'll be replaced, and I need those gears for a gun and goggles.


I should have just bought the yak, though.  That 120k I stockpiled before the expansion isn't going to be needed for powerleveling  professions this time around, because there is no more powerleveling professions if you're already at 600.

On the gating flipside, thank God there's a cap on timber stockpiling, because I was starting to somewhat obsessively deforest Nagrand.