To me, the lack of a meta gem slot (or any gem slots) is a pretty severe disqualification to that helm. Particularly the meta socket. But YMMV.
ETA: Forum commenters indicate they think gems will be de-emphasized in WoD, so maybe the helm as currently spec’d follows that philosophy. Still, it just seems wrong.
Congratulations!
Blizz’s RNG is a twisted and cruel mistress.
Indeed. How dare **Oakminster **get the mount and not me! 
I’ve been working on the old meta achievement Glory of the Hero lately, with all the achievements in Northrend Heroic dungeons. The prize for finishing it is the Red Proto Drake, and although I’ve got 109 mounts, I have zero proto drakes and have always wanted one.
I have four achievements left to finish the meta, now… one of them was My Girl Likes To Skadi All The Time, which I’d attempted to solo a few times and always accidentally damaged the wrong mob, and killed them in the wrong order, or made some other silly error.
So I was very pleased when I got the achievement yesterday. Downed Skadi, looted, finished the dungeon and went on my merry way.
Later, cleaning out my bags, I found the Blue Proto Drake. :eek: Guess it was a REALLY lucky run!
You gotta love it when everything works. Grats!
I earned “Northrend Dungeon Hero” back in 2010, and finally picked up “Classic Dungeonmaster” back in August, after working my way through UBRS and LBRS and then finally, finally working my way through BRD and killing Thaurissan. That made me realize that I didn’t have the Outland dungeon achievement. I thought I had hit them all, because a couple years ago I spent a great deal of time farming Outland dungeons on my paladin for various Dungeon Set pieces as well as faction rep. I completely failed to realize that I’ve never set foot in Magister’s Terrace, the only one I’m missing. It occurs to me that I don’t even know where, on the Isle of Quel’Denas, the instance portal is. I think I somehow thought that MT was a raid.
Regarding the performance issues I mentioned earlier, it turns out that it’s a “known issue” for Mac users, and they’re working on it. I was actually surprised to discover it was a “Mac issue”, since some of you here mentioned similar problems, and I’m pretty sure you aren’t all fellow Mac users. And, indeed, I switched over to my Windows 7 laptop yesterday after getting too frustrated with my Mac, and while the situation was better, it still didn’t feel as good as it normally feels playing on the laptop.
Missed edit window: Also, by the Light, I think I’m going to have to break down and spend 4000g of my warlock’s 5000+g to upgrade her to 280% flight. I mentioned that I wanted her to hit up all the candy buckets, but that Kalimdor was going to be a problem because she didn’t do any leveling at all there and has no flight points. I just didn’t realize how fracking long it takes just to fly across a single zone at 150% speed. I took her to Teldrassil and took the FP to Lor’danel, and for some reason she also had one of the FPs in Felwood. But then she had to fly on her own mount to Everlook in Winterspring, and god that took a long time. Then she flew up to Hyjal (she started her Cata leveling in Vashj’ir), hit the bucket at Nordrassil, flew over to the Shrine of Aviana, and then to the Shrine of Aessina, at which point I realized that I forgot to pick up the FP at Nordrassil. So I flew her back there, got the FP, then took a flight back to Aviana, then manually flew down into Ashenvale … very, very slowly.
Yeah, I realized that I hadn’t gotten 310% flying yet in the middle of doing the candy buckets, so that scooped out my gold by half.
Eh, my warlock doesn’t need 310%. The difference between 310 and 280 is minuscule compared to the difference between 150 and 280. I’m not worried about the gold cost, since she can draw freely from my vanity guild bank.
Level 90 character/profession boost
With the pre-purchase of WoD you get one level 90 boost. If the character you choose to boost is at least level 60, then that character’s two main professions also get boosted to level 600.
I’m strongly considering boosting my level 68 Paladin. Poor guy: he was my first character, and is now nearly 10 years old, but he’s been left to sit a lot since I fell in love with my Hunter.
Regardless, what professions would I get the most bang-for-the-buck in zooming to level 600? Currently he is Mining and Enchanting. I would probably keep Enchanting, but since gathering professions are so easy to level (and my main Hunter has two gathering professions), I’m wondering if I should swap out Mining for something else that is both:
Any suggestions?
Engineering is difficult/tedious/expensive to level, but not especially lucrative. I made a little gold selling scopes for hunter rifles, one decent sale of the steampunk mount–it goes for just barely enough to cover to cost of production now, and I think I sold one chopper mount.
Blacksmithing is also difficult/tedious/expensive to level. Made a little coin selling belt buckles, but nothing to write home about.
I don’t have an alchemist, but they may do ok selling high end flasks to raiders…
Tailors have a cool specialty mount–the flying carpet, and I’d assume you can always sell bags…
Frankly, I think the most lucrative professions are those that involve gathering up lots of (herbs, minerals, leather) whatever and selling them in the AH to the hapless folks trying to level up their professions. Especially lately, with the new, super-sized stacks, I think more people are hoarding mats rather than selling them in the AH, and prices are slowly spiraling upwards. I’ve been doing Rivendare mount runs through Stratholm lately, and I’ve been stunned at the amount of gold simple mats like Mageweave Cloth and low-level patterns and recipes are bringing in. Even the low-level green armor and weapons are selling easily and quickly for double their vendor price, and I suspect that people are mainly buying them up to disenchant.
I’ve never made much (not since Vanilla, anyway) with Tailoring, though I’m reluctant to give it up on the off chance that it WILL become lucrative sometime. It’s handy to be able to make one’s own bags, though the mats are usually too scarce to make piles of extra ones to sell - generally those same mats will fetch the same or better price in the AH, at least on my server.
I’ve never made ANY worthwhile money from enchanting, period. Though it’s handy for the Disenchanting ability. Shards and dust and essences sell well sometimes. Maybe if you’re a high-end raider and you’re getting rare and in-demand enchant formulas that few people have? I don’t generally see people like that shilling in Stormwind for business, but I suppose someone must be doing all those 'chants. How many enchanters have leveled up by making 20 parchments of some enchant nobody wants, but you do it anyway because you’ve got the mats and it’s good for a point? Seems like every guild bank I’ve ever seen is full of piles of donated 'chants from the leveling process.
Alchemy hasn’t really done anything wonderful for me, and I’ve had difficulty leveling my engineering, because my engineer isn’t also a miner, which was probably a bad decision on my part. Engineering without mining has got to be the worst money-sink profession in the game.
I’ve never had an inscriptionist or a leatherworker, so couldn’t say anything either way about the money-making potential of those.
Money-wise, I certainly agree that the gathering professions are, on balance, the most reliable money makers.
Fun-wise, they aren’t terrific. Years ago I dabbled in engineering and had a lot of fun, but when I look at the current high-end recipes, I don’t see anything that really grabs me.
I was all set to keep enchanting so that, at least, I could provide my alts with some enchantments, and do a bit of disenchanting…but really, when I think about it, I really wouldn’t do it all that often; seldom enough that it probably makes sense to buy them off the AH.
I was also ready to swap to alchemy for pretty much the same reason: to provide alts with some useful potions and elixirs. But the same issue arises: in reality, I’d probably make and send so few potions to my alts - and my alts would use so few potions (I’m all PVE and I don’t raid) - that it would ultimately make more sense to buy them from the AH.
And that line of reasoning is strengthened by the coming changes, where garrisons can have some form of crafting buildings. Maybe not the high-end stuff, but then again I don’t typically wear high-end stuff.
Now I’m thinking keeping mining and get herbalism. The only objection is that is what my main character has as well.
For those keeping score at home:
91 HH runs.
A gazillion or so Tricky Treats.
A little less than a gaillion or so masks.
Flying Brooms out the ying yang.
All the 90s have shiny new rings except the DK.
11 Sinister Squashlings; all deleted.
6 Horriffic Hoods; none for the DK.
2 Sinister Slicers; fortunately, one for the rogue.
And, for the 9th year in a row, ZERO Horseman’s Reins.
/raegquit
On a more serious note, WoD drops next week. Has there been any plan/discussion about organizing BDL to explore new content/instance/eventually (casually) raid? I pretty much solo’d Pandaland and I’d rather not do that again.
If I was given a free profession boost to 600, I would take Inscription as long as it included all available glyphs. If not, then Alchemy with Transmutation mastery.
As the “crown devolved to me by default” BDL guild leader, I will say “yes”. Except that my main computer is totally incapable of rendering Draenor (I was in the beta).
Yes, I desperately need a new computer. Except that, before I upgrade my computer, I need a reliable car. Priorities.
I pre-ordered yesterday and boosted a new draenei monk (this is on a different server than my other 90s with a new guild). The Blasted Lands pre-quests are a little frustrating without the full complement of monk abilities and talents, I can safely say.
I’m getting irritated with Baron Rivendare and his unwillingness to drop the mount, already…
I’ve done well over 100 Strat runs now. On the bright side, I did get the Queuing Spree achievement. I actually didn’t even realize that low-level content like Stratholm would even count towards my Scenario count.
I did the Day of the Dead achievement yesterday - actually a guildie and I kinda cheated. At the very least, the general spirit of the event was completely ignored. 
We donned our costumes, ducked into the Stockades instance there in Stormwind, removed armor for quick kills, and quickly ran through our 50 kills apiece. It was relatively painless, took about 20 minutes.
And my Glory of the Hero progress is coming along nicely. I only need 2 more achievements (Feel the Love and Experienced Drake Rider) and red protodrake is mine! XD
Thanks for the profession feedback. I ended up keeping Mining and swapping Enchanting for Engineering, just for the fun of it.
When I have the money to waste, I think I will boost my gnome rogue (Inscription), and then maybe give another character Jewelcrafting and Engineering for a boost, just so I can fill in those profs for the relevant guild achievement. I just can’t see actually leveling up those professions.