WoW Journal - 23-Mar-2005

I'm beginning to have doubts on my career as blacksmith. I'm trying to become a weaponsmith, and progress is slow. I finished one series of three quests last weekend, but that just opened another batch of three quests. And these quests need a total of 114 mithril bars, plus some other resources. And gathering mithril is getting harder and harder.

I usually mine iron and mithril in the Alterac Mountains, where they are guarded by level 35ish ogres. Ogres are nice to kill, as they don't have any nasty special attacks, and they don't run away to call their friends. And the density of potential ore spots in the Alterac Mountains is very high. But this week gathering metals there takes forever. Meanwhile lots of players, even from the slower-leveling Alliance side, have reached level 35. And whenever I arrive at a resource node, there is already some dwarf or night-elf mining it. If you have to share the nodes with lots of other players, you get a lot less ore per hour.

Another problem is that about two thirds of the nodes are iron, and I don't really need iron. I made a bunch of green iron weapons and put them in the auction house, but they don't sell, although I put buyouts just a fraction over the preset minimum bid price. There are now so many loot drop weapons around that are better and cheaper, that there is no profit to be made out of smithing.

I buy some truesilver gauntlets and breastplate from somebody who became armorsmith, as I won't get those recipes when I become weaponsmith. I talk to the guy to ask him if there are truesilver boots, bracers, or a belt. But he complains that he only got those two recipes for becoming armorsmith, and sales are slower than slow, even for the blue truesilver armor.

So I seem to have a profession in which a) I can make very few items for myself, and which b) isn't very profitable any more, after the server reached a certain age and saturation with loot drops. The only use right now is making weapons for the lower level guild members. I should have taken Alchemy again, where I have a constant use of potions and have problems getting them. But I already did take Alchemy with my US server druid, and wanted to try something new. Now I'm reluctant to switch, as I already spent a fortune on smithing recipes and quests. I think I'll grit my teeth and stick to it. Maybe the rare and epic drop recipes at the highest level are worth it. And I've read of a smithing dungeon, where you need a group just to mine and reach a special forge at the end, which sounds interesting.
- posted by Tobold @ 10:28 AM Permanent Link