No World of Warcraft character is complete without professions! Along with their gold making potential, professions can provide powerful bonuses to your damage, healing, or survivability. This guide will go over the best professions for a Enhancement Shaman in Cataclysm PvE content.
One important thing to note is Mail Specialization, which necessitates all your armor slots be occupied by Mail pieces to grant you a 5% increase to Agility as an Enhancement Shaman. This is mandatory, so gone are the days of getting that occasional Leather or Cloth piece because of its desirable stat spread. Also of note is that Mail gear will no longer have Strength, but that’s okay, too, since Strength is only 1:1 to Attack Power and strictly inferior to Agility.
Best Professions
Engineering
- Synapse Springs give you 480 Agility for 10 seconds and can be used once per minute. The ability to cast this steroid cooldown during burn phases is what makes it so good compared to the other professions.
- Deadly Bio-Optic Killshades are pre-raid BiS for Enhancement Shamans, and you cannot overlook the huge benefit of having two Cogwheel Sockets. Because of the importance of Expertise and Hit breakpoints on Enhancement Shaman, this is an easy way to make big inroads to either breakpoint by socketing either Rigid Cogwheel or Precise Cogwheel.
- Nitro Boosts give you a much-needed mobility cooldown.
- Jeeves and other convenience items are great for farming and solo questing.
- High-Powered Bolt Gun interrupts the cast of your target and deals damage, and while it’s more useful in PVP, it’s an extra cooldown to use in emergency PVE situations as well.
Tailoring
- Swordguard Embroidery is a powerful cloak enchantment that can proc a 1000 Attack Power buff for 15 seconds and the main draw for choosing Tailoring over the other professions as your second profession. It really just slightly edges out the professions lower on this list because of its usefulness for the slot — it easily beats out the other cape enchants — and the fact that it has such a high proc rate that it’ll be available shortly after its 1-minute internal cooldown ends, allowing you the ability to time it for burn phases; that is, if you can.
Useful Professions
The following professions all offer around 80 stat points in Agility at the end of the day, with Jewelcrafting giving you one whole extra point of Agility. However, once epic-quality gem like Delicate Queen’s Garnet are added, Jewelcrafting becomes the least useful of the “useful professions,” and Blacksmithing becomes a contender with Tailoring for the second best profession.
Blacksmithing
- Socket Gloves and Socket Bracer allow you to use two extra gems for a total of 80 bonus Agility.
- (This bonus gets raised to 100 Agility later on when Delicate Queen’s Garnet is added.)
Inscription
- Swiftsteel Inscription grants 80 more Agility than Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal and saves you from having to farm Therazane reputation.
Alchemy
- Mixology provides 80 bonus Agility when you use a Flask of the Winds.
- Flask of Enhancement is a reusable flask item that you can use in easier content, like leveling, and PvP.
Enchanting
- Enchant Ring – Agility grants a total of 80 bonus Agility when used on both of your rings.
Leatherworking
- Draconic Embossment – Agility gives 80 more Agility than Enchant Bracer – Agility.
Jewelcrafting
- Delicate Chimera’s Eye grants 81 bonus Agility in total if you use 3 of them (which is the max you can have equipped) over the non-Jewelcrafter option.
- (This bonus gets reduced to 51 Agility later on when Delicate Queen’s Garnet is added.)
Sub-Par Professions
There’s no real good reason to go for the below professions unless you’re a true role-player.
Skinning
- Master of Anatomy gives a passive 80 Critical Strike Rating.
Herbalism
- Lifeblood is a 2-minute cooldown that increases Haste by 480 for 20 seconds and provides a bit of healing. Slightly better than Mining, but worse than Skinning.
Mining
- Toughness gives a passive 120 Stamina bonus. Useless.
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