Being a Alchemist in WotLK

If you've done Alchemy up to 350+ one does not have to tell you how to be a Alchemist. Anyway all the new recipes you can learn from the new trainers in the starter areas and later in Dalaran. If your a Herbalist as well those are your 4 most valuable herbs that you need to constantly flower pick when seen or spotted for your self to do constant Alchemy Research as a Alchemist to discover new Potions/Elixirs/Flasks under the new discovery system. Can be valuable to sell if your a Herbalist and not a Alchemist as well.

So if your a smart Alchemist you should stock up on those herbs if anything and on every cooldown do Alchemy Research to discover something new with the side effect of some new potions created. The faster you do that on every cooldown the faster you will have all the new to play with Potions/Elixirs/Flasks. That also means the earlier you can use or sell some your new brews in the new economy and make some money. Helps to be good at making money as well in skills selling your stuff.

If your a Alchemist with good economic skills and a have mining or a pocket miner. You can do well burning up that Transmute on every cooldown (4 days) to make lots of Titanium. It will be heavily used in lots of things especially in making Titansteel and other valuables. Of course one does need to constantly pay attention to your economy Supply, Demand and Over Supply & Demand can help or hurt your wallet. Be smart.

Mining
Cobalt will be found everywhere just about. Saronite can be found in Scholazar Basin (lots) and the last 2 zones. Exploring caves are always nice (tip).

Inscription and Leveling the New Profession

Banana Shoulders writes a great blog and has a great guide list for leveling the new Profession of Inscription for WotLK which arrives as of patch 3.0 when it goes live. It looks to be a fun profession or for a Alt as well. So here is the links so you can head over there and get cracking for a head start in preparation.

Inscription Guide Leveling

Inscription Leveling Guide V1.2

If your a Herbalist like me get cracking picking flowers and making profit because Inscription will not be cheap. Glyphs are also not cheap either in Beta either. Hell Alchemy may get even more expensive if anything or profitable.

Herbalism - Farming Shadowmoon Valley

I'm a Alchemist and Herbalist. In my down time you barely see me waiting around in Orgrimmar or Shattrath City. In that time I go farming often for herbs to use for Alchemy or my character needs. But in Shadowmoon Valley Nightmare Vine is the herb of the zone and its really nice to fly around doing donuts in the whole area looking for this herb as well as Felweed/Motes of Life. Nightmare Seed is gathered from picking Nightmare Vine. You can also be poisoned when picking this herb!

I have Cartographer and that really helps to spot herbs nodes you have farmed. When you herb pick Nightmare Vine you have a chance and its not a big one of getting Nightmare Seed with it. Nightmare Seed is really nice to get as its really nice to use for Tanking. Its also not a Soulbound item and if you ever see them on AH they also cost a bit. I did donuts around Shadowmoon Valley for 2 hours farming herbs I need. Most I got was 50 Nightmare Vines and 5 seeds for the effort. That's the most seeds I've ever collected at one time. However as a Tank myself the 2000 extra health for 30 sec is a whopper when your tanking a hard fight and need that extra edge. Nightmare Seed can work wonders if you can get your hands on it with Herbalism or on AH with the low drop rate.

Interesting Azeroth Quest - Morrowgrain Research

Profession: All, Best for Herbalism.

Have been meaning to add this to the site as a interesting and really nice quest to do as I had found it interesting when i did it back questing in Un'Goro and I'm still doing it. Herbalism (375) is one of my Professions. I really love this quest and one only a Herbalist can love even more.

Quest: Morrowgrain Research

Its available to pick up at lvl 47 or beyond. As a Blood Elf I remember picking up the quest from one of the Undead men walking around the main platform deck in Undercity. I can't remember the NPC name in UC though...Sorry. However he tells you to report to the Arch Druid in Thunder Bluff. Reporting to the Arch Druid he then ask for your help in doing some research on some soil samples in Un'Goro. This is one of the quests that actually start the Un'Goro questlines.

Anyway long story short its a nice quest to do anyone can do, but if your a Herbalist you get more out of it than anyone else. You need to get 10 Morrowgrain Herbs from growing seeds reveived in a pouch in Un'Goro soil samples you can collect all over Un'Goro or collect it as drops from Un'Goro mobs. You grow the herbs in the soil, trun in the 10 Morrowgrain in TB for +75 Reps to Bashana Runetotem on Elder Rise and you also get a bunch of free buff pots and a few unusual ones sometimes. The herbs you grow will be random ones to get the 10 Morrowgrain Herbs you grow them wherever your at you need to turn in for reps with Cenarion Circle.

You grow random valuable herbs while trying to get the Morrowgrain herbs you need. Herbalist get a increase chance to grow the Morrowgrain Herbs due to skill. Higher level of your Herbalism skill you get a increase chance to grow any higher level herbs in Azeroth. Herbs like: Sungrass, Gromsblood, Ghost Mushroom, Mountain Silversage, Dreamfoil all herbs I have grown lots of and many lower level one just from this. When you need more seeds head back to TB and buy more. I have grown over a full 20 stack of Ghost Mushroom & Gromsblood and many other herbs, that's over 30g those 2 alone on my server realm. Two very rare and dam valuable herbs. If your not a herbalist you don't know how hard that is to get those two alone.

New Patch 2.1 Changes Comes Today.

With the new Patch going live today for Patch 2.1 the list of changes is pretty long to say the least. I make a copy of the entire list to look at when i can but i made some snippet of the changes for both the changes to Paladin's class and to the Alchemy & Herbalism Profession. As well as a few things that may impact those two professions both best i can see in the long list of changes i could gather so far. List below is a direct extraction of the changes posted in the Patch downloaded notes. Will take a while to get use to all the changes good or bad and to the Paladins nerf. Alchemy had some nice new changes though.

Paladins

• Ardent Defender (Protection) now reduces damage taken by 6-30% when below 35% health.

• Avenger's Shield no longer has a minimum range. It may be used on any target within 30 yards.

• Avenger's Shield: The damage portion of this ability will now be applied even if the victim is immune to snare.

• Blessing of Light: Paladins can now cast this as intended when they have Greater Blessing of Light on themselves.

• Consecration: Corrected a tooltip typo. Low ranks of this ability being cast by high-level players are now being properly penalized.

• Divine Shield: This ability no longer removes or prevents the Weakened Soul debuff.

• Eye for an Eye: Some spells did not trigger Eye for an Eye correctly. That has been fixed.

• Fixed some data errors that caused Seal of Command and Seal of Blood to generate more threat than intended.

• Forbearance: It is no longer possible to use a macro to gain the benefit of Avenging Wrath and Divine Shield at the same time.

• Forbearance: If this debuff would prevent you from casting a spell on a given target, the button for that ability is now grayed out.

• Greater Blessing of Kings: The cost for this blessing is now twice the cost of Blessing of Kings, instead of a fixed cost of 150.

• Greater Blessing of Sanctuary 2: The range on this spell was incorrectly set to 30 yards. It has been changed to 40 yards.

• Greater Blessing of Wisdom 3: The range on this spell was incorrectly set to 30 yards. It has been changed to 40 yards.

• Hammer of Wrath: Rank 4, damage increased.

• Illumination: This talent now only gives 60% of the mana cost of the critical heal. It also now returns the correct amount of mana when used with ranks 4 and 5 of Holy Shock.

• Improved Concentration Aura (Protection Talent) no longer increases resistance to Interrupt/Silence mechanics, but instead reduces the duration of Interrupt/Silence mechanics by 10/20/30%.

• Improved Sanctity Aura now increases all damage caused by affected targets by 1/2% and no longer increases healing done to affected targets.

• Improved Seal of Righteousness: The percentage increase in damage from this talent is now applied after all bonuses from items and effects which increase your spell damage.

• New Protection Talent added: Improved Holy Shield, 2 ranks: Increases damage caused by Holy Shield by 10/20% and increases the number of charges of Holy Shield by 2/4.

• One-Handed Weapon Specialization(Protection): Now increases all damage caused by the paladin by 1-5% while a one-handed weapon is equipped.

• Seal of Blood: This seal will no longer cause additional chances for weapon procs to trigger.

• Seal of Righteousness: This seal will no longer cause additional chances for weapon procs to trigger.

• Seal of the Crusader: The rank 7 tooltip has been fixed to read the same as other ranks of this spell.

• Spiritual Attunement: First-aid generated healing will no longer trigger this ability. However, Lifebloom, Earth Shield, and Improved Leader of the Pack will now trigger it correctly. The tooltip has been adjusted to indicate it only works on healing from spells. It will also now work correctly when you are mounted or sitting.

• Spiritual Attunement: Mana is no longer healed if the paladin is at full health.

• Stoicism (Protection) should now properly affect all magic effects cast by the Paladin and no longer applies double its intended benefit to Blessing of Might and Blessing of Wisdom.

• Vengeance (Retribution) now increases Holy and Physical damage by 1/2/3/4/5% for 15 seconds following a critical hit, but the effect now stacks up to 3 times.

• Vindicator Aesom at Blood Watch will now correctly train a full range of paladin spells.

Professions Changes.

Alchemy

• The chance of a discovery occurring while making potions has been substantially increased.

• Elixirs now stack in two categories, Battle (Offensive) and Guardian (Defensive) Elixirs. You can only have one of each type of Elixir up at a time. As a result Elixirs now stack with class abilities such as Arcane Intellect.

• Elixirs now stack to 20.

• Four new defensive elixirs have been added. Two are on trainers, one is in Halaa and one is in Cenarion Expedition.

• Flask of Petrification can no longer be turned off during its duration, but it now will clear all threat from all monsters for the duration of the effect. Though monsters may reacquire you after the effect ends.

• Cooldown time on Earthstorm and Skyfire Diamond transmutes has been reduced to 1 day.

• Invulnerability potions now stop the first 120 damage per hit for 8 seconds, rather than making the imbiber physically immune.

• The major protection potions made by Alchemy now require more Mana Thistle and vials, but create 5 potions instead of just one.

• Fel Strength elixirs now work correctly with elixir mastery.

• Elemental Absorption potions now have a 2 minute duration rather than the 60 min duration they used to have.

• Alchemy transmute of Heart of Fire to Elemental Fire changed to 15 minute cooldown.

• Reagent costs and potency of all flasks has been reduced.

• The cost of Imbued Vials has been reduced.

• The chance to find a Fel Lotus while picking an herb has been increased.

• Juju Chill and Juju Ember are now considered Guardian Elixirs and do not stack with other resistance buffs.

• Juju Flurry is now considered a Battle Elixir and has been converted from haste to haste rating.

• Ground Scorpok Assay, Juju Might, Juju Power, Lung Juice Cocktail, and R.O.I.D.S are now considered Battle Elixirs.

• Crystal Force, Crystal Ward,Gizzard Gum, Infallible Mind,Juju Escape, Juju Guile, Sheen of Zanza and Swiftness of Zanza are all now considered Guardian Elixirs.

• Sheen of Zanza is now considered a Guardian Elixir. Stamina and Spirit bonuses have been reduced to 25.

• Elixir of Fortitude now correctly displays its name in its buff tooltip.

• The Alchemist's Stone bonus now works on potions that restore both health and mana.

• Super Mana Potions now require 2 Dreaming Glory instead of 2 Netherbloom to create.

• Super Healing Potions now require 2 Netherbloom instead of 2 Dreaming Glory to create.

• Reduced the number of Stonescale Oil required to make Greater Stoneshield Potions.

• Reduced the reagents required to make Ironshield Potions.

• New cauldron recipes can now be discovered when making most major protection potions. Cauldrons can provide an entire raid with a major protection potion.

Fishing

• The fishing timer has been reduced from 30 to 20 seconds and it now takes less time to fish.--> You now catch fish faster.

• The fishing timer can no longer run through its duration without a fish biting.

• Fishing has been removed from Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley.

• Fixed a bug where you could catch 2 fish at once in some zones. (Hey, i liked this bug)
  

• You can now fish in Underbog.

Herbalism

• The Dreaming Glory buff now correctly works in combat.

• Netherbloom no longer causes negative effects, although the positive effects happen less frequently. Additionally, the effects will not replace one another.

• Nightmare Vine has a reduced chance to poison the herbalist.

• Underbog Colossus have an increased number of herbs on them when harvested by an herbalist.

Additional Profession Changes

• You can now unspecialize in tailoring and alchemy, and then select a new specialization. This is a repeatable choice, but costs gold each time.

Others

• Profession recipes that had 24 hour or longer cooldowns, have had their cooldowns reduced by 1 hour.

• Monsters will now attack players who are mining mineral nodes near to them, even if they didn't notice them previously.

• The location of many of the Outland mineral nodes have been adjusted both to put them in locations that are more traveled and to make them more likely to be near creatures.

• Essences (Earth, Fire, Air, Water, Living) have had their drop rates significantly increased. Also Outland creatures that dropped motes will now have a chance of dropping essences as well.

Once heck of a lot of changes to get used to. Paladins issues aside Alchemy has some nice changes. Including been able to get random discovery on learning a new recipe making high level pots. Well better remove all those herbs i have just sitting in my mail box and get alchemy to 375 asap, 13 skill points and I'm there. I guess i can not drop my 1 unused talent point in the new Holy Shield. Will have to see how this is gonna change my spec all together.