i must say I read your blog with greatest interest – loving all the nice thoughts on resto druids.

I needed to comment on this fine outline of the crafting skills.
I refuse to believe that we have seen the full strength of any crafting skills yet – It simply cant be that there is no epic recipies dropping in raid instances along with this both JC and alc are missing their lvl80 epic trinkets which I believe will come with uldaar keep.
Besides that I think we will see the nether vortex equivalent in uldaar keep along with some recipies as well.
Keeping this in mind – maybe levelling those crafting skills arent that bad a deal

I was wondering if you maybe could do another blog on mana regen and the new correlation between spirit, int and mp5 as I see a lot of different opinions on the matter on various other forums.

yet again, thanks for a great blog

Oh my goodness Phae, I never even thought about the fact that I would be a *tree* in a lumberjack shirt. That’s just.. wrong!

(they’re still cute though)

Keevas last blog post..Brain dump on smart heals and why I hate them already

Enchanting will give you +19 spellpower to each ring, which is pretty nice and roughly equivalent to the extra benefit of leatherworking or jewelcrafting.

Alchemy is, in my mind, the star of this expansion. My flasks and elixirs have a greater effect on me than on others, and they have double the duration. 4 hour flasks are simply amazing. It’s expensive to level, but I will be so happy with my 4 hour flasks over a year and more of raiding. It’s the ultimate scaling benefit. The harder the content, the more I appreciate my extra-potent, extra-longlasting elixirs and flasks. Couple that with elixir mastery and you’re sitting pretty.

@Ghostboci: You’re correct that all of the items listed are BoE. I tried to make that clear. Some people really like crafting upgrades for themselves, though, and I don’t necessarily agree that it’s always going to be cheaper to buy them on the Auction House (though it certainly is the case sometimes).

@Ermengol: Ugh … yeah, Leatherworking has ALWAYS been far more difficult for me to skill up than Tailoring. For a while, I assumed that was because Phaelia isn’t a Skinner, but now I have a Warlock who is and it’s still no easier.

@Keeva: I really, really enjoyed your article on this very subject and wish I’d remembered it before now. I nodded my head at every reason for choosing Tailoring over Leatherworking you enumerated, but I happen to have both and am more or less committed to them.

P.S. Tree of Life in a Lumberjack Shirt = win

@Wynn: That’s a fairly nice benefit.

@Anadia: Because Blizzard doesn’t want to itemize properly for one spec of one class.

@Zusterke: The cheaper embroideries have made a difference for me. Ordinarily, I’d be a cheapskate and avoid enchanting any of the gear I expected to replace, but I’ve been sewing the cheaper spell threads onto every pair of pants I’ve worn!

@Minttunator: On the bright side, all the unnecessary spell crit and spell haste will make swapping to a Boomkin spec pretty darn viable. We’ll only need to keep a few items with +spell hit on hand and will be good to go! >.<

Anadia, Blizz has screwed up T7 Resto itemisation. For some strange reason all the items pack haste/crit, which, while nice, still aren’t healer stats, no matter which way you look at it.

Zusterke, I actually prefer the Tailor-crafted 2 items to T7 – the stats are VERY similar and I can spend my badges somewhere else (the badge belt, for example).

So, for raiding, the cloak is the only item I see in cooperation with mid level raid gear. The biggest gain, or so it seems, is the cheap embroideries. Being able to enchant your gear with top notch stuff for a small cost is indeed a welcome gift.

Compared to Leatherworking which gives epic legs and boots, I’d say Leatherworking is very recommendable for druid healers over tailoring. The legs may get their T7 replacement, once you hit a decent raiding schedule, but the boots are a keeper.
So in terms of raid value I would promote Leatherworking.