Cataclysm Guide: Professions

From Twilight Wiki

General Profession Changes

With Cataclysm the professions in the game have changed some. For starters, the leveling cap has now been raised to 520 for all professions.

The Spellbook has been updated to show professions a lot more clearly in its own separate section instead of mixed in with your class and racial abilities.

Blizzard has removed the profession specialization system from Leatherworking, Tailoring and Blacksmithing. As a result, all plans previously limited to specific specializations can now be learned by anyone.

Creating some high end items can now yield more than 1 skill point depending on the difficulty of the item.

Cooking & Fishing

Cooking in Cataclysm will follow the same setup that it did in WotLK. Players will need to complete daily quests for tokens to exchange for new recipes. In addition to receiving a token for doing the dailys, you will also receive a skill point making leveling cooking much easier.

As with cooking, fishing will also have its own set of dailys as well. Completing those quests will also result in a skill point per turn-in providing an alternative albeit slower way of skilling fishing other than spending hours actually doing the fishing.

Archaeology

Archaeology is a new secondary skill being introduced in Cataclysm. This means it can be trained along side Cooking, Fishing and First Aid without the need for having to drop any of your primary professions for it.

At its core, Archaeology was designed to be something to pass the time as a way to explore the world by being sent around the globe to find various artifacts and clues. As you collect fragments of different artifacts they get entered into your Archaeology Journal so you dont need to worry about bag space issues.

Fragments are spread all around Azeroth and Outland and depending on the ancestral race you are currently studying, it depends on where different dig sites will spawn and in what area of the world.

This profession is meant to be a fun way to expand the game's lore some as well as provide some unique rewards.

How It Works

There are 3 main aspects to Archaeology in Cataclysm.

Sites

Once you train in Archaeology, you will see "Dig Sites" on your world map. There are always 4 Dig Sites per continent. You are given a new ability when you train for this skill called Survey. This will allow you to visit these Dig Sites and try to uncover fragments to study. You can Survey a Dig Site a maximum of 3 times before it despawns and a new random site spawns.

Dig Sites are player specific so there is no competition for 1 particular site. The Dig Site locations are based both on the race the artifact that you are trying to assemble belongs to as well as your character's level. For instance, you wouldn't be sent to Northrend for a Dig Site on a level 40 character.

Fragments

Using the Survey ability at a Dig Site will spawn a Survey Tool. The tool has a light on it which changes color depending on how close or far you are to a fragment. The telescope will point in the direction of the fragment and the light will display either red, yellow or green. (Shown Right)

The lootable item is unique to YOU, which means even if another player is at the same dig site, their digging wont use up your 3 tries and if you find your fragment, they cant ninja it from under you.

Research

When you find a fragment, you will be able to start a Research Project with it. As you collect fragments you will come closer to solving the artifact mystery. There is a limitation of only 1 Research Project for each race at a time. This means that you could technically be searching for fragment clues for both a Night Elf artifact and a Dwarven one at the same time.

As you loot fragments, you will increase the progress bar of that Research Project till eventually you can solve it. If you loot more fragments than needed to complete the progress bar, they will automatically be added to the next Research Project for that race.

What you Research is completely random and it can range from vendor trash, to BoE items, craftables, pets, etc. Weapons and Armor found from Artifacts are Bind to Account (BoA) but not do not scale like heirlooms. The more rare and valuable an Artifact is, the more fragments required to solve it.