Despite the lack of variety that professions once gave, they still still make a difference to your game. Their bonuses come in the form of gear enhancements for the crafting professions, and passive bonuses/skills for the gathering professions. For anyone considering levelling a rogue, here’s a quick breakdown of the available professions and the bonuses they give in a PVP environment.

Crafting Professions

* Stacks with other enchants

Gathering Professions

None of the professions are terrible (you might want to avoid Mining) but it’s worth considering Engineering. The glove enchant comes at the cost of 44ap, but hits reasonably hard and is great for keeping enemy players in combat if they’re trying to escape (as well as hitting through Hand of Protection. Hypervision Goggles are worth considering as well if you’re struggling vs other rogue teams (more on that here).

If you’re just after raw stats, Jewel Crafting still comes out on top even though it lost a lot of its initial appeal (BoP prismatic gems no longer count as blue/red/yellow). The proc from the Tailoring ‘enchant’ is worth a look as well (think of it as another Berserking proc), but it does mean losing Shadow Armor.

Because we’re sitting on our 2v2 rating for pts and weapons, we’ve started messing around in 3v3 with an arms warrior who’s just getting into arenas (hateful/pve gear). Using the goggles gave such an advantage against any stealthed team that it did begin to genuinely feel like I was exploiting/cheating. In the Ring of Valor, I was able to sap their rogue before the lifts had reached the top and in several games their rogue was unable to do any dps before dying. The only times we didn’t get the opener on the opposition rogue was when I had accidentally replaced them by playing around with the ingame equipment manager.

Even though the teams we were beating weren’t amazingly good (1900rated max) all of us feel that the goggles gave a huge boost to our chances of winning, and as we get better geared, learn how to work in a team and generally get to grips with this new concept of ‘3v3′, we think the goggles will still give us one hell of an advantage over the opposition.

As far as an item stats comparison goes, compared to the Deadly Gladiator’s Leather Helm the Hypervision Goggles suck terribly. -84 agility, -115 stam, -51 crit, -66 resilience, -meta socket, -red socket, -10 energy (broken set bonus for me). However, they give an almost guaranteed opener on any rogue who isn’t wearing them. It’s hard to put a value on that, I don’t know what stats my helm would need to give before I’d consider the Hyper-vision Goggles as inferior for arenas.

Is it cheap/lame though? It certainly feels overpowered in 3v3 and probably 5v5. For 2v2 I’ll stick to a Gladiator’s Helm – rogue teams aren’t too much of a problem for us (it’s the FotMs that kill us) so the stat nerf from using the goggles would not be much fun.

Hopefully our warrior will gear up qucikly and we’ll all learn enough about 3v3s to make me put the goggles back in the bank for a rainy day. We’ll see.

The Hypervision Goggles require engineering and are taught by a trainer in Shadowmoon Valley

vs vs vs

Fingers crossed Frag Belt will be usable in arenas, although rumours are indicating it won’t be :/

• The Spynocular belt attachment has been changed to a Frag Belt. The Frag Belt periodically produces a Cobalt Frag Bomb that can be used from the belt every 10 minutes (never runs out!).

No indication of whether or not it’s usable in arenas, while the M.A.D. specifically states it isn’t. Bombs can’t be used as such, but could this be different perhaps? Maybe this will be a 10min CD aoe stun for engineers? Here’s hoping!

Arena Changes

• Increased benefits from Hyperspeed Accelerators, Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket and Reticulated Armor Webbing glove modifications.

Battleground/World PVP Changes

• Added a new Mind Amplification Dish attachment for helmets, allowing engineers to control other humanoid targets. Some restrictions apply: does not work in Arenas, dish sometimes reverses targets, unable to stack with other stat-improving head enchantments and makes your helmet look… stylish?
• The Cobalt Frag Bomb now incapacitates enemies within a 3-yard radius. A short cast time was added, but they are usable while moving. This change applies to any Cobalt Frag Bombs already created. The existing recipe now makes 3 at a time.
• Increased siege damage caused by Saronite Bombs and the Global Thermal Sapper Charge.
• Nitro Boosts: Now have a 5-second duration.
• Potion Injectors now increase the amount gained by 25% when used by engineers. Quantity produced by recipes for Runic Healing and Mana Injectors has been increased.
• Increased the passive bonuses provided by Springy Arachnoweave, Flexweave Underlay and Nitro Boosts.
• Added a schematic for a Goblin Welding Beam that can heal friendly mechanical or vehicle units.

Misc Changes

• Box of Bombs no longer requires an anvil.
• Engineers can now learn to create a portable Wormhole Generator for Northrend. The Wormhole allows them to travel to different locations in Northrend, although the locations are sometimes in dangerous places.
• Mote Extractor now has innate tracking for gas clouds while it is in your inventory. Tracking of gas clouds has been removed from goggles.
• A new repair bot has been added, and his name is Jeeves. He is the ultimate gentleman robot butler, able to perform all the mundane tasks of repairing, selling and buying junk for your entire raid. Additionally, he can open bank boxes for skilled engineers (350+). Jeeves is not destroyed when used, but due to pressing engagements, can only be summoned once an hour. The schematic for this handsome robot was said to be hidden within the parts of another robot – hoping to be found by an engineer one day.
• Significantly reduced the cooldown on MOLL-E.
• A Steam-Powered Auctioneer has been added to the Dalaran Like Clockwork engineering shop, allowing access to one’s faction Auction House. The Steam-Powered Auctioneer was programmed with a superiority chip, and will only interact with Grand Master engineers.
• Transporter devices are no longer classified as trinkets and can be used directly from your inventory.
• The Ultrasafe Bullet Machine and Saronite Arrow Maker schematics have been simplified to create a full stack of the appropriate ammunition. No longer requires an anvil. Reduced the materials required to make this ammunition.

Original blue post here

More information (in a fun format) over at www.ofgnomesandrogues.com.