BS or Eng?Follow

Ok, well killing time waiting for expansion by leveling my alts to 70. Starting with pala thats been dead at 64 since 4 months after BC release. I have mining up to 320ish, but i dont know if i should go BS or Eng with it. I plan to be all 3 specs of paladin, and will most likely take paladin to 80 first in Wotlk (rogue is getting somewhat old). I plan to Raid just as much as PvP. So what would better? BS or Eng? Thanks in advance for the help on decision making.

I agree with this. CURRENTLY (Pre-WotLK), having BOTH Engineering and BS maxed and having the plans/schematics for all Pally-related items would make a Paladin darn near invincible (Tankatronic Goggles, Boots of the Protector, Bracers of the Green Fortress, etc.) However, you would quickly run out of gold before you got all of these, so generally taking one + mining is preferred. I would recommend stockpiling mats and deciding once WotLK comes out, but if you want to do one or the other now before WotLK, I would probably recommend Engineering first because you can produce more salable items (adamantite shell machines for any gun users for example) and you really can't beat the Tankatronic Goggles. I am speaking from a Prot perspective, but there are nice BS and Eng items for Ret and Holy as well.

If you are a *********, level 1 profession to max and then max it again when WotLK comes out, get maximum useage out of it for yourself, and then switch to the other profession and powerlevel it to get maximum use out of it too. I am currently mining/BS (375/375) and plan on eventually dropping the BS to switch to Eng, but only after I have milked BS for most of what I can get out of it as a Pally. I hear that BS in WotLK can socket their own items, so if you went Eng first to make goggles for example, it MAY be possible to later socket them as a BS, but I would have to do more research on that statement to verify it.

Edited, Sep 23rd 2008 9:57am by jeromesimina

What if you made the goggles, equipped them, then dropped engineering and never took the goggles off? I know that when I respec my Shaman from Enhancement it does not automatically remove his off hand weapon, but when I take it off, I can't put it back on. Was thinking this may be the same kind of deal, but I've never tried it before.

Just so we're all on the same page:

http://wotlkwiki.info/index.php/Blacksmithing

According to this wiki (not official Blizzard sites, fwiw), BSmiths will gain the ability to socket different items at skill level 425 and 430. Most people probably won't be socketting anything on launch day, and they probably won't be socketting Tier 7 items for a while after that.

In my opinion, it looks like Blizzard is once again putting a lot more creative energy into Engineering:

http://wotlkwiki.info/index.php/Engineering

There's not much in there to benefit paladins, but I'm not yet convinced of any serious improvement for BS options. What's that one extra socket going to be worth to you? +24 Stamina? +6mp5? Actually, we can get some insight into that too-

http://wotlkwiki.info/index.php/Jewelcrafting

From the looks of that, you might be better off letting someone else socket your item and pop your own BoP cut gem into it.

Just a few thoughts, signifying nothing at this point, your mileage may vary....