Professions Bonuses for Cataclysm Classic

All professions in Cataclysm give your character a boost in stats. Some of these bonuses are more useful than others, while some are better for specific classes. Use this list to see the benefits of each profession to help you decide which to choose.

While Archaeology is not a main profession, it has a few powerful items that are useful for early characters.

• Extinct Turtle Shell
• Ring of the Boy Emperor
• Scimitar of the Sirocco
• Staff of Ammunae
• Staff of Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan
• Tyrande's Favorite Doll
• Zin'rokh, Destroyer of Worlds

Alchemy gains a unique buff, Mixology. This improves your flask and elixir stats and duration. You will also get Flask of Enhancement, a flask with unlimited uses, but offers less stats than a normal flask.

• Mixology — Increases flask time to 2 hours and increases stats from flasks and elixirs.
• Flask of Enhancement — Has unlimited uses, can be used in arenas and rated battlegrounds.
• Lifebound Alchemist Stone — Stamina Trinket
• Quicksilver Alchemist Stone — Agility Trinket
• Vibrant Alchemist Stone — Intellect Trinket
• Volatile Alchemist Stone — Strength Trinket

Blacksmithing lets you to add an additional gem socket to your bracers and gloves, allowing you to use 2 more gems in your gear. These additional sockets are even better if using Epic quality gems.

• Socket Bracer
• Socket Gloves

If you take Enchanting, you can enchant your own rings in Cataclysm, but not others.

• Enchant Ring - Agility
• Enchant Ring - Intellect
• Enchant Ring - Greater Stamina
• Enchant Ring - Strength

Engineering has many unique enchants, gadgets, and gizmos that improve your character in more ways that just raw stats. Cataclysm adds new Cogwheel Gems that can only be placed in your Engineering specific helmet. Below you can find all of the items available for Engineering during Cataclysm.

• Lightweight Bio-Optic Killshades — Intellect Cloth Helmet
• Camouflage Bio-Optic Killshades — Intellect Leather Helmet
• Agile Bio-Optic Killshades — Agility Leather Helmet
• Energized Bio-Optic Killshades — Intellect Mail Helmet
• Deadly Bio-Optic Killshades — Agility Mail Helmet
• Specialized Bio-Optic Killshades — Intellect Plate Helmet
• Reinforced Bio-Optic Killshades — Strength Plate Helmet

These Cogwheel Gems can only be placed in the Engineering Helmets above.

• Fractured Cogwheel — Mastery Rating
• Quick Cogwheel — Haste Rating
• Smooth Cogwheel — Critical Strike Rating
• Rigid Cogwheel — Hit Rating
• Precise Cogwheel — Expertise Rating
• Subtle Cogwheel — Dodge Rating
• Flashing Cogwheel — Parry Rating
• Sparkling Cogwheel — Spirit
• Mystic Cogwheel — Resilience Rating

In Cataclysm, all Engineering Tinker Enchants can be used along-side regular enchants, no longer requiring you to choose one or the other.

• Cardboard Assassin — Summons a target dummy that taunts nearby enemies.
• Grounded Plasma Shield — Damage absorption on use.
• Invisibility Field— Temporary invisibility with high chance to break.
• Quickflip Deflection Plates — Temporary armor on use.
• Spinal Healing Injector — Gives you a bottomless health potion.
• Synapse Springs — 480 Main Stat on use for 10 seconds.
• Tazik Shocker — Deals damage to target from range.
• Z50 Mana Gulper — Gives you a bottomless mana potion.

Cataclysm gives Herbalism an on-use cooldown, giving this profession some benefit in combat.

• Lifeblood — Heals over time, increased by max health and spell power or attack power. Also increases Haste Rating by 480.

Inscription offers unique shoulder enchants that are better than the regular enchants players can get.

• Felfire Inscription — Intellect & Haste
• Inscription of the Earth Prince — Stamina & Dodge
• Lionsmane Inscription — Stength & Crit
• Swiftsteel Inscription — Agility & Mastery

Jewelcrafting grants you access to unique, Jewelcrafting-only gems. These gems are much more powerful than any others available; they are, however, limited to the use of 3 equipped at a time. Jewelcrafting also offers some powerful early-game trinkets that may be useful as you begin gearing up.

• Bold Chimera's Eye — Strength
• Brilliant Chimera's Eye — Intellect
• Delicate Chimera's Eye — Agility
• Flashing Chimera's Eye — Parry
• Precise Chimera's Eye — Expertise
• Fractured Chimera's Eye — Mastery
• Quick Chimera's Eye — Haste
• Smooth Chimera's Eye — Crit
• Subtle Chimera's Eye — Dodge
• Mystic Chimera's Eye — Resilience
• Solid Chimera's Eye — Stamina
• Sparkling Chimera's Eye — Spirit
• Rigid Chimera's Eye — Hit
• Stormy Chimera's Eye — Spell Penetration

Leatherworking offers the ability to craft some great end-game gear as well as powerful bracer enchants.

• Draconic Embossment - Agility — Agility
• Draconic Embossment - Intellect — Intellect
• Draconic Embossment - Stamina — Stamina
• Draconic Embossment - Strength — Strength

In addition to the Leatherworking specific enchants, you can also make very cheap leg enchants.

• Charscale Leg Reinforcements — Stamina & Agility
• Dragonbone Leg Reinforcements — Attack Power & Crit
• Drakehide Leg Reinforcements — Stamina & Dodge

Mining only offers a Stamina bonus, making it a bad choice for anyone besides tanks.

• Toughness — 120 Stamina

Skinning offers a Critical Strike Rating bonus, limiting its viability as other professions typically offer more variety.

• Master of Anatomy — 80 Critical Strike Rating

Tailoring offers the ability to craft some great end-game gear, as well as some powerful, unique cloak enchants. These cloak enchants have an amount of randomness to them as they are procs instead of passive stat increases.

• Darkglow Embroidery — 580 Spirit for 15 seconds.
• Lightweave Embroidery — 580 Intellect for 15 seconds.
• Swordguard Embroidery — 1,000 Attack Power for 15 seconds.