What Exactly Is the Point of Professions Now for Casuals?

Since the last update, I have finished getting that Gnome Death Knight to max level and also a Night Elf Druid.  I've also started working on my Dwarf Paladin.  I was initially going to try to level the Paladin as a Healer in the Timewalking dungeons, but I gave up trying to figure out how to get a decent weapon, so we're going to go the normal Ret path.  I'm unsure if Paladins are decent healers this expansion anyway, so it is probably a better choice.  That makes 19 done, with only two left to go of all the characters I got to max level in Dragonflight.  Then, the real slog begins.

One of the questions that keeps popping into my head as I do my regular monthly Darkmoon Faire profession quests for the free levels is that I'm not sure there's a point to professions for the casual player anymore.  I used to routinely get every profession to max level during every expansion, just because there was usually some value in it, and it was generally fun.  Looking back, I think the last time I did it was in Battle for Azeroth, and looking back over my blog posts from back then, I was unsure of the point even then.

In theory, the new system with crafting orders and things like that should make the game feel more interesting and engaging, but those never seem to be all that worthwhile to complete.  If I did want to max them all out, that doesn't seem to be the easiest path to go, but I'm not sure what that will get me if I do.  There were always interesting gadgets and recipes that were worth having before, but now it seems like gear is easier to get other ways, and cosmetics and things like that are available everywhere.  There is so much unique stuff available in the game, nothing really feels unique anymore.  When you have 550 or so mounts, what's the point of one more.

I have seriously considered switching all of my characters to gathering professions just for the extra income that would generate. Still, my concern is mainly that I have recipes and things from back in the day that I would lose if I did that, which I'm not sure I'm willing to give up - the old engineering helicopter mounts, for example.

Also, I don't have any big use for the extra income anyway, so I will likely continue to contemplate and leave things as they are.  

In terms of continued plans, once the Paladin is done, my Human Shadow Priest is the last character on my alliance server that's sitting at level 70.  I have a Druid at level 60 that I think was a boost from some purchased expansion, and then I'll be into a big slug of level 50's.  I'll continue working through this Alliance Server, then switch to my 2nd Horde server.

Cheers,

Joar

All Classes Done

Since the last update, I managed to finish up the monk, warrior, and shadow priest.  With the monk, I didn't do timewalking dungeons at all but instead focused on world quests and doing all the delves in each zone and the story quests.  Leveling time ended up much longer than the regular approach of mixing in timewalking dungeons, clocking in at around 6 hours.

Then, on the warrior, I got lucky with a good group that wanted to keep chain running TW dungeons with big pulls, and ended up doing the whole 70-80 process in just 2 1/2 hours.  

I continued a heavy emphasis on timewalking dungeons with the shadow priest but didn't get as lucky with queues and groups, so it ended up being more like 3 1/2 hours.

I've now started on my Gnome Death Knight, who I'm leveling as unholy, just because I haven't done that in a while.  So far, it's been super fun in dungeons!

All of that has brought me up to 17 total max-level characters with only four to go before I finish the ones that I got to max level in Dragonflight.  After that, I'm coming up to a huge batch of level 50 characters, and it remains to be seen how long those are going to take.

In Guild Wars 2, I've continued working through the Icebrood Saga on my Machinist.  I remember very little of this from when I ran through it the first time, so I am enjoying it quite a bit.  

I'm also coming up on a bunch of travel for the next few months for swim meets and vacations, so my play time may be more limited than usual, at least for the next few months.  The pace of blog updates may suffer as well.

Cheers,

Joar