What is everyone picks Tribal and amount of LW's specialized in this becomes flooded market...Maybe better to go with another specialization to be more in demand?
Isn't elemental resistance needed mainly for Sapphiron for Naxx (p4)?
Pretty sure there are better alternatives by then.
So hunters should use leather armor instead of mail?
I'm going DS LW with my elmental shaman just for the Green Dragonscale set. The mana bonuses look sweet. You can always make money by farming Devilsaur leather and other precious mats which the other two specializations need.
The main issue with Tribal, aside from potential market flooding due to everyone and their mothers picking it up, is the fact that the two biggest draws (The Devilsaur items) are a bit iffy to craft. Devilsaurs will most likely be relentlessly hunted due to the demand of both items, so odds are that you won't get much out of it unless you're connected to a major dedicated farming group (Note: This may not be the case on lower-pop servers). Besides that, the items are a tad hit-and-miss. Corehound Belt and Hide of the Wild are both excellent, Wolfshead Helm is excellent in its very, very specific niche, Warbear Woolies are pretty good, as are Corehound Boots for the instances where Fire Resistance is a big deal. Beyond that, everything is "meh" to flat-out bad. Dragonscale Leatherworking, on the other hand, is a bit safer to farm, as both Green and Black scales can be acquired from Sunken Temple and Blackrock Spire, respectively. Thankfully, Blue Dragonscales recipes are bad. Red scales are decent, between a solid healing chest for Shamans/Paladins and being required for an also-solid Chromatic Cloak, which, to be fair, is basically sidegraded by a DM cloak, which is incidentally the phase where it becomes available. Dreamscale Breastplate is solid for AQ40, but has the massive drawback of being skinned off of world bosses, which will make it potentially rough to get on higher-pop servers. Elemental Leatherworking can be a bit rough as far as mat competition goes, but it shouldn't get Devilsaur bad. Helm of Fire isn't bad for leveling leather wearers, and the Stormshroud set isn't too awful. Heck, the gloves are probably top-5 preraid for a decent number of classes. Definitely a lot of "decent" items, but nothing great.Tribal definitely wins in terms of raw power, but the choice may not be clear-cut, factoring in supply and demand. May be best to get a feel for what other people on your server are picking up and how much certain high-demand mobs are being farmed, and make a decision accordingly based on that.
In short: Tribal is one-trick pony crafting skill that gives set with 2% crit 2% hit 74 attack power and 21 stamina for physical attack dps. Meanwhile, Dragonscale can make you set with 2% crit (3% if you get also non-set hands) 1% hit 172 attack power 35 stamina (42 + 6 spirit with hands) and 65 fire resistance. So, with all this "tribal TRIBAL tRiBaL" hype, is 1% addional hit, replaceable from other sources (neck and waist from BRS, axe from Sunken Temple, and - if you are specifically hunter - +hit +ranged weapon skills hands and crossbow from BRS) worth addional 98 attack power and bulk sustain?IMHO - definitly not, at least for hunter, as with those items (or their alternatives, as there are plenty of options with +hit % from BRS and BRD, not even saying about +2% hit +1% crit leather head from Stratholme) you are at 8% hit +8 ranged weapon skill, which should give you effective hit cap easly (it's 9% for 300 skill and you will have 308), and I personally don't see much point in trading so much sustain and attack power just for +1% hit, which will be simply rendundant at this point. Also, as someone above noticed, since due to hype created by those guides everyone and their mothers and pets of their pets will go and pick Tribal, Devilsaur leather is hard to farm and Hide of the Wild is not comming until Dire Maul oppens, you will have very, very hard time to craft anything useful, yet alone make profit in Phase 1 as Tribal. Meanwhile, it is easy to farm Dragonscale (you can start Green as soon as level 42-45, as Greens around Sunken Temple are not elites and skin rates are pretty decent), and you should make decent profit, especially if you roll Horde (Green and Blue pieces seems to be Shaman-oriented, and Horde tends to have bigger Hunter population due to Troll and Orc racials - Black Dragonscale set may be especially useful for Troll Hunters, as they have bonus +5 Bow skill, and thus are even less dependant on +%hit gear, as they can get Bows to 313 just with BRS gloves). Considering all of this - Tribal is not so great after all for mail users.
The guid does not mention the most important elemental-leatherworker item. Living Shoulders! Was one of the few who was elemental-leatherworker and could make living shoulder which is BiS for some healing classes. Could buy mats for around 5gold and sell the shoulder for 30g - 40g. Have already a Epic mount thanks to that. And farming Mats for Devilsaurset was easy soloable as a rogue and got it for 20g total. So worked all out in the end for me.
I hit LW 300 in classic. but can't tell if I inadvertently started down a specialty yet? is there a way to know what specialty I am?
You don't accidentally get a specialty - each of them has a particular quest/questchain you have to fulfill. First, you must be 40 and LW 225. Go train Artisan LW: Alliance at Aerie Peak in Hinterlands, Horde at Camp Mojache in Feralas.Then, you go to the NPC for your desired specialization and faction and do the quest or quest chain they give you.Dragonscale: Alliance: Go to Peter Galan in Azshara (37, 65) Horde: Go to Thokaf Dragoneye in the Badlands (62,57)Elemental: Alliance: Sarah Tanner in Searing Gorge (63, 76) Horde: Brumn Winterhoof in Arathi Highlands (63, 76)Tribal: Alliance: Pratt McGrubben in Feralas (30, 42) Horde: Jangdor Swiftstrider in Feralas (74, 42) There is an excellent detailed Wowhead Guide on Training and Levelling Leatherworking here https://classic.wowhead.com/guides/leatherworking-classic-wow-1-300
Man the alliance got the short end of the stick for quest giver locations lol. Dragonscale Alliance- Azshara which is waay out of the way and high level for a lvl 40 spotHorde- Badlands which you'll be in anyway around that levelElemental Alliance- Searing Gorge which again is too high level for a 40 to be thereHorde- Arathi Highlands which is starts around lvl 35 and you've already got the fp without a doubtTribal Alliance & Horde both are out of the way a bit and a bit high for a level 40 but not as bad as the other 2 for alliance