WotLK Leatherworking: Expectations

Blizzard announced a long time ago that they are spicing up professions a bit, with things like profession Dailies, more BoP enchants, and more passive enhancements. As a completionist, I'm so-so about the new pattern system:

"...we’re going to be easing off the [professions recipe] world drops, I’m not sure about getting rid of them entirely but moving on to other systems. One of the system we’re considering as well is – so you have profession dailies for all of your professions, and what those end up being I’m not sure, but then when you do that daily you get a token. Then on this vendor there’s maybe 20 recipes, and they cost maybe 25 tokens each. So you’ll start making decisions on how you want to spend those tokens and that will help differentiate you from everyone else just by your decisions rather than what you happened to have found or bought off the Auction House."

What differentiates me from everyone else is that I have all* the patterns for Leatherworking. It took a lot of time, research, and effort (not to mention gold....), and I feel like this system nullifies that.

What I like, however, is the upping of rare pattern drop rate in instances. I'm not talking about annoying BoE patterns that flood the auction house (looking right at you, Pattern: Swiftsteel Shoulders), but pain-in-the-ass to farm BoP patterns like Pattern: Shadow Armor Kit. There are four of these mobs in Setthek Halls! Four! Even worse is Pattern: Flame Armor Kit: Only two mobs exist in Arcatraz to drop it. I'll be happy if those type of pattern droprates are upped.

As for Leatherworking itself, of course the biggest issue I have is with the change to drums:

"Tinnitus: Leatherworking drums now give a two minute debuff that does not allow the party members to receive any further drum buffs."

Sure, they affect all nearby raid members, but why does one person with the drums get to determine what the rest of the raid gets? They did add spell power to attack power drums, so the casters won't cry foul. I like that, but not everyone wants power - some want haste, others want hit. And what with a two-minute downtime, just going "Hey, I'll switch it up next time" is just silly - you alternate Drums of Battle with Drums of Restoration only when in dire need... Indeed, this debuff belittles the use of all but "the best" drums - why bring three different types of drums when only one is going to be used?

My opinion: Change it so you can't have the same drum played back to back. I admit, the current drum rotation is OP. If you have four Leatherworkers in a group, that's a permanent 80 haste. So make it so it's not an essentially permanent haste buff: pop haste, then AP, then hit, then health/mana. This makes everyone happy, encourages a variety of different drums to be used, and doesn't make additional Leatherworkers feel unwanted.

I haven't seen any item patterns that I am really excited about, except for Fur-Lining, of course. The more of my gear I can enchant myself, the happier I am, though I know this doesn't help the Enchanting economy, they get Scrolls of Enchantment, so they can't be too bitter. Still not official word on better BoP leg armor kits for Leatherworkers, as opposed to the usual BoE leg armor to make for others. I really like this, since it provides variety among players stats, just as I support BoP scopes for Engineers.

Speaking of Engineers, I'm still disappointed that nothing exciting and BoE has been given to them yet. Blacksmiths get sockets, Jewelcrafters get the chance to "proc" perfect gems, Engineers get to make cool mounts for other people, while their only self-buff is... fun item enhancers? Even Tailors get their own mounts! Kinda lame, in my opinion...

* 97% of all Leatherworking patterns - close enough that I can call "all"