It’s worth noting, every crafted piece of gear no longer requires raid materials to make, however you will need to level up a ‘bench’ to upgrade your gear that requires some raid materials. Once you upgrade this, however, you are done completely on that character and never need the materials. Crafted gear is especially important because you can reroll them quite easily to obtain ideal stats + they all come with a socket (aside from Engineering, which is a 445 Azerite Helm).

Leatherworking: You can create both Legs and Boots as the crafted gear, both of which have a socket on them and are very cheap to make aside from the new leather.

Jewelcrafting: Similar to before, you get a new ring to make that has a socket on it. JC is very expensive though to unlock the 440 ring, so if you don’t want to throw a bunch of gold away into one piece of gear I’d consider something else, though this is arguably the best crafted piece to make.

Alchemy: Same as before, you can get a pretty good Trinket fairly easily and it comes with a socket. It’s reliable, so it’s a safe profession to go with.

Engineering: This is a great helm for “Battle Shaman” as it has IP on it, however the healing traits aren’t anything to get excited about (Turn of the Tide, and generic Engineering Traits).

Further reading