Breakfast Topic: Best and Worst Profession
by David Nelson 
Nov 22nd 2006 at 8:00AM
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I must admit, I don't dabble a lot in the professions. In fact, I have only leveled mining, herbalism, alchemy and tailoring to 300. Some of my alts are low level leatherworkers or enchanters, but I have never really given the other professions, especially the crafting ones, a chance.Perhaps that is because of my bad experience with tailoring. I picked up tailoring to make my priest the Truefaith Vestments after I lucked into the pattern on a Live Strat run. I made some OK money selling bags, then the bag market fell through the floor on my server. To make matters worse, a lot of the best tailoring items were (at the time) bind on pickup. Ouch. That made it awfully hard to raise money.
Now I have had the opposite experience with herbalism and its little brother, alchemy. I have always been able to make good money, and what I create is generally very useful for myself and my guildies. Flowers for the win.
What about you guys? Any favorite profession? Any profession you pretend doesn't exist?
Filed under: Herbalism, Mining, Alchemy, Tailoring, Breakfast topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
NewDark Nov 22nd 2006 5:33PM
I remember being 300 engineer. Do you want to ever have money for yourself again? Dont pick engy. If you want to make items useful to mor than yourself? Dont pick engy. If you dont want to be spending tons of gold on schematics few people want? Dont pick engy.
ENGINEER SUCKS!
Hochi Nov 22nd 2006 8:26AM
I think the combination of herbalism and mining is definitely the most profitable in wow ;)
Dahlaine Nov 22nd 2006 8:32AM
Engineering has always been the red-headed step child profession in my opinion. Very few of the things you can make are sellable at all, and those few things that may actually sell (like the resistence trinkets) can only be used by other engineers so the market is small and profits are slim. The few epic items we can make have only a marginal level of usage (like Core Rifles hardly sell on horde with no +gun racial) and we don't really have anything that other professions need to do their stuff.
Oh, and people who use the stuff for pvp (our one shining advantage) are looked down upon and generally chided for "being cheap".
Basically, we are good for:
-good arrows/bullets
-scopes
-resurrection trinket
However, there look to be some rather neat additions in Burning Crusade like the Mote collector, the Ghostbuster goggles, and of course the rocket launcher.
Undying Nov 22nd 2006 8:45AM
Mining + Herb = Most profitable but hard since they share the radar.
Mining or Herb + Skinning = Very profitable and you don't have to worry about the radar.
Alchemy, Leatherworking and Blacksmithing can be profitable at higher level, mostly if you don't farm anymore and just sit at Ogrimmar or Ironforge waiting for Raid or BG. It's much better to match with a gathering profession if you are still levelling, but that means instead of selling the mats you gather, you will use it to make some cheap vendor crap... lot less profitable than only 2 gathering profession.
I find Tailoring useful for a cloth Wearer because of its BoP recipes. Making bags can be profitable at higher level or on new servers, but personally I find it to be just as much profitable as selling the cloth you loot at AH.
Enchanting and Engineering are very expensive to level up. Again, they can make some good easy money at higher level, but personally it's not close to things you could farm with Skinning, Mining or Herb.
I experimented with most profession (except Engineering) and with all my new character I take 2 gathering profession. When you get at the maximum level and spend you day in IF, then it's time to switch to a crafting profession.
Oh, also, of you have a crafting profession with your main, don't ever take that with an alt... Just send your mats to your main so he can craft it for you.
Shalkis Nov 22nd 2006 8:50AM
I have to agree that Engineering has very limited value as a crafting profession. Unless you are a nonraiding hunter, the rifles aren't worth crafting. 95% of the crafting I do nowadays is repairbots. The remaining 5% is grenades.
Krey Nov 22nd 2006 9:04AM
I always liked the proffesions, except engieneering because way too much can only be used by eningneers. Alchemy, Herb is very usefull and I made some good money with that too.
Tailoring, enchanting I also liked alot. Leveling the enchanting by disenchanting what I made by tailoring. And sometime selling the shards for money. And also twinking my twink by enchanting the gear.
Blacksmithing, mining is also fun, but it costs more than it makes so far, and it's only at lower levels that you actually use the gear u make. When you get to 300 I might make something but the mats for BS looks crazy.. Looking forward to BC when u can upgrade stuff.
Tried the gathering only too, and that makes money but then I miss the leveling of the proffesions..
gorkish@gurubashi Nov 22nd 2006 11:28AM
Yes, Engineering is a kind of lock-in solo profession. It's very expensive and you can't sell anything, but it's offset by its complete awesomeness.
Water breathing, stealth, mind control, slow fall, damage shield, porting, aoe etc... You get a bit of all of it with engineering though the abilities are not as good as the 'real deal' from each class. Though few things in the whole game are more fun than running Gnomeregan with a Gnomish Universal Remote or acquiring the Gnomish Death Ray at lv 20 (Gnome +15 bonus, 240 Eng.)
I have an entire 16 slot bag dedicated to hauling around my eng. gear and yes I take it everywhere.. Never know when it's going to be useful!
Arbuz Chokaro Nov 22nd 2006 9:46AM
Engineering+Mining FTW.
All you raiding guys that pay 11g for a piece of fused wiring make it all worth while.
20 Target Dummies and a spare 20 minutes gives me around 44g, where as the separate components give about 20. I'm sure I could be making more money off of other professions, but I still like engineering because its so much fun.
Wartoad Nov 22nd 2006 9:46AM
Mining for me has always been a steady source of income. I plan of dropping engineering come BC to give jewelcrafting a spin. Mostly becasue I'm so bored with engineering and there's so little in it really worthwhile.
theMouse Nov 22nd 2006 10:17AM
PVP is al that matters to me.
And the proffessions that matter are;
mining/engineer
herbalism/alchemy
hunter/engineer is a great combo.
nothing like the net-o-matic to help in tight quarters.
and when the stuff you make misfires its funny as hell.
I personally like the randomness. But then I am an old school gamer. (Dragon Quest) and that had spell failures. The risk of something going wrong adds that thrill, nearly as much as pvp itself. If used right the stuff you make as an engineer can make the difference.
and everything else use alchemy. why? pots baby, pots! heal (obvious), free action, rage. etc etc. pots give you that extra special edge. the right pot at the right moment is the difference between honor points and a grey ghost scene.
as far as blacksmithing/enchanting/leatherworking etc. make an alt. make your money with it.
think about it at level 60 are you wearing anything that you made? no your in a gear that dropped or in gear that you buy for rep.
if blacksmithing/leatherworking changed to allow characters to repair the respective gear. That might change my mind.
but this is just one rodent's opinion :)
Krasna Nov 22nd 2006 10:21AM
In my view each profession has to be taken on its own merits rather than comparing to the alternatives. As mentioned earlier engineering is not only time consuming but also relatively expensive, coupled with the issue of not being able to manufacture items that can be sold to the mass market (those without engineering) it can seem to be fruitless endeavour.
But then I look at the positives, such as a very diverse pool of items that have practical & not so practical uses, some items that aid & boost PvP & PVE encounters & most importantly for me some extremely funny events & side affects (Dropping from 100ft in the air in Tarnasis after using the Gnomish Transporter springs to mind).
If we were to take the most significant issue with engineering the inability to sell the majority of crafted items to non-engineers & change it so we could then it would make for an imbalanced profession.
Personally I use mining along side engineering as not only do they complement each other well, but it also allows for some economic recuperation.
If I could invent a profession then maybe something along the lines of a costume designer…… the ability to change the shape & colour of all existing armour types, maybe an all black Lightforge set?
Sylythn Nov 22nd 2006 11:18AM
I'm tailoring, being a cloth-wearer...but I balk at buying new recipes when I see what is clearly a priest or mage article...did they forget about warlock stats (even shadoweave's stat increases are mostly spirit - hence intended primarily for shadow priests) when they made tailoring? Once I exhaust the high-end BOP items in this profession, I'll likely drop it for Jewelcrafting.
Skinning/Leatherworking has made my rogue pretty self-sufficient, and I really like how you can combine low-level leathers to make higher ones. What am I supposed to do with wool cloth at 250 tailoring?
Enchanting has been the bane of my existence - but for some reason I don't give it up. I'm at 250 now, and I'm always broke. It's hard to level, eats up greens/blues that you'd normally sell for good money, and hard to make money with until you get the best enchants in the game. I find people don't tip nearly as often as I'd like, and there's no good way of determining markup for a specific enchant.
Best: Enchanting once you get it up there...best abilities, wanted by all.
Worst: Tailoring (at least for a warlock). I spent a dozen or so levels wearing mostly hand-made items...but they just don't last - and are too much mage/priest in their stats.
Lance Nov 22nd 2006 10:36AM
Mining and Disenchanting are the key to my Dwarf Hunter's heart.
Taking DE on a leveling toon will give you a lot of enchanting materials from quest BoPs. These are good because the AH treats enchanting materials as valueless (meaning it has no deposit to post), so 24 hour posts for a bit higher profit are easy.
Also, while I firmly stand behind not taking a tracking profession with a Hunter, I have found that my Mining has actually been quite beneficial. I never noticed it in the past, but now I see that while my tracking professions have always kept me moving without the feeling of farming, they've also gotten me into more trouble than they are worth. I seem to be able to focus much better on the task at hand when my Hunter needs his other tracking skills. When I'm not trying too hard to focus, I can make quite a good amount of coin from my Mining spoils.
Well, that's just my 2¢.
Donner Nov 22nd 2006 12:11PM
Well if you just want to farm stuff Id say go herblism and skinning. Both are always needed at the AH, they are both easy as hell to get and they sell really fast unlike some crappy green you find well grinding which you end up selling to a vendor just because it becomes useless in 3 lvls.
A_B Nov 22nd 2006 12:12PM
All I know is, with my main, at 60, a paladin that did mining and blacksmithing, I think I cracked 30 gold only once or twice (I wasn't lucky with drops).
With my first alt I've taken anywhere, a 37 Tauren, that has herbalism and skinning, I have about 110 gold.
The problem with blacksmithing was that the ingredients were worth a hell of a lot more than the crafted items. And a lot of the items required weird drops that I could never find, so I'd have to AH them. And the cost for one component was often more than the sold item.
Plus, I could never make anything better than I could buy for cheaper in AH. It was a money losing exercise.
I went herbalism and skinning since I just got sick and tired of chasing down recipes and ingredients to raise the level on my otherwise useless profession.
GG Nov 22nd 2006 12:47PM
I went engineering for the fun factor more than anything else. It's very expensive like others said and really the only thing that keeps me an engineer now that I'm level 60 is the Gadgetzan transporter. I keep my hearth in UC and I never have to wait for that damn zeppelin again. I'm looking forward to seeing some more useful items in the expansion.
Mining was a decent way to make gold leveling... probably about the same as skinning or herbalism.
mk2tmr2 Nov 22nd 2006 1:08PM
+1 disenchanted enchanter.
I started out with the standard skinning/leatherworking with my rogue. But when I hit that point where leatherworking gets a bit expensive to level (no guild to help supply mats, didn't feel like spending all my playing time grinding on cats and bears) I picked up enchanting.
About the same time I picked up enchanting, I took part in starting a guild. All of a sudden I had people sending me all of their green drops. My mailbox was full every time I logged on. My bank was completely full of enchanting mats. I was happy.
But there is only so much time you can spend on the Trade channel hawking enchants. And there's always a higher lvl enchanter that is hawking at the same time as you. Those rare moments when people would actually pay me to enchant their stuff were great. But they were too few and far between.
So I picked up leatherworking again as a level 40 rogue. I have enough money to just buy whatever mats I need at AH. I've gotten it up to nearly 200 in about two weeks of casual playing. I can now make 4-5 blue items that sell at AH for a very nice profit and my leatherworking pretty much sustains itself even without my skinning.
I've just started my first alt and I think I'm going to go herbalism/alchemy. As a leatherworker, there are a few elixirs that I need for my blue items that are very expensive at AH and alchemists can make for cheap.
Druid dude Nov 22nd 2006 1:08PM
As other have said, Herbalism and Skinning are gret money makers.
On my second 60, a Fury Warrior, I gave up Blacksmithing to try dual gathering, and was pretty nervous about it. The gold started pouring in and I never looked back! With a Fury Warrior's zero downtime high speed mob grinding, skinning is just awesome. You can get stacks of leather fast. I either sell them or send them to my leatherworker character to make Armor Kits to sell.
Drew Nov 22nd 2006 1:13PM
I created a priest alt which has now become my main and trained him with tailoring and engineering. I used my previous main who was mining and blacksmithing to farm the materials for my engineering habit and it cut down on the overall cost significantly. Engineering helped my priest level by way of the bombs, mithril dragonling and the gnomish shrink ray a buddy made for me. The mithril dragonling got me out of more than a few tough fights with elites or from being ganked. The goblin transporter is a godsend in getting me to Everlook to finish quests there or to avoid waiting on the zep. Blacksmithing on my main was a total money sink after getting past the level 30-something weapons because the materials costs are just crazy. Who can afford all that dark iron or arcanite to craft items that are inferior to what you can pick-up in Scholo or Strat?
Kazzaam Nov 22nd 2006 2:32PM
For me, the professions are a big part of the game. I've actually learned a lot from the AH economy. My hunter has skinning (of course) and leatherworking. He makes his own armor and earns a lot of gold selling overpriced Black Whelp armor at AH. You can make gold with leatherworking, you just have to figure out what sells.
My other hunter (I like hunters) has herbalism and alchemy. That way she's a hunter/gatherer, get it? She doesn't make much gold with the alchemy, yet, but the pots come in handy.
My other alt has tailoring, but it's not nearly as profitable as leatherworking. I'm sure all of the professions will make gold. You just have to learn the market and game the Auction House.