Professions: Whats worthwhile?

U

Uncle Slappy

Veteran XV
I started backing up playing again on Archimonde, and I'm not sure which class I'm sticking with yet. I've got a lvl20 rogue and a lvl17 Warlock, but I have profession questions.

They both have mining because evidently mining is a lot more profitable than I remember, at this low level between the two of them I have like 45 gold now.

My warlock also has tailoring, because I thought I recalled some decent patterns later in the game that couldn't be traded, so you had to make them to wear them. I never played caster before, so I could be wrong? So far it seems like a pretty worthwhile profession since I'm making myself bags and some of my armor pieces, but is it worthwhile later?

My rogue has skinning as his other profession, since I wanted 2 gathering, but so far it seems worthless. Skins don't sell for much and all I'm doing is vendoring light hides or sending them to my warlock for certain items he needs them for. Should I take something else? From my experience almost all the crafting professions used to be a waste of time at end-game. I doubt I would use any weapons I could make with weaponsmithing and leatherworking didn't yield anything that great. Engineering maybe? I could get goggles and bombs?
 
Don't pick anything that only benefits you with just one item. Enchanting will let you keep all your gear enchanted, plus give you the benefit of ring enchants (and in the expansion you'll be able to sell enchants on the AH). Plus you can DE all those worthless greens and sell mats on the AH for coin. Mining I actually find to be pretty worthless nowadays since I can finish all the Shattered Sun dailies in less than 30 minutes and make more money doing so than what one could make mining in the same timeframe.

These days I would probably pick two gathering skills to 60 and just keep all the materials I need to powerlevel two non-gathering skills and sell off the rest. Engineering has some fun toys and pvp stuff, Jewelcrafting has nice trinkets/rings/necklaces and easier to just buy recipes for jewels that are worth making.
 
My warrior took engineering and powerleveled it, greatest decision ever. The max-level bombs at the various tiers destroy mobs of your level, and having a T5ish quality helm at 62 was just sick. Plus I have a flying machine and a decent stam tank trinket along with some other handy gadgets like the mote extractor for making cash/farming mats.
 
Gathering x2 to 70 then PL whatever. I made enough to get my epic flying mount within 2 weeks of hitting 70 on my alt with mining+skinning, farmed enough scales to make a handful of leg enchants, then dropped skinning to PL engineering. I don't even do the Isle dailies anymore because I've found I make more coin selling ore/herbs/primals than I do bringing in daily quest cash so I only do the Outlands dailies now and hit every node I see.

My main is herbalism (since I don't use tailored items anymore) and enchanting so it's easy to make 500g/day in around 2 hours if I do outland dailies on both characters then sell stacks of herbs/ore and greater planars from DE'ing greens. Isle dailies are still great to do if I have extra time and I'm bored, I normally just PVP or logout instead though.
 
Smaqaho said:
Gathering x2 to 70 then PL whatever.
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Prety much, I usually start a main on skinng/mining simply because skinning may be cheaper but it makes up for it in sheer bulk. Not to mention most crafting professions do require leather to a degree, so it's easier having a steady supply of leather to boot.

I make it a habit of making a warrior who is leatherworker and blacksmith and a priest who is tailoring and enchanting. I picked this config because of Outlands rep stuff. Warriors (when properly geared/played) can tank all dungeons up to Heroics/raids as well with priests and healing as well as doing so without being specialty specced to do so. This usually lets me drastically increase the amount of pugs I could potentially get into and unlike looking for gear rep isn't based on clearing dungeons. It helps a lot, but ultimately even if a group breaks mid-run you still get some rep out of it.

For me that covers the bulk of any crafting I'd like to do, sans the specialty BoP recipes which are fewer in number and if I really want it on something else I'll just grind that way.

It does help to know what craftables are worth selling. If you're Horde you do well on Deadly Blunderbusses any time and they are relatively cheap to make.
 
Only problem with mining while levelling is that unless you're absolutely terrible at levelling you will outlevel your mining spec before 30 and have to spend time going back and powering it up.
 
My toon on Archimonde has mining/herbalism. Lvl 18 and 30g saved, plus I have all 12 slot bags and one 16 slotter.
 
Fool said:
Only problem with mining while levelling is that unless you're absolutely terrible at levelling you will outlevel your mining spec before 30 and have to spend time going back and powering it up.
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Caves were my friend. My last alt hit 70 in 10 days /played and hit 375 mining at 62 or just after 63 while I was still in Zangarmarsh, and I wasn't in any big hurry since I only leveled the alt so I could mine for gold to pay for potions and repairs (before they brought about 100 daily quests).

I spent a little extra time grinding in the Kolkar caves in 1k needles, in the cave just above Hammerfall in Arathi (if not for this cave, then yes I would've had to come back and spend half a day catching up), yeti caves in Feralas and I grinded out a level in the 50s in Blasted Lands cave just inside the zone rather than questing and I was almost always able to mine every node I passed while leveling. I added maybe half a day total by following outer edges of zones for more nodes rather than following roads or time spent grinding in caves rather than questing, but I also added enough gold and ore banked for PL'ing engineering to more than make up for the added leveling time. I had skinning too so the yeti cave had me at 300 skinning before I was out of Feralas. To hit 375 engineering I only had to buy some stone and maybe a dozen stacks of fel iron ore, I didn't think to mail stone to a bank alt and had vendored all of it or I may not have even had to buy anything but a few stacks of ore.
 
if you want good cash and you're rolling an alt i HIGHLY recommend herbalism (inscription) and mining (everything else) for crazy mad profits come wotlk. most folks at 70 have long dropped their gathering professions in favor of 2 crafting and will need a lot of mats to raise them... theyd be insane to drop either crafting prof for a gathering one again.

make a seperate bank to unload all herbs on... and forget about em until expac. sell all ore/bars.

when you hit 80 drop either or both and pick whichever crafting profession is best. so far that is unknown since theyre changing them so much.
 
Yea that's true, it's tempting to start stockpiling mats right now to sell to people powerlevelling the new stuff in WotLK.
 
Fool said:
Yea that's true, it's tempting to start stockpiling mats right now to sell to people powerlevelling the new stuff in WotLK.
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You won't be alone if you do. I have 3 bags full of lowbie herbs ready to toss up later this year but I don't know how profitable it's going to be. So far it looks like you can use any one of 4-5 herbs per stage of Inscription to skill up so if I stockpile 2-3 herbs and try to jack up prices all someone has to do is buy one of the other 1-2 herbs for much cheaper to get those same skillups.

Once my guild stops raiding to take a break before wotlk (if we do), I'll be leveling an alt or two just to support the 2 characters I plan to play and gear up (my priest and either a shaman or druid).
 
zeph said:
You Horde Slappy? Bunch of TW guys in <B i n d>
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Yeah, I'm horde. I actually rolled on Archimonde because I heard lots of TW folks were there, but I'm only level 20 and figured I shouldn't start seeking out fellow tribalwarriors yet, lest they think I'm hitting them up for money or something. So far I'm doing OK solo, but I get bored sometimes with no guild chat to read while I level.
 
haven't seen anything new on inscriptions yet. I did see they're going to let us sell enchants now on the AH. FINALLY! I don't even bother marketing enchanting because I don't have the time to just sit in IF and spam trade. I'd rather be doing something fun since my play time is limited.
 
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