Breakfast Topic: Favorite profession
by Elizabeth Harper 
Feb 9th 2007 at 8:00AM
Even with the addition of the new jewelcrafting profession in the Burning Crusade, each player is still only allowed two primary professions. And choosing can be daunting. Pick up two gathering professions to make the best money? Grab herbalism and alchemy for the convenience of always having the potions you want? Mining and blacksmithing for that craftable epic armor set? You must have a favorite -- so tell us about it!
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Features
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
chodur15 Feb 9th 2007 8:08AM
I am a weed picker and miner. I feel it works well for my character which is a priest since I really don't need much of anything except some potions. Since I make pretty good money with the trades I am doing I will just buy what I need or trade for what I need.
Zuuler Feb 9th 2007 8:13AM
Since day 1 my main has been Herb/Alch. I sold most herbs, but kept enough to make certain potions that were always in demands, such as fire protection potions.
Now in the expansion, one of the first new potions I was able to learn was Adept's Elixir. I love this potion and go out of my way for the mats (felweed and dreamfoil). Can't beat bonus spell damange and spell crit. There is one other potion (I don't remember its name) that provided more spell damage but not spell crit. As a lock, spell crit is everything (ruin rocks) so anything I can use to increase spell crit is useful.
I've been more focused on questing as opposed to lvling to 70 or my professions, so I really need a trip to an alchemist trainer to see if there is anything new I can learn, especially since I am approaching 68 and will get my specialization.
Herbalism has gotten better, as now I can get some buffs from picking an herb, and can even pick herbs off some mobs.
Kirby1612 Feb 9th 2007 8:18AM
Skinning and mining. Being able to farm actual mobs for mines now is extremely easy. And tons of things you need to kill for quests are beasts to skin. The money Is just flowing in. At lvl 65 and I already have 1100g from skinning, mining, quest items I vendor, grey drops, and greens that (unless they are good) I get someone to disenchant for me for the mats. Easy money, I can't believe how some people might still be poor. I believe after getting to 70 and obtaining neutral with the Netherwing, I should just start farming gold for my epic mount too. Or epic flying form even.
Luis D. Feb 9th 2007 8:34AM
@2
I think it's called greater arcane elixir, it provides up to 35 spell damage for up to an hour.
Herbalism and alchemy has been my favorite combo so far because they're so easy to level up and make money off of. Especially alchemy, I think it's much easier than the other crafting professions to level up (I'm looking at you enchanting).
dkidder Feb 9th 2007 8:38AM
I don't think I could ever term Leatherworking my "favorite", but in the BC the new armor kits are great and I'm actualy selling what I make on the AH which is a nice change of pace. I still kind of wish I'd taken two gathering professions (I can't belive how much money I sank into the 300 skill pre-BC) for the gold, but I'm not grumbling about LW anymore.
Tizzly Feb 9th 2007 8:46AM
I am starting to really like mining and jewel crafting on my Draenei shaman. I have herbalism and alchemy on my 60 NE hunter and thought it was ok. The second favorite would probably be engineering/mining.
Matt Feb 9th 2007 10:22AM
I have always had tailoring/enchanting.
Enchanting was great for making money (disenchant crappy greens, sell results on AH), and now that I've leveled it up, I can make some decent cash selling enchants, not to mention being able to put the best of the best enchants on my own gear for free.
Also, it was a good idea to stick with tailoring, because the new bags are in high demand, and the epics that we can craft are so awesome. I'm one day away from making my frozen shadoweave shoulders (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=21869).
DDRFan2006 Feb 9th 2007 9:08AM
Skinnig / Enchanting for my main character and mining / jewelcrafting for my blood elve alt. Both work pretty well for me.
Ryan Feb 9th 2007 9:19AM
Everytime a new player comes into the guild I tell them to get two gathering proffesions til lvl 40. Either skinning/herb or skinning/mining since herb/mining both use mini map. They make money while killing beasts and skinning them plus lvling up. It's a win win situation. They sell everything they gather at 5s less then anyone else and make more than enough money to get their lvl powers and buy better equipment. At lvl 40 they can keep one of their gathering which should be pretty high by now and have no problem gettting the mats for their proffesion.
Deafdumbandblind Feb 9th 2007 9:26AM
I'm really disappointed with crafting. Blizz has made it too hard to develop and too restrictive (recent changes in Blacksmith/LW specialisation).
The laugh of it is the gear isn't all that great considering the ridiculous ingredients required and the effort to get to the requisite skill level.
I was a keen crafter prior to TBC. Since its release I haven't used any crafting profession other than the gathering professions e.g. mining, skinning & herbalism and even then only to sell them on AH.
I think the only worthwhile professions now are Enchanting and maybe Jewelcrafting (at a stretch).
Jamus Feb 9th 2007 9:32AM
My favorite has to be Leatherworking hands down. The armor kits are a little something that distinguish it from Tailoring. Alchemy would be my next runner-up.
Enchanting on the other hand.... Ouch. I am determined to stick with it until 250 or so because I have read so much how it gets better at higher levels , but it has been rough so far. Plus it keeps me broke from all the disenchants on my green loot. Doh!
Alexander Feb 9th 2007 9:32AM
LOL.
the only thing LW is good for anymore is the drums and making an exorbitant amount of money from people by crafting those stupid riding crops.
300g on the ah at any one time? when the mats cost less than 150g to BUY, let alone farm?
Blizzard just handed me the right to print money. and I am going to exercise that right.
Kryz Feb 9th 2007 9:33AM
My mage has been Tailoring since day one. There's some really good craftable stuff. I took skinning, but especially with a mage, it went up really quick. This works because a lot of bags or something needs a leather or two, and they always sell nicely.
mort Feb 9th 2007 9:54AM
the thing is
the new professions have some serious bonuses when ya take em to max
aka leg/head armor slots for LW, blacksmiths custom weapons, jewelcrafting special jewel only items, engy new scope goggle equivalent, enchanting rings for +stats
although none of this is easy to accomplish :P
Doyce Feb 9th 2007 11:19AM
Generally, I like skinning, whether I'm taking LW or not -- I just hate leaving the animal corpses lying around -- skinning is just a good way to tidy up. :)
Plus, when you get into an area that's just been swept by someone without skinning, there's all these skinnable corpses laying about -- it's like someone ran through and scattered money in my path.
Kabira-Fenris Feb 9th 2007 10:34AM
Tailoring is and always will be my absolute favorite, I don't even know why.
Genius Jones Feb 9th 2007 11:06AM
I realize it's not in the choices, but Cooking is by far and away my favorite and, IMHO, the best profession to take. I only mention it because even though everyone *can* take it, the vast majority of players *don't*.
Chuck Feb 14th 2007 10:18AM
I'm a druid! So of course I took up letherworking/skinning. I decided to take the tribal branch of it, because it benefits me the most. Wolfshead helm combined with furor is very nice seeing as I automatically get 80 energy right when I shapeshift. Now I just need to find some jet black feathers, and i'm all set to go.
SirCasey Feb 9th 2007 11:29AM
I've had fun trying most the tradeskills out. The only ones I haven't played with are Alchemy and Leatherworking because my wife takes care of all our potion making and leather armor...
I'm only up to level 37 on my main, a pally. I started him with mining/blacksmithing but dropped blacksmithing around level 25 because it was a money and time sinkhole. Running back and forth from the AH to dwarven district to get to a forge is a pain! I know IF is a little better in that regard, but lag is a problem there. Anyway I picked up skinning, based on a similar recommendation to not have a crafting skill until level 40.
Post 40, I'm considering engineering because of the ranged trinkets that I'll be able to make. A pally's complete lack of ranged attacks (and therefore pulls) feels debilitating.
For newcomers to the game: If you don't pick up mining, you are really missing out on a lot of money because ores are selling like hotcakes. With 3 different crafting professions relying on them and lots of rich 60+ players rolling new alts and leveling their Jewelcrafting skills, it's totally win-win for everyone.
Personally I'm stockpiling my ores and rocks for when I switch to engineering. If I wasn't doing that I'd be making oodles of cash.
I have an alt that's making quite a bit with Enchanting by buying cheap armor, trinket and weapon greens, disenchanting, and posting the materials for 50-100% profit. (The bonus here is that it's free to list Enchanting mats on the auction house, so you can't lose money if your items don't sell) I also picked tailoring just to have an alt to send all my cloth drops to. It's been really handy to have a bag maker :)
The only reason I wish I'd kept Blacksmithing was to be able to make sharpening stones and weighted stones for my alts. As it is I have to use other Blacksmithing players or the AH to get them. I may get an alt into it at some point for that reason.
Heymish Feb 9th 2007 11:57AM
I can't believe no one has said mining/engineer!
Engineering is SO versitile. You can make ammo for money, craft awsome gadgets, like an extra hearthstone to kalimdor to everlook or tanaris, make explosives, and the best thing IMO, since I'm a rogue, is the ability to create combat pets.
What more could you ask for? Sure it's very time consuming and sometimes expensive, but ask my guildies how many times my goblin jumper cables saved us from a wipe when our pally died and a soulstone was still on cool down. I don't know why anyone would choose anything else.
Except for jewelcrafting. I haven't had the chance to play around with that profession yet, so I don't know if it's useful or not.
Anyone else share my love for this profession?