Profession costs
by Eliah Hecht 
Aug 1st 2007 at 8:15PM
Over on the WoW-Europe forums, Highlander (of Terenas-H) has done an interesting analysis of the relative costs of leveling the crafting professions, assuming you buy all the required materials from the auction house. His pricing data is from WoWEcon, so it should be a reasonable average of costs on the various realms. Above you can see a chart I made from his numbers, showing the cost to get each profession to 300 as well as the cost to take it to 375.
Blacksmithing and Enchanting are, by a significant margin, the most expensive. While Highlander correctly points out that most smiths and enchanters will procure the materials by their own means (mining or disenchanting) rather than buying them, those mats still have an inherent value (i.e. they could be sold at the AH), and therefore I think it's fair to say they are just as expensive as they look. Note that there is no number for the 300–375 part of jewelcrafting because Highlander says costs vary too much to give a solid estimate. For the raw numbers and more discussion, take a look at Highlander's post.
Blacksmithing and Enchanting are, by a significant margin, the most expensive. While Highlander correctly points out that most smiths and enchanters will procure the materials by their own means (mining or disenchanting) rather than buying them, those mats still have an inherent value (i.e. they could be sold at the AH), and therefore I think it's fair to say they are just as expensive as they look. Note that there is no number for the 300–375 part of jewelcrafting because Highlander says costs vary too much to give a solid estimate. For the raw numbers and more discussion, take a look at Highlander's post.
Filed under: Ranking, Economy, Making money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Kyr Aug 1st 2007 8:46PM
I call bogus on these charts because they only take into account mats and not the things that really matter: the recipes (or designs, patterns, ...) In this regard, Jewelcrafting is undoubtedly the most expensive if you want to collect them all.
Eliah Hecht Aug 1st 2007 8:55PM
This isn't about "collect them all", this is just the costs to get to 375. It's true that training costs aren't taken into account, but Highlander claims those will be roughly the same across the different profs.
BiggusGeekus Aug 1st 2007 9:29PM
Eliah Hecht is right.
It doesn't matter that miners and enchanters can get their own materials. All that means is that they could have sold those materials and be 3,000 gold richer.
Given the current implementation of craft skills, you are better off taking mining/herbalism/skinning all the way to level 70. Let some other sucker work his fingers to the bone and hunt down rare recipes. By the time the craft guy gets his Mooncleaver (or ring enchants or whatever) you'll be on your epic flying mount with enough gold to respec 4 times a week and still buy elixirs off of alchemists who are all trying to undercut each other.
ZombieApocalypse Aug 1st 2007 9:35PM
*Very* interesting article. Props to Eliah for some of the best posts of substance on this site.
Koskun Aug 1st 2007 9:41PM
I've leveled Tailoring, Enchanting to 375, and am close to topping off Leatherworking, and my girlfriend has topped off Alchemy and Jewelcrafting.
The absolute only way I will believe these figures is if the prices were taken within the first month or so of release of TBC.
So far, by a large percentage, the most expensive for me personally is turning out to be leatherworking because of all the Primals that are needed (with Blacksmithing up there in the same respect).
Tailoring was so easy it was laughable (slightly frustrating if nothing else at 370), and Enchanting, the only "hard" part was getting the new rods, but that was a day at best.
This looks more like an advertisement to jack up the prices of enchanting and blacksmithing and give sympathy to jewelcrafters.
Var Aug 1st 2007 9:51PM
I believe the graph is a little misleading, leveling a profession to 375 is well and good, but 375 jewelcrafting is almost pointless unless you spend the 300g+ per recipe for every gem you want to make, and the hours of rep grinding to get those alchemy recipes or the grinding of mobs over and over till your enchanting recipe drops.
Without the non-trainer recipes a lot of professions aren't any good.......
But for what you are saying it is a nice article.
Alms Aug 1st 2007 9:56PM
After leveling my enchanting from 290 to 375 overnight, I can say the numbers for enchanting are just about spot on. 5k gold in 24 hours ftl.
zzz Aug 1st 2007 10:15PM
Technically, they can all be leveled to 375 for about ...100g? Just training and some recipes, getting everything from world drops.
Hybrys Aug 1st 2007 10:50PM
Okay. About JC. The thing is, you aren't useful unless you get those patterns. The fact that EVERY rare gem that you can cut needs to have a pattern just kills things like Enchanting, Leatherworking, and Blacksmithing, where you can do useful things without a pattern *Or find all yours as BoPs.^
Milktub Aug 1st 2007 10:58PM
Interesting, and I pretty much agree with the graph. I've got a blacksmith who I'm sick of playing just because his profession is a pain to level, and I'm collecting the ore myself.
But as an alchemist on my main, I have to step in to defend. There are so many ways to hit 300/375 with alchemy that this graph could have been made with the "crap" recipes of which no one wants the product. For those recipes, the herbs are cheap cheap cheap. On the other hand, there are the "good" recipes that everyone wants a stack of and which the herbs are pricy (300 = netherbloom). Sure, I could have leveled my alchemy with the cheap stuff, but then I'd be left with a bunch of stacks of vendor-trash potions.
Anteia Aug 1st 2007 11:08PM
Yeah, I was gonna second the alchemy assertion. Alchemy is WAY more expensive to level in mats than that. I gave it up because I was irritated with the changes made to elixirs (I DON'T raid and telling me I can't have two elixirs on because they're both considered 'guardian' when they're the ones I used most in conjuction to stay alive? Suckage.) But I kept my herbalism and simply sell all the herbs I get... dreaming glory, netherbloom, heck, even the lower level gromsblood, all sell for quite a bit, but are all parts of pretty crucial recipes. Yes- you can get to 375 cheaper. But have fun seeing your price triple when you start making..uhm.. useful potions.
Regyr Aug 1st 2007 11:17PM
I call bogus on the low cost of JC up to 300. Like Blacksmithing, the 250-300 range takes a TON of thorium/thorium-prospected gems that are far from cheap. Given that, the estimate of 231 g for 1-300 JC is fairly absurd. I'd spend more than that on the thorium alone.
JC after 300 certainly could vary widely, but given the dirt-cheap prices of raw green (quality) gems that will take you to 350-ish, and the falling prices of Talasite (as low as 10G on my server), I'd reckon it's not that expensive if you play your cards right. Now, getting the recipes that people actually want - that'll cost you.
Lighttech Aug 1st 2007 11:26PM
I think I have spent about 1500g-1700g(I lost track) to level my druid's alchemy from 150 to 375 and leatherworking from 1 to 330 not including the mat farming on my hunter for thick and rugged leather (I'll admit my purchasing of all those leather on the AH one day destroyed the market for them causing prices to skyrocket and they have yet to recover to their norms). Now I just need to level my druid up so that she can use the items made.
Bobby Hansen Aug 2nd 2007 1:40AM
I can say Jewelcrafting is actually pretty cheap up to about 350, then becomes massively expensive. On my server, basic gems (Blood Garnets, Jaggal Pearls, ect) are pretty cheap - less then a gold a piece on the high end. THey can be cut very inexpensively and resold for quite a profit. But once 350 and those recepies are all Grey, it's almost a full stop - I only manage to contiune progessing by farming for Pearls to purify, and occasionally when money allows picking up a stack of ore to process (with a low chance of getting a rare gem).
I wish there was some ability, some trinket, something that made there be a higher chance of getting rare gems.
Fraufrau Aug 2nd 2007 1:54AM
I know the graph is only presenting the cost of leveling the prof to 375 but i did some basic math on the average price of a random world drop gem design (on my server ~300g) and using that i calculated that u would need to send approximately 20,000g in order to purchase them all. Basically, JC trumps the cost of any other profession if u actually want to do something with it, its just crap and imho the most broken profession
Jeff Aug 2nd 2007 2:07AM
Keep in mind that they patched the amount of thorium needed for JC, some recipes take 10-20% of what they did when it first came out. Also now prospecting now has a guaranteed and more gems, whereas the first JCs wasted a lot on just dust.
Tridus Aug 2nd 2007 7:54AM
@10 & 11:
Alchemy is not more expensive then that. Hell, I went from 350 to 375 Alchemy using nothing but Transmute Primal Earth to Primal Water. That transmute CREATES 15g by using it, due to the price gap between Primal Earth and Primal Water.
The graph measures how expensive it is to get to 375, not how expensive it is to get to 375 only if you buy the most expensive herbs. The fact that you mention those dirt cheap herbs proves that the graph is reflecting its purpose accurately.
Compared to Blacksmithing or Enchanting, Alchemy is an absolute joke to level.
bdo Aug 2nd 2007 9:07AM
@9 "Okay. About JC. The thing is, you aren't useful unless you get those patterns."
It could be worse - you could be an armorsmith and not be useful at all.
Blah Aug 2nd 2007 9:26AM
"Tailoring Total Cost = 1381g"
Ridiculous. It's way higher. Id like to see a breakdown of mats and recipes with their cost. Last levels alone are hell.
phalanx Aug 2nd 2007 9:49AM
i di jc whe it first came out and with the reduced thorium costs and improved prospecting the cost has dropped significantly, anyone remember 30g for a stack of tiger's eye or 40g for a stack of shadow gems? The thorium cost was also insane, I bought about 30% of my thorium but my mining was upto 340 before I leveled my jc up enough to not need it.
Over all i would have spent min 2k gold within the first month of bc to level it to 300, after that it was a breeze