I've asked a
version of this question previously in a Breakfast Topic when I was curious about which class had the easiest time making gold. There didn't seem to be much of a consensus in the comments, which is a good thing. No one class seemed to have an overwhelming advantage when it came to piling up a boatload of gold. But since
Cataclysm launched, it's a question I've occasionally pondered whenever I hear someone grouse about the expense of gemming a tier set or enchanting a new weapon. One of the players in question was a max-level jewelcrafter, which threw me for a moment.
"Shouldn't you be making money hand over fist on the Auction House?" I asked.
"You can," he said. "But a lot of it just pays back the expense of leveling JC in the first place or recouping the cost of buying ore and gems."
I'm curious. For all those of you out there who have two primary professions or just a host of alts with different trade skills, which one has earned you the most?
What is WoW's most lucrative profession?| Alchemy | 952 (13.1%) |
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| Blacksmithing | 256 (3.5%) |
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| Enchanting | 1292 (17.8%) |
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| Engineering | 225 (3.1%) |
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| Inscription | 1185 (16.3%) |
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| Jewelcrafting | 2980 (41.1%) |
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| Leatherworking | 165 (2.3%) |
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| Tailoring | 193 (2.7%) |
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Tags: facebookfeed, game-discussion, gamer-discussion, gold, gold-making, making-gold, making-gold-with-professions, making-money, which-wow-profession-is-most-lucrative, world-of-warcraft-discussion, world-of-warcraft-topics, wow-discussion, wow-gold, wow-hot-topics, wow-issues, wow-professions, wow-topics
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Jan 23rd 2012 at 8:00AM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Firestyle Jan 23rd 2012 8:03AM
So few votes for alchemy....I made a killing with 3 alchemists this xpac. Also made a killing shuffling ore into heavenly shards, but there's no 3 profession selection for that.
Jorges Jan 23rd 2012 10:16AM
Yeah, I thought the same. I've made lots of money with my alchemist. Between Flasks, Potions and Transmutes I think there's no more versatile profession in the game. Not to mention the killer benefits (4h Cauldron Flask Duration FTW).
lazymangaka Jan 23rd 2012 8:08AM
Jewelcrafting is the obvious go-to here, and rightfully so; pretty much anyone can make money as a jewelcrafter without much effort. However, my vote actually goes for Enchanting, because if you're able to feed your own mats it can be immensely lucrative and it's difficult for competitors to flood the market in the same way they can with JC.
jtrack3d Jan 23rd 2012 8:41AM
By Blizzard making red the primary gem for almost every PvE build and THEN making it no better drop rate than other colors.... bottleneck = profit.
Think about profs. We upgrade gear so often in this game, gems and enchants are always going to be the big profs. Enchants aren't as high in my book because everyone gets enchant mats from group DE or vendors. You can't buy Gem's this expansion except in DS raid. Also, some enchant slots are different profs like LW and Tailors for legs. Only JC's can do gem slots... no competition for those slots. Hands down... JC.
Others can make money... but JC wins.
Evelinda Jan 25th 2012 12:48AM
For serious, jc... I just recently started trying to make money out of jc, and with a little bit of effort over three weeks or so, I'm probably going to hit the 100k mark in the next couple of days.
While it's the process of prospecting ore and cutting gems that's making me heaps of money, it's definitely supported by alchemy (i mail carnelians, alicites and zephyrites to my xmute master alt to change to blue gems, which I then craft into cut inferno rubies and the amberjewel and ocean sapphire pvp gear) and by enchanting, to de jc gear made from hessonites and jasper, and to turn that into profitable enchants. It's really a three profession synergy that makes me money.
Separately, i make a fair bit of cash from my tailoring/inscription alt, who turns chaos orbs into dreamcloth, and then into spellthread, and makes mysterious fortune cards whenever herbs get cheap.
Magma Jan 23rd 2012 8:08AM
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/229/721/21a.gif
That is not a Nintendo product you see, that is the jewelcrafting icon. Just stretched out a bit.
JB Jan 23rd 2012 8:10AM
I think it is very server specific. On my allie main server for eg, ore is very expensive, on my horde "main" ore is cheap....And my horde main is a JC and struggles to sell gems or ore. My Allie is an Alchemist - she makes more money selling herbs than on elixers etc. Transmutes don't pay, as the cost of the ore is so high....
ZodiacDragons Jan 23rd 2012 8:42AM
I was going to say the same. The two professions that have helped me (not so much in making gold, but in saving) has been enchanting and jewelcrafting. Enchanting mats on my server are quite expensive.
JB Jan 23rd 2012 8:11AM
I think it is very server specific. On my allie main server for eg, ore is very expensive, on my horde "main" ore is cheap....And my horde main is a JC and struggles to sell gems or ore. My Allie is an Alchemist - she makes more money selling herbs than on elixers etc. Transmutes don't pay, as the cost of the ore is so high....
Kole Jan 23rd 2012 12:36PM
Not sure why this is downvoted. It is all true. On my Horde server I can't get a glyph to sell at all. So much AH PvP! Yet on my Alliance server I sell a bunch. Every server and faction have their own economies and that very much determines how much I can potentially make.
As far as voting it's a toss up. Alchemy (transmutes), Enchanting and Inscription all have sold a bunch. Just never on the same server.
fathertouk Jan 23rd 2012 8:13AM
Yesterday, on my Tailor / Enchanter, I looted 14k from the mailbox and spent 12k restocking the AH. The same is typically true for most professions, I would guess. The trick is to keep at it.
Noyou Jan 23rd 2012 8:29AM
You hit the nail on the head- the best profession is the one you work at. You can make a killing off fishing-cooking just as easily as any profession as long as you put a little time into it. JC does have one advantage over most professions. The JC dailiy awards 1 token every day. With that token you can buy a chimera's eye gem, in which only a JC can buy. I have made a decent amount of gold in the last week just trading my unused tokens into those gems and selling them. I would say if anyone wants to start a banking toon, or turn yur current main/alt into one, you can do no worse than having one gathering toon and one profession that you can break down mats into something else. Example: Inscription can mill herbs into inks, mining can smelt ore, JC can prospect ore, etc. And of course, if you have a decent set of eyes, and a little patience, you can surf the AH for deals to buy and repost. But once again, the most lucrative profession is the one you keep at.
Chetti Jan 23rd 2012 9:10AM
Very well said. All professions have the ability to make money, but its only going to do so with some effort.
Which, honestly is why I like tailoring. Most things I do help the effort, I pick up a lot of cloth doing dailies in tol barad or dungeon running with the guildies. I always have excess. If I'm running sethekk halls for the umpteeth time not getting a raven lord, the netherweave I loot gets bolted and held till I have enough to make a couple bags to sell. Guild achievement runs through Wrath raids, frostweave cloth sells real nice.
It kind of annoys me when i hear people in vent or even see it guild chat people complaining about profession mats, either the price of them to buy or their personal lack of what they need and then saying they don't want to farm whatever it is. Effort is everything.
Vagrant Jan 23rd 2012 8:16AM
Ofcourse, some professions enhance each other as well. It's nice to jc away some excess gems into stuff that can then be disenchanted, to be used for some scrolls.
mabibba Jan 23rd 2012 8:30AM
Inscription for me actually. But then again I'm a bit lazy with my other professions.
But I'll tell you what didn't make me lots of money.
Leatherworking.
Edymnion Jan 23rd 2012 8:50AM
How the heck do you make money off Inscription?
loli.gigis Jan 23rd 2012 9:46AM
Fortune cards sell pretty well on my server, they still go 10-12g each. Fortune Cookies sometimes go for 17g+ unless someone has flooded the market again... you can really tell who failed economics when you check the markets lol
Smashbolt Jan 23rd 2012 9:47AM
Really? I've made a fairly solid amount selling leg enchants (both the cheap ones and the expensive ones) and PvP blues.
The PvP gear is annoying because you need so much Heavy Savage Leather to get the patterns, but if you have the storage and mats to keep one of each item in stock, they'll sell slowly, but at decent profit.
Mycroft Jan 23rd 2012 10:25AM
I'm there with you. My main, and almost solely played toon, is a leatherworker. Everytime I read an article about someone making money from a profession, I thought they were some kind of god - how can you possibly do that? In all my leveling up, I've never made money from leatherworking. Sure I've sold a few leg enchants here and there, but that ended up being money I made off of *skinning*. I even made a spreadsheet up once, of all the endgame stuff I could make, and what mats they took, and a separate area for each mat and its cost. I scanned the AH, found the cost of the mats, put them in my spreadsheet, and told me the cost of making each thing. And on my server, each thing was already selling *below* those prices.
Then I got an alt leveled high enough on inscription to make fortune cards. Since then it's been like printing money. Like literally I'm putting ink to paper and it's worth twice what I paid for it. It's the opposite of leatherworking.
And I didn't even ever get into the glyph market. I tried selling them, but I think I ended up vendoring most of them just to get them from taking up so much space. The ones I made while leveling that is.
Galatea Jan 23rd 2012 10:51AM
I've made a ton of money with Leatherworking, it's definitely one of my most profitable professions when I look at the amount of gold I take in vs what I spend on the mats. The key is to be willing to invest a little bit of money to start. You've got to buy all of the PvP patterns and have at least one of each PvP piece up at all times. With 8 pieces per set and 4 sets, that's 32 PvP pieces. There are always new people entering PvP who quite often buy every piece. Charge about double the gold of the mats cost and you will rake in money. No, you won't sell pieces every single day, sometimes it will just be one or two at a time. But then comes the day you sell all 8 pieces of a set! Then take that gold, recraft new ones, and start again. My leatherworker's gold stash never dips like my enchanter and JC can when I shell out money for ore or mats.