2 crafting professions that won't make you rich
by Basil Berntsen 
Mar 4th 2012 at 8:00PM
If you're trying to decide which professions to put on your character and you are considering their gold making potential, you'll want to avoid engineering and inscription. While they're not terrible if you consider their stat bonuses, they're not ideal for gold making on many realms.
Of course, every realm has its own ecosystem, and as with all advice you'll read from this column, you should check that the assumptions hold for your realm and faction. That said, by far the most common problems I have trouble helping people with are related to these two professions.
Inscription
I'll start with the one that's going to get me the angry comments first. Inscription has long been touted as a cornerstone of the money making meta game -- heck, it earned my esteemed colleague, Fox, his first million gold on Darkmoon Cards. Before that, we had "glyphsmas" when 4.0 hit and a steady level of demand for glyphs before that. We still have the stupidly profitable fortune card market that lets anyone open a tiny, Blizzard-sanctioned casino. So what's not to like?
First, demand for Darkmoon Trinkets has fallen through the floor. They were good for their ilevel, but that's many tiers past now, and people tend to buy them only on alts. Alt business can be good, but it'll be at a lower rate than when people were selling the good decks for when a 359 trinket was better than what you could get with points.
Next, glyphs. Glyphs are the hardest part of this equation for me. If you are making good money on them, then you can skip the rest of my article. The one market I see consistently camped on more realms than others, though, is glyphs. This might possibly be because gold making as a past time really came into its own in the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King when inscription was brand new. Whatever the reason, I hear more complaints about the difficulty of squeezing profits out of the glyph market than any other.
I know that's not a scientific survey, so if you want to see for yourself and your realm, go to The Undermine Journal's inscription page. To get there, choose your realm, hover over enhancements, then click on inscription. Take, for example, the glyph market of a high-population realm, Mal'ganis (used as the header for this article). Glyphs learned through books and research are holding their prices up in the 50g to 100g range, but the vast majority of the glyphs you can make are going to go for closer to 20g.
If you look at that and see a profitable market, you're not alone. If you're buying virtually unlimited quantities of Whiptail for 30g a stack, 20g a glyph might not seem low. The reward for spending hours milling herbs and crafting glyphs, however, is getting undercut in minutes as soon as you post a batch. There's something about this market that draws the camping crowd, and in my opinion, given the time needed to learn all the glyphs, that makes glyphs a bad money making choice for a new profession.
The relics and off-hands are decent business, as are the above mentioned fortune cards. Inscription isn't a write-off, but it's a lot harder to use it to make a million gold than it was at the beginning of Cataclysm.
Engineering
Engineering is the other profession I'll pick on today. Of all the crafting professions, this one is pretty well agreed-upon to be the least profitable. While other professions have craftable PvP gear, item or character enhancements, or consumables, engineering has pets, guns, scopes, and maybe choppers. Don't get me wrong, you can absolutely make some money with these, but not enough to feed a family of alts.
The pets are reliable sellers that you may (or may not) have to do an old dungeon for. They sell about as well as other pets, but it's not like raiders have to pick up a pair of them every time they get an upgrade. What they do have to pick up are scopes -- the hunters, at least. That is, in fact, the problem. Blacksmithing, which has no shortage of money making options, makes a belt buckle that gets bought by every single class/spec combo every time they upgrade their belt. Engineers get only hunters' weapon upgrades.
The gear craftable by engineers tends to be ranged weapons that get get purchased mostly by new characters or alts. There's a bag that probably sells to serious fishers, and of course there's the chopper. That chopper is so popular that even though all the non-vendor mats are farmed in Northrend, it's still very easy to find it on the AH. The vendor parts alone start at 12,500g, minus whatever you get as a discount, and prices tend to be between 15k and 20k. It's tempting to get into that market, but the number of people willing to drop even 15k on a mount is small on most realms.
Compared to almost any other crafting profession, Engineering has less money making options, and these options tend to have less demand than their comparisons. Sure, it's possible to make gold, but you have to work harder, and no matter how hard you work, you can saturate the market without much effort.
Maximize your profits with advice from Gold Capped. Want to know the very best ways to earn 10,000 gold? Top gold making strategies for auctioneers? How about how to reach 1 million gold -- or how one player got there and then gave it all away? Fox and Basil are taking your questions at fox@wowinsider.com and basil@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Economy, Gold Capped
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
saviordudeosoo Mar 5th 2012 9:01AM
And my guildies didn't believe me when I told them that I find it hard to make a large profit with Inscription....
Still, that's all I have, so back to buying herbs and milling them for me!
khalli Mar 4th 2012 8:15PM
I have both professions. Agree completely regarding engineering. Somewhat agree regarding inscription. I've been waiting a long time for my glyph business to die, but it's still chugging along making me 3-10k gold a day.
You're right that it's a hard profession to break into. Books of glyph mastery are rare and expensive. Getting all the recipes takes time. And glyphing is comparatively labor intensive unless you've got a system down, so it's intimidating for newcomers. And, obviously, markets are server dependent. Hopefully your column will only serve to discourage more entrants to the market on my server ;)
Pyromelter Mar 4th 2012 8:36PM
To my point below, I have a hard time believing that lw'ing could bring in 3-10k a day for anyone.
Mal Mar 4th 2012 10:03PM
Haven't you seen what pant enchants go for these days?
Calicia Mar 5th 2012 8:19AM
at Mal ...
I have and it's not much on my realm (Madoran).
Dragonscale Leg Armor is consistently going for less than the cost for mats. I can send in my farmer to grind mobs for blackened dragonscale, but I'm better off just selling the mats.
Plus, it's not like there's one LW leg enhancement that's a must-have for every class like the belt buckle.
Like everyone else, I made some money at each release of new dungeons/raids, but it hasn't been as consistent JC.
Talusazaroth Mar 4th 2012 8:18PM
They changed the recipe for the chopper, at lest in my engineering window, should be a heck of alot cheaper now.
Pyromelter Mar 4th 2012 8:34PM
Basil, are you saying that leatherworking makes more money right now than inscription? When i read the title, my thought was engineering and lw. IInscription surely doesn't make as much now as it does early in an expac, but I have a hard time believing lw'ing is more volume and profit than inscription
razion Mar 4th 2012 9:00PM
On any given realm, you're likely going to see far less leather-workers, which means more opportunity for business. You can monopolize the market easier. The fact of the matter is LW can be a pain to level for some people, and in general more time-consuming to get materials for if you're going about it the traditional way.
The fact that all melee are going to need their leg enchants from you is a big part of business. The leg armors as a result aren't cheap. Depending on your realm, you can get the armors from 500 to 1k gold.
Leatherworking's income is going to remain relatively static because of how few people are willing to actually put in leveling the profession itself, and improved by how much people need the leg armor enchants (and this goes without mentioning any of the Dragon Soul-level gear it can make, which will sell really well, particularly the bracers, of which the craftables tend to be Best In Slot for nearly if not everyone).
By comparison, Glyphs sell singularly for each toon (you don't have to relearn a glyph every time you change which ones you're using, you just have to get dust), with the other available craftables no longer relevant in the later raiding tiers (as mentioned in the article).
I think the Inscription *in general* not making you rich when compared to Leatherworking actually makes a *lot* of sense.
Spellotape Mar 4th 2012 9:49PM
Echoing razion. Even if the leg armor market dips belong 500g on my realm, this does not last long and typically the numbers are 800-1k. The advent of LFR means people are constantly getting upgrades and it only requires 10-15 people to get a new pair of trousers for me to make 10k from leg armor.
That would just be from leg enchants alone, though; PVP gear still sells - a keen buyer could acquire an entire set from my listings and spend over 5k on it. That scenario is unusual, but it does happen - mostly people are willing to shell out for one or two items which net around 1-2k.
Mycroft Mar 4th 2012 10:07PM
The problem I've had with trying to sell the leg enchants, at least on my server, is that they tend to be priced below the mats required to make them, sometimes a little above. I could pair it with skinning and go get my own mats to make it to sell, but then I'd just be losing money by not selling the mats themselves. These mats are much more likely to sell, too, as most of the leg enchants I've put up take a few repostings before they'll sell.
Twill Mar 5th 2012 2:34AM
Leatherworking is barely profitable because people don't farm skins. Skins are so expensive that everyone ends up getting a leatherworker friend to make their stuff for free, because just getting the mats costs an arm and a leg.
ie- I bought my priest the entire blue 377 pvp gear set. For that same price, I could have bought my shaman one item.
Blizzard-- make farming skins less of a death wish.
jrb Mar 5th 2012 4:27AM
@Twill - "Blizzard-- make farming skins less of a death wish"
it's the only primary gathering profession that doesn't reward XP. Whilst i can understand why it doesn't, i can't help but think more people would pick the profession up if there were other gains to be had from it when levelling, e.g. additional XP.
wow Mar 5th 2012 4:58AM
@ Twill & jrb. Farming skins gives XP: YOU KILL THE MOB. It's not a deathwish, it's really simple. Skinning is a massively profitable profession right now if you have the time, the inclination and (most importantly at 85) are in the right place with a Potion of Treasure Finding on.
./agree with Basil. Scribes and Engis have the Bum Steer right now :/
Calicia Mar 5th 2012 9:12AM
@ Twill and JRB ...
Leave skinning alone. It's resistant to bots and a steady money maker. I can jump on my worgen farmer druid and clean up the crocs in TB for a decent return of my time investment.
It's not as mindless as flying in a circle in TH for ore, but at this point I can make more money from fishing than mining.
Jyotai Mar 5th 2012 7:51PM
@jrb Mar 5th 2012 4:27AM:
Skinning is a great choice -while- leveling due to the crit bonus. That gives a handy DPS boost that's kept it a profession of choice for my DPS alts, as well as a lowbie druid tank on a server where I lack heirlooms - the crit helps my threat stay above the DPS of heirloom stacking PUGlies in large AOE pulls that people with such heirlooms expect tanks to make these days.
The XP bonus of the other professions is not significant enough to me to give up that crit bonus - which while also small, is just enough of an edge to be worth it.
Talusazaroth Mar 4th 2012 8:36PM
They changed the recipe for the chopper, at lest in my engineering window, should be a heck of alot cheaper now.
Harvoc Mar 4th 2012 8:36PM
My main is an engineer/miner and man it is hard to make cash with it! The only profitable items on my server are the two flying mounts, the chopper, the three best ranged weapons, the two best scopes, four companions, overcharged capacitators, and the jr. engineer goggles. That may seem like a lot but if I make all of those and post them, only about half of them will sell and I'm just one of a handful of a people that actually post on the AH.
Mycroft Mar 5th 2012 1:35AM
Flying mounts? The only people who can use them are engineers, and I would've assumed people would just make their own. Do they sell, and is it more profotable than just selling the mats, assuming you're farming them?
alapin Mar 5th 2012 5:05AM
There are a few more engineering items that can sell for those who don't want to camp a vendor for a item spawn. In the outland item range, you have the Khorium Power Core, which is used as part of the Netherwing quests to unlock an additional daily when you reach a high enough standing with them. If your an alliance player (not sure of horde having any similar quests) there is another item that is required for a general quest in Borean Tundra at the airstrip (easily skipable, but still). IF anything, the Khorium Power Core can be a real cash cow since the mats are extreemly rare due to not being as rampantly farmed (fel Iron and adamantite ore tend to go for a lot if your trying to AH power level a mining/jc skill, let alone the motes needed). I only say the Khorium Power Cores can sell pretty good because if people don't want to wait out the spawn time for the one vendor that will sell one for cheap, they will go to the AH and shell out about 400-800 gold on them. There isn't a person I know that doesn't like the nether drake mounts, so business for these is relatively stable, though you still might need to relist them several times.
loli.gigis Mar 5th 2012 9:36AM
OMG lol I spammed trade chat for an engineer that could make the power core! Even then it took forever... I rarely spend a lot of money (it took about 4 months for me to buy the lvl 70 flying for my first 85 alt... and even then I didn't really want to shell out that much cash) but I paid top dollar for that core! I really really wanted to finish my rep grind! I think I paid about 500g for it with my mats.