In part two of my series of instructional World of Warcraft articles will be about choosing professions, which ones go best with each class, and how to make gold with your professions.
Just like in real life, in WoW each person is responsible for making their own money. This is achieved with professions. There are several professions to choose from, but many people have a hard time choosing which two are right for them. That’s right in WoW you get to have two different professions at any given time.
The current list of professions to choose from are as follows :
Alchemy: This profession allows one to create potions and flasks (to increase stats or other benefits) by using a selection of herbs and vials.
Blacksmithing: This allows one to smelt metal ore into bars, and create weapons and armor from mined metal ores.
Enchanting: This unique profession allows one to increase the potency or stats of a piece of armor or weapon by using special materials that are gained by disenchanting other pieces of gear.
Engineering: This profession allows one to create special “mechanical” items like mounts, or weapons like guns, and other things. This profession uses mainly mined metal ores, with a variety of other materials.
Herbalism: This profession is all about picking herbs that are found all over the world. This profession is commonly referred to as a “gathering” profession, alone it has no real benefit, and the picked herbs are used in other professions.
Inscription: This is a new profession that was included in the game with the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack. Inscription uses collected herbs which are milled into an ink and different parchments to create scrolls, glyphs, and other various things. (Glyphs are items that can be added to ones “spell book” to add beneficial upgrades to certain spells or abilities)
Jewel Crafting: This profession uses mined gems and metal ores to create necklaces, rings and other beneficial items. Also jewel crafters can cut gems to fit into gear sockets for very useful benefits.
Leather Working: This profession is used to create armor, ammo/quivers or certain containers, from the hides of many of the animals in the game. Most animals can be skinned for the leather required.
Mining: This is the profession that is used to mine metal ores, this profession is commonly referred to as a “gathering” profession, because alone it really will not benefit one in any certain way. Although, the mined metal ores are used in several other professions.
Skinning: This is the profession that skins the dead animals for their hides, or leather. This is another “gathering” profession.
Tailoring: This profession uses the different types of cloth that drops off humanoid mobs, to create armor, containers, or various other items.
Now that you know what the professions are, next is how to pick which are best for you. Like everything else in the game, the choice of professions is purely up to the individual, but certain professions will work better for certain classes. Take for example if you are a Warrior, then you might want to go with mining and blacksmithing. That way you can make your own gear and save yourself some money. Another example is that most cloth wearing classes ( warlock, mage, priest) usually pick tailoring, and enchanting as their professions. Since cloth can drop from every humanoid mob in the game, then it is very easy to collect cloth with very little effort. Since these classes can only wear cloth armor, then it is their better interest to go with tailoring, again they can make their own gear. Enchanting is very easily leveled up with tailoring, because with the abundance of cloth a tailor can make gear, then disenchant it for free enchanting materials, once again saving money. Those are what is known as convenience professions.
Although, being convenient can save you money, choosing two of the “gathering” professions can make you lots of money. Some people choose to go with herbalism and skinning, the gathering of these materials will sell very well in the auction house because the high demand for herbs and leather. The same would work for mining, and skinning, or mining and herbalism. Any combination of these professions will more than likely gain you the most gold. Tailoring is also a kind of “gathering” profession since cloth is used for many, many things, tailors with to much cloth can often sell the extra in the auction house for a decent profit.
Players with several characters will often choose two unrelated professions, (example: inscription and engineering) this can be done because they more than likely use their other characters to “farm” the materials for the professions that they chose. This will be a tougher way to go but, if you have lots of characters and lots of gold, then it can no doubt be done.
Hopefully using these tips will help you to become a very wealthy player in the game. Be on the lookout for part 3 when I will discuss another interesting WoW topic.