Going to join WOW, need to know status of trade skillsFollow

My personal experience both within a guild and as an independent is that very few low-end tradeskill items are desirable to other players. Thus the early levels can be a bit frustrating, later on it becomes far easier to sell items on the auction house. It's highly recommended that you develop a working agreement with characters whose tradeskills complement yours and a few of your own profession, this will give you access to materials you can't make yourself as well as a group of people who use the same items as you do and may be willing to trade surplus materials or duplicate schematics at advantageous prices if they know you.

For the easy no-hassle approach just get gathering skills (herbalism, skinning, mining) or enchanting used strictly for disenchanting only. You can sell the materials on the AH and make good money.

For the self-sufficient approach take a gathering skill and a manufacturing skill which complement each other, such as Herbalism/Alchemy or Skinning/Leatherworking. Consider setting up an alt character as an AH 'mule' to whom you will mail items for listing (and maybe train the character in alchemy

If you are primarily interested in trading items and making a profit then avoid engineering as most of its items are for engineers only and thus you'll have a very limited market.

If you want to be able to sell your goods via the AH then avoid enchanting as it requires one-on-one interaction via a trade window.

You can very easily build up your tradeskills over time. It will be noticeable expensive if you try to power-level them though and you will also need to achieve certain character levels in order to get higher level tradeskills.

Professions are meant to be helpful to the player and, in my opinion, fun. They are not necessarily meant to be profitable. That isn’t to say that you can’t make money. I made the 90 gold I need for my mount at level 40 by selling leather and mithril/truesilver bars in the auction house. But in my opinion Blizzard did not have profit in mind when putting professions together.

Herbalism / alchemy allow you to make healing and buff potions to enhance your character’s chances for survival. Skinning / leatherworking allow you to make your own armor. Mining / smithing allow you to make your own armor and weapons. Mining / engineering allow you to make your own guns, bullets and all kinds of fun, and sometimes dangerous, gadgets. Tailoring allows you to make your own cloth armor and bags. Enchanting allows you to add additional magical properties to already existing items. All these professions, depending on your class of course, can enhance your game play. And I feel that is all that Blizzard intended for them to do.

That having been said, there is always money to be made when dealing with crowds of people. Characters can only take up any two of those professions. So if they want something they can’t make they have to get it elsewhere. Also, many people are lazy. They would much rather pay someone else to do any work they need done instead of doing it themselves. So there is certainly money to be made. But everyone should understand that items dropped by mobs are more often than not better than what players can make and Blizzard has stated on several occasions that this is intentional.

If people, such as myself, enjoy trade skills just because trade skills are fun to play with, then they will most likely enjoy WoW’s professions. I certainly do. We are allowed two of the main professions plus fishing, cooking and first aid. That’s a total of five skills to play with. And if you really want more you can do like I did and play several alts and have them each take different professions.



Yes. Professions are working as intended. Find the professions that fit your character and your personality and you’ll most likely enjoy them.

If this is going to be your first char, I suggest not getting Enchanting(it is expensive and requires some experience).

Engineering is extremely useful, but its not profitable in the sense of money.

Basically engineering is for those who want to boost their PvP (and in some cases their PvE) with gadgets that *usually* help out.

If you just want money I'd suggest going for mining/skinning. You'll make some good gold that way.