Worth it to drop LW for Mining?Follow

The way I see it, LW is a joke of a profession; I never find myself using it for much of anything, let alone items to turn a profit on a regular basis.

Mining, on the other hand, is "easy money". I don't think it would be too too hard to level, and even if it was, it seems like it would be worth it.

What do you think? My LW is at 360, more or less the point where I'd have to "push" to get it to 375, and potentially waste money on what I see as I waste of a profession slot.

In my limited experience, herbalism is better than mining. Because herbs are used for consumables, they sell faster and are in higher demand. Also, it seems there are more herb nodes than mining nodes--this is probably not true, it just seems that way to me.

I could be wrong about all of this, but I dropped mining for herbalism because my bars didn't sell for as much as I would like considering the effort it took to get them. Plus, if you're raiding, the herbs can be used to make raiding consumables you might otherwise have to pay for, assuming you have an alchemist in the guild that can make stuff for you. The bars, on the other hand, will have limited value to you.

So, if you're going to drop LW, I would recommend herbalism over mining.

Whether mining is better than LW, I don't know. I had both at one point and it didn't seem like either was blowing the other out of the water, but that was before LW prices seemed to plummet.

Personally, I found mining to be a royal pain to level. I agree that there don't seem to be alot of mining nodes ANYWHERE. Herbs are much more plentiful and sell better on my server, although yours may be different.


As for LW, I thought at the higher levels there were some really nice pieces like Cobrahide or Clefthoof armor that could be added on to your current gear. I could be wrong, could someone please help with that? Again, if I'm thinking of the right profession, they sell really nicely on my server. You may want to check into those before you decide to level a ndw profession from ground zero.... just a suggestion!

for a manufacturing tradeskill that high, i'd be more inclined to keep it.

i had 2-3 tradeskills in the 360 range for months. i slowly worked on them, gathering mats. finally, they are 375. did i need to rush it to 375? not at all. am i glad i did get 375? you bet.

often, it is said that mats are worth more than the completed item. it's certainly true, but if you use your tradeskills correctly, it can be a good complement to your general money-making efforts.

people love the clefthoof armor kits, but that doesn't mean farm heavy clefthoof till you're blue, and then flood the AH. rather, make some when you get the mats, sell them slowly over the week, and wow, you have maybe 300g more by Saturday than you did on Monday.

every now and then when there are lots of mats on sale, lowering the prices, you can profit by buying those mats and just turning around and selling the armor kit.

anyway that is just one use of your LW skill that you can do.

if you really don't see a reason even for raising money slowly, then for sure constantly selling all your ore that you aren't using, will net you nice money.

It all depends. Most crafting professions in this game aren't going to make you any money, but they can make you nice stuff to wear. I became a Tailor with my lock not to sell bags, but to make the crafted epics. If there is anything you want to make for yourself, keep it, if you want to make mulah, take mining/herbs. Which to take depends on the server imo. Mining is a pain in the *** to lv(and there are fewer mining nodes than herb nodes, IDC how much people disagree, whether because theres more miners or because its the way it is idk). You need to see it like this, herbs come in more often than ores, but they sell for much lower. Skinning is a joke at endgame in my server, but before outland I made a nice chunk of change from it.

I've been having this same internal dilemma. I have LW at 360 and don't see it as going anywhere for me. I'm a Hunter, so I can use some of the things that I can make, but it seems like I can get better drops without spending a ton of money to get them like I would if I crafted them.

My guildie is a miner and she makes a ton of gold from mining in Outland, so I've been thinking of picking it up... but I also hate to see all the money I spent on leveling up LW'ing go to waste... although I think I would be able to make it up once I get mining leveled.


what to do, what to do...

What class is this toon? Do you have any others? Are you interested only in making some gold?

The short answer to your question is hell yes - drop the LW and mine your way to gold. But that's also the objective answer of someone looking on. As aardfrith said, there is the subjective side - does LW mean anything to you?

If you have an alt consider using it as a farming toon instead. If its a hunter you're in great shape. If its leveled a bit already, even better. The first toon I rolled was a hunter with LW and skinning. At around L27 I switched to my Pally. I had the hunter in Southshore and began using him to farm medium leather and Sagefish once a week on Saturday morning.

Before I knew it he was L30 - without doing anything but farming - and I decided to make him my farming toon. Gave him mining, went to IF and ran around for a bit tripping over mining nodes and leveled up his mining. Then decided to follow Azuarc's leveling guide to level him quickly to farm for me and he's now in his 40s (a month or so later). I play him a couple of times a week, and he's in Badlands mining mithril. I'm considering switching him from skinning to herbalism because as others have said, herbalism is a good money-maker at higher levels (my Pally is Herb/Alch and in Outlands and stacks of herbs go for good money).

I realize this is time consuming and not an immediate answer. But if you really are torn about giving up LW, and if you don't need an immediate influx of a lot of gold (you will make gold while leveling your farming toon, obviously), I think it may be a good compromise for you.

My 52 rogue is a skinner/leatherworker and I took up elemental leatherworking. Considering the trouble I had to go through to get elemental to where it is, I would hate to drop it. Besides, I really want those lv 70 elemental leatherworking recipes. But as of late, I have felt the desire to drop skinning for (dis)enchanting. Skinning doesn't supply my LW because I am always at least one leather ahead of what I can skin, so skinning is a money maker for me. But, the thought has crossed my mind man times the thought of what I could get from disenchanting quest rewards or those same caster/tank blues I can't use that I get hundreds of in instances. I have literally vendored the same BoP blue (1.4G) 20 times in the last week. At level 52, I can easily spend 20 gold in a day, so those dungeon BoPs seem to begoing to waste. Don't get me wrong, I have my ways of making money, so I'm not hurting for cash, I'm just wondering if encanting is betterfor addingto my incom than skinning is? Or would mining be better to take up? I noticed mylevel 30 hunter (miner/bs) has about 100G more than my 52 rogue does.

Basically, should I drop skinning? I've heardmany a times that it's a joke at higher levels.

And no, I have no intention of dropping leathworking. Having a maxed out tradeskill is as much of an accomplishment for me in my MMOs as having a max level char in the best gear. It's what's fun for me.

Edited, Oct 29th 2007 2:16pm by Aeonkurai