What's the best paying gathering skill?Follow

probably mining as it main-supports 3 profesions

hmmmm ive not met many alchemists... i may justbe loking in the wrong places but end-game i think theyre viable for raids so maybe? hmmmm

Herbalism is a great gathering profession. When you are 70, you can fly around gathering Terocone, Netherbloom, and the like. Herbalism and questing bought my first epic flier.

As for demand at the AH, alchemists don't always have everything they need. Other than very low level herbs, herbs sell well. I always have plenty of mana potions and some flasks when I raid. I don't always take the time to farm the herbs myself.

I agree, Disenchanting can bring in some nice cash. In my case, it's best for high skill leveling of trade skills, specifically leatherworking. For example, I was skilling up the 280-300 bracket recently in leather and the most cost effective skillup items were already flooding the market, some even selling for less than they vendored for. So I sent them all to my enchanter (only has to be level 20 to get enchanting high enough to DE items up to level 60). Disenchanting them netted me at least the value in mats used to make them, often times making more. At one point I used 3 gold worth of mats to make an item and then disenchanted it into 12 gold worth of Illusion Dust.

I am curious however, when fishing starts to pay off?

As for other gathering skills, my main has skinning and he is skinning rugged leather now with the occasional thick leather. I don't use thick leather in LW anymore so I sell that for 2-3 gold a stack. Between 46-51 I was usually pulling in about 3-4 stacks of thick leather an hour while questing/leveling. Now, whenever I decided to set LW aside for a bit and just sell all the rugged leather I skin, that's an easy 18 gold an hour from that (I'm lv 54 btw)because rugged leather sells for upwards of 6 gold a stack on my server on weekends.

My level 31 hunter has mining and at that level with mining he is bringing in more gold than skinning did at 40-45. I don't know about herbalism though because I don't have it, but my wife does on her mage. But her mages is only levels 22 so I think it's a little early to give any sound advice on herbalism from her.

In debris pools you get items that crafters use. From tailors and leatherworkers to engineers and blacksmiths. The higher the level of the area the higher level reagents you find

Zangar has its own version of debris pools. With the appropriate high level reagents inside [fel iron bolts etc]

My hunter can fish oily blackmouth and has before. He's the only char of mine that has much skill in fishing. As of late, I've been thinking of leveling fishing on my main.

I used to play FFXI and in that game, cooking was probably the most profitable professions because food was used to give temporary buffs that lasted anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours. Couple this with the fact that alchemy was heavily dependent on fish, fishing could make you some serious bank.

When I came to WoW, I expected fishing to pull in some cash, but all I've been getting are mostly cooking ingredients and quite frankly, cooking doesn't make any money at all (on my server) because food is so easily available at vendors. I've done some research, and I know about oily blackmouth and deviates, but what I was wondering was if there was some more profitable fish at higher levels (50+)? I personally haven't needed any for my leatherworking, and that's my highest leveled profession, so I have not been exposed yet to fishy mats.

Thanks all for the info! It's greatly appreciated and I think I may start leveling fishing on my main.

Edited, Nov 4th 2007 12:20pm by Aeonkurai

There you go - but the prices will vary from server to server. These are high for my server. Also, going up the ladder in terms of fish available in higher levels, sagefish and then greater sagefish. Cooked greater sagefish give +5 mana per 5 secs, which is nice for casters. I used these for my Pally, but noticed that the uncooked sold real well on my server - for a lot more than the cooked.

As to your original question, herbalism starts off slow and gathers momentum as you go. As Dadanox said, at high levels it brings in the cash. As I quested around Hellfire I just picked Felweed along the way, never going out of my way to find it. Gathered close to a stack a day that way and a stack sells for nearly 15g on my server.

It kind of depends on your character and/or playing style.

If you're a lower lvl character thats looking for supplemental income while hurrying to lvl 70, take skinning. It doesn't pay as well, but the time investment is the smallest. Not only do you not have to search for nodes, but big part of what you kill provides skins and falls into your normal leveling/questing process.

If you're low level but plan on taking your time leveling, something like mining or hebalism would be fine. Fishing too, although many people find fishing to be mind-numbing. Just remember that you'll likely spend a fair amount of time "out of your way" hitting nodes.

If you're high level looking for that epic flyer money, Mining is pretty fast mounted, and bars sell best IMO.

Overall, disenchanting my be most profitable, but remember you have to reinvest a lot of your materials into leveling it so you can DE higher lvl items. Also, it's not as easy to play the AH for items to DE anymore, because so many people are wise to it. Of course, the upside is you get an actual profession that can benefit your character in places other than the wallet.

cooking is underrated, imo. you get most of the mats already just from questing and killing. eating food pre-60 is like having a semi-permanent buff of anywhere from 20-120 HP. people pay lots of gold for such an enchant, why not add food to your HP stats also?

for gathering skill though, really, anything you don't spend on yourself, is money. skinning makes money, when you don't have a LW who needs the skins. mining ore, picking herbs, all make money when you dont need those mats. all that cloth you pick up is good for money, as long as you don't have a tailor who needs it.

many players who start out the game try to work on some skill to make gear for themselves. they think it's great to wear something they make. this is true, but generally, it's also true that they lose out on some cash because they're trying to keep their skill up to their level so they can keep wearing stuff they make.

so pick a skill you like, from any of the gathering professions, that you think you might change to in the future after your pockets are a little more full, and don't spend too much money. you'll see your bank account grow.

Where's the Debris Pools? >.>
never heard of it, unless its in Outlands..!

debris pools are "floating wreckage" etc

Since the 2.3 patch, the law of unintended consequences has taken hold. Engineers can build flying mounts, which require 36 fel iron bars, and now a stack of 20 fel iron bars on my server (Aggramar USA) sells for 100g on average on the AH.

I'd say that makes mining a fairly profitable profession.