The effectiveness of LWFollow

My main is a Night Elf rogue and I went with skinning/leatherworking. One of the great things about it was that as I leveled, I was usually upgrading to gear that I made myself. Some of the better gear from 30-50 are crafted sets. Nightscape starts it off and then you eventually move into thw Wicked set. The early 20s gear isn't half bad either. These sets give agility with some stamina on the side, so great for rogues and cat druids. Plus, all the mats for them are stuff you're going to be skinning along the way anyway. Come 45, gather some elemental mats and treat yourself to a Helm of Fire. Also around this level you can jump into tribal leatherworking for some druid specific gear. I warn you though, it would appear that the tribal sets focus more on druids that spend a lot of time in caster form rather than strictly feral.

Either way, I'd say that leatherworking is a good way to gear yourself as you go, especially if you're not so worried about making money.

Another thing I must mention is once you get to Outlands, leatherworking can mean more money than skinning alone. It takes 5 stacks of knothide leather scraps to make a stack of knothide leather. On my server, 5 stacks of scraps sell for 1.5-2g a piece, meaning usually 8-10 gold for 5 stacks. A stack of leather, on the other hand, runs 16-19g on my server. I'm lv 64 now and between primals and leather, I have no problem making around 100g an hour just questing. It depends on your server, but LW can become profitable in the end. I mean do you have any idea how much people are willing to pay for Clefthide Leg Armor? I profit about 15-20g a pop on those, and profit 40-50g a pop on the new 2.3 ammo bags.

as a druid leather working is well worth it , the mid range skins are a pain to get hold of in enough quantity but if you are a role player not a quester=( speed level freak ) the time taken to skin pays off well , in outland the leather there is slow to farm as most will be scraps and at a 5/1 ratio you need a lot of scraps to make stuff but the bonus all the way is if you only keep to your level in LW and take out all skin-able mobs you pass as you quest the extra you do not need will see you with a nice lot of gold at auction

there are a few sets of LW products as you level that are almost perfect for a druid , and end game some nice choices as well

LW is for sure no gold maker until you get to outland and even then most of what you skin will be used to get your LW up but end game will make decent gold

on my main i did LW/skinning then gave up as i thought as a hunter there was little use for what i could make but now at 1 quest away from 70 have redone LW as i found a set i wanted plus my alts now have good armour as well

For me, Leatherworking has provided most of my gear to my alt character. In the beginning, I used everything I made since nothing else provided good stats pre-level 10. Now that my Hunter is at level 29, I am still using majority of the things I can craft. Two fine examples of that would be Toughened Leather Gloves(From Trainer) and a Deviate Scale Belt(Quest Reward). Soon I can craft the Barbaric Bracers which will keep me good in bracers for a while. All in all, if you remember to keep up with using Leatherworking, it can normally provide you with items that will be better than most items.

As a leatherworker I can say if you know what to do with your crafting profession you can make money. If all you do is make the stuff for yourself, you will find it a sink. On the other hand, if you find the stuff you can make and sell that is in demand to the folks that didn't take that profession you can make plenty of money. I had more than enough money at 40 to buy my mount straight up, and did not start doing the DE for gold on an alt until I was into my 50s. Money has never been a problem for me.

Find the patterns that make good items and farm the mats. Just a little time spent in Wailing caverns (Took me 45 minutes to clear solo when I was in my low 40s as a dagger rogue) would net enough mats to make 2 Deviate Scale belts for 30g each on my server. Toughened leather gloves are almost always in demand on my server. Same with Barbaric Bracers. Head to Booty Bay and get the pattern from the guy for the Shadowcraft gloves, another good one if you can get the mats cheap. If you sell these low level items alone, you should be pulling in plenty of money.

Two gathering profs are great and all, but I hate the misinformation that you will be broke if you do any crafting skill.

You will never convince me that a crafting prof will make more money than a gathering prof in the long run. And no one said you would be broke, but I am of the opinion that you will be making less.

When you are in your 40s and 50s where will you get the mats for the "low level" profit makers you cited? You will have to deviate from leveling your toon to farm them. And although the money you make at level 30 from these items may seem like a lot, as you close in on level 60 and want that newer, faster mount, it will seem like nothing. At that point you will have to level your LW and find other profit makers, but it won't happen.

But, if you sell the mats you get by stopping for three to four seconds to skin what you kill as you level, other crafters will buy them to make items to level LW. Items that they will have to sell for less than the mats. So, you supply the mats to them, then buy the item you want. You don't have to make all those other items to level LW to the point where you can make the item you want, which = profit. You get the item you want without using the mats you gathered to make it, instead selling the mats on the AH - again, the price of the mats less the price of the item = profit.

So, you get the same armor or weps or bags or ammo pouches or whatever you would get by crafting the items, at a price less than if you kept the mats, leveled LW, and made the item yourself. And, while in your example you can make some gold by selling lower level items for profit, you have to put a lot of time into farming for the mats instead of leveling and gold into getting the recipes and time into running from the bank to get your mats to the leatherworking supplier to get the thread and to the AH to put the items up for sale.

I agree with you that it is "misinformation that you will be broke if you do any crafting skill," but in my opinion (1) you will not be richer at level 58 if you craft, and will have less gold than someone who gathers; (2) you will get all the same items as the crafter while still coming out ahead on gold if you only gather; (3) you will have more time for leveling to get to Outlands where the streets are paved with gold; and (4) in Outlands you will make crazy amounts of gold from a gathering profession.

The stories one hears about people making 100g in about an hour of farming in Outlands are true. With herbalism, my main runs a circuit through only half of Zangarmarsh and makes 60 to 75g in about 40 minutes, and more if its quiet and no one else has been through the area in a while. And I have alchemy on that toon, imagine if I had mining?

And whoever rated baveux down for stating his or her opinion really needs to re-think how and why they rate people. That's just wrong.

And here I was hoping that you were so that you would brighten an otherwise boring day with nice discussion. Oh well!




You mean, that's not why I don't have a girlfriend?




I agree that everyone should experience the professions in this game, as they add another dimension to it that is fun in itself. However, I too believe they are best done on alts.