Should I really take no crafting prof?Follow

Every post on every forum I read says never to take a crafting skill until your level 70. Ok, um...what if you enjoy crafting? Is it going to kill me to craft as I level? I haven't played WoW for a long long time now, finally getting back into it so I've been looking through a bunch of forums. Last time I played I took leatherworking on my hunter because I never purchase armor, so figured crafting it was the way to go. It never seemed like it was killing me all THAT badly to level the craft as I went. And deviate scale belts make a nice profit...

Other than specific items that seem to come along every X levels or so (deviate scale belts for example) I really never expected to make money crafting until the end. I take crafting to supply myself/guildies/friends with gear potentialy for less cost than purchasing it. What I'm trying to find out though is how badly that will hurt, so to speak.

Since I know I will be playing a Leatherworker (later if not at the start) for my Hunter, that would mean skinning is a definate. How much money do you really think I would lose if I didn't take herbalism or mining in the long run? Will I still be able to equip myself well if I don't craft? You may think it's a stupid question but last time I played I couldn't find anything on the AH worth purchasing that wasn't super over-priced, which was why I ended up taking a craft profession in the first place.

I dunno, meh...crafting is fun, so that's a point in it's favor also. But now I wonder just how much money I could lose if I take it :(

I suppose I should just take skinning and leatherworking then, at least at first. Drop leatherworking after I stop finding scraps and start work on herbalism or something. Still feels really weird not having a craft though, all my chars have always had one. On the other hand, since I'm starting on a new server I'm flat broke. Can't even afford weapon training as of yet, going nuts.

I just hope I manage to pull in enough money to compensate that I won't be getting any crafted armor at all, will have to buy it all from vultures on the AH. Might pick mining over herbalism...ore sells better for some reason. Cept I'm an elf...ore is rare in elfland :P

That's the power levelers talking - if you just enjoy playing the game then by all means take a skill.



Only if you fall into the trap of trying to level it off of the AH - just level as you go and as you aquire the mats and you'll be fine.



Yup - and the armor patches are always sweet too.

There's two reasons why people call crafting skills a money sink -

1) They level said skills off of the AH so if you're paying a couple of gold per skill up, yes, it becomes a money sink.

2) They count lost opportunity - what that means is that you've got a stack of leather that you can either sell for 2 gold or skill up off of. If you skill up off of it, then lost opportunity says that said skill up cost you 2 gold even though you paid nothing out of pocket because you could have earned 2 gold AHing said stack of leather.

Now combine those two issues with the fact that so few crafted items have any real market or profit potential (I can make item X and sell it for 2g or I can just put the raw mats up and sell them for 3g) and you can see why some peeps view crafting professions as no-win.

Conversly, non-combat pets take up valuable bag space/bank slots and serve no purpose what-so-ever and can often be sold for significant cash, yet peeps love them.

I leveled my hunter with LW/Skinning. I did lag behind in cash (didn't buy my mount until 42). At least until I created my bank alt who had (dis)enchanting. That solved all my problems and then some.

I will tell you this, though. Although I had (and leveled) LW all the way through to 70, there weren't all that many items that were head and shoulders above equivalent quest rewards. Plus, now that I'm 70, LW patterns seem to use anything BUT leather (primals are the main ingredient).

My druid took herbalism and skinning up til 50. I saved most of the herbs because I intended to power-level alchemy, but I sold the skins and some extra herbs for a nice profit. I have alchemy capped now and it's a great profession. Very few odd ingredients are required, I make the elixirs for my guild and our pot master makes my pots. I sell a few of the extras as well. I don't make much gold with them, but they move. The great thing about alchemy is that it, along with echanting and JC, has applications to all classes. LW, Tailoring, and BS have a much more limited audience.

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PS
To echo what's been said before - if you enjoy crafting, go for it. It is fun to track down those elusive recipes and they give you some focus on which rep to get.

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pps
One word of warning - the Ebon Netherscale set that is the hunter's supposed reward is not very good. And if you decide to go survival, it's actually a huge downgrade from the Felstalker Set.
Edited, May 5th 2008 10:21am by actodd

Edited, May 5th 2008 10:30am by actodd

There's also a difference between professions that make durables and professions that make consumables.

While at 70 with 375 skill you can make at least minimal money with any crafting profession, the ones that make consumables are more likely to help you while leveling. My tailor warlock and blacksmith paladin never actually used any of the 987983454 pieces of armor they made while leveling up. Meanwhile my alchemist rogue and engineer warrior got a lot of use out of all the potions and bombs and bullets they made.

I think a few of you hit the nail on the head for me, actually two nails -_- one of which I had forgotten about. I do craft for the love of crafting, blacksmith/craftsman/etc are always my favorite characters in any MMO (assuming they aren't weak as a newborn kitten). On the other hand, by end-game, what can you do with a craft :( All the best recipe's require stuff you get in raids, and I hate raiding with a passion *sigh* I had definately forgotten about that...

I meant I never used any of the stuff I made while leveling up. At 70 I made and wear FSW and spellstrike and stuff, but I never wore any of the wool/mageweave/runecloth/netherweave stuff I made while leveling.

I wouldn't call myself a power leveler, especially since I only have one Level 70 and she's been there for a while. What I do enjoy, however, is making gold. Lots and lots of it. I'm not against crafting by all means - every one of my wife's toons is a crafter. But realize that my toons have to support hers, and she doesn't buy mats from the AH either. At low levels, my wife seldom has money for leveling her toons, because she uses the mats that she could have sold to up her crafting skill. She has never had enough gold for a horse, a flier, or the epics of each, but she has them anyhow. What I've found is that crafting is a good way to the poorhouse.

Its really up to you to decide waht you want to do. Tailoring as been really nice to me, but Enchanting has been a waste. If I had it to do over, I'd take at least one gathering skill.

If you are going to take a crafting skill, unless you already have a 70 on the same server, for the love of God, don't take a crafting skill unless you also take that crafting skill's gathering profession, OR, if you have a friend who is willing to supply you.

For your first character on a server, it will be VERY long and arduous to level a crafting skill without its gathering skill. For example, Blacksmithing can take well over 5,000g to get to 375, without mining your own ore. Even if you DO mine your own ore, it STILL takes a longass time to level Blacksmithing.

That, and most crafts are simply useless for actual money gain until way later in the game. I can think of nothing in Blacksmithing that will net you an actual profit until Outlands, and even then it is questionable. Alchemy is a bit of an exception to the rule; I've sold potions for Profit now and then (Gift of Arthas, Magic Resistance Potions, Mana Potions, Some of the Buff Potions, etc), and Alchemy is cheap and easy to level anyways.

Of all the crafting skills, if you are going to craft, do Herb+Alchemy. If you are leveling a character on a new server, the best thing you can possibly do, is go Mining+Herbalism. Herbalism won't make you much from the get-go (mining will, however), but it will start to shine after you get to Briarthorn (and the Swiftthistle you get from Briarthorn plants) and then when you start getting into things like Sungrass, Mountain Silversage, Gromsblood, Purple Lotus, Arthas' Tears, etc. Most of these go for 1g+ per herb, and the later zones are covered with these herbs. Heck, Black Lotus goes for a whopping 10g on my server.

Once you get to 70, if you really wanna craft, THEN is the time to start crafting. You can do dailies for 10-15g a pop (which will buy you a lot of mats early on) and provides you with the money to ply your trade, instead of having to farm for hours upon hours upon hours.

Speaking as a Warrior, Blacksmithing never allowed me to make anything worthwhile that actually helped my leveling career, and as a Lv25 Rogue, only 2-3 leather recipes were actually worth it (not including the first couple white armors <Lv10). I think the only two crafts that helped me level, were Alchemy (buff/mana/hp potions) and Engineering on a Hunter (guns and scopes. Mainly the scopes).

With Enchanting, as a Lv70, you will make your life MUCH easier by waiting until 70, when you can solo many of the earlier instances for your mats. One instance run can yield several BoP Blues which DE into nice things, and whatever you can't get ahold of, doing dailies will get you the money to get ahold of them.

So, no matter how you roll the dice, it is always more profitable and easier to wait until you are 70 before you do any crafting, unless it is Alchemy for any class, and Engineering for a Hunter.

First of all, no one gave YOU crap about anything. This is your first post in this thread, but you seem to be taking the posts as if they are aimed at you. Nothing personal, but you need to be a little less paranoid.

It's fine that you enjoy crafting. Without crafters, gatherers would never become wealthy. Gatherers depend upon crafters for their income.


...so the alt loses gold by supplying you with mats that could have been sold. Great! Now you have two toons on their way to the poorhouse. The only way to prevent this loss is to pay the alt market price for those mats.

I completely agree. If you enjoy crafting go for it. I enjoyed crafting in EQ and that was a total gold sink with dozens of sub combines for almost everything I made. It had nothing to do with profit or loss. It was fun so I did it.



Whether or not crafting will help your character as you level is very much dependent on your gaming style. If you do a lot of instance runs as you level then crafts like leatherworking and blacksmithing will be less useful to you then if you solo all the way to the level cap.

I tend to spend most of my time solo leveling. I supplied a lot of my own armor with leatherworking for my rogue and my hunters. Though once they hit level 40 my hunters didn’t get much use from leatherworking after their first set of scorpid mail armor. And my warrior and paladin got a lot of armor, and even a few weapon, upgrades as they leveled thanks to blacksmithing.

But if your server has an active auction house, chance are you can get gear that is just as good if not better by selling profession supplies and buying your gear from the auction house. So it just depends on each player’s play style and whether or not he/she enjoys crafting.