codexia wrote:
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...
I'm going to make a gross generalization here, so I'm going to offer a disclaimer beforehand: even though what I'm about to say applies to everyone, it may not apply to you.
People who tell you not to take a production profession (ie. combine base materials into usable items) until level 70 tell you that because they're too stupid/lazy/undisciplined to manage their funds.
I leveled my Hunter to 70 as an Enchanter/Skinner. Found out I hated skinning and on my realm, the income potential was crap. I dropped 375 skinning and took up mining. Leveling my mining through Azeroth sucked. 1-300 was painful (more painful at some points than others *cough* thorium *cough*, but still painful). 300-375 in Outland was a breeze...took about 45-60 minutes (go go epic flight!)
Then I got bored with mining. Ore was stacking up on alts like crazy and the market was wonky on my realm so I dropped 375 mining and took up herbalism (I was just getting into Karazhan and being able to gather the herbs needed to hand off to the guild alchemist seemed like a good idea). Again...1-300 in Azeroth was painful. In some ways not as bad as mining, in other ways worse.
Through it all, enchanting was my main source of income. More specifically, disenchanting. Yes, the one profession people will tell you is the worst profession to start with because it's the most expensive to level..pffft.
Just make sure that if you're going to take a production profession, take the gathering profession that goes with it. Blacksmith/Jewelcraft/Engineering? Take mining. Leatherworking? Take skinning. Enchanting? Take whatever you want...but your gold reserves would do well to take a gathering profession as your second choice (tailoring is also a good choice to take with enchanting if you can use cloth armor because you don't need a gathering profession to level that one, either...and you can disenchant a lot of what you make as a tailor for greater profit or more materials to put towards leveling your enchanting). That way, you're not buying much (if anything) from auction to level your production profession...you're supplying most of what you need from what you gather. Hard core MMO economists will spew "opportunity cost" dribble at you and point out the mats you're gathering for "free" aren't being used for "free" with your production profession because you're losing out on the gold you could have made if you had sold what you gathered, but we're talking about investing in a profession.
You need very, very little gold throughout the leveling process. Your greatest expenses will be riding training at levels 40, 60, and 70, and class training. Don't buy gear from auction unless the stuff you're wearing is horrendously (see: 20+ levels) out of date and you can get a good price on an upgrade. Mount training is only an onerous "financial" burden for people who waste their gold as they earn it. Plan ahead and win.