Stop telling people to not do trade skills!Follow

LOL - your entire argument basically boils down to the lost opportunity concept I explained.

Fret not, as someone holding a BS in business mgmt, I certainly understand and hold to the concept, however, the crux of my post wasn't "you'll make more money doing tradeskills then if you do two gathering skills" the point was "tradeskills are only a gold sink if your sole focus is on earning gold."

That's why I concluded with "...have fun being a professional tradeskiller!" instead of "...get rich being a professional tradeskiller!"



Not in the least bit - the only skill I noted that skill up items were useful for was tailoring and that was only for disenchanting - the reality is that if you don't have an enchanter to DE them then you're simply going to sell them to a merchant to recoup the cost of your dyes and thread.

Conversely, even without an enchanter to DE the skill up items (since as pointed out, the AH will be flooded with most of them) one can still keep out of pocket expenses to zero just by merchanting them.

Having been an EQ tradeskiller, I did my first toon (pre-expansion) with LW/skinning and got the skill to 300 without paying any earned gold - if I needed mats that I couldn't farm or trade for, I simply put leather up onto the AH to earn gold to buy the gems/ores/whatever to skill up off of. I was patient and focused my leveling in areas and on mobs that would give me an ample supply of mats and never gave in to the urge to buy a few stacks of leather for a couple of more skill ups. So while I did suffer from opportunity cost, I suffered zero out of pocket expenses and the fun leveling LW easily made up for the opportunity costs of not being a pharmer.

You're also not considering time.

You might have slowly leveled LW by slowly farming. That's fine - go for it. That is a perfectly fine way of leveling.

You are not considering efficiency. Looking at something from an Opp.Cost is fine. But in reality, efficiency is what 99.99% of people want.

If you disagree - look at any regular WoW behavior.

1. Leveling – You could AOE farm – or you could quest. (Guess what – everyone is questing now.)
2. Farming – You could hope that X drops off of a certain mob, but guess what – 9/10 people are looking up the highest drop rate and farming that mob.
3. Gear – People don’t run certain 5 mans. (Strat & Schol) because the loot is replaced in 2 – 3 lvls.

Perfect example: I’m a mage. I’m at lvl 70 and never bothered to lvl up my cooking. I needed to farm some bear flanks. Stopped over, rounded up about 6 bears, Blizz’d them down. Rinse and repeat a few times – It took my cooking up about 18 levels. Time invested – 15 minutes.

Here is really what you should ask…

New Player: What profession should I take?

Exp. Player: How fast do you want to lvl and get into the real content of the game? If you want to get into interacting with lots of people quickly and run around at lvl 70 – take 2 gathering professions and focus on leveling. If you want to take 4 – 5 months leveling while simultaneously being broke, and farming for mats that you will never produce value from – Pick a crafting profession. The reasoning behind this is because it is expensive, difficult, and time consuming to level a craft while at lower lvls. You can easily come back and do in minutes what would have taken you hours. The items you make are almost certainly going to be useless and sell for less than the cost of the mats.



Opportunity cost is the value of a product forgone to produce or obtain another product.[1] Opportunity cost analysis is an important part of a company's decision-making processes, but is not treated as an actual cost in any financial statement.


You claim to be a business major. (Who cares…)

Cash???

The above quote took me 5sec. to find on google/wiki. The important part of that statement is that it’s NOT TREATED AS AN ACTUAL COST.

Aka – it really doesn’t matter. “Oh, well, the opportunity cost of doing such-and-such.”

Who cares – Cash is king. People want to lvl fast, get into content, and not spend hours/days/weeks farming for crap they won’t use. It’s infinitely easier to get to 70 with more cash on hand. You get that from gathering. Furthermore – it’s infinitely easier to level any/all professions once you hit 70.

If a new player asks what to do – you are doing the a disservice 99.99/100 by telling them to take a gold-sink profession.

Among the combinations of professions across my various alts on various servers are

• Alchemy/Herbalism - various levels scattered to 375
• Tailor/Enchanter - to level 225
• Skinner/Leatherworker to level 225
• Miner/Blacksmith to level 225
• Miner/JewelCrafter to level 200
• <nothing> /Enchanter - to level 200
• <nothing> /Tailor - to level 145
• <nothing>/<nothing>

I have about 21 toons so there are at least two of most combinations

Of them all the only crafting profession that were remotely useful until the very top of the skill range has been alchemy. Even in the case of alchemy I would have made far more money with two gathering professions. However I and my friends made good use of the pots I made, and even now I make lowbie pots for alts and RL newbies. Without question it would have been more effective in time and effort to have waited to take a craft until level capped.

I agree that treating enchanting as a gathering skill can make a lot of gold even a low levels. As a crafting skill its pretty much a waste until you are at a reasonable level. My tailor/enchanter more than pays its way and has since about level 20. All the non-enchanters are a gold sink for the main that supports them.

As a noob to these games I read the various guides which told me that Alc/Herb was the "perfect" combination for a mage. (Pre-BC no ultra high end crafted gear). Like I said I made good use of the pots while leveling, but, as a noob, I would have been fair better served by the two gathering profession advice.



Edited, Jul 9th 2008 1:57pm by MrFredII

As a relative newbie, only played for just over a month.

I started by having 2 gatherer profs but I ended up dropping one and went leather working, just to provide some early level armour for my hunter.

Now however, my Hunter is back to 2 gathering skills, skinning and mining.

But I also have alts that have skills that can use the materials I gather.

I know I can make money from the gathered goods but in all honesty I make more money doign other things i.e. buying recipes from vendors and selling on AH I have bought recipes at 40s and sold for 4g+

Once my alts no longer can use the items then they are posted onto the AH, but only when there is short supply as you get better prices. There is no real rush to fill up with gold, after all it does not gain interest, so having materials waiting to sell for better prices is good.

At the moment I have about 200g, which is not a lot but for a level 36 frst time player I don't think it is too bad? If I was spending more time on earning money it would slow down my progression which is slow already (through choice).

On my alt with enchanting I levelled up to level 60 just by disenchanting items I picked up and couldn't use on my main.

I'm looking at setting another alt up to deal with Jewel Crafting.

I did try having mining and herb gathering but was slowing down too much searching for items. So I use skinning and mining so I can always track ore deposits without having to keep switching to search for herbs.

I can see how certain professions can be very costly but if you use more than one toon then sharing the items can make it quicker to level and you soon move onto higher level stuff, so you can then sell off any lower level materials you gather on the AH.

My main is my gatherer, but also has high level fishing, first aid and cooking skills. My alts have a range of skills that I can make use of. Anything I can not use or don't plan on using in future, then I sell on AH. Disenchanting is good since there are no fees for selling the mats.

Odd coincidence; I also hold a BS in business management!

And yes, you explained the opportunity cost theory. But you still said it wrong, which was my point. Opportunity cost and gold sinks exist whether or not you're aware of them. You said:



Which is completely wrong. They're a gold sink no matter what. You're (almost) always losing out with a craft because of the price of materials, besides the few recipes that sell; and as Mike said, then you can flood the market, thus meaning you only have a certain amount of items you can make anyway... far below the amount you can gather and sell. As long as opportunity costs with larger losses than gains exist, they will be gold sinks. Now, this obviously doesn't take subjective variables like personal preferences or desires into the equation, but using the only really objective variables in the games (usefulness of the stats and cost of the items), they are gold sinks.

My point wasn't that primary professions aren't fun; it's that you're losing money and skilling up closer (and thus losing time) if you skill up a primary skill from level 5. I agree crafting can be fun; but they are gold sinks. As long as people know this and take it anyway, then it's fine. I usually tell them what the best combination of crafts would be; but more often than seeing "what craft should I take" it almost always includes "how do I make money?" Not to set up a strawman or detract from topic, just saying.

Edit: Just wanted to say: I feel like we're seeing eye-to-eye but using the wrong terms somehow. If that's so, sorry :-P

Edited, Jul 10th 2008 12:58pm by LockeColeMA

Edited, Jul 10th 2008 1:03pm by LockeColeMA

I'm going to take a stand that says that crafters are an absolute necessity in the game, not just for RP reasons.

1) Without crafters, the gatherers would become dirt-poor.
2) Without crafters, you would never be able to find any crafted items on the AH.
3) Without crafters, even if you gathered the mats, you wouldn't find anyone to make the nifty item you want.

So, yes. Crafters are a necessity. Currently, however, there is an imbalance between crafters and gatherers - not enough gatherers and too many crafters. That's what keeps gathering in the money-making position that it's in. If everyone in the game became a gatherer for the gold, though, it would be a disaster and suddenly crafting would become the preferred way to make gold.

If it weren't for the lame jokes my Economics professor told every day, I would never have made it through those 2 classes. This is a deep conversation. I just have my own experience to go on, so I'll type it in.

On my first toon (lock), I chose herb/alch, because, well, herbalism seems cool, and yay potions! So I gathered herbs, and I bought vials, and...came to a stand still at a certain point. I was finding plenty of herbs, but all my pots were grey, and I really had no idea what to do except to put them in the bank. No idea at all how to use the AH, and kind of frightened of it, too. So frightened that I sold boe blues to vendors way too many times. :)


So, then I ran across a lovely post on here about enchantrix, and decided to switch from mining/engineering on my mage (which was my second toon), and then ran across the Enchanting for gold post, and well, the rest is history. Although a friend loaned me a bit of gold to get my epic mount, I paid him back w/i three days, meanwhile other lvl 60s in our guild had to really sweat it to get theirs (one still doesn't have hers at lvl 62, I should loan her the money, actually).

I guess a couple of weeks ago, I decided to switch to tailoring on my mage, so now it's tailor/enchant. I got tailoring up quite a bit, though it did take me quite a bit of gold to do it at that level, but my FA is already 375, so no biggie about that, and had some cloth around in the bank, thinking maybe use it for rep later.

My lock will be able to fund my pally friend's endless quest/mat thingy for her epic mount once we get to 60 together, because I de her bs goods and sell the mats. I like that relationship, and so does she. :)


Anyway, the point to my rambling is that there are a lot of factors involved in all of this, and that, yes, omg, all this is very confusing to a noobie, so I think it just takes some time for each player to decide what they want to do, and why. I personally enjoy the tinkering involved w/ the tradeskills, and love hunting for recipes and such. But I'm not someone who joined the game just to kill things and make money. Of course, I didn't see any need for money at the beginning, because, hell, the stuff I was getting from quests was just fine with me. Since my first toon was a lock, there was no big pricetag waiting for me for my mount, but I'm glad I was on these forums and learned what I did about making money, because I was able to get my mount for my mage the second I turned 40.

The thing about giving advice, and taking advice, is that you're going to get different answers from different people, and it will vary in usefulness. This is why I try to send everyone I can to these forums, because that way, you get to see different points of view, and weigh it how you want, rather than just asking random people in-game, or one-on-one in-game. I have one friend who is always saying OMG IM BROKE! but when he asks me how I have so much gold, and I mention addons, he proclaims he is a Barbarian and will never use them. :) So, whatever. He also won't read these forums. He's a Barbarian. And he's a broke Barbarian at lvl 67 w/ no epic mount. OH well. :)

Trill

I don't understand why people say that you shouldn't take up a profession. Only yesterday I got told I should drop alchemy (at 300) and take up mining because 'you can never make money off alchemy'.
Well thats the biggest lie I've ever heard. Even at 300 I can pull a decent amount of gold in. I have a small group of people who buy potions off me, the main two are greater rage and free action.
I make an easy 150+g a day, thats still questing, grinding and 'farming' herbs.

Yeah its true that you should start your first toon with two gathering skills, but never underestimate tradeskills, if no one did them well a large portion of the game will most likely collapse.

My Shaman is a 375 herbalist/375 alchemist.
My Hunter is a 375 herbalist/375 enchanter*
My Druid is a 375 skinner/375 leatherworker

*Hunter and Shaman are on the same realm, but one is horde and the other is alliance

Did I lose out on some gold in the leveling process by having one production profession? Yes. Much gold? No. The thing is, now that I have capped professions, I save a ton on the things that I can make with said professions. Example: Nethercleft Leg Armor...a tanking mainstay. Current auction price on my realm for these is 450-600g. Cost of mats (assuming I were to purchase them all) is in the neighborhood of 300g (very generous estimate). I can take raw materials...the ones that are apparently oh-so-profitable to simply gather and sell...and with a few minutes worth of travel/effort I can turn them into something that tacks on an easy 150-300g profit.

That, for the math wizards out there, is about the same profit to be had from selling 1.5-3 stacks of heavy cleafthoof leather, 4.5-9 stacks of any herb selling for top dollar, or 4.5-9 stacks of Adamantite Ore. (All relative to current prices on my realm, of course) My 5 mins to combine base materials into something that sells for more than the sum of it's parts and travel to auction to list it, or 1-2+ hours gathering materials to sell for the same level of profit. Sorry lost gold what? I do dailies for instant gold. Then I log out or I raid. Gathering professions are such an overall **** poor investment of time now that SSO dailies are such an incredible source of gold that you'd almost be a fool to not have a production profession to cash in on all the nifty things you can make that people are paying top dollar for.

And speaking of opportunity cost, when the time rolls around for me to augment a new pair of leg armor (like I just did this past Sunday with some chewy T5 goodness), my cost to do said augment is dramatically reduced. You might argue that I could gather the mats and have another leatherworker (preferably a guildie...no fee/tip required) make them for me, but if everyone bought into the argument that production professions aren't worth it, there would be nobody to make the items for me. Hence, another benefit to production professions.

When it comes time for an enchant on a new piece of gear, my Hunter's bank is loaded with top-end materials. Again, worst case scenario, I spend 5-20g on a tip to an enchanter to enchant my druid's BoP gear with mats that I accumulated on my hunter through disenchanting the green drops I get on two different 70s in the process of doing this or that. I watched a friend do dailies for 3 days saving up enough gold to buy enchanting materials for a Mongoose enchant. Lost gold opportunity cost huh?! If there were no enchanters to D/E your greens, you'd have no enchanting mats. You'd also be vendoring said greens or flipping them on auction for a relative pittance. I freaking love useless green Outland weapons...1-2 greater planar essences (and occasionally a shard) for something I could vendor for a paltry 6-9g. No freaking way a level 69 green "of the Whale" piece of crap is going to sell on auction for more than I'd get to vendor it. Disenchanting is often considered a gathering profession, but it's the only gathering profession that you can only level beyond nub levels by working the production end of things.

Some production professions are better than others in terms of profit potential. That's sort of a given. You never know what's around the corner, though. I'm positioned to take advantage of anything enchanting, alchemy, or leatherworking has to offer for profit when that opportunity comes available. Not so with people who have 2 gathering professions and a bad case of lazy.

Hey Aurelius... You'll notice the topic is what to do WHILE LEVELING. It started with the fact that when a new player, at low level, asks "What should I take"... and went from there. As said, it's obvious you can turn a copper at 70. But if had two gathering skills on the way up, you would:

1. Make more money.
2. Take less time to level your primary profession when you finally do level it.

Why is this? Because instead of spending money as your character levels on a profession, you make money with both professions on the way up. When you finally decide to powerlevel it when you're 70, you can

A) Access rare recipes and trainers faster thanks to epic mounts/flying mounts/instance runs.
B) Fund any powerleveling of professions via SSO dailies.

Of COURSE you can money some gold on professions at 70. But that wasn't the question asked; the best advice for lowbies and newbies stands at "take two gathering professions." Again, that's IF net profit is your goal.

@ Rusttle:



No, we're debating this on efficiency and profit, and that applies to the entire game. Borsuk (who wrote his comment almost three weeks ago) is quite right. You won't be able to make items better than you can buy off the AH on any reasonable server; you will be leveling your profession much slower, and consequently slow down your leveling speed, by doing so.

Again, if you want to take professions, by all means, go ahead. The advice the majority of posters in this topic are giving out is "For profit and efficiency, take two gathering skills."

I do however agree with you that 70 does not equal the game. I enjoy the trip up, but I've enjoyed it several times now. Blizzard has shown repeatedly that they only really focus on the end-game; but that doesn't make any of the older content any less fun. However, I don't find leveling a craft part of that content; to me, it's the storylines and instances that I want to spend my time on, not stalling at 60 to make a Robe of the Archmage that will immediately be outstripped by the first few Outland quests.