Is it true that all crafting professions are heavily tilted to the few folks who have high knowledge points and catching up to them is impossible, which makes making money off crafting impossible? Are there crafting professions that time-gate profitable content on a weekly basis and also easily achievable for someone starting to level the crafting profession right now?
It depends on the profession, for many of the professions it becomes impossible for a newcomer to level past 60-70 skill since you can only gain skill thru work orders but no one will ever let you craft anything since you can’t do max quality.
You will also always be behind on crafting knowledge points and this sucks but it isn’t a huge deal. You’ll keep gaining knowledge points each week and eventually get to where you need to be, unlike skill points where you can get hard stuck
I can just use alts to send work orders to myself. So you are saying there are crafting professions out there that I can start leveling right now and still be competitive? I heard crafting mats are priced such that only those with the highest knowledge points are competitive due to inspiration procs. Is that not true? What crafting profession can I start right now and be competitive in?
I’m not really sure but any profession that you has a path for you to level to 100 skill can be competitive.
If I started crafting on day 1 and could make a max item on week 3 then the only thing stopping you from starting now and making that same item in 3 weeks time would be whether you can level skill to 100. The only thing that extra knowledge points let me do is start max’ing out a second item, third item, etc. But the big concern as a newcomer would be whether it’s possible to level your skill because many profession paths just aren’t possible to level
Pretty much just mining and herbalism. Maybe also Tailor and Enchanting for 2x4 DE+Cloth find (not actually using those 2 to craft).
Skinning is kinda bad now after all the nerfs.
You can forget about crafting unless you go a low knowledge inspiration gamble build. Problem is everyone and their mom has their alts set up to do that and the stuff has tanked in price and you have to relist every 3 seconds.
TLDR: You’re screwed better luck 10.1
Alchemy is the only crafting profession I’ve done that allows you to get to 100 skill regardless of level, renown, or heavy cooldown.
I am stuck at sub-70 on Tailoring, Enchanting, and Inscription, but I have Alchemy at 100 with a healthy number of specialization points on an alt I haven’t done a single quest for outside of profession weeklies.
Go for Alchemy.
There is a mechanic in the research that gates your progress by “blowing up” and then you’re left with a 4-hour cooldown, but that is easily overcome with Liquid Courage (a thing that cancels the cooldown) or just farming herbs until the cooldown resets.
As to profitability? That will depend entirely on how hard you grind it and whether or not you farm your own mats. Go for phial spec, go hard on it (wish I had), and get your phials to 3* quality or higher asap, and you’ll make plenty of gold off it.
Edited to add: Study the most efficient distribution of specialization points first…make sure you understand what skill and resourcefulness and multicraft and inspiration are all about and what points give you which ones.