Never done any professions. Is it worth it?

Give me your take on professions in the game. I understand some people eat, sleep and breathe them. Why work them? Is the time worth it? Which ones are the most rewarding?

These questions are open to endless debates! Personally, I love em! I try to have all of them covered to some degree and become somewhat independent. Takes a while, which is the aim I guess, keeps me subbed. In the mean while, I have build a network of crafters to take care of the holes in the alt army’s coverage. If I got repeats, I try to fill different wheels so they complement each others. It also depends of what you do in the game? Raid? Id get my alchy going for longer flasks and more effective potions, keeps the costs lower and so on and so forth. Gotta have more info really.

I used to do them to make steady gold.
Now it’s become a convoluted mess where you end up spamming trade chat… having worthless items that are worth nothing… and wasted whatever gold you have on leveling them sometimes.

Only benefit or worth is for yourself IMHO.

4 Likes

I can only speak for enchanting, but I think it’s worth it with the current concentration mechanic. This way you get a shot at making the max quality without investing too much. It’s even better if you luck into getting some rare recipe drop that few people have. You can make decent gold just logging in and buying mats from the AH. Of course there is knowledge points grind, but I think it’s more steady this expansion.

Make sure to read guides on Icy Veins or Wowhead, those point out some unobvious things that aren’t well described in the game.

1 Like

Is it worth it?

Depends on what you mean by “worth it” I suppose.

Can you make things for yourself and not have to depend on others? Yes.

Can you make things for your friends and guildmates cheaper than they’d be able to get from a trade chat crafter? Yes.

Can you make gold in trade chat? Yes.

Can you make gold on the AH? Yes.

For me though, I enjoy a little math puzzle here and there and it amuses me as I try to figure out stats and gold maximization. I view the AH as “spreadsheet pvp”. The risks are heady but it’s all play money anyway.

As far as what you should do, it depends on what you value. But, you can never go wrong first focusing on things that you yourself want, because you have a built-in customer: you.

Example: i’m making the woven dawn 2-set with the dusk weave bracer modifier (sort of 3 set). Why? Because blizzard made this set obscenely hard to make (you need dusk AND dawn AND the generic cloth tree). idgaf if nobody else wants it in trade. I want it. So I’m making it. And it makes me happy for some reason.

2 Likes

A lot more time, energy, and planning goes into professions now. I chose jewel crafting because I wanted to make my alts some nice stuff to start out with. Its a very expensive profession to level up though as im sure many other types are too. Mat gathering is just money printing, so pick what type of thing you want to do based on your play style. If you’re wanting to make gear for profit I would suggest watching guides on what things to pick on your trees.

1 Like

Thanks for all the replies. :grinning:

1 Like

What “worth” are you looking for and how much effort are you willing to put into it?

My own personal use for professions is self-sufficiency. My main is a Leatherworker and Engineer to make her own gear and some fun group tools. My first alt is Skinning and Mining to supply my main with materials and my second alt is Herbalism and Inscription to supply their own mats to make Sigils, Missives, and Treatises for myself and Guildmates. I have Guildmates that have similar philosophies that do Tailoring, Alchemy, Jewelcrafting, and Enchanting. We never have to buy anything from the AH unless it’s an emergency or we are impatient and don’t want to wait for someone to get on that day.

I agree with Khronys. If you are in it just to make gold, I would suggest going with the gathering professions, either skinning, mining, herbalism (or even tailoring is a “gathering” profession now, being the only profession that can gather cloth reliably). As far as the actual production professions, honestly, you will be hard pressed to make gold from them unless it is early expansion. The cost of crafts rarely exceed the cost of mats by much, and often are lower than the cost of mats (because other people are crafting to level up the profession or for whatever reason). The only thing you’ll really make money on is the BoP crafts, but to do that you have to sit in town and watch trade chat all day. If that is your cup of tea, sure, you can make money with professions.

2 Likes

Yup, neither one sound all that appealing. Killing mobs to skin them, flying around looking for ore, farming mobs for cloth. No thanks.

Sitting on WoW in trade chat and chilling in Dornogal all day, nope.

I log in to play. Slash, slash, stab, stab, bosses die. Then go my merry way.

Thanks for the reply! I just wanted to hear people’s perspectives of crafting and why they craft and why they would recommend it.

Still doesn’t sound like my cup of tea :tea: and that’s okay.

2 Likes

Concentration has made most professions at least moderately profitable.

Look up on the AH items that your profession can make, check which 3 stars are going for lots of money, do some quick math to make sure the mats are considerably cheaper than the finished product, and then use concentration to make those items.

You won’t become a multimillionaire doing just this, but you’ll make money.

professions have a lot of knowledge required so don’t go there unless your willing to invest significant time and effort into understanding the quantum entanglement that is the maze of skill v crafting mats level v optional reagents v skill points v demand v reagent costs.

2 Likes

I have always ‘maxed’ out my professions, generally liked doing them. But, after DF, it’s become way to ‘convoluted’ for me, so many, many parts/pieces even as an Alchemist (which I’ve always done) and it’s one of the simpler ones, IMO.

DF (edit) professions, were just too much and too time intensive. KA is no different, maybe more convoluted. So much to relearn. Add to that all my alts that I do every other profession on! (13)

Honestly, I don’t want to have to spend all that time again!

To me it might as well be the “entire game” if you want to max it. Playing since 2008, I just don’t have the time/energy to spend hours of day looking up everything on WH/Icyveins, the mats are $$$ astronomical, so it’s a toss up of time to gather or buy,

As someone already mentioned on the forums, having 3 tiers of mats - too much. Herbs are still outrageous especially, for 3 tier herb it’s 5-10x’s $$. Legion was the beginning of 3 tiers, but not SO ‘involved’, more quests …that was mostlyfun.

I can’t even make minimum Patron orders to fill the wkly quest. Took a break – I’ve been really enjoying the 20th Celebration… getting alts (10) to 80. I’ve 3 to go. TW, Blackrock, Chromie and a few dungeons have been a fun way to do that.

But back today, to do a bit of Alchemy, … sigh.
I really like the professions… but, can we move it back to a Legion level of crafting with some of the workings of DF/KA. Please!? JMO.

If you were going to get into professions its already well into this expansion and hard to catch up. If I was just starting out Id do alchemy to provide myself with flasks and potions - but cant do that if you don’t like gathering. Sounds like professions are not for you and that works fine. I like to have them so I can craft my own gear - with a lot of sparks and the items from rep I was able to craft 4-5 ilvl 619 items for some of my alts and a few ilvl 636 items on my main - without having to pay the crafting fee and additionally save on enchants.

1 Like

Yea that’s the main reason I initially started crafting - I just wanted to be able to make my own stuff without paying other people to do it for me. It has worked out rather well; I still make the most gold from skinning. A quick farming session of 30 minutes usually makes me around 10k-20k gold, pretty easily.

2 Likes

Yes. Despite the complications of the new crafting system, if you’re able to push through those, you can easily make enough gold to fund your game time and still make a large profit.

Depends on what you’re looking for.

I spec mine so that it would benefit the class/specs I play most first, so that I can craft or recraft anything I want without having to look for a crafter.

Any extra kp I get is a bonus.

If you’re looking for most rewarding, probably JC or Mining/Herb.

totally agrea. I understand what they tried to do with the public crafting orders and not letting people specify quality, but they totally took out any public orders that would have been out their. Patreon orders hardly ever provide all the mats. The ones that do don’t level your prof. You get to a point where leveling your prof is ALL BOP, to level it costs HUGE gold, and not all of us are gold capped. Bliz is so worried about trying to get gold OUT of the game that they make it almost impossible to casuals to do the casual things like playing around with profs.

1 Like

Yup. I like that at least the ‘some’ provided mats include the expensive ones at times. But it just feels odd with how this all works. I see no public orders. A lot of things are BOP. I feel like this system would have been better used as a means to be separate from professions per se.

But as you mentioned, they are so hyper fixated on keeping gold down.
The other thing is ‘‘we created this whole new thing, we need people using it so we need to add things, changes to funnel them to it’’ hence the patron order addition.

There are no more no mats public WOs, the patrons are taking care of that one.