I just wanted to take a moment and use my own experience and knowledge to provide some information on using professions in Classic WoW to generate money. In doing so, I will talk about the profession briefly, list notable crafts, and how you make money off of them.
OP Note - I may not cover everything to do with crafts, but I see people ask this question quite often so I will try to be as accurate as possible. If you are looking for a profession leveling guide or a guide on which profession is best for which class, you may need to look elsewhere though I will include a small nod to a few items here and there.
With that, let’s get started.
Blacksmithing - Expensive / Time Consuming to Level - Profits = Low to Medium
Blacksmithing is a unique profession in that a majority of its use falls under BoP items. There are a few items here and there that are BoE and can be sold, but many items in this profession require a large batch of materials to make which means high crafting cost, high retail sell but the only way to profit is to sell high, unless you have the capital to bulk craft. Due to the high price set by crafters (to make some kind of return on their craft) most players will prefer to farm their owns mats and pay a crafting fee rather than buy the item off the AH. These are some of the items and services that can be provided to make some money using Blacksmithing.
- Patterned Bronze Bracers - Used for a quest in the Badlands, levelers will buy these as they head to the zone. Can be a decent money maker for lower levels saving for the level 40 mount. Easy to craft, sells frequently.
- Moonsteel Broadsword - Used for a quest in Dustwallow Marsh and for the Weaponsmithing Quest, these are from a pattern. Again, decent gold for your level 40 mount and you will need 4 of em for yourself if you choose this path.
- Massive Iron Axe - Used for weaponsmithing quest, from a pattern, kind of annoying to craft so people powerleveling BSing for Weaponsmith will just buy these outright, you will need 4 if you plan to go weaponsmithing.
- Ornate Mithril Helm, Boots, and Breastplate - Recipe rewarded via quest, used for armorsmith quest. Again, people will just buy these outright for the quest, decent gold for lower levels.
- Mithril Spurs - These increase mount speed and must be attached by a Blacksmith. You can sell the spurs as well as the service of attaching them for a fee
- Nightfall - Used by guilds, fairly large investment. You won’t be making and selling these but you can charge a hefty crafting fee in the range of 25-50g maybe more.
- Dark Iron Plate (BoE Pieces) - Again, like nightfall, investments made by guilds, you wont be crafting these yourself, but charging crafting fees.
- Sulfuron Hammer - Used for Hand of Rag, requires a Sulfuron Ingot to purchase the pattern (estimated value of ingot is ~1000g) so you can charge a very high crafting fee.
- Serenity - Rare BoE mace that dispels an enemies buffs, used by pvpers, crafting for a fee or craft and sell
- Elemental Sharpeneing Stones - 2% crit weapon buff for melee, very rare pattern, very good profits if you get the patterns, many people will add you to their friends list to craft these for them. Can craft for fees or craft and sell
- Dense Sharp/Weight stones - Alternative to elementals, craft to sell these
A small bonus to having blacksmith, theres a trinket called Glimmering Mithril Insignia that provide Fear immunity for 30s, great for pvp and tanking Nefarion, or anything else that fears.
Engineering - Cheap to level - Profits = Medium
Engineering is probably the most beneficial profession in the game, as to why, well thats a discussion for another thread. What you need to know here is how to make gold with it. With that,
- Deadly Blunderbuss - Used in a quest in Ashenvale for some insanely good low level gear. Quest requires a trip to Booty Bay but arguably its worth it. These will sell often to all players for this quest, but also to hunters for a decent ranged weapon for its level.
- Iron Grenades - Used heavily by PvPers as they are cheap to make, can make tons of these and post em on the AH, wont be huge profits, but they move quickly.
- Mithril Casing - Used for a quest in Un’goro, can sell a ton of these things and they are easy to make. Not huge profits though but it adds up for how short the craft is.
- Gyrochromatom - Used for a quest in the Badlands, easy to make, profits are ok, it good if your saving for your level 40 mount as they sell quite frequently.
- Goblin Rocket & Gnomish Mind Control Helmets - Must haves for pvpers, crafts are not too bad other than Elemental Fire for the rocket helm, can sell quite a few. Requires Goblin and Gnomish engineering respectively.
- Goblin Sapper Charges - Requires Goblin Engineering to make, but not to use. The be-all-end-all of world pvp. Annoying to craft, but you can make really good money on these.
- Goblin Rocket boots - Require goblin engineering to make, not to use. Really good pvp boots for the speed boost, but they have a chance to break when used, making them a consumable. Annoying to craft, so pvpers tend to just buy a new pair. Good profits
- Gnomish Rocket Boots - Requires gnomish engineer to make, not to use. These don’t break but have a longer cooldown and less speed than rockets. Again, decent profits, but they dont sell as often.
- Trinkets - There are quite a few different trinkets in engineering, most of them have niche uses and are sought after. These trinkets vary in the difficulty to craft them, but generally the profits are pretty good. These include Gnomish Net-o-matic, Gadetzan/Everlook teleports, Bomb Dispenser, Gnomish Cloaking Device, Decombobulator, Shrink Ray, and so on.
- Reflector Trinkets - Fire/Frost/Shadow, these trinkets are must haves for pvpers. Availability depends on if blizzard adds them at the appropriate time or if they just include them at launch. The difficulty inc rafting these varies, with Shadow being the most expensive, followed by fire, and then frost not being too expensive. Really good profits on shadow/fire, ok profits on ice. Patterns are very rare for Shadow and Fire.
- Arcanite Dragonling - Hunters, rogues, and Mages should have this built before AQ releases, its expensive to craft, but it does sell. Good profits, slow sale.
Note for engineering - Ideally its best to go Gnomish and have an alt Goblin. Gnomish has the Battle Chicken for melee which is BoP and requires Gnomish eng and provides a 5% haste buff to your aprty, gnomish also has the deathray which can pretty much 1 shot someone. If it is possible to switch specializations and retain recipes, start with Goblin then switch to Gnomish.
Leatherworking - Can be expensive to level - Profits - Low to Extremely High
Leatherworking is the profession used pretty much just for Devilsaur Sets, Cured Rugged Hide and a hand full of other niche purposes. Making gold with this includes:
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Quivers - Can sell quivers on the AH for hunters, easy crafts, small profits
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Cured Rugged Hide - Requires an engineer made Salt Shaker, has a 2 day cooldown, used in various recipes as well as Naxx T3 quests. Profit is very high, but cooldown means its not a good source of constant income.
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Devilsaur Gloves/Legs - Requires tribal leatherworking. Ok. You’ve all probably heard about this set, the mafia, the drama, and all that jazz. Here’es the thing. If there is a mafia on your server and you get into it, this is it. This is what Pablo Escobar feels like. You will have cashflow like no other profession or farming method can provide. The profits are INSANE and the sales are frequent due to how amazing this set is. That being said, if there is no mafia, the profits on this will still be very good, but you’ll need have skinning as buying the leather to craft these would be expensive. Adversly, if you are not in the mafia if it exists, you won’t make much and should find something else.
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Corehound Belt - Thorium brotherhood reputation recipe, really good healing belt for druid, shaman, paladin. sells pretty good but you probably wont make them yourselves, you’ll charge a fee.
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Core Armor Kit - Rare recipe from molten core, requires MC drops to make so again you will probably be paid a crafting fee, but if you make some yourself they will sell for an ok profit on the AH
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Tough Scorpid Breastplate/Gloves - Used for Dragonscale Leatherworking quest, BoE world drop patterns commonly found in Tanaris, lazy people will buy them for the Q instead of crafting them
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Wild Leather Helmet / Vest - Same deal as Tough Scorpid, just for tribal leatherworking.
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Sandstalker Set - Again, this depends on how Blizzard does item releases, but if the NR sets added AFTER AQ are not in the game, this will be the defacto NR set for melee and hunters. Good profits and crafting fee, iirc require Cenarion Expedition reputation.
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Hide of the wild - Requires tribal leatherworking. Available with Dire Maul, this is an insanely good healer cloak, you can make and sell them or get paid a crafting fee.
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Onyxia Scale Cloak - Gonna add this one in here but you won’t be selling these unless you are hosting an ony pug and reserving the scales. These can be good crafts and as the server goes on, scales will find their way to the AH and people will buy these more often
Tailoring - Can be expensive depending on the price of Mageweave and Runecloth - Profits = Medium
Tailoring is the profession most commonly taken by mages, warlocks, and priests for their endgame chest piece which I will discuss slightly later. This is the profession I am least familiar with and while I know there is a good gold profiting strategy involving a low 50’s runecloth pattern, I am not sure what it is nor have I ever bothered to discover it. With that in mind,
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Bags - Bags are a good amount of money at the server start, if your leveling quickly and keeping tailoring caught up, you can sell mageweave and runecloth bags for good profits. The profits diminish as more players start making these. There are also niche bags such as shard bags, herb bags, etc that can vary in profitability
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Azure Silk Pieces - Mages will use these for the frost damage, decent sales, not huge profits
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Felcloth Pieces - Similair to Azure Silk, but for warlocks and a higher level, depending on items available, the felcloth hood is highly sought after, as well as the much more difficult to craft Felcloth Gloves.
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Belt of the Archamge - Really good pvp belt for mages and ele shamans, expensive to make, will more likely recieve crafting fees
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Robe of Winter Night - rare pattern drop but really good warlock and mage robes, due to the strength of later recipes, these do only really sell to non-tailor casters or players unwilling to farm their class robe recipes/mats
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Bloodvine Set - When ZG releases, this is the set most casters will use. It’s an amazing set. Depending on your luck, or class if ZG is aoe farmable, you can make and sell these for a good profit.
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Mooncloth - Used for bloodvine, class robes, Naxx T3 quests, these are very valuable, but the long (i think 4 day) cooldown makes them poor consistent income. That being said, really good profit and very easy for alliance mages to make (port to darn).
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Black Mageweave Boots - Used in the recipe for goblin Rocket Boots, Engineers will buy these to craft rocket boots. Fairly good profits but price depends on the price of rocket boot.
A small note for tailoring, mages, warlocks, and priests should take tailoring to 300 regardless of their profeession choice to craft their class specific robes. The robes require Tailoring to craft, but not to use so you can drop tailoring after making them.
Bloodvine also provides a 2% crit bonus to players with 300/300 tailoring.
Enchanting - Medium price to level - Profits = High
Enchanting is a versatile profession in classic, it is one of the most in demand and the demand only increases as content becomes available. There are many ways to profit with this profession from enchanting fees, to farming, to crafting.
- Enchanting Fees - Theres no point in listening every single enchant in the game, but generally you can sit in a major city all day and spam your “Enchanter lfw, have: zbcde enchants” and you’ll make ok money. The big profits come from the rare enchants. The more rare or effort requiring an enchant recipe is, the more profitable it is. Crusader is a good start, but its not that rare. Get your hands on 30 spellpower/55healing first week on MC, you’ll make ~3000gold in fees. Farming Timbermaw rep for those enchants, get some good tips as well.
- Disenchanting - Disenchanting items is a risk vs reward mini game. Take for example a level 54 green item worth 2g. You decide to D/E it and you get 2 illusion dust. You lost money. BUT if you got 1-3 Greater Eternals? You profited. My general rule of thumb, 51+ under 1.3g I D/E anything over, i vendor.
- Oils - Available later in the game, Brilliant Mana and Wizard Oils are some of the best consistent profits to be made. Just save up your large brilliant shards for when the price starts to rise.
Alchemy - Cheap to level - Profits = Medium to High
Alchemy is the most used profession in classic wow in terms of crafting. Its profitability rises and falls by the hour but there are many ways to make gold using this profession. Mastering this profession and the auction house can lead to a sustained gold income starting at level 35.
- Potions / Elixirs - Figure out what sells on your server, buy the materials, produce potions and elixirs in bulk, and sell them on the AH. Even if a potion only nets you a 25 silver profit per potion (don’t forget to count the cost of the vial), its worth making and selling if its something that moves. Imagine making 100 potions for 25s profit, thats 25g for approx 5m of crafting. Examples of viable sellers: Free Action Potion, Rage Potion, Elixir of Fortitude, Invisibility Potion, Limited Invulnerability Potion, Greater Arcane elixir, Elixir of Frost Power, Elixir of Firepower, Elixir of Shadow Power, Elixir of the Mongoose, Stonescale Potion, Major Mana Potion, Restorative Potion, Great Fire/Arcane/Frost/Shadow/Nature Protection Potion and their normal variants, Oil of Immolation Mageblood Potion.
- Flasks - Flasks can be tricky, they require a good investment to be successful profiters. To craft a flask you will need to go to Scholomance or Blackwing Lair with either cleared up to the Alchemy table (Ras’s room for Scholo, Firemaws room for BWL). The patterns are VERY rare and VERY expensive, but if you get your hands on them here is a tip. Invest roughly 1000 gold into make a bunch of Supreme Power and titans flasks (make 1-2 distilled wisdoms if you feel like it). While you are clearing scholo, yelling world chat (if there is one) that you are crafting flasks in scholo for a fee, bring mats. People will come to you. Once you no longer have any clients, leave scholo with your flasks and sell them in trade for 25g more than it cost to make them OR for mats + x gold fee. People will often trade you mats and a fee. If you craft 10 flasks and trade them all, you make 100g for virtually nothing.
- Transmute Arcanite Bar - 2 day cooldown, highly sought after, good sales. do this on cooldown ontop of other crafts for extra gold
- Transmute Elemental fire - Turn Heart of fire into Elemental fire, this is added later in the server, once you have this, stop doing Arcanite transmutes and just do this, its a 1 or 2 hr CD and much more profitable.
Note for alchemy - The recipe for Restorative Potions is from the Uldamun Reagents quest in the badlands, requires Alchemy and I think level 200 to accept/see the quest)
Fishing - Virtually no cost other than a rod and some baits - Low
I never really dabbled in fishing, but its a good profession for people who just want to sit there and watch tv while they farm. I know of the valuable fish, but sadly not their locations, this will require you to further research.
- Deviate Fish - The good old deviates. I know these can be fished up in the barrens, good sales for lower levels, or cook em to be a pirate or ninja. The sell fast, but not much profit in em
- Oily Blackmouth - Used for Free Action Potions mostly, insanely good sales, you will sell everything you catch in seconds. Price rises constantly
- Stonescale Eel - Used in Stoneshield Potion, good sellers, but noly used by tanks. The sell for a lot, but don’t move as fast as Blackmouths
- Firefin Snapper - These do sell, but for less than the other fish. Not really worth farming if you can farm Blackmouths or Stonescales. They are used in Fire Oil which is used in Elixir of Fire Power, which is generally only used by try hard pve mages in BWL or pvpers. Gets more used with Greater Fire Power and AQ40 but by that time there is so much in circulation that the price doesn’t really increase much.
Mining - Costs time - Low - Medium
Really the only thing to say here is that mining is only worth it for Arcane Crystals and Dark Iron Ore.
- Arcane Crystals - Available from Rich Thorium Veins, used in a lot of BS recipes, highly sought after, good money if luck is on your side, highly contested. Dire Maul East has 2-3 nodes at the end, so if you do runs there often, you can make good money on uncontested nodes.
- Dark Iron Ore - BRD sometimes spawns a few nodes of Dark Iron that you can mine, but thats about it outside of molten core. Highly valuable, but since you need 8 ore to make 1 bar, its not efficient for farming, more of a bonus.
Herbalism - Costs time - Profits = High to Very High
Herbalism is a great way to make gold but it is VERY competitive in the higher level zones such as Burning Steppes, Un’goro, Winterspring, Silithus, Plaguelands, Felwood, and so on.
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Low Value Herbs (These still sell quickly) - Goldthorn, Sungrass, Icecap
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Mid Value Herbs - Wild Steelbloom, Fadeleaf, Grave Moss, Blindweed, Firebloom
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High Value Herbs - Dreamfoil, Mountain Silversage, Gromsblood, Plaguebloom, Ghost Mushroom
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The Big boy - Black Lotus, if this item is in its BoE state, it will be the golden goose of herbalism. Used for flasks and Mojo Madness in ZG, these rise in price as the servers life goes on.
Skinning - Quick and free to level - Profit = Low to Medium
Note - Skinning is one of the BEST professions to have while leveling up, especially on server launch.
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Leathers and Scraps - Skinning mbos as you level to vendor or ah the leather is good additional money in your pocket for minimal downtime while leveling. This helps greatly when saving for your level 40 mount. Having skinning for DMN dog/bug farming on a mage also increases your gold/hour
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Dragonscales - Dragonscales are skinned from high level dragon and dragonkin mobs, typically only the black and red have a solid use but they can prodivde some good money here and there. IIRC warlocks need like 5 Black dragonscales for their warlock mount quest at 60, but that doesnt mean they sell quickly.
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Onyxia Scales - If you get to skin and keep these, they are worth quite a bit, but good luck with that. Guilds will reserve them if they run pugs. Your only chance of getting these is if you run your own pug, or if a community pug rolls em off.
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Pristine Hide of the Beast - Skinned from The Beast in UBRS, very rare, but worth about 500 gold. Makes a pretty decent chest piece for rogues or a really good elemental shaman crit head piece.
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Devilsaur Leather - This depends on whether or not theres a mafia on your server and if your in it. Mafia = fixed price, insane profits. No mafia = medium prices (roughly 10g at server launch as an estimate). Not apart of the mafia = your not getting any or not worth the time to try and get.
So that took a while to write, im hoping people find it useful, ill add anything I remember over time.
If you notice any inaccuracies, let me know.
![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")