Wow: Crafting - Theory and Practice

[Dawg]

Per suggestion elsewhere... a place for general thoughts on crafting in WoW

There are two classes of professions: primary and secondary. Each character may have two primaries and all of the secondaries.

There are three secondary professions: fishing, cooking, first aid. Get them all and use them all. You will need to periodically visit a trainer to open up the next level of each profession. With first aid an cooking this opens up new treatments and recipes that you can use. With fishing it really just allows you to increase your skill points so you can fish in more areas. Rule of thumb: get them all and work them all.

The primary professions are divided into two types: gathering and crafting. There are four general strategies to selecting your professions.
1. Dual gathering. This allows you to gather lots of raw materials but you will not be able to use them yourself. That's ok. You can sell them at the AH or provide them to your party/guild-mates.
2. Dual crafting. You can makes lots of stuff but are reliant upon others for raw materials. This is a rare choice. I would imagine that it only occurs in guilds where people are going to feed you raw materials gratis.
3. Complementary gathering/crafting (e.g. skinning/leatherworking). The benefits are obvious. You are feeding your own profession with raw materials. You are not reliant upon your fellows or the laggy AH.
4. Non-complementary gathering/crafting. Like dual-crafting, this combination is most likely in a guild community where others will feed you supplies while you feed them your gathered reagents.

A secondary strategy is to select a profession that you will later drop in favor of a more valuable one later. This is often done to acquire Enchanting. Early enchantments are usually pretty weak but this profession attracts alot of mid-level folks.

Dawg

[RuperT]

I'll go ahead and paste my previous post here, just because it's such a shiny frickin' pearl of wisdom :lol:
My main is a miner and engineer. Engineering is fun to me, but it is NOT a money maker. Most of the items I create (with the exception of guns and ammo) are only usable by other engineers, who can probably make the item themselves anyway. When you get to a higher skill level of your profession, you can/must specialize. For example, I chose Goblin Engineering (explosives) over Gnomish Engineering (devices). If I started over, I don't think I would choose Engineering. Explosives are useful in PvP, but I don't really plan on doing much (voluntarily) until I hit L60. I probably should have chosen a profession which would have provided more useful equipment or money in the lower levels. This is because, when you reach a high enough level where you feel like you've got some of the best equipment and you want to start serious PvP, you can just drop your money-maker and pick up Engineering, then buy all the materials you require in the Auction House (making it possible to reach a high level in minutes without all the gathering headaches). But, anyway, I try to avoid getting hung up on the 'best' way to do everything and watching my stats and numbers like a mathematician. It's all about fun, and when I fire up my Goblin Rocket Boots or basejump with my Parachute Cloak, that's what I'm having.
In my oh-so-humble opinion, most of the crafting professions are really just for fun. I think if you spent the same time killing a couple more mobs or finishing more quests, you'd almost certainly come out at least even on the money-making/equipment front (especially with the Auction House). However, it can be a lot of fun finding that obscure recipe, and if you have a guild or even a couple of friends it is very gratifying making something of use to them.
Now, the gathering professions (mining, herbalism, skinning) are nearly always worth it, particularly skinning (you will constantly be killing skinnable beasts anyway). Gathering will barely inconvenience you, and you can provide the materials to a crafting buddy, or sell them easily.
Most of your professions will be taught at the major faction cities (you can ask the guards about trainers, and they will mark it on your map). You will also usually need a tool of some sort (skinning knife, mining pick).
Also, be aware that there are auxilliary professions that do not count towards your 2 profession limit. These are fishing, cooking, and first aid. I'd recommend you pick them all up (fishing is more elegant than in EQ2, IMO).

[RuperT]

Re: Fishing
If you're going to be doing much fishing, you should almost always use the various lures that increase your skill (ie, nightcrawlers). This will allow you to fish succesfully in higher level water, and it'll help you catch better things in equal level water (like equipment or gems!). Also, if you intend to fish at all (which I again recommend), go ahead and start doing it early so you'll be in level-appropriate waters. Fishing and cooking go together particularly well (esp for feeding pets) because most fishing recipes don't require additional components (ie Hot Spices, Dwarven Stout) that might not be readily available. Fishing and cooking may seem like a time sink, but even if you don't enjoy the novelty of it, it will save you time later. In particular, you can use the food to restore your health after more difficult mob encounters. This not only reduces your down-time sitting and waiting for your health to restore itself (which can take even longer at higher levels), but many recipes will increase your stats for 15 minutes or so after eating (mostly Stamina and Spirit, but even Agility and others at higher levels).

[ignus]

once i was turned on to the whole idea (at about level 12 or 13...), i started Skinning and Tailoring. these are non-complimentary for the most (i do use a bit of leather in my tailoring), but i was able to fund my earlier levels through leather sales alone pretty much. and tailoring allows you to make bags and bolts of materials that both sell very well at vendors or to other players. im pretty much in it for money right now, since it seems to be tough to come by.

i havent fished yet, but i do carry a rod. should i be?

[cowboy]

can we make this a stickie

[Dawg]

once i was turned on to the whole idea (at about level 12 or 13...), i started Skinning and Tailoring. these are non-complimentary for the most (i do use a bit of leather in my tailoring), but i was able to fund my earlier levels through leather sales alone pretty much. and tailoring allows you to make bags and bolts of materials that both sell very well at vendors or to other players. im pretty much in it for money right now, since it seems to be tough to come by.

i havent fished yet, but i do carry a rod. should i be?
If you are making the effort to carry a rod, by all means fish! Rupert hit all the main reasons. At the early levels, you heal really quickly so the food is pretty pointless. But as you rise, having food will drastically reduce your downtime between encounters. Some of the higher recipees even grant short-term (10 minutes) health or mana regeneration!

I suppose at the higher levels, when money becomes like candy, its easier just to buy food. But when you are still scraping gold to get that horse - it can make all the difference. Its also kinda relaxing. If you finish off a quest, its kinda late, but you don't want to leave the game just yet - drop a line in some nearby water (most maps have something to fish in). I like to watch the general chat while fishing - crack jokes and guide people who are lost while I catch a few fishies.

First aid will also decrease your downtime as you can turn all that linen, wool, silk, etc.. into bandages to heal your sorry butt after getting mauled. If you aren't a tailor, it actually gives you a use for all that cloth rather than just selling it to a vendor or at the AH. You can also use bandages on other people, which is nice if you can do it in combat while they are still fighting.

Dawg

[Chairman_Kaga]

Class specific skills:

Anyone have a good idea of decent skill ideas for each (or any given) class?

Healing/casting classes are generaly restricted to cloth or leather. So I guess tailoring and/or leather working lends itself there.
Wariors can wear anything (right?). So would blacksmithing/mining be a good match? Also, they cannot heal themselves, so would alchemy be a better idea?

Blacksmithing can make weapons, can they make any weapon, such as staves or maces?

[Chairman_Kaga]

Changed tactics

Now my upper level char (24 priest) is the gatherer, Herbology and still enchanter. Thinking about changing to skinning or mining for cash but it's very hard to get another char up to any decent level in enchanting.

My lvl 10 warior is tailoring and alchemist. (mana potions baby!!)

Oh yeah, Shmee will be to 8 slot bags shortly. Get ahold of me if you need any.

[Chairman_Kaga]

OK, a note here on gatherer + producer characters. There are min lvl requirements for certain profession skill levels. IE Journeyman I think is lvl 5, expert 20, artisan ??. :(

So, FWIW - I'm now leveling Shmee up to 20 so I can hit expert alchemy and tailoring. I'm pretty much maxed in both right now at 150.



So, the plan isn't flawless. :(

[angstycoder]

Currently, the most successful character I have does skinning/tailoring. The leather sales fund everything, with the bags getting even more.
This character had 17g extra lying around at 24.

I've done skinning/mining. It's all well and good until everyone else does it (which has happened,) and demand plummets.

My main (Moogira,) does herb/alch, but it's certainly not a big money-maker. However, it does give me lots of benifits (regeneration, healing, and defense potions and the like.)

My NE did skin/leather with mild success. Again, no big money maker there.

I also highly encourage the fishing/cooking combo, especailly for hunters. Fishing and cookinig complement each other very well, and you can always level cooking on what you're catching up through the first cap of cooking (bristlewhisker cat fish.) Some dishes also provide a bonus to stamina and such, which equals more HP, which makes me happy :)

[Dawg]

I've found herbalism/alchemy to be a good money maker after lvl35. There are a number of potions that are in big demand that generate good money (greater defense, major healing, mighty rage, etc..). It requires gathering the reagents, or buying them. If you buy them, your profits are whittled away. If you can gather your own and limit purchases to low-ball bids, you can do pretty well.

I've found that tailor/enchanting is a good combo. You get to put all that cloth to use, then turn around and disenchant them to get the reagents for enchanting. You will have to waste reagents to skill up (my bracers have been re-enchanted dozens of times) and you'll find yourself handing out enchants to random folks you group with. The enchants can be valuable at high end levels . To your guildmates, you give enchants because it provides intangible value in increasing their ability and, thus, your survivability. To others, you can charge a bundle for some of the better enchants (e.g. Crusader, LifeStealing).

Skinning/leatherworking earns good money early on. You can compress leather with the leatherworking skill and there are skinnable animals just about everywhere. If you have an enchanter around, you can usually find an easy recipe to turn out cheap disenchantable items so they can get shards and essences. There are a few recipes that give you good return on investment (Toughened Leather Gloves andThick Leather Ammo Pouch come to mind). You cannot spam the market with your items or their value drops. Make a few different items, and sell them at a trickle. You can also sell raw leather pretty well. Go out with a few empty bags, find a nice farming spot, hack-n-slash, and you have a bunch of sellable materials.

Mining/smithing-engineering. Most of the engineering items can only be made by engineers. There are some exceptions. For example, scopes and EZ-throw dynamite. Exploit these. The smiths have a tougher time. There are a few recipes that can generate regular income (spurs, green iron hauburk) but it can be frustrating. Alot of the higher end recipes have ludicrous reagent demands. You can offer to make items for a fee if they provide materials though. Alot of folks seem to go for that. It doesn't create big windfalls though. Mining will always be lucrative. Many/most people just aren't willing to put up with mining, even if they are a smith or engineer. Rogue miners can stealth pass the mobs and just hit the veins in an instance or in the field. They find random gemstones and will also find the occasional arcane crystal on thorium veins.

My latest char (NE dr00d), began as a skinner/leatherworker. This generated some income for a while. When I stopped getting the leather scraps (just light and medium), I dropped leatherworking for tailoring. I had saved significant amounts of cloth in preparation and quickly skilled up to where I can make some minor green items. After a few more levels, I dropped the skinning for enchanting and disenchanted a whole bunch of old drops and tailor products. I actually have a couple of tailoring recipes that sell well (e.g. Spider Silk Boots) and I plan on keeping all my guild mates (Earthen Ring, sorry) enchanted up. The disenchanting produces a variety of dusts and shards. Some of these sell quite well - others, not so much.

Dawg

[Chairman_Kaga]

Yeah, unfortunately, selling quickly depletes your supplies. (found out going for my mount)

My current plan, when I'm not spending foolishly, is Kagasan (main) herb/enchant. Shmee (35 now so can learn artisan), tailor/alch.

Since I use most of my crap or send it around, I generally don't generate much money but defense pots and healing pots sell well when I'm in a mind to sell them on AH. And tailoring, except for bags, I mostly ship greens to Kaga to disenchant for supplies.

My latest money maker requires level 45+ and farming in Azshara for golden pearls which sell for 17-25G depending on the day. Can get about one of those per day + some black and some other pearls. Not to mention the other drops.