I'm currently engineer 150 and mining 100. I havent gotten my engineer up to far as most of the time i'm in cat with track humanoids on so I dont get much mining done. I've bought most of my mats for engineering so far, but I was wondering if LW was really worth it later on. My main does Enchanter/Tailor and my other alt does Herb/Alch. I was thinking maybe going with Herb and skinning or something like that to make money and support my alchemy on my other char. Any suggestions or input on whther LW would be worth it? Getting equipment isn't too hard for me since I can either buy it on AH or farm it with my main and my guild can make me whatever I need if I can provide mats. Thanks in advance

Do yourself a favor and drop crafting professions all together. Take mining/skinning. Unless you REALLY want to make your own gear as you level. But to be honest with a couple gathering jobs you will make more than enough money to just buy something you want. By the time you hit level 50ish (about the time Leather crafted goods are actually enough to warrent the use) you will either have the money to buy what you want or can easilly go farm up the mats with skinning.

When its all said and done, after you hit 60, buy an epic mount (if you want it), save up a few hundred more gold AND have rep to revered in Argent Dawn, Timbermaw Hold, Thorium Brotherhood and Zandalar Tribe to actually make needed items that will actually sell or have the pattern for Hide of the Wild or Shifting Cloak, then take up leatherworking. Otherwise you will not make any money. And even then you'd be better off with enchanting or herb/alchemy to make your own pots for raiding. Or engineering if PVP is your thing. But yeah craft skills tend to suck if you have a decent populated server.

well, I am only a level 21 Druid but I am going to have to respectfully disagree with Ghost Bear.

I have my leatherworking skill to 115 and have been consistantly able to make gear that is better than what I can quest for at my level. The murloc scale chest and belt are pretty decent for the level you can make them. I have filled in gear that I am not able to make of course but I have been able to equip both myself and my wife pretty well. Of course skinning is a must if you are doing leatherworking.

If you are looking to just make money and buy gear then I cant really comment as I am trying to do most of my gear through making it or drops.

For reference Murloc Scale chest (http://www.thottbot.com/?i=5805) Murloc Scale belt (http://www.thottbot.com/?i=6400)
Kireth
21 Druid
Arthas

I think it kind of depends on the economics of your servers.

I like ghost bear am a miner/skinner. The economics on my server do not have leather armor overpriced. Generally what I do is bid the minimum on different gear that is about 3-4 levels apart. Sometimes I will win 3 belts - level 24, 28, 32. Much of the time I am not spending more than 40s on these items. I can make more with skinning.

Although as I said if the economics are extreme 1g or more for basic leather armor making it would be good for yourself and for making money.

I have learned that patience and buying armor before you need it at minimum prices works for me.

To answer the concerns about mining - I have heard that mining can make some awesome money later on.

Well, I dropped Mining and Engineering for Skinning and Herbalism. I was going to take leatherworking, but there are all 3 types of leatherworkews in my guild already so they can just make me whatever I need and with skinning, I can provide all the mats. And I took herbalism as another supplier for my warrior that does alchemy.
I'm kicking myself though because I forgot to use the target dummies I had leftover to try for fused wiring before I dropped the skill. :(

I had the skinning/herbalism combo one time and I liked it.

On my hunter I don't do the herbalism and replace with mining because of limited bagspace. It gets crazy sometimes when you have 10 different types of herbs along with loot etc. BUT it makes pretty good money

I can't live without my engineering bombs. An additional way of stunning (interrupting spells) is a plus for me. :] Although it's not a money making profession, it is a pretty good self serving one.

Yeah, I do love the stuff that engineering makes, it's just so limited if you are in feral forms most of them time.

I think it kind of depends on the economics of your servers.


I have to agree with this. I am so glad I took on LW/Skinning with my druid. Lately the server has been overpricing items like mad....so it's a good thing I can make some decent things. I was able to get my LW up high enough that I make things a good lil bit higher than my lvl. Plus I've been able to help my lower level guildies get some decent armor early on until they can get the good gear in instances, etc.

Of course this all depends on your server. I have been on some servers where things were not overpriced and I would agree that on those gathering professions work great. A bit of advice though....if you take on 2 gathering professions do skinning and either herbalism or mining since you can only track one at a time.

Really what ever you like to do just do it. But after having spent a year as a leatherworker I will tell you its one of the worst professions if you are looking for an income. End game people will not buy your crafts. You will make some money off a few things. In my case it was Ironfeather and Devilsaur since I'm tribal. However most people will just stick it out for shadowcraft or wildheart. Or one of the many raid dropped substitutes instead of paying for gear when they want to save for their epic mounts or whatever.

After that when you start talking about things like thorium brotherhood crafts which need parts from MC or other rare items. Most times you won't be selling these things anyways as they need to go to the guild. Furthermore mats are difficult to come by, its not like you can just go farm these things on your own time. Same goes with Zandalar tribe crafts.

Also when it comes to big money items, typically people don't want to buy them straight out. For example from leather working, Hide of the Wild. Most times its on AH for 400+g. Nobody wants to pay that much. When a person wants a singular big ticket item they are more likely to just go farm the mats themselves and have a crafter make it for them. Sometimes they tip, sometimes they don't. Of course you can charge a crafting fee, but typically they will have a guildy to do it free of charge.

Also look at it like this, by making a craft you substantially narrow your customer base. Only so many ppl can use leather armor, plate, axes or whatever. By making that specific item you are banking on one of those bases to sustain your income. On the other hand by just selling mats you can reach a larger customer base. Rugged leather will sell to any Leatherworker regardless of if they are tribal, elemental or dragonscale. Bars will sell to any smith. Then of course there are people who buy them because they need them for a specific item they want. Good example, every axe swinger in the land at some point wants arcanite. So anyways gathering prof will give you more customer base.

From just my personal experienes with LW, skinning, mining and enchanting. My miner toon makes 3x the gold my LW toon can make in a given week. And it takes less time to do so. Skinning is ok for money while leveling but better when you can hunt things that most people don't want to take the time to do, example devilsaurs. In the past 5 months rugged leather price went from 1g25s per stack to 2g20s per stack average. Devilsaur leather went from 3g each to sometimes 7g each. I used to have a supplyer would sell me stacks for 25g but not anymore. However at the same time prices of the end craft have not inflated at all. Because people are still more willing to just raid for a piece than buy one. Especially now that Silithus has those nice drops.

Enchanting is nice for disenchanting items but its best left to end game when you already have a substantial cash flow or the ability to go farm places like Scarlet Monestary for mats.

Mining has been by far my best income source. Mining/skinning has been the best combo. 2nd would be mining/ench. Leatherworking...I don't even bother selling crafts anymore. I just skin and sell the mats. I only keep LW on my druid because I use it to help guildies out while they level.

BTW higher level mats aren't always the best money makers. Mid level mats like medium and thick leather are great because there are always ppl too lazy to farm and just want to power level their own crafting. This is especially true for enchanters or smiths who don't want to go looking for nodes to mine.

There was a great thread on the official forums about professions. I'll link it later but now the site seems to be down for me. I'm in Japan so maybe its just lag or something but when I can get on I'll get the link.

Here we go:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-professions&t=202242&p=1&tmp=1#post202242

Just wanted to say Thanks to everyone for their input so far, its been a ton of help :)

I saw this thread in the main forums and it kind of addresses the craft versus gather debate.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-professions&t=202242&p=1&tmp=1#post202242

GenriKB's guide is good and has some nice tips, but I disagree with his double-gathering proffesion... for me, I like engineer'n too much to not have it level'n up. I managed to keep my engineer'n maxxed and have 100g for a mount at level 37... and I'd never go back and level a durid (or any class) with out harvest reapers... oh man they were awsome in the 30's.

As for mining, get the AddOn Gatherer and do a couple of laps of the zone your mining with mine tracker on. Once you have your nodes locations recorded you can go back to mainly tracking humans.

http://www.curse-gaming.com/mod.php?addid=44

I agree with Ghost Bear's take on making money with a trade-skill. If you really want to make money with it, you have to endlessly advertise, be persistant and be strong about getting paid... most people are just gonna go to guildmates... but there's always un-guilded, impatient, newer players, etc. out there looking to spend gold... but only a limited % of crafters are gonna really make a profit at it.

I liked the idea in that guide about if you are going to craft something you should be able to buy the mats at the AH for cheaper than you sell it for.

I know that most people will probably read that and go - DUH! In reality I look at the prices of crafted items and look at the price of the materials and the materials are worth ALOT more. Selling the materials in the first place would have been more profitable even if you found them all for free.

Yeah Atrus its the same thing that happened on FFXI. The mats ended up costing more than the end product was worth. So there was no reason to level up crafting (and if any of you have tried that game was obscenely difficult and expensive to level a craft). So what did they do? They threw in some high end items that needed a crafter to help you get so people would level up their skill. All it did in the end was have unreasonably priced mats all the way up to the end and then some really unreasonably priced end crafts. WoW's example would be all the thorium brotherhood armor that you have to farm MC for parts.

Anyways if you absolutely insist on having a crafting profession DO NOT fall into trying to buy mats off the AH just to get to that next uber gear you can make. Chances are if you can't farm the mats for it yourself, you aren't in a position to actually need it that bad. Try to level your craft off the cheapest possible. Usually there are poor quality items thrown in throughout the way to 300; they usually require less mats and can be sold to a vendor to break even if not make a small profit. But don't expect much unless you want to sit in IF or Org 3 hours a day spamming your advertisement macro.

You'll make your big voodoo set, then be prepared for dissappointment. Once you hit about the mid 40's you'll find better gear than you can make.

Once you hit 60 there's a chance you will get a rare recipe in the raiding game. You learn it, then spend quite a bit of time raiding before you'll have the materials to make it. Chances are you'll ge t anice epic at the end of all that though.

Well, I dropped Mining and Engineering for Skinning and Herbalism. I was going to take leatherworking, but there are all 3 types of leatherworkews in my guild already so they can just make me whatever I need and with skinning, I can provide all the mats. And I took herbalism as another supplier for my warrior that does alchemy.
I'm kicking myself though because I forgot to use the target dummies I had leftover to try for fused wiring before I dropped the skill. :(
i dont think u should depend ur gear on other ppl unless they are close friends that u constantly have contact with...so i think u should get leather working with elemental LW so u can make urself spell damage increasing gear :devil: