Everyone is always wondering what profession is the best moneymaker. Although it’s true that some professions have an advantage over other professions in term of making gold, it really is up to the player. Some players can make more gold than anyone in a profession that many consider to be inferior in gold making standards. Let’s take a look at some of the characteristics of the two different categories of professions and some examples.

Gathering
To start, everyone should start off playing the World of Warcraft with two gathering professions. Gathering professions will help you build you base gold nest by being able to sell items on auction houses and generating a decent gold stream. No matter what level you are you can always get more herbs just by tracking them down and by using addons you can make it easier for yourself to keep track of the nodes that you might come across.

The biggest problem with gathering professions is that it is time consuming. You have to consistently be gathering materials to sell on the auction house. I actually used to enjoy farming materials by going on my epic flying mount and the thrill of finding a rare herb or rare node is great, but yet it really does take a chunk out of my playing time.

Another problem is that you will find that you will have ample competition with popular farming areas of both herbs and nodes. The great thing about skinning is that you can kill whatever and skin the mob. In addition, a lot of players in the game don’t have skinning and you can easily make a lot of gold just by skinning other peoples mobs.

Crafting
Once you’re at a certain level you should switch over to crafting professions. It really depends on what kind of person you are, if you really like gathering professions then stick to them but in my opinion and I’ve made tons of gold in the game, you have to go for the crafting professions. Find recipes that work for you and that you can make over and over with a decent profit margin.

Obviously, sometimes you won’t be able to sell something, that’s when you concentrate on your other recipes. I recommend having 10 recipes that you go to (among your 2 professions) that give you decent profits. If you consistently have that many items on the auction house, you will be able to make a fair amount of gold in small amounts of time. If you’re items are cheaper (less than 100 gold) then you can put a couple (not too many since you’ll create too much of a supply).

You can also get rare recipes that BoP in instances, raids, and other places. You can get rare recipes from factions when you get to revered or exalted with them. Usually the good ones you get when you hit exalted so grinding reputation could be worth the while if you want to get some sweet recipes.

There are disadvantages of crafting professions. The first is the startup costs that come with it. You have to have a lot of gold just to level the profession. The best way might be to advertise on the trade channel as you level your profession (especially if you hit a wall and all the materials you need to level are super expensive). Offer 5-10 gold (depending on your profession skill level) for every level you gain when you make something for another player, with their materials of course.

Balancing the Two
Once you get to a certain level, you can drop one of the gathering professions for crafting professions so that you can get a balance between the two. If you are doing this, be sure that the gathering professions compliment the crafting professions. For example, if you’re skinning then make sure you’re a Leatherworker, or if you’re a miner try Blacksmithing, etc.

It can be a lot of more fun if you have both and it won’t bore you out of your mind if you have balance. Try things out, if you have alt characters then you can have them learn different professions and then you can double or triple your gold revenues if you ever level them to a decent level.

If you want to make gold in the World of Warcraft, both quality and quantity count. You can craft quality items that will sell for an awesome profit margin. Or you can sell a lot of something with minimal profits and get a similar result. It really depends on what you want to do. Enjoy!

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Tags: Auction House, Blacksmithing, Cooking, Crafting, Enchanting, First Aid, Fishing, Gathering, Herbalism, Inscription, Jewelcrafting, Leatherworking, Mining, Profession, Skinning, Tailoring, World of Warcraft, WoW | Category Must See Pages, Professions