I was talking to an old buddy of mine that I used to play with, we lost touch and just recently started talking again, he asked me for some gold advice and the first thing I asked him was " what are your professions? ". He answered back with Herbalism, Mining, and Tailoring & Engineering at roughly 450. I then told him a couple tips but this really got me thinking, there are probably thousands of others out there with both gathering professions trying to make gold at the AH, what they don't realize is that when you're playing the AH you do not need these professions at all. While great to have for sometimes " free supplies " ( which they really aren't since you spent time gathering them ), it's not really worth it in the end
Sure it's nice to have a gatherer alt, but gathering isn't always the answer. After you get a nice amount of capital ( 5k or so ) you can then proceed to drop these professions for better professions that will bring in the gold. If you have an alt or two with a gathering profession go ahead and drop them; especially if you don't find yourself going out and farming at least a couple times a week. Gathering isn't really worth it in my opinion, you're better off utilizing the crafting professions and playing the AH if you're trying to make gold.
You ( and everyone else ) needs to get away from the gathering mindset, sure gathering professions are great for gold but once you have a nice amount of capital you can be making way more per hour playing the auction house instead of farming for x amount of hours. I know it can be a bit weird to finally drop those professions, but trust me once you get a good gold making profession you'll be making so much gold that you'll never have to gather in your life. I do know that some of you do enjoy the gathering aspect of the game and that's perfectly fine.
Need some suggestions on what to switch those gathering professions to? I'll help you out below
- Jewelcrafting thus far this expansion has been the major cash cow and with epic gems well on their way I suspect that JC will be the best profession to make gold from. I would definitely suggest this profession to someone who doesn't already have one.
- Tailoring isn't too good at the moment, I expect this to change with 4.2 & the new patterns. You're going to need 150 volatiles per week to do use your weekly dreamcloth CD though, which can get costy especially if you don't have much capital. Leg armors are profitable but not worth it in my opinion. I wouldn't suggest this to many people.
- Leatherworking is profitable in many ways. Leg armors, Pvp gear, turning in savage leather into pristine hides. Just a great overall profession to make gold from.
- Inscription is great for starters, but can be very rough and intimidating. The glyph market is often cut throat and over crowed, but the potential for profits are insane. Would suggest it to those with determination to stick it out.
- Alchemy is great for a starter profession, crafting the daily truegold can be profitable if you become a transmute spec'ed alchemist. You can also craft the Living elements transmutation for profits. Transmuting gems can also be VERY profitable. This is a great profession to pair up with JC purely for gem transmutations. I'd recommend it to anyone with low-mid capital.
- Enchanting can be very costly to level. The profits at max aren't too good, unless you have gold to craft the very high end weapon and bracer enchants. There are a couple cheap profitable enchants but not too many. Only reason I'd suggest this is so you can have a disenchanter to DE your things from the obsidian shuffle, otherwise I wouldn't suggest it.
17 comments: on "Gathering Isn't Always The Answer"
Anonymous said... May 24, 2011 at 9:52 AM
You forgot about Blacksmithing
Anonymous said... May 24, 2011 at 10:08 AM
The only gathering profession that can still net a decent gold/hr return is fishing.
Check your AH, several fish can often sell for 15g each or more. These are:
* Lavascale catfish (mastery buff food and Seafood Magnifique)
* Highland guppy (Seafood Magnifique)
* Deepsea sagefish (Intellect buff food)
The catfish and sagefish are open water catches and so you need close to max level (plus a lure to be safe) to profitably fish for them. I usually average 1 catfish or sagefish per minute in open water. When you add the non-trash fish and volatile waters to your catch you can get more than 1000g per hour. Still not as good as the AH, but worth doing if you are waiting for your raid to start or have already max'ed out your crafting time.
Anonymous said... May 24, 2011 at 10:23 AM
What about engineering? :)
The Lost Meeple said... May 24, 2011 at 10:33 AM
I didn't include BS because I don't currently have one and I don't think I've ever had one. Bs is nice, but expensive to level from what I hear. Crafting epics is profitable ( or so it seems ) and belt buckles are a gold mine.
Engineering takes a lot to level with little to no reward unless you know how to properly make gold with it by selling everything possible, pets, cores, etc
Anonymous said... May 24, 2011 at 12:37 PM
I'm relatively new to the gold-making scene. I've been doing it for about a month or 2 now and after spending some of my new found wealth, I still have probably tripled if not quadrupled my gold. I just made this change from mining to Alchemy 2 days ago, my toon was mining/jc. But I realized I NEVER went out and actually farmed my own ore, there are plenty of people selling on the AH willing to do it for me. So, I made the switch, seems to be paying off, being able to transmute uncommon gems from the obsidium shuffle, gives me an endless supply of gems to cut. I would suggest to anyone seriously considering gold-making.
Keep up the good work, I read your blog as often as I can.
Anonymous said... May 24, 2011 at 1:10 PM
i have all professions, except tailoring
BS is nice to have, those belt buckles are a goldmine. also i craft blues to DE them into shards, because of the low costs of the ore its most profitable with a BS (cost for a blue ~20-25g, price for one shard on my server ~60g and i sell like 10 a day, at least)
also i would drop all gathering professions - mining is a gold mine to, because of smelting. pyrium and obsidium ore sell for 300-600% profit, and as a BS you constantly need some bars and theyre just too expensive to buy - ores are cheap (go for like 30g a stack, on weekends drops to 20g)
my main has engineering and its not that good but still, i manage to sell about 1 Bow a week with a 3k profit..just post it and dont have to worry about it for the next 48h because there is hardly any competition and the scopes also sell very well with a nice profit. pets usually do well too but demand somehow dropped this week but im certain my already crafted pets wont go to waste - with the new pet achievement rewards there will be a high demand again :)
i can recommend BS and keeping Mining but engineering isnt that profitable to skill, only if you already have an engineer - use him!
Skyfangs said... May 24, 2011 at 2:50 PM
I use gatherings only when im leveling an alt to help restock on anything i need(ores or herbs for other stuff), but the one gathering i have found to not be a huge disappointment would be mining. Now im not saying mining in itself is needed, but the smelting part of it is a big deal to me(and a little hp bonus to boot). I can still make a ton of gold off titansteel bars and smelting obsidium,elementium(or hardened),felsteel,khorium(for power cores), and it goes well for if i need anything for blacksmithing and engineering. Overall i can see where the other 2 may be useless unless you wanna take a character and skin with a potion of treasure finding and go for blackened dragonscales or something.
Unknown said... May 24, 2011 at 3:20 PM
I believe if you pair mining with Engineering you have the best profession combo as far as gathering goes.
I can doing circles for Obsidium Ore (which has sky rocketed in price on my server) and get Volatile Earths/Volatile Air at a high rate and generally after and hour end up with roughly 50 of each. It is in my opinion great to have gathering professions for many reasons:
1: No Risk Reward
2: Allow you to spend time getting gold outside of the AH while your stuff in the AH sells.
3: Having a back up supply for certain days the market may be slow
Also Tailoring makes quite a bit of gold, and I have one word for you.. Bags.
Netherweave Bags are a 200% profit when buying the stacks of netherweave cloth from the AH. You can also watch the Frostweave/Embersilk Markets to see if their bags are also extremely profitable which for me they're generally a 70g-100g profit every day.
I am happy that gathering professions aren't so much a necessity but in my opinion, you said it yourself too, some crafting professions have little profit so a gathering professions or two would totally be better.
Brent said... May 24, 2011 at 4:25 PM
I agree that gathering isnt always the answer but if you ask what prof to start with I would say get a gathering profession.
Would I drop a gathering profession....not sure I would. They are still nice to have but from a purely gold making perspective farming the ah is typically more profitable than farming.
Brett said... May 24, 2011 at 6:43 PM
I keep gathering alts around for one reason - mats I can't get hold of easily. On my server, it's ridiculously rare to find the herbs to do alchemy jewel transmutes on the AH. It's an unusual week that you find any Heartblossom, for example. If I need some, it's almost always quicker and easier to go farm it myself.
Anonymous said... May 24, 2011 at 7:25 PM
I am glad everyone thinks tailoring is a crappy profession since on my low-medium population server, that mindset allows me to name my price on the pvp crafted items.
Please keep telling everyone that tailoring sucks so I can keep my monopoly.
Deepcut said... May 24, 2011 at 8:25 PM
Enchanting is good, but it is time consuming to set up. I use Zeroauctions though, and now that it's set up, the cash rolls in almost as well as Jewelcrafting. I update the material prices on a spreadsheet once per week, and if necessary, I adjust the threshold prices also.
Anonymous said... May 24, 2011 at 8:26 PM
It's honestly a terrible idea to drop mining, especially if you have alts that have BS/Engineering. People mark up bars substantially on my server, and having someone to make bars is key for those two professions. Also if you have a sole gatherer, then there is no point dropping herbalism if you actually go out and mine once in a while, otherwise dropping it for BS/engineering is a good move
Darth Solo said... May 24, 2011 at 8:30 PM
Well, I wouldn't disregard gathering.
For one thing, it's very often the most accessible way to make gold for a beginner player. After all, that's how I started initially.
For another, gathering can be a pleasurable activity on its own, even though it's not the most optimal way of making gold. Personally I love flying around a zone, searching for nodes and listening to a podcast.
But then again, since I have all the professions maxed out on various characters I can use those raw materials to craft more value-added stuff.
After my first 200K gold I stopped worrying about the best ways to make gold and started concentrating on more pleasurable activities. When I quit WoW a while ago I had over 500K but I was still farming ore and herbs, just for the hell of it.
For those who hate farming, there are much better ways to make gold, I agree.
Anonymous said... May 24, 2011 at 10:10 PM
BS is very profitable for me, crafting the plate dps pvp gear. I can usually find volatile fires for around 9-11g each and stacks of elementium for 26-33g. Send it to my miner to smelt, send back to my BS/JC to craft the gear and each piece excluding the shoulders and boots goes for between 350-450g.
Sinuviel said... May 25, 2011 at 5:39 AM
Blacksmithing PVP items sell like biscuits. Usually move 2-3 a day for 400-500g. Mat cost hovering around 150g or so. (ofc server dependant)
I wouldn't want to drop a gathering profession for multiple reasons either:
1: gathering can be a soothing timesink, listen to some music whilst doing it
2: smelting bars is sometimes a quick way to profit from cheap ores. (Example hardened obsidium bars which have an insane profitmargin for almost no effort)
3: When new zones/expansions come out with new gatherables, being among the first to farm the stuff rakes in bigger profits than playing the AH.
Kammler said... May 25, 2011 at 7:48 AM
As someone else already said, for the beginning player who has no gold reserves gathering is the best way to begin. Herbs and skins are useful to begin building some income.
I think the point of the article is that after a certain point a player is better off dropping his gathering profs in favor of more lucrative ones.
I could see how this would be an attractive option for some players, especially if they have one or two characters they play. However, in the long run I think it is better to maintain these gathering profs.
Others have addressed BS and the companion Smelting. Herbalism and Skinning have ebbs and flows in gold making potential. The lower end materials are generally oversupplied and undervalued on the AH but the mid and high level mats can be very expensive.
Once a player gets to Outland the Herbs and Skins can be profitable, and the Cataclysm zone skins are still very good sellers.
I may not farm in my gathering profs very often but when I need to use some Twilight Jasmine or Felweed and there is either none listed in the AH or what is listed is too expensive, I will jump over the appropriate zone for a quick gathering circuit.
With limited character availability and limited playtime I could see some merit to your position but in the long run I think dropping a gathering prof could spell trouble down the line. I would rather see someone begin a new character and level the desired prof that way.
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