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An Introduction to Professions in WoW Classic

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In this article, we give a rundown of all professions in Classic WoW and help you pick the best one depending on your class and/or preferences.

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We discern between two types of professions in Classic WoW -- primary and secondary. You can have as many secondary professions as you wish, but you will be restricted to two primary professions. Furthermore, professions can be divided into three types:

Gathering Professions

These professions revolve around supporting production professions by providing the materials required to create goods.

  • Herbalism (Primary profession)
    • Supports: Alchemy
  • Fishing (Secondary profession)
    • Supports: Cooking, Alchemy
  • Mining (Primary profession)
  • Skinning (Primary profession)
    • Supports: Leatherworking

Production Professions

Trade goods created through these professions can be sold or used by the creator. Some crafted goods are soulbound and thus only usable by the person who made them.

  • Alchemy (Primary profession)
    • Supported by: Herbalism, Fishing
    • Suggested for: All Classes
    • Excellent for those who need an extra boost of health or mana during battle.
  • Blacksmithing (Primary profession)
    • Supported by: Mining
    • Suggested for: Paladins, Warriors
    • Subclasses: Armorsmithing, Weaponsmithing (Axesmithing, Hammersmithing, or Swordsmithing)
    • Forge your own powerful weapons and armor to wear or sell.
  • Cooking (Secondary profession)
    • Supported by: Fishing, Killing NPCs
    • Suggested for: All Classes
  • Engineering (Primary profession)
    • Supported by: Mining
    • Suggested for: All Classes
    • Subclasses: Gnomish, Goblin Engineering
    • Engineers are able to create the most powerful trade items in the game.
  • Leatherworking (Primary profession)
    • Supported by: Skinning
    • Suggested for: Druids, Hunters, Rogues, Shaman
    • Subclasses: Dragonscale, Elemental, Tribal Leatherworking
    • You can create your own armor and patches to increase the armor on some of your existing gear.
  • Tailoring (Primary profession)
    • Supported by: Killing NPCs
    • Suggested for: Cloth Wearers (Mages, Priests, Warlocks)
    • Sew your own armor to wear or sell. You can earn gold by selling shirts and bags.

Service Professions

Service professions produce no goods, but they are super valuable to learn because they will aid you in your adventures.

  • Enchanting (Primary profession)
    • Supported by: Disenchanting Items
    • Suggested for: All Classes
    • You can disenchant existing items and use the materials to enhance your armor and weapons.
  • First Aid (Secondary profession)
    • Supported by: Killing Humanoids
    • Suggested for: All Classes
    • Allows you to create bandages and heal yourself after battle to minimize downtime.

Profession Ranks

You can level up your profession up to 300 in WoW Classic. The most efficient way is to craft items that increase your skill points and require the least amount of crafting materials, which you can farm by yourself or buy directly from the Auction House.

Rank Maximum Skill Level
Apprentice 75
Journeyman 150
Expert 225
Artisan 300

How to Choose the Right Profession?

Each class has a set of recommended professions, but at the end of the day, the choice is completely in your hands. You can pick Tailoring as a Warrior and even Blacksmithing as a Mage.

Keep in mind that:

  • Gathering Professions (Herbalism, Fishing, Mining, and Skinning) aren't reliant on other professions, and the gains are purely monetary.
  • Production & Service Professions (except Enchanting and Tailoring) heavily rely on gathering professions.
  • If you want to be self-sufficient, it is best to pick one gathering profession and a production/service profession that best benefits your class.
    • Cloth wearers should pick Tailoring, so that they can make the most out of created gear, including armor and bags.
    • Leather/Mail wearers should go with Skinning + Leatherworking.
    • The ideal combination for Plate wearers is Blacksmithing + Mining.
  • If you want to supply your guild with flasks and potions, pick Alchemy + Herbalism.
  • If you'd like to spice up your combat with various bombs and gimmicks, you should go with Engineering + Mining.

Finally, here is a short rundown of each profession:

All Classic WoW Professions Summarized

Alchemy

  • Make potions and elixirs with various attributes. Transmutation of metals and elements is also available to those that reach higher levels of Alchemy.

You will be creating potions and flasks to use or sell them on the Auction House. This profession is really lucrative, especially when paired with Herbalism, and provides a steady influx of gold.

Blacksmithing

  • Makes mail and plate armor, as well as metal weapons of all types. At higher levels of skill, Blacksmiths can choose to specialize in either Weaponsmithing or Armorsmithing. Weaponsmiths are able to further specialize in Axesmithing, Hammersmithing, or Swordsmithing.

Blacksmiths can create mail and plate armor, which is why they're good for Hunters, Paladins, Shamans, and Warriors. If selling gear is your cup of coffee, pair Blacksmithing with Mining.

Cooking

  • Gather meats and parts of slain beasts and turn them into food that restores health. At higher levels certain food will provide stat bonuses for a limited time.

Cooking is a no-brainer. Food is so expensive in Classic and you want to save gold for spells. You will be killing various creatures in the open world for quests anyway, so there isn't any extra farming required if you pick cooking as soon as you start questing. At higher levels, the food increases your stat for a short amount of time.

Enchanting

  • Disenchant uncommon or rarer items to obtain resources. Enchant weapons and armor with permanent spell effects.

The simplest yet most expensive profession out of all. You can disenchant nearly every item, the thing is you need to think twice before destroying it. So long as you have a steady influx of items form your guildies that they don't need, you will have a blast and level up fairly quickly. Enchanters can create wands that are sought-after and sell fast on the Auction House.

Engineering

  • Engineers create gadgets, guns, bombs, etc. Many of the gadgets are usable only by other Engineers. They can also craft mechanical pets and trinkets. At later levels, Engineers can choose to specialize in Goblin or Gnomish Engineering.

You will need a lot of ore, so pair Engineering with Mining. Engineering provides extra perks in combat thanks to the various gadgets that deal damage. These are quite valuable in PvP. For more information about the profession check out our Engineering guide.

First Aid

  • Uses cloth from fallen enemies to create bandages. These can be used to quickly heal yourself or others between fights.

First Aid is another no-brainer. Many classes do not have access to a self-heal and even then, spending Mana causes downtime. If you learn First Aid, you can use the cloth gathered from Humanoids to create bandages that will heal you and your allies. First Aid is somewhat bad if you also have Tailoring, because the profession uses the same type of cloth.

Fishing

  • Gather fish and treasure from the bodies of water spread across Azeroth. Alchemists make use of some fish while Tailors, Leatherworkers, Blacksmiths, and Enchanters use various pearls.

Fish can be cooked into useful food and will work for Hunters with pets that eat fish. Some Alchemy skills use certain types of fish as well.

Herbalism

  • Tracking down herbs to be used by other professions. Alchemists, Enchanters, and Leatherworkers are just a few of the professions that use herbs on occasion (with Alchemists being dependant on them).

You will gather herbs in the open world. They are used primarily in Alchemy and you can find more details in our Herbalism guide.

Leatherworking

  • Creates leather armor at lower levels and branches into both leather and mail armor at higher levels. Leatherworkers can produce kits that increase the armor on certain equipment. Proficient Leatherworkers can specialize in either Tribal Leatherworking, Elemental Leatherworking, or Dragonscale Leatherworking.

Leatherworkers can create leather and mail armor, so they're ideal for Druids, Rogues, Shamans, and Hunters. They're able to produce items that increase armor on certain equipment pieces. Ideally, you want to pair it with Skinning for a steady supply of hides and leather.

Mining

  • Discovering the mining deposits of ore is restricted to Miners. In addition to the raw ore, rare gems can be found within the earth. Miners also smelt the ores into bars that other professions can make use of.

You can't go wrong with mining. The ore you gather is used in Blacksmithing and Engineering, so your stocks will sell out quickly!

Skinning

  • Harvest the leather and hides from beasts slain in combat. Skinners supplement many of the professions to a small extent with Leatherworkers being fully reliant on them.

Skinning is a niche profession and supplies Leatherworking. It's quite easy to level up because you will be killing a lot of beasts while questing. A Skinning Knife is required to harvest leather and hides from corpses. Check out our Skinning guide to get started.

Tailoring

Creates cloth armor and bolts from the cloth pieces found on the bodies of enemies. Tailors can also create bags to increase their inventory space. As the primary resource of cloth are dead enemies, Tailors are only slightly dependant on Herbalism, Mining, and Skinning for some of the rarer materials.

  • All casters should consider this profession because of the gear it provides. Non-casters oftentimes choose it to make a profit by selling bags.
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Oh damn, the ptsd flashbacks of farming Thorium Crystals for weeks on end for the TF questline ;/

Also I cannot honestly recommend anyone take leatherworking or blacksmithing.    IIRC (it has been awhile disclaimer) the only real endgame use they saw was crafting fire resist (and much later frost resist in naxx).    Otherwise raid drops trumped everything, hard.    Tailoring worked as a supplement for enchanting anyway so that's fine.   

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18 hours ago, Stan said:
  • Engineering (Primary profession)
    • Supported by: Mining
    • Suggested for: All Classes
    • Subclasses: Gnomish, Goblin Engineering
    • Engineers are able to create the most powerful trade items in the game.
  • Leatherworking (Primary profession)
    • Supported by: Skinning
    • Suggested for: Druids, Hunters, Rogues, Shaman
    • Subclasses: Dragonscale, Elemental, Tribal Leatherworking
    • You can create your own armor and patches to increase the armor on some of your existing gear.
  •  

So they get their subclass specialization, but didn't Blacksmithing have; Axe, Sword and Mace and Armor as a specialization as well? Or was that introduced in The Burning Crusade? 

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3 minutes ago, Zahli said:

So they get their subclass specialization, but didn't Blacksmithing have; Axe, Sword and Mace and Armor as a specialization as well? Or was that introduced in The Burning Crusade? 

You are completely right, I forgot to include the BS subclasses, even though they were mentioned later on in the post. Updated and thanks :). 

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