World of Warcraft: Forever Profession Guide

Professions let you gather materials, craft useful items, and improve your character. This guide explains how to learn and level them, and offers a quick glance at what each profession offers in WoW Forever.

There are nine primary professions and three secondary professions. Each character can learn two primary professions and all available secondary professions without a limitation.

• Gathering professions: Collect materials from the world, supplying materials needed for other professions. Herbalism gathers herbs, Mining gathers ore, and Skinning gathers leather and hides from fallen beasts.
• Crafting professions: Use these gathered materials to create gear, consumables, and other useful items. Alchemy makes potions and flasks; Blacksmithing makes weapons and mail or plate armor; Enchanting enhances gear with increased stats; Engineering makes unique gadgets, bombs, and other explosives; Leatherworking makes leather and mail armor; and Tailoring makes cloth gear and bags. These are the current primary crafting professions.
• Secondary professions: Cooking makes special food that grant buffs; First Aid makes bandages and healing potions for personal survival; and Fishing catches fish, working very closely with Cooking.

Gathering	Crafting	Secondary
Herbalism Mining Skinning	Alchemy Blacksmithing Enchanting Engineering Leatherworking Tailoring	Cooking First Aid Fishing

Some professions work well together, such as Mining supplying ore for Blacksmithing and Engineering, while Herbalism supplies herbs for Alchemy, and Skinning supplies the leather needed for Leatherworking. Tailoring uses cloth looted from humanoids, so it does not need a specific gathering profession to supply its materials. Tailoring pairs well with Enchanting, as you can disenchant the gear you make for a steady supply of Enchanting materials.

Visit a profession trainer to learn the skill and its first recipes; each profession page will have a list of all available trainers. Each starting zone has a lootable quest item that will drop early on, allowing you one of the three gathering professions: Herbalism, Mining, or Skinning. This allows you to begin leveling one early on, rather than needing to head to the nearest main city to learn the profession instead.

After learning a crafting profession, open its skill window (default keybind "K") to see what you can make and what materials are needed. Trainers teach many recipes, but many others come from different vendors, special quests, or unique drops only found in grouped content. Most professions require a specialized tool or nearby workstation to complete certain tasks, such as a nearby anvil for Blacksmithing.

Gathering professions work a little differently: you raise them by collecting materials from the world. Higher level materials require a higher profession skill to gather, and often times you will need to return to lower-level areas to increase your gathering skill before you can obtain them.

Your profession skill is separate from your character level, and each profession has its own skill level. Making items or gathering materials has a chance to raise it, depending on how relevant the task is compared to that professions skill level. As your profession skill increases, you will need to work on newer recipes or gather higher-level materials to keep gaining points, as the chance to gain a skill decreases on lower recipes as your skill increases.

For gathering professions and crafting recipes, the color shows how likely you are to gain a skill point:

• Orange: Guarantees a skill point when you craft the item or gather the material, unless you have reached your current skill cap.
• Yellow: Usually grants a skill point.
• Green: Grants skill points less often.
• Gray: Does not grant skill points.

Each profession rank raises the maximum skill you can reach. Always learn the next profession rank whenever it becomes available to avoid getting stuck at your current cap. These profession ranks are not only locked behind skill level, but also character level, preventing you from being able to complete an entire profession on a brand new character. Gathering and Crafting professions have different character level requirements to unlock their next ranks, with gathering professions being easier to unlock so you may continue to farm materials while leveling up.

Rank	Skill Cap	Skill Required	Crafting Character Level	Gathering Character Level
Apprentice	75	None	5	None
Journeyman	150	50	10	None
Expert	225	125	20	10
Artisan	300	200	35	25

If you want to make your own items, pairing a gathering profession with a crafting profession makes it much easier to get materials, otherwise you will need to purchase everything needed from other players. You can also take two gathering professions and sell what you find, a great way to earn gold, or stockpile several materials for later when you want to swap professions. While your class does not lock you into any particular profession, certain classes and professions pair up very well, such as Blacksmithing on a Warrior.

You can replace a primary profession at any time if you change your mind later on. Unlearning it will remove all of your learned skill and recipes, so you will need to level it again if you return to it later. Secondary professions do not compete for your two primary slots and you will never need to consider dropping them in the future.

Forever keeps the familiar crafting system: recipes have set material costs and produce a set result. It also adds several new recipes, and gives all main professions powerful new bonuses. Some provide a direct benefit to your character, while others offer special items or useful tools.

Professions also contribute features to campsites. Cooking lets you create the campfire, and other professions can add buffs, services, or crafting stations as their skill increases. You can benefit from another player's campsite feature without knowing that profession yourself. Camping buffs that duplicate class buffs do not stack with them; this allows you to obtain all class buffs in raids.

The first time you reach 150, 225, and 300 skill in a profession, you also earn Legacy Points. The Professions Legacy tree includes perks that help with skill gains and gathering.

These primary professions turn materials into equipment, consumables, or useful tools. Each entry lists what it makes, a practical profession pairing, and its profession benefit.

• Notable crafts: Potions, elixirs, flasks, alchemical oils, transmuted materials, and transmutation tools.
• Best with: Herbalism for a supply of herbs.
• Profession perks: Mixology strengthens and extends the alchemist's elixirs and flasks. A Philosopher's Stone enables elemnental transmutations. Alchemist only special potions.
• Campfire benefits: Mana Well grants mana regeneration; Fermenter makes reagents; Alchemy Laboratory enables recipes requiring an alchemy lab.

Alchemists use herbs to create strange, magical brews that heal, empower, and produce a variety of positive effects - invisibility, elemental resistance, mana restoration, and much, much more. They can also transmute mystic materials into rare and exotic new forms. With their power to create valuable consumables (one-use items), Alchemists are highly useful to groups and raids. By creating rare materials, Alchemists can make a great deal of money, enable the creation of powerful weapons and armor, and even influence the economy of Azeroth!

Alchemy is often paired with the gathering profession Herbalism, since herbs found in the wilderness are required to concoct the majority of alchemical mixtures.

• Notable crafts: Weapons and shields, mail and plate armor, sharpening and weightstones, shield spikes, weapon chains, skeleton keys, and enchanting rods.
• Best with: Mining for ore and bars.
• Profession perks: Various stat-boosting belt buckles and Repair All, a cooldown to repair all of your gear for free.
• Campfire benefits: Sharpening Wheel grants Strength; Anvil is usable for recipes that require an anvil; Master Forge enables recipes requiring a forge.

Blacksmiths utilize their expertise with hammer and anvil to craft deadly weapons, heavy suits of mail and plate armor, and other, more specialized items. The gear that they make allows Blacksmiths (particularly those that equip heavy armor) to outfit themselves, equip party members or guildmates, and sell their craftsmanship via the auction house.

Blacksmithing is often paired with the gathering profession Mining, since minerals recovered from mineral veins are a key component of most weapons and armor.

• Notable enchants: Weapon enchants that provide unique benefits other than just pure stats.
• Best with: Tailoring for gear to disenchant.
• Profession perks: Ring enchants for Attack Power, Spell Power, or Stamina on the enchanter's own rings.
• Campfire benefits: Enchanted Lute boosts armor, stats, and resistances; Arcane Salvager improves disenchanting rewards; Arcane Forge enables recipes that require it.

Enchanters Disenchant surplus magical items - and use the residue to permanently augment equipment of their choosing. With the right incantations and materials, an enchanter can add bonuses to their armor or weapons, making them stronger, faster, or more resilient (among a host of other mystic powers). Enchanters can earn gold by enchanting other players’ gear, with rarer enchants usually commanding higher prices.

Enchanters need the residue of magic items to work - the more potent the item, the rarer the residue; they also require enchanting rods to channel their magic. Enchanting doesn't rely on a particular gathering profession, so Enchanters occasionally pursue Tailoring to allow them to quickly create magic items to disenchant.

• Notable crafts: Explosives, ammunition, scopes, goggles, bombs, and utility gadgets.
• Best with: Mining for ore and bars.
• Profession perks: Engineering-only gadgets and tinkers crafted with Tinkerbox.
• Campfire benefits: Reagent Bot sells reagents; Repair Bot sells reagents and repairs gear; Anarchist's Workbench enables recipes requiring it.

Engineers take advantage of their inventiveness to create an immense (and occasionally random) variety of helpful items. By tinkering ceaselessly, and tolerating malfunctions and misfires, an engineer can make utterly unique objects: sight-enhancing goggles, potent guns, robot pets, and even more unusual trinkets. Successful engineers use their inventions to solve problems and make life easier, faster, and better for themselves and their companions. It's not uncommon for Engineers to also specialize in Mining - the metals and ores they procure serve as building materials for their inventions.

As you progress in your studies as an Engineer, you'll be given an opportunity to choose a specialization. After completing a unique quest, you can specialize in either Goblin or Gnomish schools of engineering. Each school specializes in crafting unique items, some of which aren't available to the opposing style of craftsmanship.

• Notable crafts: Leather and mail armor, armor kits, Hunter quivers and ammo pouches, and reagent bags.
• Best with: Skinning for leather and hides.
• Profession perks: Bracer kits with various stat bonuses, and a saddle that increases mounted speed.
• Campfire benefits: Camp Tent grants rested experience up to 5% of a level; Tanning Rack allows creating certain materials; Sewing Machine enables recipes that require it.

Leatherworkers take the rough, spiny or sturdy hides of beasts everywhere and turn them into useful products. First and foremost among these creations are lighter armors - leather and mail - as well as cloaks, bags, and unique patches and stitching that improve the defensive values of armor. The craft of Leatherworking is useful to those who want to outfit themselves and others with suitable armors, as well as those who want to proft from selling their rare creations.

It's not uncommon for Leatherworkers to also specialize in Skinning, which is the most efficient way to ensure that they have all the leather they need for their creations.

• Notable crafts: Cloth armor and cloaks, regular and specialty bags, shirts and other cosmetic clothing.
• Best with: Enchanting for disenchanting crafted gear.
• Profession perks: Cloth Scavenging yields extra cloth from enemies; cloak embroidery grants Attack Power, Spell Power, or Stamina.
• Campfire benefits: Faction Banner grants Spirit; Spinning Wheel allows creating certain materials; Loom enables recipes requiring it.

Tailors take simple cloth and weave wonders out of it; cloth armor and robes, shirts, bags and other creations are the purview of the tailor. The benefits are diverse - lightly armored classes can wear mystic robes, all types of heroes can benefit from a variety of bags, and everyone can appreciate the decorative shirts and outfits springing from the tailor's loom.

Tailoring doesn't rely on a gathering profession - cloth is found in chests and on defeated foes, as well as purchased. As such, Tailoring is paired with a variety of professions, though Enchanting is common.

These three primary professions collect materials used by crafters. You can pair one with a crafting profession or take two gathering professions to sell the materials you find.

• Materials gathered: Herbs for recipes, plus Forever herb seeds and scarce crafting reagents.
• Best with: Alchemy to turn herbs into consumables.
• Profession perks: Natural Talent grants magic resistance that improves with Herbalism skill.
• Campfire benefits: Incense Candle grants Intellect; Greenhouse grows herbs from seeds; Seed Hybridizer combines or multiplies seeds.

Herbalists carefully harvest the helpful and potent herbs found throughout the world. As they travel, herbalists use their keen senses to seek out the rarest and most precious flora, which can be transformed by other professions' mystic recipes. Herbalists can supply themselves (or their guilds or groups) with an abundant quantity of reagents to aid in their crafting, or they can sell or trade bundles of herbs for a profit.

Herbalists can locate herbs on their map with the Find Herbs ability, and they can harvest them even more easily (by simply right-clicking on an herb). No special tools are required to gather herbs. As you gather a greater number of increasingly obscure herbs, your Herbalism skill will grow. High skill values are required to harvest the choicest herbs.

Herbs grow nearly everywhere in Azeroth, though some areas are more fruitful than others. Certain rare herbs appear infrequently, are difficult to find, or both; these will often command high prices and power potent crafting.

• Materials gathered: Ore, stone, and gems; ore can be smelted into bars. Forever adds new ore and scarce crafting reagents.
• Best with: Blacksmithing or Engineering.
• Profession perks: A 5% increase to total Health.
• Campfire benefits: Lodestone grants melee Attack Power; Rock Garden spawns a mining node; Molten Foundry enables recipes requiring it.

Miners pursue valuable and useful ores, extracting them straight from the earth with their picks. Their familiarity with the land gives them a strong notion of where rich veins of gold, silver or even more precious metals can be found, and they retrieve and smelt these minerals for profit, or for use in metalworking of all types.

Miners can spot mineral veins on their mini-map with the Find Minerals ability, and they can gather them quickly (by simply right-clicking on the vein). Miners require mining picks in order to break apart stones and retrieve valuable ores, and, in order to smelt those ores into bars, they need to be near a forge (found in most cities). As you continue to exercise your mining skills and smelt complex combinations of ores into alloys, your Mining skill will grow. High skill values are required to successfully retrieve the rarest minerals.

Mining is a gathering profession. It's often paired with complementary crafting professions, particularly Blacksmithing and Engineering.

Minerals can be found all over Azeroth, though some areas are more mineral-rich than others. Valuable and rare minerals are often difficult to find, but the rewards are worth it - they can command high prices and form potent metals.

• Materials gathered: Leather, hides, and scales from suitable defeated creatures, plus scarce leather in Forever.
• Best with: Leatherworking for armor and kits.
• Profession perks: 5% more damage against Beasts and Dragonkin.
• Campfire benefits: Camp Chair grants 2% critical strike chance; Field Guide grants Track Beasts; Trapper's Workbench provides a trap.

Skinners ensure that nothing goes to waste by removing the hides of dead beasts and amassing piles of fur and leather. Skinning is a straightforward, convenient profession for those already engaged in hunting animals, but it's highly useful, too. Exotic leathers (such as dragonskin) can command high prices, and they are critical to leatherworking plans, as well as some of the recipes of other professions.

Skinners can easily remove a slain beast's hide by ensuring that they have a skinning knife in their inventory, then right-clicking on an animal's corpse. Though not all beasts can be skinned, the vast majority can - and you don't need to have killed an animal to skin it yourself.

As you skin more unusual and difficult creatures, your Skinning skill will improve. High skill values are required to successfully retrieve leather from high-level beasts. As a gathering profession, Skinning is regularly paired with complementary crafting professions, particularly Leatherworking, though Tailoring also utilizes some leather.

Cooking, First Aid, and Fishing can all be learned on the same character without using either primary profession slot.

• Notable crafts: Meat and fish dishes, food that restores resources or grants buffs, plus Forever teas, camp meals, and campfire kits.
• Pairs well with: Fishing for fish used in recipes.
• Profession perks: Some food grants the Well Fed stat buff and Well Fed XP Boost for experience from kills.
• Campfire benefits: Basic Campfire Kit, Journeyman Campfire Kit, and Expert Campfire Kit allow 3, 5, and 10 camp features; Cookie's Feast provides Stamina food; Iron Oven enables advanced recipes.

Cooks experiment with strange and wondrous ingredients gathered from the far corners of Azeroth. A dedicated chef is able to turn mundane ingredients, recently caught fish or leftover animal meat into a delectable and nutritious meal. Ambitious cooks can even create massive feasts to sate the hunger of entire adventuring parties. Food made with cooking speeds health recovery, and some foods provide long-term buffs to heroes with full bellies.

Cooking is a secondary profession - anyone can train to be a cook, no matter how many other professions they've devoted themselves to. Most cooking must be done over a heat source - either a cooking fire you've started yourself, or an open stove, campfire, etc.

Though many cooking recipes utilize meat from animals you've slain in the wilderness (making cooking a convenient way to utilize your leftovers), the fishing profession also provides you with a great deal of stock to try out new recipes. The health benefits of Azerothian seafood are well-documented.

• Notable crafts: Bandages and anti-venom; Forever adds healing potions, poultices, tourniquets, and disease remedies.
• Materials used: Cloth for bandages, plus herbs and other reagents for healing potions and remedies.
• Profession perks: Healing potions, stronger bandages, and remedies for harmful effects.
• Campfire benefits: First Aid Kit grants Stamina; Toxin Study supports healing potions and antivenom; Plague Doctor's Laboratory supports healing potions and poultices.

Physicians save lives in the dangerous world of Azeroth by using bandages and antidotes to heal injuries and remove poisons. By turning cloth of varying quality into potent medical supplies, they can quickly get wounded heroes back into a fight, supplementing (but not replacing) magical means of healing.

First Aid is a secondary profession - anyone can train as a physician, no matter how many other professions they've devoted themselves to. Antidotes and bandages can be created almost anywhere, as long as you have the appropriate ingredients - cloth (for bandages) and venom sacs (for anti-venom). Healing potions may also be crafted by skilled physicians, furthering an adventurers ability to stay in the fight.

• What it provides: Fish for Cooking, fish for alchemical oils, and other catches from fishing pools.
• Pairs well with: Cooking for food made from your catch.
• Profession perks: Fish for food and crafting materials without using a primary profession slot.
• Campfire benefits: Fish Bowl boosts stats by 8%; Fishing Rack grants access to uncommon fish and lures; Fishing Hut grants access to rare fish and lures.

Fishers relax and feed themselves by catching the bounty of Azeroth's lakes and seas. Careful bait selection and patience can result in some truly rewarding hauls, from seafaring delicacies that restore heroes' health or enhance their attributes to waterlogged flotsam like cases and trunks. Fishing can even yield rare reagents and items lost at the bottom of the ocean or swallowed up by sea creatures!

Fishing is a secondary profession - anyone can learn to fish, no matter how many other professions they've devoted themselves to.

All fishing must be done in a body of water with a fishing rod, which can be purchased from any fishing trainer. Fishing in different locations (or, optionally, with different types of bait, also bought from trainers) may produce different results.

Though most of your catches will be valuable the moment you haul them out of the water, cooking is a convenient way to get even more mileage out of the fish that you catch - when they're specially prepared, many fish offer additional restorative benefits.

In The Same Category

Alchemy