One of the major questions for the thousands of people jumping into World of Warcraft Classic is which professions they should learn.
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Professions are a key part of WoW Classic, providing one of the primary means of making money, and also offering some of the most powerful gear currently in the game, which in several cases is only available to players with the necessary profession to make it themselves.
With professions typically demanding a fairly steep investment of time and, in some cases, money, however, figuring out which ones to take can be a daunting prospect for new or less experienced players.
- Read more: How to make gold in WoW Classic
To help you make your choice, here’s everything you need to know about professions in WoW Classic.
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Learning and unlearning professions
The first question for new players is, of course, how they can go about learning professions in the first place.
Every player can have two primary professions, and it’s worth deciding which two you want before you select them to avoid wasting time and resources on something you quickly replace.
While there are trainers for various professions dotted around the world, the best bet to learn your professions initially is to go to the nearest city, where you’ll be able to find trainers for all professions – speak to a guard for directions if you’re not sure where to go.
- Read more: How to level up faster in WoW Classic
If you decide you no longer want one of your professions, you can unlearn it by going to the Skills tab in your Character Info page, selecting the profession, and clicking the unlearn button on the right-hand side of the bar.
Be aware, however, that any progress you’ve made will be lost – if you decide to return to that profession later down the line, you’ll have to start from level 1 again.
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Which professions should you choose?
Assuming you can find the relevant trainers, the big question is which primary professions should you choose? While every profession has its benefits, there are some classic combinations that work well for particular classes.
Generally speaking, the professions that create armor work well with the classes that can use that armor type – Blacksmithing for plate wearers like Warriors and Paladins, Leatherworking for Leather wearers like Rogues and Druids, and Tailoring for cloth wearers. It also often makes sense to pair a crafting profession with the relevant gathering profession where applicable.
It’s worth considering, however, that you don’t always have to start with the professions you mean to keep forever – some of the easier or more lucrative professions might make sense to begin with, before switching later on.
Here’s a rundown of each profession, what you can expect to get from them, and which types of players or classes might benefit the most.
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Crafting professions
The majority of professions involve taking materials and crafting them into new items, from weapons and armor to consumables and other useful things.
Ultimately, crafting professions typically offer the most value in the long run, with some items only being obtainable by those who can make them for themselves, although they also typically cost more to level up, requiring a variety of materials. It’s therefore quite important to pick the right one for you.
Blacksmithing
As the name suggests, Blacksmithing allows players to craft mail and plate armor, as well as weapons, from metal. If you manage to keep on top of your Blacksmithing training while levelling up – much easier if you also have Mining – you will often be able to fashion yourself gear upgrades without having to rely on drops or quest rewards.
Classes that wear plate armor naturally benefit the most from Blacksmithing, and though there are some weapons that might be useful to other classes, typically those that don’t use this armor will find more value in other professions.
Leatherworking
An unsurprisingly common choice for classes that use leather gear, Leatherworking offers the ability to create leather armor and is often paired with Skinning, which can provide the leather required.
While the majority of Leatherworking gear is of course leather, the profession actually provides mail armor as well later on, making it suitable for Hunters and Shamans who may be looking for mail armor at higher levels.
- Read more: How to install addons for WoW Classic
For those that don’t use leather or mail armor, however, there are few reasons to take Leatherworking, and you’ll almost certainly find more value in another profession.
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Tailoring
Tailoring largely centers around the creation of cloth armor, but also comes with the benefit of being able to craft bags, which proves particularly useful at low levels, and there should be plenty of demand for the larger bags later on.
Tailoring is more reliant on drops than most of the crafting professions, with the only way to farm cloth being to kill lots of humanoids, although it does mean that your other profession can be entirely dedicated to making gold.
Tailoring is a common choice for the spellcaster classes, not only because it provides extra gear during the levelling process, but also because it can create some extremely powerful endgame gear, some of which is only available to Tailors.
Alchemy
Alchemy allows players to turn herbs into potions that provide a huge variety of buffs and bonuses, and with these being particularly necessary for endgame content the profession has historically been a reliable source of income.
With Classic having only just launched, demand for potions might be a little lower in the short term, with few players hitting the higher levels yet and most with limited gold to spend. If you do take it, though, you may well find the leveling experience that bit easier with a supply of potions at your fingertips, and it will undoubtedly prove lucrative further down the line.
Engineering
Arguably the most interesting profession in the game, Engineering offers a wide variety of unique items offering everything from entertaining toys to powerful item upgrades and everything in between.
Due to the nature of some of the items offered by Engineering, it’s commonly recommended as a must-have for players who want to spend a lot of time on PvP, but levelling it up can be expensive and time-consuming. As a result, many players opt not to pick it up until they’ve finishing levelling their character.
Enchanting
Enchanting is the odd one out on this list to some degree as, for the most part, it doesn’t actually create new equippable items. Instead, Enchanters use reagents to perform permanent enchantments on weapons and armor to apply extra stats and other bonuses.
Enchanting is incredibly sought-after at max level and can eventually be quite lucrative, but levelling up the profession is very expensive. Materials are gathered by disenchanting items of green or higher value, which means they’re harder to come by than other professions, and also eat into potential profit from selling those items.
While Enchanting is a very valid profession for any class, it’s typically one that’s best taken up after you’ve hit level 60 and can afford to sink some gold into it – in the meantime, most players prefer to take something more lucrative.
Gathering professions
As the name suggests, gathering professions are those that involve gathering materials and resources.
Gathering professions are typically a good source of income while you’re levelling, as the materials can be sold to vendors or on the auction house to earn extra gold without having to sink much additional time into them. On the other hand, some gathering professions pair well with crafting professions, allowing players to be more self-sufficient.
Mining
Players with Mining can mine stone, ores, and occasionally gems from the various mining nodes dotted around the world.
Mining provides resources for both Blacksmithing and Engineering, and so works well when paired with either of those, but is also a consistent source of gold for those simply planning on selling the materials they find.
Herbalism
Much like mining, Herbalism gives players the ability to collect herbs from the various nodes found out in the world.
Herbalism obviously pairs well with Alchemy, which requires herbs as the primary resource for potions, although due to the importance of potions for endgame content, Herbalists are likely to have plenty of demand for their herbs, especially at the higher levels.
Skinning
Skinning allows players to skin monsters they – or anyone else, for that matter – have slain for leather. While this obviously pairs well with Leatherworking, it’s also great as a money-making option.
Unlike Mining and Herbalism, you don’t have to go out of your way to collect resources – just skin anything you can as you’re doing other activities – which perhaps makes it a slightly more convenient pick for players who plan on selling all of the material they gather.
Equally, if you’re planning on taking two gathering professions, it’s worth making one of them Skinning, as you won’t have to worry about swapping between Find Herbs and Find Ore – which mark nodes on the mini-map for Herbalism and Mining respectively – as only one can be active at any given time.
Secondary professions
Unlike the primary professions, of which you can only have two, every character can learn all three secondary professions – Fishing, Cooking, and First Aid.
While they’re not quite as vital as the main professions, there are definitely benefits to putting some time into them. Fishing can be a good source of income, while cooking can provide some useful extra buffs, especially for endgame content.
First Aid is the one that many classes will want to focus on the most, however, especially those without any form of healing like Warriors and Rogues, as bandages can prove vital to avoiding extended downtime during quests or other activities.
