What is the best profession for <insert race/class here>?

[:1]This is such a common question on these boards that I thought it might be helpful to answer it in one place.

But first, let's get our definitions straight.

Blizzard has two different types of crafting skills: secondary skills and professions. Secondary skills are cooking, first aid, and fishing, and everyone can learn those three without jeopardizing a spot for another. Since everyone can learn those, this isn't going to discuss secondary skills at all.

Professions include alchemy, blacksmithing, enchanting, engineering, inscription, jewelcrafting, leatherworking, tailoring, herbalism, mining, and skinning. You can only learn and know two professions at a time. Once you learn a profession, you can always drop it and learn something else instead; however, you lose all your ability in the dropped profession and if you relearn it later, you start at zero skill.

Most people make a distinction between the gathering professions (herbalism, mining, and skinning) and the manufacturing professions (everything else).

There are natural pairings between manufacturing and gathering professions, which reflects the gathered raw material most used to make items with that manufacturing profession:

alchemy: herbalism

blacksmithing: mining

engineering: mining

inscription: herbalism

jewelcrafting: mining

leatherworking: skinning

While you are not forced to take these in the stated pairs, it can get difficult and expensive if you take a manufacturing profession and don't have at least one character who can gather the necessary raw materials. While you can buy the raw materials on the auction house, this can be a very, very expensive way to go.

Nearly all manufacturing professions use some components from other gathers as well. The various armor professions all have a few recipes that use leather, alchemy potions, herbs, or mined/blacksmithed items, just as an example. But these tend to be rare, and not worth investing in at the expense of the main paired gather.

So on to the question at hand: which is the best profession for <race/class>?

The two-gathering professions approach

Many players recommend that a low level player, especially one new to the game without high level characters, pick two gathering professions, usually either herbalism/skinning or mining/skinning. The reason for these combinations has to do with the mechanics of tracking: you can track for herbs OR for ore, but not for both simultaneously. While it is possible to flip back and forth between tracking modes, this can get tedious and you can miss a lot of possible farming opportunities. With skinning, you just skin beasts you kill as a normal part of your questing.

The theory here is that herbs, mines, and skins all sell well on the auction house (AH), and you can make money quickly and easily. By keeping two gathering professions until you're a high level and can switch to making money doing daily quests, you'll always have plenty of cash to do whatever you need to do in game.

If you decide to go this way, think about what profession you might want to pursue in the future and pick a gathering profession that will best support that profession. For example, if you know you'd eventually like to become an engineer, choose mining as one of your two gathering professions.

The caveat I would offer here is that this method works best on old, established servers with a good population; on a brand new server, this is a nearly useless way to make money because everyone is new and nobody has any money.

This approach is not without its detractors. Some decry this practice because doing crafting is a fun part of the game, and focusing on making money rather than having fun is kind of missing the point. There is satisfaction to leveling up a profession along with your character, using it as you go along. So keep this alternate viewpoint in mind as you make your decision.

Professions and race

Put simply, any race can do any profession. Some races have a bonus for a profession, which has a little advantage when leveling up but no advantage once you have reached maximum level. In fact, in the end, it can make getting your character to maximum level in his/her profession more expensive. This is a racial that mattered more back in the very old days of WoW when you could actually fail at gathering something.

Races with racial bonuses in professions will have an extra 5, 10, or 15 skill. This means they start out with a skill of 5/10/15 rather than 0, which may allow them to gather or make something a bit sooner. Also, the level cap is slightly raised, which may allow them to make something at a particular level that another race may not be able to make.

Professions are level capped, meaning you have to reach a certain character level before you can advance. You have to be level 10 to advance beyond profession skill 75, level 20 to advance beyond skill level 150, level 35 to advance beyond skill 225, and 50 to advance beyond 300. Add 15 points to any of those skill levels if you pick a race with a profession skill advantage. If you are leveling up as you go along, this can be a big difference; if you waited until you're past level 50 to level up a profession, it makes no real difference at all.

In the end, you'll be able to advance your skill to as much as 465 rather than 450. This is actually not useful because at present there are no recipes or gathers that require higher than 450 skill.

Races with bonuses: Gnomes (+15 engineering), blood elves (+10 enchanting), draenei (+5 jewelcrafting), Tauren (+15 herbalism). While the small boost is nice, it does not mean you have to take these professions to get the most out of your race. The racial boost can also have a downside; getting to 465 in a profession is more expensive than getting to 450, and there are no real benefits beyond bragging rights. In fact, there is a small issue with Tauren and the Lifeblood side effect of herbalism (see below).

In short: race should play little role in your choice of profession.

Professions and class

Class may play a bit more role in your decision on what profession to choose.

Gathering professions:

If you are going to be a pure gatherer, be aware that gathering professions all have a potentially useful side effect. As you increase levels in your gathering profession, you will get a secondary active or passive ability.

You may also keep these in mind when deciding on a manufacturing profession; which gathering profession will give you the most useful bonus?

Herbalism: Lifeblood. This gives you a mana-free, instant-cast, non-dispellable self heal over time. This is especially great for rogues and druids because it doesn't break stealth (although it does sprout flowers all around your feet, so it's not helpful in PvP). And don't think "my class can heal, so why would I need this?" Take it from me: an instant-cast, mana-free heal is useful to everyone, including my priest. At 80 it's not huge, but it's often enough to spell the difference between life and death. At level 450 herbalism, it can heal around 2000 points, with an added bonus of about 1.5% of the character's maximum health. (Note that Tauren need to max their level, an additional 15 points, to get the same effect. In other words, to get level 6 Lifeblood, which everyone else gets at 450, a Tauren must achieve 465 to get).

Skinning: Master of Anatomy. This gives you a passive bonus to your critical strike rating. Again, good for nearly everyone. At level 450, it will give you +40 bonus.

Mining: Toughness. Toughness increases stamina; at 450 it gives +60 stamina. Everyone can use stamina, but this is especially helpful for tanks and warlocks.

Manufacturing professions:

Alchemy: Any. Any and all classes benefit from alchemy, because there are potions for everyone. Having an alchemist in your stable of characters can be very helpful if you also have a blacksmith, engineer, or jeweler, due to the alchemist's ability to transmute gems and metals. Alchemists also get more benefit from the potions they make. Potions are needed by all classes and thus you can usually find good things to sell. A good choice for anyone. Typically paired with Herbalism.

Blacksmithing: Plate-wearing classes (warrior, paladin, death knight). Blacksmiths make some metal weapons. At lower levels, they make mail armor, and at higher levels make plate. For this reason, they are primarily useful to plate-wearing classes (warrior, paladin, and death knight). Since the mail they create is mostly lower level, it's obviously designed to support warriors and paladins, who wear mail until level 40 and then switch to plate. Expensive to level. There are a few high level items you can sell, but you will usually spend more on blacksmithing than you will ever recoup. There are some recipes you can only make and use if you are a blacksmith, most of which are outstripped by dropped or farmed gear. Blacksmiths can also make some items that provide temporary or permanent buffs, such as the Eternal Belt Buckle, which allows you to add a gem slot to a belt. Typically paired with Mining.

Enchanting: Any. Everyone can use enchants, and with the ability to sell enchanted scrolls on the auction house, it's easier than ever to sell your wares. People like to have someone who can disenchant with them on dungeon runs, to turn items nobody wants into useful (and salable) shards. There are also enchants that are only available to enchanters, like the ability to enchant their own rings. Often paired with Tailoring (see below), or a gathering profession. Can be expensive, since most enchanters who level up with disenchant quest rewards for materials rather than sell them. You end up losing a lot of potential income this way, but it's a good way to level up.

Engineering: Any. This is a fun profession (probably the most fun, with lots of great toys), though expensive to level. There are items usable by every class, but the kicker is that most engineered items can only be used by other engineers. This gives you a very limited sales pool, if you're hoping to sell items, and mostly to people who can make what you have to sell anyway. There are some items, such as mechanical pets and the motorcycle mount, which can be sold to and used by non-engineers, but generally these don't sell for much beyond the cost of materials, if that. Since engineering makes ammunition, hunters are particularly fond of engineering. Typically paired with Mining.

Inscription: Any. Glyphs are used by all classes, but that's not the real side beauty of Inscription. Inscriptionists can make and use Scrolls of Recall, which gives you another way to hearth back to your bind point; like your hearthstone, you can do this once every 30 minutes, but it doesn't share the same cooldown as your hearthstone. Second, inscriptionists can make the very best shoulder enchants in game, which can only be used on their own gear. Forget having to grind Sons of Hodir faction. It uses a lot of herbs but is relatively easy to level. There are almost no recipes you need to grind to get; you get all recipes except one through the inscription trainer or daily research. Typically paired with Herbalism.

Jewelcrafting: Any. Jewelcrafting items and gems are usable by all classes. There is a daily jewelcrafting quest to give you materials to learn new recipes, and there are some excellent jewelcrafter-only recipes. This can be expensive to learn. Also includes the Prospecting skill, which lets you extract gems from ore. Typically paired with Mining.

Leatherworking: Leather and Mail classes (druid, rogue, shaman, and hunter). Leatherworking makes both leather and, at higher levels, mail armor for the classes above. There are some bags you can make with leatherworking as well, as well as armor kits that any class can use. Again, there are several desirable recipes that make items only you will be able to use. Somewhat less expensive than other manufacturing professions because the cost of most skins is not as high as the cost of ores or herbs. Typically paired with Skinning.

Tailoring: Cloth wearing classes (priest, warlock, mage). Tailoring creates cloth armor items, bags, some item enhancements such as spell thread, and the flying carpet mount (usable only by level 300+ tailors). It is commonly paired with enchanting, since you can make items of at least green level for skill and then disenchant them for raw materials for enchanting (you can also do this with leatherworking or blacksmithing, but a tailoring/enchanting combination is far more common). Tailoring also has several recipes only usable by tailors. Since cloth is farmed through drops, there isn't a preferred gathering profession to go with it. A lot of people pick enchanting for the reasons above, but some like to pair it with herbalism, mining, or skinning to support other characters' professions and/or make money.

So to summarize, here is the breakdown of recommended manufacturing professions by class (remember that it may be best to pair a manufacturing profession with its gathering profession, if applicable):

Death knight, paladin, warrior: blacksmithing, enchanting, engineering, inscription, jewelcrafting



Druid, hunter, rogue, shaman: alchemy, enchanting, engineering, inscription, jewelcrafting, leatherworking

Mage, priest, warlock: alchemy, enchanting, engineering, inscription, jewelcrafting, tailoring

And there is currently no "best". There are useful things in all professions for the classes above. Pick what sounds like fun.

...Ren|||/Vote sticky|||At the high end for Inscription, there are 60 books of glyphs to be found via drops or purchased from the Auction House.