Tradeskills

[roddo]

Ok I'm doing 3x shaman's atm, and was wondering what trades to do. I'm going to have one (my main) skin and mine, probably one do herbalism also. Of course ones going to be an enchanter as well. Should I fill out the last 2 slots now or wait til 70 when I can afford it more? One of them is also going to cook, probably all 3 eventually but just one for now.

[Sanctume]

trade skills slow your levelling progress and hits your mount funds

[Stealthy]

Tradeskills do add to levelling time, but they shouldnt be costing you money. Herb, mining, skinning and enchanting (mats from DE'ing) can be good moneymakers and can help you fund your mounts. Crafting professions shouldn't cost money either unless you are trying to powerlevel them - just level them up with the mats you gather while you quest/grind.

Cheers,

Stealthy

[xum]

My main lock is 372 tailor / 336 enchanter.
My second lock will be Mining/Herbalism, and will get an epic flying mount.
My third lock will be Alchemy/JC.

[roddo]

Jewelcrafting isn't that bad really, especially post 300 it actually gets cheaper. I went from 0-375 for around 1k once I was 70 on my lock. Alchemy isn't that bad up to 300 at least (no experience with it past that point). Leatherworking gets progressively worse the higher you skill up, and the patterns needed to make the good stuff cost alot of cash. I'll probably stick with Herb/alchemy on one toon, mining skinning on my main, and enchanting on the last, maybe add jewelcrafting later. Thanks all for the responses.

[Stabface]

It's a common misconception that it doesn't "cost" you to skill up a crafting profession, if you gather all the mats yourself. This is wrong... and I'll explain why.

First, consider your base income rate. Meaning, if you spend 1 hour optimally earning gold, how much do you gain on average? At L70, a fair average would seem to be around 100g an hour, depending exactly on your class and server economy.


So given that: what about the cost of leveling a profession if you buy the mats or gather them yourself? Simple. Buying will normally always costs you less than farming. Simply put, if you can farm more mats per hour than you can instead earn gold and then buy off the AH... you've calculated your income rate wrong! If you can farm X amount of material in 1 hour, and you can buy that same X amount of material for less than your income rate, you are costing yourself the difference. You should really only farm for things if it is your optimal gold-earning activity. Or, if what you want is simply unavailable on the AH or not in the quantity you need (and even then you should consider buying over time if feasible).

Also, consider the time you spend skilling up a profession. To go from 0-375 even if you have all mats on hand and simply need to press the create button 375 times, this will still take a good while. An hour or 2 at least. Unless the product of your craft as you are leveling nets you an income of at least your base income rate , this time spent leveling is a loss. Furthermore, it does not matter if you spend this time as you are leveling up, or spend it after you are L70, the cost is still the same. This isn't a huge cost, but almost everyone seems to overlook it.

[Stealthy]

I think a few people missed the point about him still levelling his toons. i.e he's not at the point yet where he can be earning 100g per hour. There's no reason he shouldn't use the mats he picks up when questing/grinding to level his profs. On my shams (level 47) I'm going 5 x engy and haven't had to buy anything yet and they are all sitting around 220 skill atm,and this is just from having one toon mining the nodes I come accross, i.e. no dedicated farm time. Not only that, they hit 300 in skinning / herb / enchanting not long after lvl 40.

Cheers,

Stealthy

[Stealthy]

I think a few people missed the point about him still levelling his toons. i.e he's not at the point yet where he can be earning 100g per hour. There's no reason he shouldn't use the mats he picks up when questing/grinding to level his profs. On my shams (level 47) I'm going 5 x engy and haven't had to buy anything yet and they are all sitting around 220 skill atm,and this is just from having one toon mining the nodes I come accross, i.e. no dedicated farm time. Not only that, they hit 300 in skinning / herb / enchanting not long after lvl 40.

Cheers,

Stealthy

[Vyndree]

If you can farm X amount of material in 1 hour, and you can buy that same X amount of material for less than your income rate, you are costing yourself the difference. You should really only farm for things if it is your optimal gold-earning activity. Or, if what you want is simply unavailable on the AH or not in the quantity you need (and even then you should consider buying over time if feasible).

As long as there are enough mats on the AH... >.<

I've cleared the AH of thick leather for a week now and I'm still only 2 out of 5 shaman past 300 LW because there's NO thick leather up for sale... And, with the same mentality that i can make more money than I can farming leather, I'm too stubborn to go get it myself.

[Lost Ninja]

IMO Make the main either a Skinner/Herb or Skinner/Miner, make one alt Ench/Tailor and one alt <what your main isn't>/???. Tailor helps save space by turning full stacks of cloth into Bolts, and makes greens to level enchanting with (DEs) plus with the spare mats you can further level Enchanting. Main and one alt remove all the skins/Herbs/Ore you see in game as you quest. That covers all collection trades.

Stockpile it all, then use it to level the professions once you hit at least 50, from 50 you can get 375, and it means that PLing a trade skill is a little more efficient.

IMO

[Sanctume]

What I like doing is making my alt take material gathering skills. Skinning, Mining, Herb, & everyone Enchanter.

Then, I also have a bunch of level 1 alts and their sole purpose is to collect tradeskill materials (mules):
Cloth, Gems, Ores, Herbs, Skins, Potions, Misc, and an Auction House seller.

One of my things to do is to create a guild for all my alts, so It's easier to pass items by dumping them in a guild bank.

[Mith]

i'm only worrying about 1 of my shaman's profs, Enchanting is the only thing i'm going for. The rest take too long and i'm so lazy to level my profs =/

[Valorin]

I *love* crafting so I went the way of "level as you". Also, I built my team for pve, so there's no incentive to rush to 70, I wanna smell some roses as I go. Anyway, I used all the mats that I collected and still had enough left over to net 100g on AH after buying missing craft mats (still ended up 'borrowing' 180g from my main for 4 mounts) and I went almost to 300 on all of the guys at 35. I'm 295 alch, 291 enchanter, 265ish JC and 220ish LW, to give you an idea of mats recovered and used. I ran into the same problem as Vynd with thick leather, altho I completely lacked finding any because I wasn't high enough to fight the critters of that level, I was just buying. I also think I would've had plenty of money for mounts had I stopped at 175ish for crafts which is more consistent with my level at the time. Also still have a nice little cache of enchanting mats for enchanting up new gear, so that's not all sold yet. So I think if you want to go crafting, money won't be that big of an issue if you have a sugardaddy or you watch the bottom line. Oh, also now that I've topped out my crafts, any additional mats I collect go straight to the slush fund. That's my 2 cents worth.

[Parsous]

If you plan on running instances always have a DE'er.

If you aren't terribly concerned about leveling speed then pick whatever's best for your toons (Tailoring for cloth casters, etc.)

I run with my main toon having mining/skinning so I can pickup those nodes whenever I see them(One of my alts is a decked out JC'er so having some adamantite is nice), and supply leatherworkers with stuff I kill is just an extra click.

[pinotnoir]

I have 3 shaman lvl 34.

I started fresh on a new server so I didnt have money. However, I will be moving a lvl 60 and lvl 70 there for some added funds and 5 boxing. I made my shamans the following professions.

Mine/Herb

Alch/Jewel

Enchant/Tailor/Cooking

The toons I am moving consist of a 375 LW/Skinner and another 340 Alch/herb.

I may drop the herb off the transfer but so far its nice being able to level up my professions without having to pay any additional money. The only bad thing is buying the mats to make new enchanting rods for the enchanter.

[Ripper]

My main is a herbalist/miner. Another one is a skinner, another an enchanter. That covers everything I need atm because currently there is no profit from the other professions, at least on my server.