Most beneficial professions?

[kjazetti]

Looking over the BIS list, and as we are less than 12 hours away to the server opening, what are your thoughts for professions?

Blacksmithing can allow for some a few choice items, but is it really worth it? Wouldn't, say, alchemy and herbalism be good for managing your own pots?

Just curious what everyone is thinking. Obviously first aid, cooking, fishing, etc. are going to be helpful, but I'm kinda stuck between primary professions at the moment.

[Grave]

Depends on your endgame choices.

I'm going Mining and Enchanting while leveling. At 60, I'll gather enough mining materials for Engineering, than drop Mining for Engi.

Engineering benefits: grenades (aoe tanking, pvp), PvP trinkets, aoe-tanking shield, speed boots, MC helm, repair bots, teleport trinket, jumper cables.

[Kurthos]

Depends on your endgame choices.

I'm going Mining and Enchanting while leveling. At 60, I'll gather enough mining materials for Engineering, than drop Mining for Engi.

Engineering benefits: grenades (aoe tanking, pvp), PvP trinkets, aoe-tanking shield, speed boots, MC helm, repair bots, teleport trinket, jumper cables.

I'm going to be doing the same thing, except I'll be going Skinning/Enchanting instead. My reasoning is I plan on doing a lot of instanced content while leveling. Enchanting and Skinning are two professions I can level while doing dungeons. Leather will be in high demand, as will Cloth.

[Putni]

There are a number of factors to consider here.

First of all, this is a new server. If this was an already ongoing server, I would choose either to take two gathering professions (usually Mining and Herbalism) or what you said, Herbalism and Alchemy, for comfortable potion making for raids. But since this is a new server, the first idea is not necessarily as good as it first seems.

Noone will have money, so you won't make that much money with two gathering professions. You will still make more than most people who choose to take a crafting profession, but you will have to visit the Auction House a lot and many of your things possibly won't sell right away because there will be other people who take this path and the auction house will be filled with materials that many people won't be able to buy straight away, hence there will be a surplus of materials that will bring down prices even more at the beginning.

Enchanting is probably the worst "gathering" profession to choose if you just want to make money with it. Only people who take Enchanting seriously will buy your mats, and you won't get so much better prices than if you just vendored or sold your items on the Auction House.

Blacksmithing is probably the worst profession in this regard, especially on early levels when nodes are scarce and you need loads of Copper to level beyond level 125. It generally just takes away your money.

On the other hand, while leveling as a crafter is a bit more problematic, you gotta factor in that at level 60 crafters will be in high regard. But then again, you can just level a crafting profession on 60 since noone will be that needy on enchants and items until the end of the first or second month when true progression will hit us.

Because of all these reasons, you gotta decide what you primarily want to use your professions in the beginning. If it's about comfort, then yes, Herbalism and Alchemy are probably the best way to go, and compared to have easy they make life, the profits are also kind of substantial.

But you gotta also consider that we are going to need all kinds of crafters and once everyone got a little bit of money, the advantages of choosing rarely taken professions kicks in (especially if you don't mind being called a greedy bastard for crafting rare items and making people pay a lot of money for them). This is especially true in the case of Blacksmithing, since I'd wager a lot of money they are going to be the rarest crafters.

Then comes the unfortunate truth: it's not just your strategy that decides how you will fare in the endgame content but that of others as well. You might choose Blacksmithing for the above mentioned reason only to find out others took this strategy as well and you will end up getting very little money for them.

You might choose two gathering professions to find out that most of the people followed this strategy and you can barely sell your stuff or you can, but for marginal money.

All in all I agree with your that the safest choice is Herbalism and Alchemy. No matter your class the potions are useful in progression, herbs can be sold, potions can be sold, you can't go wrong with it. But if everyone chose this set, then we would lack crafters of all kinds on 60. So it's really about what others will choose that will validate your choice in the long run.

[Orkchop]

I think alchemy/herbalism is the best way to start out if you're going for PVE, simply because having pots for end game is a bigger buff than stuff other professions provide, AND you can sell unneeded herbs for good money.

[Kurthos]

I think alchemy/herbalism is the best way to start out if you're going for PVE, simply because having pots for end game is a bigger buff than stuff other professions provide, AND you can sell unneeded herbs for good money.

While the economy is first building, don't expect people to have access to patterns or be able to afford consumables. While it makes sense in a few months, there wont be much gold going around.

[Orkchop]

I think alchemy/herbalism is the best way to start out if you're going for PVE, simply because having pots for end game is a bigger buff than stuff other professions provide, AND you can sell unneeded herbs for good money.

While the economy is first building, don't expect people to have access to patterns or be able to afford consumables. While it makes sense in a few months, there wont be much gold going around.

You make a very good point, I didn't recall how many good consumables are actually world drops that either can or can't be farmed efficiently. I'm probably going to go with double-gathering and then drop one later on as I level another character.

[Viorus]

This question is irrelevant. Pick the profession that most interests you as they are all important!

[Xexomaru]

Actually mining and Blacksmithing as Warrior, the fire set you can make is amazing for tanks as Vanilla has many endgame fire breathers bosses, also, makes easier to lvl as getting weapons and gear is a pain and its better and faster to make it, that counts since the server is new some maths are going to get extremely expensive and you could get some amazing cash starting on, im going to be a Warrior on the server, and been one since real vanilla, so its good, also we get the Sword/Mace/Axemaster Weaponsmith so we got that, which is GREAT!

[Putni]

Fair point, although getting nodes with this many people is going to be a pain in the ass.