As any seasoned World of Warcraft player knows, professions are one of the most important aspects of the game. They work as your bread and butter – do all the dailies you want, but if you really want to get gold, nothing works better than a full profession. Just like every other expansion before it, Cataclysm professions are exactly the same. Here’s a guide I’ve put together that I hope will get you on the right track.
*First of all, there are two different types of disaster occupations: primary and secondary.
There are 10 primary occupations:
-Mining (gathering): Collect ore, rocks and gems from nodes by logging.
– Herbalism (gathering): Pick plants from nodes.
– Skinning (gathering): Animals are skinned for their fur.
– Blacksmith (crafting): Make armor and weapons using ore.
-Jewelcrafting (Crafting): Craft gems into gems with special properties that can be attached to armor.
-Enchanting (mod): Place enchantments on weapons and armor that increase their stats.
– Tailoring (crafting): Leather armor.
-Alchemy (crafting): Gather herbs and reagents using mixtures that give stat boosts and other temporary effects.
-Engineering (crafting): Create unusual items using ores, stones and technical materials with interesting effects.
-Writing (crafting): Enhance spells and abilities using patterns.
And 4 secondary professions:
-Fishing: Use your fishing rod for fishing, of course. Fish sometimes do well in the auction house, and if you combine this with cooking, you can make some very nice recipes that give you temporary stat boosts.
-First aid: Collect a cloth from the body for bandages. Not quite as important at higher levels, but I recommend building it because you never know when a bandage might come in handy; especially for classes that lack a reliable healing ability like warriors.
-Cooking: Collect recipes and supplies (usually animal meat). As I said before, cooking gives you useful stat boosts. Raise it whenever you can. If you decide to raid later in the game and have a high level of cooking with good recipes, you will be your raid party’s best friend.
-Archaeology: The new profession of cataclysm. Locate, assemble and identify objects.
Each character can only learn two primary professions, but all secondary professions can be learned. Primary occupations are your money makers, while secondary occupations are more practical. However, they are all useful in their own way.
*There are two types of primary professions in Cataclysm: Gathering and Crafting. Gathering professions include mining, herbal research, archeology and skinning. Crafting includes blacksmithing, jeweler crafting, etc. As a rule of thumb, it is best to combine the crafting profession with a gathering profession. Most of the items you need to advance your crafting profession come from all your encounters. It might seem tempting to be able to craft your own armor and then enchant it all yourself, but unless you have connections, you’ll have to buy all your materials from the auction house, most of the time at grossly inflated prices. Not to mention, as a collector, you can put your own materials in the auction house and make a profit from those who are too lazy to collect supplies themselves.
Some of the best Cataclysm profession combinations are (crafting/gathering):
-Alchemy/herbalism
-Leather work/leather
-Blacksmithing/Mining
– Gem work/mining
-Engineering/Mining
*All Cataclysm professions can currently be skilled up to skill level 525. For best results in your crafting professions, try to prioritize crafting items in this order: orange, yellow, green. Orange items require more materials to create, but they guarantee a skill point. Yellows have a percentage chance to grant a skill point for crafting items, but it’s usually pretty good. Green is more or less about 40/60. If you have the means to make an orange item, do it.
Above all, developing a profession requires patience and dedication. If you stick with it though, you’ve mastered one of the most important aspects of World of Warcraft.
