When you are first starting out in Warcraft one of the first big decisions you will make is what professions to choose for your character. With 11 professions to choose from it can be a difficult choice to make. Are all the professions useful? Will you be able to make items that sell or are you going to end up losing money? Are certain professions needed more than others?

I remember all of these questions going through my head when I first started playing. At first I just learned the first professions I came across (which happened to be skinning and leatherworking). Soon, however, I realized that they didn’t help me too much and they weren’t exactly profitable to boot. So I asked around about what were the best professions to learn. Some people advised me to go with whatever crafting profession I wanted and the corresponding gathering profession. Others told me that two crafting professions was the way to go as that was where the real money was. Yet other people told me that enchanting was the real money making profession and that people with any other professions were poor by comparison.

Eventually I decided to go with enchanting and tailoring. Since some people singled out enchanting as being profitable I figured I would soon be on my way to riches – and since I could make my own enchanting materials by disenchanting the cloth armor I made there was no way I could go wrong! Only I soon realized that I always needed more enchanting materials than I could make myself in order to level up my enchanting. Because I was using all of my cloth drops to make armor to disenchant I had less gold than before (when I would have sold my cloth on the auction house). But because I still didn’t have enough enchanting materials to level up I had to spend what little gold I did have on enchanting materials and cloth. Add to this the fact that I couldn’t find any enchants that sold for a profit and I was one broke noob.

It went on like this for months. I just couldn’t make money with professions. I changed, changed again, and changed again. By the time I was level 40 I had probably tried out around seven or eight professions and nothing seemed to work. It took me months to figure out that the problem was I hadn’t been level capped. People weren’t lying when they said enchanting was profitable. The problem was that is was the enchants that produced glows such as fiery, icy, and crusader that made all of the profit – and I was too low of a level to learn those recipes.

The same still hold true today. People with crafting professions MAXED OUT can often make really good profits using their profession. If you aren’t able to max out the profession though, you probably won’t have access to the profitable recipes and the materials to create them.

That is why you should always choose herbalism and mining as your professions until you are at least level 75 (85 if it is your first character). Between them herbalism and mining supply people using blacksmithing, alchemy, inscription, jewelcrafting, and engineering so there will ALWAYS be a demand for herbs and ore. In addition because some people at level cap will change their professions from time to time there is a good market for many low – mid level herbs and ores.

So if you are new to Warcraft and you are leveling up your first character drop whatever professions you have and pick up herbalism and mining. Sell the herbs and ore you find on the auction house and I promise you, when you hit level cap at level 85, you will have a nice bit of gold saved up and can then choose to change your professions to whatever you want.