Is there a point to use crafting professions over just 2 gathering ones in SL?

[Nikeyla]

Hey, I was a bit off this game lately, never bothered with gold and I see Im absolutely broke (pvp life, rip). Im wondering whats the best way to get some early expansion gold. Is it better to use 2 gathering profs or gather + craft for somebody who dont have millions of gold to invest at start or in general? I was thinking about learning engineering, because its fun, but not sure if I can justify it over just gathering and selling.

[Twdft]

Crafting provides nothing you can't buy from other players.

To get the recipe for next rank legendary template you'll have to craft several of the first rank. And you'll need only one for yourself. So excess templates will be cheap. Etc.

Two gathering professions will get you the most gold.

[Nnyco]

Early easy money is usually done with 2x gather.

[ClassicPeon]

Crafting provides nothing you can't buy from other players.

To get the recipe for next rank legendary template you'll have to craft several of the first rank. And you'll need only one for yourself. So excess templates will be cheap. Etc.

Two gathering professions will get you the most gold.

Not true. There are several unique bonuses from crafting professions.

Alch as an example has double duration on flasks and the trinket that gives you more hp/mana from potions which is great for healers and arcane mages.

[Trollokdamus]

Hey, I was a bit off this game lately, never bothered with gold and I see Im absolutely broke (pvp life, rip). Im wondering whats the best way to get some early expansion gold. Is it better to use 2 gathering profs or gather + craft for somebody who dont have millions of gold to invest at start or in general? I was thinking about learning engineering, because its fun, but not sure if I can justify it over just gathering and selling.

If you have no starting capital, no knowledge of the market, and, most importantly, no desire to play the auction house, then double gathering is definitely the way to go. That said, you don't really need to have gathering professions on your main so picking up engineering for fun is totally fine. Just level your main asap and gather with an alt (preferably druid) through the Threads of Fate system.

[Debased]

I've been at this a long time. The market (AH) is the worst I've ever seen it at launch. There is ZERO reason to level a crafting profession if you're interested in making gold. This could be different on less populated realms, but my realm isn't even in the top-5. The margins for items that cost 1000's in materials are single digit and regularly tanked. I suspect botting is a massive issue again. The wild first 2-weeks of BOE farming also inflated the prices of everything.

[Pratt]

I leveled up alchemy and then realized everything I could make I could get cheaper on the AH.

[Karlz0rz]

I leveled up my alchemy to 170, since I was looking at that juicy trinket!
Then I realized it's what, item level 150 or something? I got better trinkets from normal than this shit.
The fuck is Blizzard thinking? ^^

[Queendom]

I leveled up alchemy and then realized everything I could make I could get cheaper on the AH.

Funny because I'm seeing the opposite for the first time in a long time.

[Keterna]

I felt in love with the engineering and its speed boost perk every 3 minutes. For a melee, this is invaluable

[Dakara]

All my Characters levelled with Herb/Mining, but my main eventually dropped Mining for Alchemy.

I'm buying Pots/Flasks of the AH and selling my Herbs.... literally, the crafting cost can be 10, 20 even 100x greater than the AH prices. It's absurd right now.

[The Butt Witch]

I felt in love with the engineering and its speed boost perk every 3 minutes. For a melee, this is invaluable

Engineering is a money hole.

Just like real life where the most money comes from drugs, so too in the game most money comes from herb+alch. People will always need drugs, people will not always need a piece of crafted armor or a weapon.

[minkage]

Engineering is a money hole.

Just like real life where the most money comes from drugs, so too in the game most money comes from herb+alch. People will always need drugs, people will not always need a piece of crafted armor or a weapon.

This is by far the cheapest engineering leveling ive ever seen.
Ive gotten realm 1st a couple of times for leveling engineering in the past and every single time its been an insane money pit. I leveled my engineering today and I would estimate I spent 4/5k gold tops to go from 1 to 97.

[ZazuuPriest]

crafting is only worth it if you want to make your own legendaries, otherwise no two gathering is def the way to go for money... as it basically always has been

[Eurhetemec]

I mean, I wouldn't say it always has been, but for a long time with rare exceptions, sure. Self-crafting pretty much peaked in TBC, and I think Blizzard decided (possibly correctly) that it'd gone too far and become sorta-mandatory.

Here I think so many people are doing the crafting because of the Legendaries that the margins are even slimmer than usual unless you're willing to spend a lot to get ahead on building stuff. That said, I was pretty horrified to see how many things I'd have to make to get the next Legendary recipe level and honestly considered dropping LW right then and there, so it may be that it becomes more profitable over the expansion as fewer and fewer people can make the upgraded Legendaries.

[Malania]

I leveled up my alchemy to 170, since I was looking at that juicy trinket!
Then I realized it's what, item level 150 or something? I got better trinkets from normal than this shit.
The fuck is Blizzard thinking? ^^

The trinket is base 150 but each patch always boosts the ilvl to the new current ilvl. It does get better. It won't be bis but it will be useable.

- - - Updated - - -

I mean, I wouldn't say it always has been, but for a long time with rare exceptions, sure. Self-crafting pretty much peaked in TBC, and I think Blizzard decided (possibly correctly) that it'd gone too far and become sorta-mandatory.

Here I think so many people are doing the crafting because of the Legendaries that the margins are even slimmer than usual unless you're willing to spend a lot to get ahead on building stuff. That said, I was pretty horrified to see how many things I'd have to make to get the next Legendary recipe level and honestly considered dropping LW right then and there, so it may be that it becomes more profitable over the expansion as fewer and fewer people can make the upgraded Legendaries.

It was never mandatory but it did offer alternative options to the raid gear that were sometimes better optimized. Lionheart etc. I did like resistance fights like Hydross and Mother Shahraz that needed crafted gear. It did change things up a bit.

[Kralljin]

and I think Blizzard decided (possibly correctly) that it'd gone too far and become sorta-mandatory.

Considering they replaced it with Profession perks where then everybody rolled 2x Crafting profession, as the gathering perks couldn't hold a candle to it, i'm not really buying it.
While those items were initially quite powerful, their value simply dropped off as more raid content was released, so that in my opinion kept them in check.

To me, it seems more like something they're no longer willing to do because it interferes too much with the multiple layers of raid difficulties (thus would need to be tied with some sort of currency of a specific raiding difficulty) and that the economy in WoW is utterly fucked and having powerful craftable items fucks it even further.

(Crafting) Professions is just one of those things that seemingly get carried on by the WoW team for traditions sake when they actually know that it struggles to fit into the modern game.

[mysticx]

Engineering is a money hole.

Just like real life where the most money comes from drugs, so too in the game most money comes from herb+alch. People will always need drugs, people will not always need a piece of crafted armor or a weapon.

I also love engineering, but for the cloak tinker (Blizz loves steep cliffs, i love gliding down from them) and convenience items (SL Teleporter that had its cooldown reduced to 15 minutes, no more zone-to-zone flights with the annoying light effects for me!), on-demand mailbox, loot-a-rang, the goggles are an utter waste of time though, i got a far better helmet off the world boss weeks before i can make a crafter's mark II to make a still-worse-than-heroic helmet.

Professions got hosed hard this expansion, but thankfully the strength of engineering lies in stuff from previous expansions, which are still very handy to have.

[Appren]

Engineering is at least somewhat interesting and fun (from previous expansions...) and ores are cheap as heck already. For now I just go engineering and enchanting, at least while purple disenchant has a decent value.