Crafting, is it worth it?

[jarthur]

Thanks to Zygor I leveled up to 80 and used herbalism and mining to make thousands of gold. I'm leveling up some alts and instead of just collecting and selling I'm thinking about taking up leather working on my Shaman. Is this worth it? Can you make gear for yourself that is worth all of the trouble? Anyone have opinions on the other crafts, are some better than others?

[deleon]

Reading into this, I take it your Shaman is NOT the miner/weed picker. If you're going to go leatherworking, you should probably grab skinning to go with it (so you get your own mats). There are no leg enchants that I'm aware of except through leatherworking. I believe the epic level crafted mail armor is from leatherworking (I think blacksmithing mail ends about level 70 gear). I've got 3 level 80's and a level 71. Three of those wear plate and the fourth (80 hunter) wears mail. I don't currently have a leatherworker but I see a constant call for leather (and cloth) crafting in trade chat on my server. If you're looking to make a killing in the crafts you probably won't. In some cases mats are more profitable than crafted items. Instead, if you're going into it with no expectations other than to make your own gear etc, then you should be able to stay ahead of the curve as new content and patterns become available.

While leveling up, I was constantly changing gear which resulted in loss of enchants. At 80, I sometimes get new gear or weapons due to emblems. This requires not only replacing some enchants, but sometimes re-gemming in order to stay at the caps to maximize my damage. That more than anything else is what drove my current set of tradeskills.

Warrior (80) -- miner / blacksmith
Paladin (80) -- weed picker / inscriptionist
Hunter (80) -- enchanter / engineer
Death Knight (71) -- alchemist / jewelcrafter

[Skippyninja]

Crafting professions can be a mixed bag. I have engineering and mining on my main, at first it wasn't very profitable at all, in fact it cost more than what mining was bringing in. However, after I built the and sold my first Chopper, it became very lucrative. Since I could mine and smelt 85% of the mats I needed, I sell one Chopper at face value for what goes into it. Doing this earned me enough to have enough gold to buy the motorcycle parts for 2 more Choppers. I kept one for myself and build 2 at a time, keeping one for alts, and selling one. I plan to do this until I can sell 2+ at a time and I have gold in the 6 figures. Mining for Titansteel can be a pain, especially if I'm competing for Titanium nodes. The only things I have to buy are the parts from the goblin and the two Arctic Fur, but I have a friend who gives me a great discount on the fur, so I usually buy it in stacks of 20, which last me 10 Motorcycles.

It's annoying to get started, but can be well worth it. End-game you can make some great enchants for legs and you'll be able to buff yourself and party/raid members with Drums of the Wild and Drums of forgotten Kings. Plus you can sell your Arctic Fur that you aren't using to engineers like me!