I'm thinking about dropping skinning, but for what?Follow

well, you have a few options

1.) stick with another gathering profession - i.e. mining or herbalism. I'm thinking that you would get pretty bored with those too after a while, since it's not much different than skinning.

2.) take up tailoring - this goes farily well with enchanting, since with few exceptions the mats just come off mobs, so you have an option besides AH for getting the materials. And like I said, goes well with enchanting since you can DE the stuff.

3.) take up inscription - goes ok with enchanting since you can make the vellums to put your enchants on and sell on AH, but then you need to pick up Herbs from AH

4.) take up any other profession - other than giving you things to DE or enchant, the other professions to match up with enchanting nearly as well, and like inscription you need to buy the materials off AH

Based on your situation (without knowning your character class) would go with Tailoring. You can make bags and every class uses bags, and the items you make you can DE, and you can farm most areas for the cloth.

What class/spec are you?

Edit: in taking another look at tailoring, there are some options even for plate and chain wearers - obviously some cloaks, but also some of the embroidery (such as one that gives attack power or spell power) can be useful on non-cloth wearers.


Edited, Jul 1st 2009 10:49pm by Devilwind

This. And, how do you play? Do you raid?

What do you want out of the profession? Money? Useful items?

The crit bonus for skinners is a nice boost for some classes, especially if you're raiding.



I have to disagree with the underlined part. I find herbing and mining to be a lot more fun than skinning. They're both much more of an active pursuit, whereas skinning is a passive one. Especially at high level with a flying mount, I enjoy just cruising around looking for herb/mine nodes sometimes. It has an element of treasure hunting that I find fun, whereas skinning is usually just another step of looting the animal I've killed.

I would start using your disenchanting for cash, and do something you think would be fun with the other profession.

I recently hit 80 on my warlock. I was skinning 450 while leveling. Now, I don't plan to kill so many beasts anymore. I switched it out and leveled mining to 450. I can drop down and gather while on my way to do a daily or somewhere else.

I have other characters who make cash also (mainly disenchanting), so I leveled up engineering to 450 on my warlock, just for the fun of it.

Not wanting to be mean guy, but that's pretty much the same as asking what class you should roll. It's 100% subjective, and the main thing to think about is that unless you're making a substantial income from (dis)enchanting + dailies, anything other than another gathering profession or tailoring is going to cost you a fortune to skill up and a fortune to maintain. If you've got other alts in Northrend with other gathering professions, that gives you some leeway. Other than that, pretty much every profession is going to require ore and/or leather and/or herbs and if you're placing yourself at the mercy of the auction house to supply it, it's likely to be painful. (I notice Isyris is happy leveling engineering without a miner and you'd pretty much have to duplicate her attitude. She's leveling it because she's always wanted to...you've asked about what is going to be valuable.)

For me, skinning is valuable on my shaman because crit rating is nice. (EJ classed the crit rating boost from master of anatomy as a statistical outlier for the purpose of calculating max theoretical enh. shammy dps XD). JC is valuable on my shaman (and my warrior :P) because prospecting my own gems is fawking sweet. But the same goes for leatherworking (leg kits), blacksmithing (belt buckles), enchanting, inscription, and even tailoring. For me, value is in realizing i need something for one of my toons and being able to hop to an alt and make it (or ship it over from the bank because I already had some in stock :P) instead of having to run off to the auction house and buy it. Value is being able to gather base materials whenever I need them and the only "cost" to me is time. There are times when I'm quite happy to just fly around on my pally nabbing crystallized bits from gas clouds and mining every node I pass by. I then bank those things and whenever I need ore to make something or prospect or eternals for whatever reason..huzzah! They're there!

To me, value in a profession comes from that feeling of relief to know that you can make it yourself without denting your gold reserves. It doesn't matter what profession you pick or why, if you pick it based on the hopes that it's going to provide a stable income, all it takes is a half dozen or so people out of the thousands of players on your realm to get the same idea and undercut your gravy train into the ground.

Consequently, there is no answer to your question. Instead, I simply offer



That is all.

Edited, Aug 4th 2009 9:43am by AureliusSir