Best single Gathering Prof?Follow

Tailoring and Enchanting are a great combo. Especially at higher levels, you need enchanting mats to create special cloth bolts. And at lower levels, you can DE the tailoring stuff you craft.

I never made too much money Tailoring (except with high level cloth), but tons and tons of money either selling enchants directly (for tips), enchanting armor/weapon vellum or selling enchanting mats via the AH. I also have free enchants for all my toons (which saves $$ too).

Tailor/chant is definitely a good combo as you can turn your tailoring skill ups into raw mats to increase your chanting and/or sell for profit.

There's also something to be said for being able to chant your own gear at will.

Mining is a decent money maker - ore, gems and elemental stuff sell well at all levels.

Herbalism is hit or miss - if there are still enough inscriptionist leveling on the server then it's pure gold, otherwise, eh.

Skinning is equally flakey - the lower level leather will sell simply because no one is creating it anymore but upper level stuff is questionable (at least on my server).

I have herbalism, and I think I would rather have mining, honestly. It seems like ore sells for more, plus you may be able to take advantage of the saronite shuffle. Even TBC ore sells for a lot on my Horde miner; he's only 69, but it's like

Fel Iron stack: 22g
Adamantite stack: 25g
Khorium Ore (each): 35g.

He's making a killing leveling in Outland. I may just stay there for a few more levels, see if I can get epic flying and cold weather before moving on to Northrend!

Already have enchanting as a second, and I like that as a money-maker, and the stats on my rings are gravy :-P

Honestly if you're starting over with a new toon on a new server, I'd say nix the tailoring and go for two gathering professions. That way you aren't spending money leveling up one profession, you're making money off of both. Then once you hit 80 (or slightly earlier if you want) you can drop one or both and powerlevel some tradeskill professions. It's much more profitable that way.

While you are leveling, you can use the cash of gathering professions to fund repairs and learn skills. It doesn't take that much cash and just gathering along the way gives you something to do and all the cash you will need.

Once you are level capped, are confident on how to make money, and sitting on 5 or 10k gold looking for something to do, powerleveling your profession of choice is an option for you. You make money, you use money. When I power level a profession (which I've done probably 10 times on various alts), it's because the time saved is worth more to me than the gold spent.

This. level up with dual gathering, sell absolutely everything on the AH, then use some of that cash, and a bit of wise solo farming when you're at the level cap to power level tailoring and enchanting if they're really the main professions you want.

Heck, even on my "home" realm, where I have all gathering profs at 80, and all bar leatherworking and engineering for crafting at max level, I still raise alts with nothing but gathering skills - the gold along the way is too good to pass up. Do I need the gold? No, my mains are living very comfortably, thank you very much ;-) But, it's a huge lost opportunity cost (just IMO) to not gather as you grow.

OK, I'm trying to close out this item. I went ahead and took mining and skinning since there always seems to be something to skin while you are doing quests, most of the early and mid level quests have you killing so many of such and such animal anyway. Also I dont need an addon to toggle between mining and skinning like you do with mining and herbs.

Thanks for all the input guys and dolls.
Blu

Enchanting is the biggest money-maker as long as you stay away from enchanting stuff and concentrate on DISenchanting. Trying to sell enchants to ungrateful cheapskates (even with vellums) is a thankless job. On the other hand, farming the AH for dis-enchantables that will sell as mats for doouble what you put in is simple.

Tailoring, on the other hand. is a waste of time until you get to end level and can make those BoP purples and other high=level gear. The cloth you use (and end up buying on the AH in order to level your profession at the same rate as your questing level) could be used to level your first aid and sold for profit after that. If you really want to be a tailor at end-game, drop your non-enchanting profession, switch that to tailoring, and power-level it up. Don't worry about the money needed to get the mats needed to power-level your tailoring at that point. You'll have it with enough left over for other nifty stuff.

In my opinion, you should be an Enchanter/miner.