With new expansion, World of Warcraft: The War Within (WOW TWW), fully released, professions have become the number one way to earn gold. While professions are quite complex especially when trying to craft the maximum quality items, understanding how to utilize these professions carries the potential for players to earn millions of gold over the course of an expansion. That gold can then be used to invest in more professions, better gear, cosmetics and mounts, or free subscription game time through WOW tokens, making gold the most valuable currency in the game. Let’s begin with the basics of professions, then we will get into the complexities that can make the big in-game bucks.

Professions: The Basics

There are 14 different professions, and each performs a unique and important role in the in-game economy. Primary and secondary professions include:

Primary – gathers raw materials that are used in secondary professions

  • Herbalism
  • Mining
  • Skinning

Secondary – uses raw materials from primary professions to craft powerful items

  • Alchemy
  • Engineering
  • Leatherworking
  • Blacksmithing
  • Inscription
  • Tailoring (could be considered primary as well because it includes cloth gathering)
  • Enchanting (could be considered primary as well because it includes disenchanting)
  • Jewelcrafting

Any given character can only have two of the professions listed above, so choose wisely. For example, plate armor wearing classes probably want to choose Mining and Blacksmithing/Jewelcrafting because those professions allow the crafting of plate gear. While professions can be unlearned at any time to pick up a new one, the new profession makes players start from square one. For a bit of an easier profession experience, tertiary professions are also great option, and all characters can learn all the tertiary professions. Tertiary professions include:

  • Fishing
  • Cooking
  • Archaeology (retired profession that is not relevant in the current expansion)

Cooking and Fishing do not have the same level of complexity of primary and secondary professions, but they can definitely make similar amounts of gold. To get started, simply find the profession trainer of your choosing in the new main city of TWW, Dornogal, and purchase the Khaz Algar training for that profession.

All the professions listed above level up from 1 to 100 in the TWW. As the profession levels up, new specializations, recipes, and higher quality crafting are unlocked, all of which can be sold on the auction house or through crafting orders. However, getting to level 100 professions and crafting the highest quality items is where professions get really complex.

Professions: The Complexities

There are three main complexities in the professions system, 1) raw material and crafting qualities, 2) profession gear, 3) profession specializations and skill trees, all of which where introduced in Dragonflight and doubled down on in TWW. The only professions that do not pertain to the numbers one and three complexities are tertiary professions, making them easier to get into and understand.

Starting with qualities, raw materials have three tiers of quality as well as some crafted items like enchants and gems, and crafted gear has five tiers of quality. Understanding these qualities is pretty easy, but actually crafting up to these qualities is complex and depends on your profession gear, specialization skills trees, and luck.

Profession gear provides profession-based stats which effects how efficiently and effectively crafting can be done. Each profession has one tool and two accessories they are able to equip. The higher quality the gear, the more stats are provided by the gear. Depending on what type of crafting you are trying to perform, different stats are recommended to min-max your crafts; it is highly recommended to look up a guide to understand what stats you should be going for on your gear depending on what you are trying to do. Unfortunately, this guide will not be going into what each profession needs because every profession needs something different.

Finally, profession specializations and skill trees are the most important part of any of the primary and secondary professions. It is very important to understand what you are trying to achieve with your profession before you spend skill tree points because there is no turning back after they are spent, and players can only get a limited amount of points per week. Again, a guide is highly recommended for this part and this guide will not be getting into because each profession has different skill trees. Skill tree points can be earn by gathering, crafting new crafts, and completing daily and weekly quests/crafting orders.

Once you have your item qualities and profession gear figured, as well as a bit of progress your specialization skill tree, you are well on your way to craft consumables or gear players will be paying big gold for over the course of the entire expansion. See you in trade chat!