WoW Professions Guide

The professions in World of Warcraft are what drive the economy of the game. Select the right combination of professions for your character and you can make lots of money selling the items you craft. You can also use them to greatly enhance the gear of your own character and make items that buff your entire party, raid or other members in your guild.

There are three main categories of professions: Crafting professions, Gathering professions, and Secondary professions. Each has its benefits and each profession can benefit others.

Gathering professions are used to harvest the resources needed by the crafting professions. You can use these items for your own crafting profession or sell them in the auction house to other crafters.

Crafting professions allow you to make all kinds of useful items by using the items collected with the gathering professions. With a crafting profession you can make items directly usable by you or other characters as well as other ingredients needed for further crafting. Most crafting recipes are learned from the profession trainer, but other more rare recipes are dropped from random mobs and dungeon bosses. Others can be purchased from faction quartermasters once you’ve reached the required reputation with that faction.

Each character is allowed only 2 primary professions at a time. At any time you can decide to drop a primary profession and learn another. Most players usually choose one gathering and one crafting profession that uses the materials from the gathering profession. Having many alternate characters, each with a different combination of professions can really benefit all your toons, since each profession can either gather or craft items that can benefit many of the other professions. If you focus primarily on one character then joining a guild, where other guild members have a variety of professions, can really benefit you and the professions you’re trying to level.

The 3 secondary professions (cooking, fishing, first aid) can all be learned by everyone. First aid allows you to make bandages that can be used during combat to heal your character. Cooking and fishing, especially when leveled together, can allow you to make great food buffs to enhance you character stats and abilities.

As you level your profession you will gain proficiency titles that you must learn in order to progress in that profession. Each proficiency level has a required character level and a minimum profession skill level, before it can be attained. These are summarized below in this mini WoW professions guide.

Apprentice

Skill Range: 0 – 75

Req Char Level:

• Gathering level: 0
• Non-gathering: 5
• Fishing: 5

Journeyman

Skill Range: 50 – 150

Req Char Level:

• Non-gathering: 10
• Fishing: 10

Expert

Skill Range: 125 – 225

Req Char Level:

• Gathering: 10
• Non-gathering: 20
• Fishing: 10

Artisan

Skill Range: 200 – 300

Req Char Level:

• Gathering: 25
• Non-gathering: 35
• First Aid: 35
• Fishing: 10

Master

Skill Range: 275 – 375

Req Char Level:

• Gathering: 40
• Non-gathering: 50
• Fishing: 10

Grand Master

Skill Range: 350 – 450

Req Char Level:

• Gathering: 55
• Non-gathering: 65
• Fishing: 10

Illustrious

Skill Range: 425 – 525

Req Char Level:

• Gathering: 70
• Non-gathering: 80

Racial Profession bonuses are given to certain races as a racial trait. These are listed below.

Gnome – +15 Engineering

Tauren – +15 Herbalism

Draenei – +5 Jewelcrafting

Blood Elf – +10 Enchanting

Worgen – +15 Skinning

Goblin – +15 Alchemy