WoW n00b: Gathering Professions
In our last installment I went over the three Seccondary Professions, Fishing, First Aid, and Cooking, and explained why you should be leveling each of them. Now we’re moving into territory that makes you think more, because you can’t learn all the Primary Professions – you have to choose, and choose wisely.
Of all the Primary Professions out there, you can only pick two. You can “unlearn” a profession so you can learn another one, but that will undo a lot of hard work if you’ve spent any time leveling it up, so it’s good to know what you’re getting into.
Again, I’m only going to cover three professions today: Herbalism, Mining, and Skinning. Each of these is known as a “gathering” profession because while you can’t really make (m)any things with them it will provide you with the raw materials needed for the professions I’ll be discussing in the next WoW n00b installment. If you have one of those professions, then hey, free materials! If you don’t, you can sell what you gather in the Auction House and over time make a very decent amount of cash.
Also, each of the gathering professions now gives you an extra bonus when you hit a skill level of 75, and that bonus becomes greater each time you hit a skill level divisible by 75.
Profession: Skinning
What it does: Allows you, with the aid of a Skinning Knife, to harvest leather from certain dead mobs. You don’t even have to be the one that kills them, so long as they’ve been looted, but remember not to poach someone else’s kill until you know they don’t have Skinning.
Bonus: Increase in your chance to get a critical strike (extra damage or healing, depending on what you’re doing).
Goes well with: Leatherworking, any class that could use a higher crit rate (Yes that’s pretty much all of them.), Environmentalist hippies who don’t think any part of the animal should go to waste.
Profession: Mining
What it does: Allows you, with the use of a Mining Pick, to harvest ore from nodes found almost everywhere except Teldrassil. Sorry, there’s no reason for chunks of rock to be on top of a giant tree that’s actually quite new. You can take this ore to anywhere with a forge and then smelt it into bars.
Bonus: Stamina increase.
Goes well with: Blacksmithing, Engineering, Tanks, Warlocks (With Life Tap their hit points are a 2nd mana pool), people who want to exploit the nonrenewable resources of the world for fun and profit or just plain hate the planet and want to hit the ground repeatedly with a pick until 5 teenagers recite some poorly written lines and summon a guy in spandex to punch you a lot
Profession: Herbalism
What it does: Allows you, without the need for any equipment, to harvest herbs found pretty much anywhere.
Bonus: Lifeblood, a skill that when cast will heal you over a period of time.
Goes well with: Alchemy, Inscription, classes that don’t have healing spells, people who like to run around a virtual world picking flowers
Next up: What you can do with all this stuff you’ve gathered!
[...] of my hopefully helpful guide for people getting started in Warcraft. Last time I covered the gathering professions, so this time let’s focus on what we can do with this stuff besides sell it in the Auction [...]