Best WoW Classic Professions for Each Class and Race

Best WoW Classic Professions for Each Class and Race

Except rogues. Rogues suck. Comment if you disagree.

Image for postIt?s probably not a good idea to give your mage blacksmithing. Photo by Nicolas Hoizey on Unsplash

This post is an adaptation of my other post, Best WoW Professions For Each Class.

I?ve been playing WoW since Vanilla, but I?ve always been broke as a joke.

I can never afford the cool expensive mounts. I just recently bought the Traveler?s Tundra Mammoth and that?s been out for like 8 years.

I?ve decided that when Classic WoW comes out, I want to hit gold cap. I want to get really good at making money in Classic. So, I?ve been doing some research.

The first thing I thought was:

?profession, literally a word about having a job.?

SemiAutomattik on /r/WoWClassic pointed out,

Assuming dungeon farming is unchanged, that is the way to make money. Not professions.

And SangerNegru said,

The richest people I?ve ever known, both on retail and on private servers ? did not make their fortune out of covering every profession?the way most people make a lot of gold is as always ? playing the AH, flipping potions and items day and night, controlling niche markets, knowing what to buy and when to buy etc. Another way I have seen people make riches is through the Devilsaur Mafia, but that?s still reliant on controlling the market on the AH so you can theoretically count that in there as well.

Which may be true, and we?ll take a look at these points in a different article in the future.

For this one, let?s look at professions.

Your profession in WoW, sometimes referred to as trade skills, is like your character?s job. You?re going to be doing them anyway, so that?s the best place to start when it comes to making money.

Next step will obviously be how to be good at your job. We?ll get to that in a future article.

I was wondering, between all of the possible characters I could, what?s the best profession for each one?

Pretty much any class can take on any profession, and it actually doesn?t matter which class has which profession if all I?m doing is trying to make money.

After all, I could just farm mats on one character, and send to another (not necessarily true, and we?ll get to that below).

Then I remembered that Vanilla WoW had more important racial traits, too. What are the best races for each?

That said, my list goes more with lore/RP, or practicality for using professions with classes. The race choices are based on racial traits.

My Class Menagerie

Here?s what I put together for my account. This doesn?t have to be what you do, and it?s not even really a recommendation of any sort.

The reason why I?m doing these is because they make the most sense to me.

All Classic characters will be started from scratch, so it looks like I?ll have my work cut out for me if I want to tackle all professions.

You may want to choose different ones, from below (see: Other Classes).

  • Druid ? Alchemy + Herbalism
  • Hunter ? Engineering + Mining
  • Shaman ? Leather Working + Skinning
  • Warlock ? Enchanting + Tailoring
  • Warrior ? Blacksmithing + Mining

Here?s a breakdown of why, for each:

Druid ? Alchemy + Herbalism

Image for postPhoto by Heather Barnes on Unsplash

My main has been a Tauren druid for WoD and Legion, and I always liked alchemy (in and outside of WoW), so this was just sort of obvious for me, personally.

I raid most on my druid and alchemy works great for that.

IIRC, you can?t really use alchemy in PVP so if you plan to use your druid for primarily PVP, I would not recommend this route. See the alternative section below for alchemy + herbalism recommendation.

Horde: Herbalism is faster on Tauren and druids can stay in travel form when picking flowers. And Tauren get +15 herbalism. So, this really makes it the best over-all.

Alliance: You only have one choice for druid in the Alliance?Night Elf.

Hunter ? Engineering + Mining

Image for postPhoto by Liam Briese on Unsplash

This is actually further separated from lore/RP for me than usual.

Normally, I would have a hunter be exactly that ? so skinning and leather working.

But, I decided to go engineering because of the scopes and other ranged weapon augments that engineers can craft.

Engineers are the only profession able to craft guns, scopes and bullets.

Mining goes with engineering for obvious reasons.

Horde: Orcs make a good hunters because of the Command skill, which causes pets to do 5% more damage.

Alliance: Gnomes get engineering +15 but they can?t be hunters, so rogue may be a good alternative.

Shaman ? Leather Working + Skinning

Image for postPhoto by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

I gave leather working to shaman because them and hunters are the only classes that wear leather and mail, and I already had decided hunters get engineering as priority.

Skinning goes with leather working for obvious reasons.

Horde: You can be Orc, Tauren or Troll as a shaman and each one have benefits, but I would pick Troll personally for Berserking (Increases your casting and attack speed by 10% to 25%. At full health the speed increase is 10% with a greater effect up to 25% if you are badly hurt when you activate Berserking).

Alliance: No shamans on Alliance so I would pick Dwarf hunter or Night Elf rogue as the alternative.

Warlock ? Enchanting + Tailoring

Image for postPhoto by Mervyn Chan on Unsplash

Enchanting is a fairly expensive tradeskill to have because you don?t sell any of your greens, blues, etc. You disenchant (DE) them. Because of this, you miss out on a lot of early gold.

Warlocks get a ?free? first mount. Since this is before mounts are account-wide, it is worth while to save up as much gold as possible for your mount.

It will suck if you can?t afford a mount.

Since warlocks and paladins get free mounts, I figured they were good classes to have a trade skill that might cost you more to level than others.

I double it up with tailoring for two reasons:

  1. I don?t need a gathering trade for tailoring because cloth is a mob drop.
  2. I can DE the green, blue, etc, crafted gear from tailoring, which will help my enchanting skill.

Horde: I?m going Undead warlock, personally. That will be my main when Classic comes out. But it?s worth noting that Orc warlock pets do 5% more damage.

Alliance: I would go Human paladin for the extra 5% spirit.

Warrior ? Blacksmithing + Mining

Image for postPhoto by Jonathan Bean on Unsplash

At this point it was between paladin and warrior, and the only reason I went with warrior was because my original main from Vanilla is warrior and I felt like I wanted to level one up again.

Plus, I play Horde and can?t be a paladin.

Mining goes with blacksmithing for obvious reasons.

Horde: Tauren warriors for the 5% extra health.

Alliance: Night Elf warriors get 1% improved dodge which would be good if you?re tanking, I guess? TBH I don?t know much about tanking. Might be better to go Dwarf for Stoneform.

Other Classes and Races (and their best professions according to me)

  • Mage ? Alchemy + Herbalism
  • Paladin ? Blacksmithing + Mining
  • Priest ? Enchanting + Tailoring
  • Rogue ? Engineering + Mining

Mage ? Enchanting + Tailoring

It seems logical to me that in RP/Lore, mages would make potions and stuff.

Paladin ?Blacksmithing+ Mining

This is Alliance only, but you would get to make your own armor.

Priest ? Enchanting + Tailoring

It just seems to fit lore/RP that a priest might enchant things, and tailoring goes with it well as stated in the Warlock section of this guide.

On the downside, you don?t get a free mount.

It would be possible to make a lot of money as an enchanter though, just to put that out there. Time consuming, though, because you have to yell in Trade chat that you can do enchants.

And tailoring so you can make yourself armor.

Rogue ?Engineering + Mining

This was stated as my alternative in the section above.

Is it worth it having one character dedicated to farming mining and herbalism at the same time?

In Legion, Blood of Sargeras is bind-on-pickup (BOP) and comes from mostly gathering, so it?s important to spread my gathering professions out rather than on one or two characters.

I don?t remember if there was anything like that in Vanilla WoW that will be in Classic.

But, if I have an extra character that?s not doing anything and I need extra herbs or mining, I may set up a character just to farm both.

All characters can farm cloth?which class is best for that? Probably one that can AOE farm humanoids without dying a lot.

I would say the best for this are paladin or druid (depending on faction), because I want a character who can farm humanoids best, so AOE ability + survivability. I need to do some testing and figure that out.

Maybe frost mage?

I?ve done some research on this subject and I found a wide range of responses from people on both Reddit and the WoW forums, so I figured the best thing to do is test this myself.

Comments from /r/WoWClassic

Scyllaqt said:

Hey. Regarding warriors, you want to be Engineering no matter what spec you play. Goblin Sapper Charges are a DPS increase and grenades/force reactive disk are great for aoe threat. Force reactive disk is a shield that deals damage to all nearby enemies every time you block and you can only wear it if you have max engineering. In terms of race, whether you?re dps or tank you want to be Human instead of Night Elf as Alliance. Humans get +5 sword and mace skill which does way more for your threat and dps than the super small benefit you receive from 1% dodge. Horde warriors often go Orc for +axe skill for the same reasons but Tauren isn?t bad if you know for sure you?re gonna go prot.

hctheman said,

Most DPS classes wanna go engineering for PVP & zapper charges for PVE. Mages wanna pick up herbing at some point after ZG, when they no longer need the set bonus from Bloodvine & have gotten their mind quickening gem, as this is really good for gathering black lotus. Warlocks wanna go tailor from fresh to very late in the game, as they?re gonna be using bloodvine long into AQ40. Priests wanna have tailor early on for the insane healing chest. Other than that, there aren?t any ?must have? professions for each class. pick up two gathering proffs while you?re leveling & your good to go. Probably drop mining or skinning for herbing later on in the game, as herbs rise in value when people start raiding? I usually level a gathering alt at some point, usually later in the game for herbs.

Image for postWe didn?t even talk about first aid, cooking, orfishing.

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