I have engineering as my second profession (mining is my other one) but I am not getting much out of it to be honest so I was thinking of switching to something else to make some money. What would people suggest to make the most money for the least effort? I can’t play as often as I’d like.
herbalism and alchemy.
lower levels not so profitable, but many of the potions and flasks are pretty much a requirement for raiding. You can always make a little gold selling the lower level herbs after you have progressed past the lower level potions - though there is always a small market for the lower level potions for newbie players. I would say trolls blood, defense, healing and mana sell for people who like to solo and are not alchemists. anything that gives bonuses to the magical or attack damage you can do. anything that can absorb/prevent magical or physical damage to the player.
At the highest skill levels, most professions have at least something that can make you some gold.
Unfortunately, it can cost you hundreds or even thousands of gold to reach the maximum skill level. There are items that you’d expect to be able to make a bunch of money on (bags in tailoring, for example), but–at least on my server–you can usually buy the finished products on the auction house for less than the mats would cost.
A friend of mine took up alchemy, and I didn’t find one single time when I couldn’t buy the item on the AH for less than the price of the mats. I’d spend 30 gold buying materials for flasks, and then find the flasks on the AH for 20.
If you’re a casual player and you need gold, choose two gathering professions (mining and skinning, for example). You’ll have a steady stream of income selling the stuff you gather, and you can just buy whatever else you need with the profits.
To add to this, I usually don’t recommend both mining and herbalism, because you can’t have both “tracking” types running at once. On the other hand, if you don’t mind occasional switching and can’t see yourself trying to both skin and (other gather type) your way through a zone, it provides a lot of flexibility to have both. Some days you’ll find that someone is beating you to all the good mining nodes, and switching over to herbs may bring you more success.
This is the sad truth really, too many crafters drive the price of the finished products down and the people leveling the crafting professions for the perks drive the material prices up.
While you can usually find something that can be sold with profit, low profit margins and/or limited volumes often mean that the actual amount of gold you get out of it is pretty low.
I spent over 2,000 gold getting my tailoring skill up to 350, and was finally at the point where I could make money with a few things. Then Wrath came out. The value of the specialty cloths I’d accumulated crashed (going from about 2,500 gold to about 400 gold), and nobody’s buying anything I make. Imbued netherweave bags sell on the AH for about half what the mats cost.
Check it out at-level if you can–the gear you get will probably be replaced your first three seconds in Outland, but it’s still worth it for the experience. Scholo, Strat, and the Blackrock Mountain instances for sure… You might not be able to get level-appropriate groups for the raids, though.
*The gear replacement doesn’t apply to Warriors, by the way–99% of the plate you will see from 61 to 70 will be stupid Pally trash. I don’t even want to tell you how long I was stuck wearing the Lightbringer helm on my main. :*
Mister Rik, what level do you get Polymorph? I can’t remember and I can’t look it up from here. It’s a good friend to soloing mages everywhere.
martu: Most money with least effort is going to be the gathering professions. I suggest Herbalism and Skinning, unless you don’t mind switching between two tracking types, in which case take Herbalism and Mining. But since Inscription came out, Herbalism is definitely the most profitable gathering prof, even at its lower levels. (Plus, it gives you a nice HOT–2k HP at the top level.)
After taking a six month tour of a few MMOs other than WoW out there (LOTRO, EVE, COH), I’ve finally decided nothing out there really matches the incredible diversity and extent of WoW’s content.
So, I’m back in WoW, and I’ve decided to try a different class than I’ve ever played before. I’ve considered Rogue, Warlock and Druid, and settled on Warlock for now.
I’ve played almost entirely Alliance side before, so I decided to make a Blood Elf Warlock and experience the Horde quests, which are pretty new to me.
I’m up to level 8 now, and enjoying the Blood Elf storyline, which I have tried a few times before. I’ve got a few inks made, since I picked up Inscription and Herbalism in the Capital. I’m saving them until I remember to pick up some supplies, I keep forgetting to buy paper.
I ended up doing the Amani Troll quests, and I killed the Spearcrafter, but I got swarmed and killed by other trolls, and I decided to wait on finishing the rest of the Amani Troll quests, until I had done the other lower level ones.
I caught up on my reading of this thread, so now I’m ready to go make my auction alt horde side.
Is inscription useful?
I’ve gathered herbs before, and it seemed pretty easy before, my 70 Priest is at 375 herbalism, but I’ve never tried Inscription.
I probably will drag my Priest back to Northrend soon, but I’ve not been impressed with the starting zone I ended up in there.
So, for now, I’m going to shelve the priest, also because I’m tired of being the healer in instances and raids, it stresses me out. I’d rather be a dpser and a pvper.
So I will work on my warlock instead. Free mounts is a pretty nice perk.
MindWanderer, Inscription can be very useful. It’s the new profession that was added with the last patch before *Wrath *came out. Mainly what you’ll be making are glyphs, ways for people to customize their characters spells. This can be very lucrative–although perhaps the best time was right after dual-spec went live. 
You can also make scrolls, off-hand items, and Darkmoon Faire cards. However, one of the best benefits to Inscription when you hit max level is BOP best-in-slot shoulder chants (better than the ones you get off Hodir at Exalted, which saves you the grind).
You know, if you’re sick of healing, you could always respec your priest to Shadow (or pick up a second spec and make it Shadow). You’d be replacing all your Holy gear leveling from 70-80 anyway, so you could just pick DPS cloth instead of healing cloth.
Actually, the Spearcrafter is the hardest Amani quest, other than the one you pick up from the troll captive to go assassinate the chief across the river. The other Amani quest is just a typical “Kill this many of these” ones, and I’ve never had a major problem on any of them on any class, really (and I think I’ve played all of the lowbie-starting Blood Elf classes at this point).
Actually, (and I’m not calling you out on this personally, MindWanderer) I’ve never gotten why anyone has trouble soloing any class, especially in starter and secondary zones (not counting actual elite mob quests, like Hogger). I see “Need group for “Encroachment”” and find myself having to resist typing “It’s EASY! You can solo it no problem!” in General.
That’s not to say there aren’t starter zone quests I find a little bit difficult (if only because you have to peel an area of layers of mobs like an onion before you can safely get the mob you have to kill), but they’re still relatively easy to do, even solo.
There’s really not much difference these days between DPS gear for a shadow priest and healing gear for a holy priest. Now that all +healing and +spell dmg got replaced with +spell power, which works for both, you can keep most of the same equipment.
Oh, especially once you get your Voidwalker (at 10?), soloing as a 'Lock is a breeze. Grabbing a threat meter like Omen can be helpful so that you can make sure you don’t pass your pet’s threat.
ETA:
Well, yeah, SP and Int are good for everybody, but aren’t there going to be things like Spirit, Crit, and Hit that will differ?
Just hit rating, everything else is useful for both shadow and holy.
Unless, of course, you’re willing to take the time to gather the mats yourself. My tailor pally has done well for herself making Netherweave Bags and Imbued Netherweave bags, using cloth she gathered herself; the spiders that give Netherweb Silk are thick around Shattrath. The only ingredients she’s had to purchase are the Arcane Dust to make the Imbued Netherweave, and the Greater Planar Essence to make the I.N. Bag, and so she’s been able to make a tidy profit on the bags.
Did you take up Tailoring at a high level? I’m at 375 (at character level 75) and I haven’t spent anywhere near that much, because I’ve been stitching stuff as I’ve gone along (I think I took Tailoring around lvl 6 or so).
Level 2 or 4, I think? Maybe 6 or 8.
This is probably server-dependent. My herbalists get diddly squat for the stuff they gather, though they’re all still pretty low-level.
I’ve made a mint with Mining, though I’ve discovered most of the money is to be made on Old World ores. I can post up a stack of Iron Ore and auctioneer will show me the Market Price along with “(seen 427)” or some similarly “low” number, so relatively little competition. There are so many people running around Outland and Northrend, though, that the market is completely flooded with the newer ores. Sure, the market values are fairly high (~30g for a stack of Cobalt Ore on my server), but there are always some 6,000+ active auctions for Cobalt Ore, so the odds of somebody buying mine go way down. I’m finding Cobalt (and Fel Iron, Adamantite, and Khorium as well) showing up back in my mailbox marked “Auction Expired” all the time, something that rarely happened with my Mithril and Thorium auctions. It wasn’t unusual for me to post a stack of Mithril or Thorium and then see the “A buyer has been found for your auction of Mithril/Thorium Ore” message before I could even leave the AH.
I’m having a hell of a time with a lowbie human priest in Elwyn Forest - everything I have quests for at level 9 involves killing a bunch of level 9 and 10 critters (Gnolls, Defias, Murlocs) in areas where it’s quite hard to avoid pulling multiples, and if I pull mutiples it’s either run or die. And even killing things one at a time generally involves having to stop and drink every time between fights.
“Useful” != “top stat,” though. I’m still thinking that you’d see a difference in itemization between Holy and Shadow gear. Can you DPS in your healing set and heal in your DPS set? Sure, but I bet you’d be better at both with gear that’s specifically for that purpose. Take a look at the Priest T8, and I’ll bet you a dollar you’ll see two sets, one for DPS and one for healing, that favor different stats.
On three different servers (Eldre’Thalas, Arygos, and Borean Tundra), I’ve had no problems selling anything from low-level herbs all the way up to the top ones since Inscription and Wrath. The low-level herbs are snatched up by people wanting to level Inscription quickly (often DKs), and the high-level ones by people who want potions and flasks for raids.
When you hit a little cieling like that, go to another level appropriate zone, and start the quests there. (Get thee to Dun Morogh, and start the quests found in Kharanos and Brewnall Village.)
I’m not calling you an idiot or anything, but are you using your Power Word: Shield? If you throw it up 5 seconds or so before you start combat, the Weakened Soul debuff will clear before you incur enough damage to kill the shield and you can recast it immediately when that happens.
What you want to do when you pull multiples is kill at least one before you run away. That whittles down the number in that particular cluster. If there were more than two, do it again. Then go back for the last one. Then get the remains of the Stormwind soldier. (I know that spot…it IS difficult, but not really deadly if you know what you’re doing)
Having to drink a lot is the par for the course for a priest, at least until you get a decent mana pool. And even then you’ll probably be drinking a lot. Luckily, beverages are generally inexpensive.
Gnolls are spread out enough that as long as you aren’t raiding camps, you should be able to pull individuals. Don’t forget the three gnolls around the watermelon patch on the other side of the river. They drop the armbands, too.
Defias aren’t hard to pull individually. You just have to watch where they are. I almost never pull more than one at a time in the pumpkin patch.
There are, at most, two fights that you need more than one person for: Hogger and the folks in the cabin at the pumpkin patch (the Collector is in there and so is the woman for the Alliance warlock voidwalker quest). You used to sometimes need more than one for Princess, but they nerfed her by taking away one of her porcine escorts.
Are you watching your proximity? Priest spells seem to have a much longer range than other classes’, IME. You should be able to stand far enough back that you’re not invoking proximity aggro from any mob, let alone mobs that aren’t tied to the one you’re pulling.
Oh, and you WILL die. The trick is coming to the point where you don’t really care because it’s not permanent…it’s just a long jog to get back to life.
Yeah, I use the shield - my problem then is that if I shield twice, I run out of mana before I can kill even one guy (if I’ve drawn multiples). Particularly if I’m fighting murlocs, and the one I’m hitting drinks his healing potion.
ETA: I got the stormwind soldier corpse thing by walking over to my corpse, res’ing, hitting shield, and clicking off the quest & accepting the new one before my shield ran out while 2 guys were whacking me. And then running like heck.
Make sure you’re attacking from max range, too (the longer they spend running, the longer you spend not getting hit). This applies to any caster, really.
On my Priest, I like to open with something high-damage that takes a relatively long time to cast (i.e., I spend the cast time out of combat), immediately after that throw up a DOT, then PW:S before they get to me, and finish off the rest of their HP with quick-cast spells or my wand. (The wand is a great saver for lower-level Priests with small mana pools–try putting points in the Discipline talent that gives you extra damage.)