I plan on a Resto Shaman being my first Character.

I'm torn between Skinning/Leatherworking and Herbalism/Alchemy as my first set of professions. I feel that Skin/LW is great for the early game and skinning can earn easy money throughout the leveling process as well as making some gear with LW. However, I get feedback that LW is an inferior profession when compared to other's late game. My thoughts were that being able to make myself heal and dps gear letting me switch between them would be helpful for leveling.

Looking for advice on which would be most beneficial to my character. I'm sure Skinning/Tailoring would be the most profitable, but I was hoping to have a profession to help me level since it can be difficult leveling a healer.

For leveling, you want skinning. Focusing on leveling any other profession while leveling will take more effort than it will net. At max, if you only plan on playing one character AND you plan on going resto, herb offers an excellent method to gather your own consumes (you will need a lot of potions) without having a high kill capacity. I'd go skinning to level and herb at max. As far as your secondary proff, I'd recommend engineering from a min/max perspective but you could make a case for various secondaries depending on your own needs/wants. Bear in mind that you can very easily have a level 35 character sitting in a major city with max alch to convert your herbs into consumes.

If you are going to have more fun with Skinning/LW from a class fantasy and RP perspective, go for it. Especially if you're focusing on the leveling experience, going slow, and have no definite plans for endgame. But...being a Resto shaman specifically, that doesn't seem to be the case. Seems like you have raiding in mind.

As far as money and usefulness, Herb/Alch has got the market cornered for endgame. Unless you get in on the Devilsaur market, herbalism is going to be more profitable and easier to come by. Think about it...Resto doesn't kill beasts all that fast to get their hides, but you can pick herbs as good as anyone.

Just look at allll this stuff...https://classic.wowhead.com/alchemy
If you are gonna run a single toon with no alts then Alchemy with herb to support is a great way to have some middle group for pvp/pve. @Stfuppercut makes a good point for having a level 35 to churn out your pots saving you to have something more useful like engineering (anyone can use the pots from an alchemist but not everyone can use items made from engineering, only engineers).

@Stfuppercut @Cletus So that leaves Engineering to be leveled entirely from purchased ores? Sounds expensive... especially with everyone and their mom running Engineering.

Lendryn wrote: ↑

5 years ago

@Stfuppercut @Cletus So that leaves Engineering to be leveled entirely from purchased ores? Sounds expensive... especially with everyone and their mom running Engineering.

You would think so but you'll actually make more profit by leveling engi with herb and selling the extra mats than you would by playing as engi/minning. Sounds awkward, but herbs are so much more valuable and so much easier to sell than ore is. Ore consistently depreciates as time goes on, herbs continually appreciate. It's also a lot cheaper to level engi by buying mats than you would assume.

Also mining sucks as a gathering profession, its slow and highly contested on fresh servers. Herb only takes 1 click and is less desirable early game.

Resto? Herb/alchemy.

It'll take you far too long to kill mobs to skin for it to be valuable.

Selexin wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Herb only takes 1 click and is less desirable early game.

Should mention that herbalism can take more than 1 click if it fails.

RaidBossRowe wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Selexin wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Herb only takes 1 click and is less desirable early game.

Should mention that herbalism can take more than 1 click if it fails.

Mining too, I’ve collected two to four times from the same node with no fails.

If you want to make a good buck, get two gathering professions at start and sell mats. One of the gathering professions should be one that can complement your primary later on. For me I’ll get mining/skinning or herbalism/mining, then switch to either engineering/mining or herbalism/alchemy so I can enjoy crafting either potions or cool gadgets. All the mats I don’t sell will be mine to use, and the gold I make can be put into power leveling my crafting profession

@Solsson just to add to your point - people should not expect to have the full mats to powerlevel their crafting profession with the number of mats typically gathered during the levelling process if they opt for this strategy. You will definitely have to go back to lower level zones more than several times to get everything you need. A lot of mats are required. So yes this may help contribute towards power crafting later but it won’t suffice for everything required.

From a pure entartainment point of view, if you want to dwelve into the profession, skinning+leatherworking is the way to go: a ton of recipes to hunt for, specialization you can choose between and adapt to you lorewise... is very similar to blacksmithing in that sense.

If instead you want some more focused on money/utilities, herbalism+alchemy is the correct choice: potion can stack in Classic wow, so you can drink a lot of them, and you can make a shitton of money just selling https://classic.wowhead.com/item=12360/arcanite-bar transmutation

Personally I would go for the first, but just because I like to waste time in professions :D

teebling wrote: ↑

5 years ago

@Solsson just to add to your point - people should not expect to have the full mats to powerlevel their crafting profession with the number of mats typically gathered during the levelling process if they opt for this strategy. You will definitely have to go back to lower level zones more than several times to get everything you need. A lot of mats are required. So yes this may help contribute towards power crafting later but it won’t suffice for everything required.

@teebling that’s true. Well written! But my main point stands clear still, I think. If you lvl two gathering professions you’d still end up with a lot more mats/gold than you would by using them while leveling. And farming is way easier at higher lvls when you are maxed out with trainer spells and such, selling the mats will help you with this and is in my opinion a better choice than to try and keep your primary profession on par with your characters level. You will most likely need to spend your gold on other more (imo) important stuff and outlevel your professions pretty fast. But that’s how my experience goes :)