Long post is long incoming:
Alucrid said:
Oh, can anyone give me suggestions on what professions to do for my Druid and DK? I guess ones that would make money.
Jewelcrafting is by far the most profitable profession, especially with an alchemist to transmute gems (coming from someone who has most professions maxed), but you would be behind the game on recipes at the moment. However if you saved up tokens and cashed them out in the next patch (or two) whenever epic gems are released you could stand to make much more money than you could now, especially in the initial rush.
Speaking of initial rush, gems are going to be in very high demand for the next month and beyond as people start to kill Firelands bosses and replace gear. This may be tempered somewhat by the large fall-off in people playing that has occurred though.
The main reason gems are so good is that they are the most expensive high volume item on the market.
For
alchemists, selling flasks was neutered a bit with the guild cauldrons, and potions never sold too well in the first place with all but the very hardcore skipping them (except perhaps mana potions, now that those don't drop off mobs.) Transmutation is a decent business, and will be better with epic gems that have a cooldown coming at some point.
Enchanting is okay, but I'm sure by down prices have died down much from when I could sell Maelstrom Crystals for 1.5k-3k a pop (I lucked out a bit with the alchemist stone trick, though it was hotfixed right as I was trying to make more one day.) Enchants themselves are not the most profitable, though the market may be better now with fewer people leveling up and dumping all the scrolls they needed to make to level on the auction house for less than the price of the mats.
Inscription can be good, but it's probably more micro-intensive to keep at than the other professions and probably not worth it at this point since you would be months behind on recipes, even if/when they do change the Northrend books to being learnable through research (I have a maxed scribe with all recipes, but I never made too much money with him other than the initial glyph rush when they first became one-use.) If you did really get into it though you could sell rarer glyphs for hundreds of gold and people will buy them because they have no alternative and there aren't that many scribes in general.
Engineering is almost completely a money-sink, so don't get that if you want to make money.
The
gear-crafting professions go through boom and bust cycles whenever new recipes are released, but things like leg armor and belt buckles will always be moving some, just not in as high a volume as gems.
The
gathering professions are all good money-makers if you don't mind spending more time to make money than a well-operated production profession, and of course paired up with a production profession you can increase your margin if you don't have to buy things off the AH, and can go and gather if prices are high or an ingredient you need is not available.
That said, any crafting profession that matches your armor type is a good choice, and pairing that up with its corresponding gathering profession is fine until you can afford to drop the gathering profession. Mining will always be acceptable for tanks, though it's still weaker than other professions, especially if you ever take on a different role.
If you didn't take Blacksmithing for extra sockets, Alchemy and Jewelcrafting provide the best bonuses as well as providing a good income. Engineering can work for some people, but the bonuses aren't as clear cut and failure rates on the occasional item make it riskier.
