Professions ( PROF123 )

Explore the world of professions in World of Warcraft: Midnight. Learn about gathering, producing, and sub-professions to enhance your gameplay and economy.

Professions in World of Warcraft: Midnight are optional but crucial for contributing to the in-game economy and acquiring powerful end-game items. While they might initially slow your progress, professions offer significant payoffs later on, whether through crafting valuable goods or by gathering materials for profit.

To use a profession, access your spellbook and select the desired icon. It's recommended to hotbar professions, potions, and other seldom-used items for quick access. Additional action bars can be enabled through the options menu.

Players can choose two main professions and any number of sub-professions. The main professions are divided into gathering and producing types:

• Gathering Professions:
• Herbalism: Collect herbs from plants.
• Mining: Extract ore from deposits.
• Skinning: Harvest hides from dead animals.
• Producing Professions:
• Alchemy: Craft potions from herbs, offering unique buffs.
• Blacksmithing: Forge weapons and armor using ore.
• Enchanting: Disenchant rare items into magical enhancements for other gear. Tailoring is a synergistic profession as many green items can be crafted from humanoid drops.
• Engineering: Create various items, primarily from ore. This profession is more for utility and fun than significant stat boosts.
• Leatherworking: Craft leather and later mail armor from skins, also providing armor kits.
• Tailoring: Produce cloth armor from cloths dropped by humanoids, with some reliance on leather.
• Jewelcrafting: Craft items from gems, requiring ore. Essential for Burning Crusade content.
• Inscription: Create glyphs and buff scrolls. While less popular, it can be highly profitable and requires herbs.

Sub-professions are available to all players:

• Fishing: Gather fish, though leveling can be time-consuming.
• Cooking: Prepare food that provides buffs and restores health.
• First Aid: A highly useful, though skippable, profession that provides healing and uses cloth. Essential for classes lacking self-healing.
• Riding: Increases movement speed, reducing travel time.

Gathering and producing professions naturally complement each other. For example, Alchemy requires herbs, and Blacksmithing requires ore. Without a gathering profession, you'd rely on drops, the auction house, or trade to acquire materials, which can be costly.

Enchanting and Tailoring are unique as they don't require a specific gathering profession. Enchanting uses disenchanted items, and Tailoring crafts items from cloth (found on humanoids) and some leather. These two professions work well together, allowing players to craft items to disenchant.

First Aid is considered the most universally useful sub-profession, providing essential self-healing for many classes, especially during challenging encounters. Fishing and Cooking require more dedicated effort but are vital for Hunters to sustain their pets.

Early in the game, it's cost-effective to experiment with different professions. You can pick up a few, test their requirements, and drop them if they don't suit your playstyle. Gathering professions can be a good early source of income through the auction house.

As professions advance, they often require materials from other professions. While you can level professions independently, you may need to rely on other players, the auction house, or your guild for necessary components.

Advancing professions beyond level 350 typically requires extended time in Outland to learn Northrend recipes. Players can either quest in Outland or focus on gathering materials, though leveling might be slower than in Northrend.

Jewelcrafting offers unique benefits at level 80. Players can spend capped honor points (75000) on gems from quartermasters in Stormwind or Orgrimmar. These gems can be sold on the auction house, with some being more profitable than others. Recent patches have replaced rare gems with epic versions, offering instant gold.

As of patch 3.3, obtaining Frozen Orbs is easier, making it simpler to reach level 450 in professions.