WoW: Forever Professions Guide: Best Pairs and Leveling

Your profession pick in WoW: Forever is not the same decision it was in 2004. Blizzard has added more than 600 new recipes, given every profession a campsite object, and tied the six crafting professions to the account-wide Legacy System. Herbalism, Mining and Skinning get none of those Legacy Points. Healing potions also moved out of Alchemy. So a Classic professions guide is only a partial map, and this one sticks to what Blizzard's Forever posts and Warcraft Wiki's Forever recipe pages say about this version. Our first 10 levels guide covers your first trip to a trainer and the Camping 101 quests. This guide covers the next step: which two to keep and how to get them to 300.

Horde players camping at sunset, from Blizzard's WoW: Forever press screenshots.

The twelve professions and the two-slot rule

Blizzard's New Player's Starter Guide sorts Forever's professions into three groups. Each character can learn two primary professions and all three secondary ones.

The two-slot limit is the decision that sticks. Daniel, the librarian's assistant in Northshire Abbey who explains professions to new Alliance characters, spells out the cost of changing your mind: if you drop a primary profession, "the wealth of knowledge you gathered for it will be lost." Come back later and you train from the beginning and hunt down your old recipes again. The secondaries have no limit, so learn all three.

What Forever changes before you pick

Five changes matter for the choice itself:

• Only crafting earns Legacy Points. Blizzard's Legacy System post lists 18 Tradeskill points: reaching 150, 225 and 300 in each non-gathering primary profession, one point each. Herbalism, Mining and Skinning are not on the list. One character with two crafting professions can earn up to 6 of them, and Blizzard notes that reaching 150 in a crafting profession is one way to unlock the Legacy System in the first place.
• Healing potions belong to First Aid now. Per Warcraft Wiki, the standard healing potions from the Minor Healing Potion up to the Major Healing Potion are crafted with First Aid, not Alchemy. First Aid can also cleanse bleeds and diseases as well as poison. Alchemy still makes elixirs, flasks and other potions.
• Every profession has a campsite object. Blizzard's deep dive recap says each profession has three objects learned at different skill levels, and each one provides a buff or utility at a campsite. The first comes at skill 20, except Cooking's Basic Campfire Kit, which Warcraft Wiki lists at skill 1. The table further down lists them.
• Food is a leveling tool. Blizzard says crafted food can grant a small experience bonus. Warcraft Wiki puts it at +5% XP from kills for cooked foods in Forever.
• Tauren get a herb racial. In Forever, the Tauren racial Cultivation duplicates a nearby herb node, per Warcraft Wiki.

Best pairs by goal

Most good pairs are still a gathering profession next to the crafter it supplies. Warcraft Wiki's Forever profession pages name the natural partners, and Blizzard's Legacy rules add a reason to consider two crafters. Start from what you want the professions to do for you:

The Legacy row is new to Forever. To collect all 6 profession Legacy Points on one character, both of its primary slots must be crafting professions. Weigh that against the per-character cap: Blizzard's Legacy post says each character can spend up to 16 points at launch, and points also come from leveling, PvP, dungeons, raids and exploring.

Two hotfixes are worth knowing before you commit. On November 10, Blizzard made Engineering's Swiftstrike Shot and Swiftfeather Arrow tradable (they had been Bind-on-Pickup). Its note says they are not available until raids unlock, and that it flagged the change early "because it may influence profession choice." Once raids open, that means players who are not engineers can buy or trade for them. The same day, vendors started paying less for some crafted Leatherworking, Tailoring and Blacksmithing armor. Blizzard says those were Bind-on-Pickup pieces meant to be crafted once for yourself, so crafting those pieces to sell to vendors is no longer a gold plan. Our November 10-11 hotfix breakdown has the full list.

Leatherworking has one more choice later on. Per Warcraft Wiki, above skill 225 you can specialize: Dragonscale for mail, Elemental for agility leather, or Tribal for intellect leather.

What each profession adds to a campsite

A campfire and tent, from the Camping and Professions section of Blizzard's Forever deep dive recap.

Blizzard's deep dive recap explains the rules. A Basic Campfire takes up to three crafted objects from nearby players. Each player can add one, the objects share a one-hour cooldown, and the buffs are variants of class buffs that do not stack with them. Cooks can learn upgraded campfires that hold five or 10 objects. Warcraft Wiki's Camping page lists all of them. Here is the first-tier object for each profession. All of them need skill 20 except Cooking's Basic Campfire Kit, which needs only skill 1:

Higher tiers come from Blueprint drops from dungeon and raid bosses. Warcraft Wiki puts them at skill 140 and 300, and several are crafting stations, such as the Fermenter for Alchemy and the Spinning Wheel for Tailoring. Blizzard says the Tanning Rack is required for more advanced Leatherworking recipes. Two of those requirements have already changed since launch. The Tanning Rack now needs 125 Leatherworking (was 140), because the old requirement blocked patterns that need 125. The Journeyman Campfire Kit now needs Cooking 90 (was 140). Some known Tier 2 Blueprint drops, per the wiki:

The camp table is also a way to choose. If you plan to lead groups, a profession whose object covers a buff your group lacks is worth more than its gold value. A party with no Mage has no Arcane Intellect, and the Incense Candle's Intellect buff fills that gap.

How leveling works: ranks, colors and trainers

Every profession caps at 300 skill, in four ranks of 75: Apprentice (1-75), Journeyman (75-150), Expert (150-225) and Artisan (225-300). Blizzard's starter guide says profession trainers in starting areas and major cities teach the profession, its first recipes and the higher ranks "as your character level and profession skill increase." Warcraft Wiki says all four ranks of Mining, Herbalism, Skinning, Alchemy and Leatherworking are taught at trainers. If you cannot find a trainer, Blizzard says to ask a city guard.

How you gain skill is unchanged from Classic, per Warcraft Wiki. A recipe or node shows a difficulty color: orange always gives a skill point, yellow usually does, green rarely does and gray never does. Each profession has its own details:

• Herbalism. No tool needed; turn on Find Herbs. The wiki's route is Peacebloom and Silverleaf in the starting zones, Earthroot from 15, then Mageroyal, Briarthorn and the underwater Stranglekelp from about 70. After that, Bruiseweed and Wild Steelbloom from about 115, Kingsblood at 125 and Liferoot at 150.
• Mining. Carry a Mining Pick and turn on Find Minerals. Smelting ore into bars at a forge also raises Mining skill for some bars. Copper is green from 50 and gray at 100, and Tin starts at 65, so move up a tier when the color drops.
• Skinning. Keep a Skinning Knife in your bags. The skill a beast needs is set by its level, per the wiki: 1 skill for levels 1-10, (level - 10) x 10 for levels 11-20, and level x 5 from 21. A level 60 beast needs 300.
• Crafting professions. Craft the orange and yellow recipes. Blizzard is still tuning these. Its November 10 hotfixes made the Coarse Grinding Stone give Blacksmithing skill-ups until 90 (was 75).

The secondary professions past 150

The three secondaries work differently: their last two ranks come from vendors and quests, not trainers. Per Warcraft Wiki's Forever pages:

The wiki adds two Fishing notes. You only gain skill when you catch a fish, and the zone's difficulty does not change that. Fishing poles, lures and some Forever foods raise your effective skill for a while, and the wiki says lures are Fishing's only real cost. Forever's weekly Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza also changed: the first 50 players can now complete Master Angler, not just the first per realm.

Legacy perks that speed professions up

The Professions tab of the Legacy Tree. The screenshot shows 16 points available to spend, the per-character launch cap.

Legacy Points are account-wide, but each character spends them separately in its own trees. The Professions tree is where they speed leveling up. Blizzard's Legacy post lists its launch perks, and Warcraft Wiki gives the numbers:

Working Overtime is the obvious first buy for a character leveling professions. Bountiful Harvest only helps gatherers. Field Guide in the Adventure tree shortens the camp-object cooldown. In Resourcefulness, Reagent Economy makes tier 1 camp objects cost no reagents to craft. You can respec the trees at a class trainer.

Merchant's Favor and the high-end recipes

Forever brings back two supply factions from Season of Discovery: the Azeroth Commerce Authority at Three Corners in Redridge Mountains (Alliance) and Durotar Supply and Logistics west of the Crossroads in the Barrens (Horde). Per Warcraft Wiki, you loot supply crates out in the world, fill them with trade goods and hand them in for reputation and Merchant's Favor. Many new recipes are sold there, and the high-end ones cost Favor and have a reputation requirement. At 300 skill, a profession certification costs 1,000 Favor and comes with a title such as "the Alchemist."

This is a reason to keep a profession past the point where it helps you level. A lot of Forever's new recipes are not on any trainer.

What this guide does not cover

• Recipe-by-recipe leveling routes for the six crafting professions. Prices and recipe skill colors are still moving with hotfixes. Warcraft Wiki's Forever recipe pages list each profession's recipes by rank.
• Gold-per-hour rankings. Auction house prices differ by ruleset and faction and change daily. Any ranking would be a guess.
• Hardcore. It has not launched. Blizzard says Legacy Challenges in Hardcore will work differently when it does.
• Tier 3 camp Blueprints. Several of their drop sources are still blank on Warcraft Wiki.

For the classes these professions gear up, see our WoW: Forever classes guide.