WoW Classic Professions Overview

Professions in World of Warcraft Classic are exclusive trade skills or crafts that a character can train in, regardless of race or class. Professions can be leveled up to a maximum skill level of 300, and provide a character with a multitude of benefits, including the ability to create gear, items, or make gold.

View our list of WoW Classic profession guides!

Types of Professions

In total, there are 12 professions. A single character may learn any 2 primary professions at a time, and all 3 of the secondary professions. The types of professions that are available to a player are:

• Crafting Professions: Crafting professions are probably what comes to mind when you think of professions. Crafters can create gear and items that can be used for your character or sold on the auction house for gold.
• Gathering Professions: these professions often work with crafting professions by allowing the player to obtain the necessary materials for crafting. Gathered items can also be sold on the auction house for gold.

Primary Professions

A primary profession is a gathering or crafting profession. A single character can learn up to 2 primary professions at a time.

Gathering Professions

Gathering professions allow a character to collect materials that are found throughout the world. Players can use the materials collected from a gathering profession to level a crafting profession, or they can sell the materials on the auction house for gold.

• Herbalism: Acquiring the herbalism skill allows the player to harvest herbs, flowers, and plants found throughout Azeroth. Herbs are frequently used in Alchemy.
• Mining: Learning the mining profession allows a character to use a mining pick to mine mineral deposits or veins found in the world for ore, gems or stones. Miners can also use forges to smelt collected ore into bars of metal. Materials collected from mining are primarily used in recipes for Blacksmithing and Engineering.
• Skinning: The skinning profession allows the player to use a skinning knife on corpses that have been looted, and that are marked as skinnable. Skinning a corpse produces hide, leather and scales. Materials collected from Skinning are commonly used in the Leatherworking profession.

Crafting Professions

Crafting professions create unique items and gear that provide benefit to players. When playing end-game content, many of the items and gear created by the crafting professions provide substantial benefits, and can be sold on the auction house as a strategy for making gold.

• Alchemy: Alchemists use herbs and reagents to craft powerful potions, elixirs, flasks oils, and other liquid alchemical substances. Craftables are stored in vials or flasks. Higher-level alchemists can learn transmutation, which allows the alchemist to convert metals and essences into other substances. Alchemists can specialize as a Master of Potions, Master of Elixirs or a Master of Transmutation, which provides additional bonuses to those crafting skills. They can also create Arcanite Bars, exclusively created by the Alchemist, making it a lucrative choice.
• Blacksmithing: Blacksmiths can craft metal weapons, mail, and plate armor as well as various trade goods such as keys, shield-spikes and weapon chains. In addition, blacksmiths can make items from stone to provide temporary weapon buffs. A unique benefit of becoming a blacksmith is that they can add a socketed gem to one-handed weapons, bracers, and gloves, which provides useful stat bonuses. Blacksmiths can choose to specialize as an Armorsmith or a Weaponsmith.
• Enchanting: Enchanters are known for their ability to imbue items with various bonuses. Using magical dust, essences, and shards, Enchanters can add attributes, powers, and properties to gear. Enchanters can also “disenchant” items to extract regents for enchantments. Enchantments are considered necessary when playing end-game content, and enchanters can apply special enchantments to their own gear that provides powerful bonuses.
• Engineering: Engineers are masters of tinkering. They create mechanical devices such as trinkets, guns, ammunition, goggles, and explosives! Many of the recipes are unconventional and showcase the wackier side of the crafting professions – but unfortunately, most engineering items can only be used by the engineer themselves. Items are crafted using metals, minerals, gems, and stone. Specializations include Goblin or Gnomish Engineering, both of which provide unique recipes.
• Leatherworking: Leatherworkers use leathers, hides, scales, threads, and salts to craft leather armor and armor kits. Leatherworkers commonly craft gear for Rogues, Hunters, Druids, and Shamans and can specialize in Elemental Leatherworking, Dragonscale Leatherworking, and Tribal Leatherworking.
• Tailoring: Tailors are the makers of cloth goods, including cloth armor and bags. In addition, Tailors can weave raw cloth items into bolts of cloth. A unique ability of the Tailor is to create magical threads that imbue special bonuses onto the items they are attached to. Tailors can specialize in Mooncloth Tailoring or Shadoweave Tailoring, which allows them to create exclusive cloth necessary for high-level crafting.

Secondary Professions

Secondary professions are professions that can be leveled by any character, regardless of whether or not they have already acquired two primary professions. A single character can level all of the secondary professions in addition to their primary professions.

• Cooking: Learning the cooking profession allows players to create food items that can be consumed to provide temporary buffs that increase stats and give passive abilities. Cooking requires a campfire.
• First Aid: Learning the first aid profession allows the player to create bandages and poison-cleansing anti-venoms. This profession is especially useful for classes that are not able to heal themselves. Bandages can be used to restore health either on the player or on a target player within the same faction.
• Fishing: Fishing is a gathering-like profession that allows the player to use a fishing pole to gather fish from bodies of waters such as lakes, rivers, and oceans. Fish can be eaten raw, or be used in cooking recipes.

Proficiencies and Leveling

When a new profession is acquired, it starts at skill level 1. The maximum skill level for World of Warcraft Classic professions is 300. To level a profession, a character crafts items until their skill level becomes too high. The color of the item will indicate how likely it is that crafting that item will grant a skill level.

• Orange: An orange recipe has a 100% chance of granting a skill level.
• Yellow: A yellow recipe will grant skill levels frequently
• Green: A green recipe will grant skill levels infrequently.
• Grey: A grey recipe will never grant skill levels.

A character must continue to train in proficiencies to continue gaining skill levels. There are 4 levels of proficiency that a character may obtain.

• Apprentice:
• • A character must be level 5 to learn a primary profession.
  • Apprentice level proficiency is from skill level 1-75.

• Journeyman:
  • A character must be level 10 to train in Journeyman proficiency.
  • You may train in Journeyman level skills once reaching 50 skill.
  • A character may progress to 150 skill level under Journeyman proficiency.

• Expert:
  • A character must be level 20 to train in Expert proficiency.
  • You may train in Expert level skills once reaching 125 skill.
  • A character may progress to 225 skill under expert proficiency.

• Artisan:
  • A character must be level 35 to train in Artisan proficiency.
  • At 200 skill, you may begin training the in artisan proficiency.
  • You will need to find a unique profession trainer in order to train in Artisan professions proficiency.
  • You may reach the maximum skill level of 300 under the artisan proficiency.
  • Once reaching Artisan proficiency and obtaining level 40, a character may gain the ability to choose a specialization in their profession, if available. Choosing a specialization is not required, and cannot be reversed.