Can u make money engineering?Follow

I've been skinning/mining for quite awhile now and have considered ditching skinning for engineering (make my own guns/ammo) because I'd imagine it would be fun to make stuff vs. just skinning the next mob and the next for 40 more levels. My problem is, that gathering combo has made me a lot of money. A LOT. I'd hate to lose that revenue stream as I make my way toward 40 with mount costs and requipping coming up. Also, I busted my butt getting to artisan skinning and am quite proud of the accomplishment. My concern is that as I level up mining revenue will probably stay steady (and prolly increase with mithril etc.) but skinning might have a point of diminishing returns. Any thoughts/suggestions would help with a toonlife-changing decision. Lol

Edited, Feb 10th 2007 9:43pm by Lathby

Thanks, I appreciate the frank advice. I had talked to a guildmate who said essentially the same thing. Actually he said, "Wait until you ding 40. Wait until you're requipped and mounted and then look at changing profs."

I had a chat with an engineer last week. (I'm an enchanter and we were both hawking our goods on the trade channel on a slow day). He told me that to make money off your engineering crafts, you need to sell on the trade channel. They absolutely don't sell on the AH. For example, he's selling the Ornate Spyglasses for 2G that day. While on the AH, you can buy the thing for 30-60s occasionally. To make money off engineering, you'd have to be prepared to waste time standing in a major city selling. Otherwise, just stick to mining for the money, and have engineering for fun. Or just keep skinning.

Completely agree with Morthandeus. You need to put in the effort to make money off trade. There is always a niche because so many people go the two gathering skills route. My first character is enchanting/herablism and I can afford a mount at level 40. If I can do it with enchanting, a very expensive craft skill, then you can do it with engineering too, I'm sure. And everyone keeps saying mining is the most profitable gathering skill right now.

Also, from my experience, skinning and herbalism won't make you very rich before level 40 either. My husband is skinning/tailoring, and he dropped skinning for alchemy at around level 35-40, since it's making so little for the effort he put in. I think he is only getting 30s for 20 heavy leather. Maybe it gets better when you get better leather. Same with herbalism, I stopped collecting around the mid 30s since it's a waste of time (until we picked up alchemy). We found that we earn far more by doing Gnomeregan runs instead of doing herb/skin runs :) Besides Gnomeregan is a stone throw from Ironforge, and we don't have to travel far for runs. By the way, we are casual players so we don't have hours on end to farm or gather.

Also selling on the trade channel is less work than you might imagine at first. Don't spam the channel. You don't need an ad every minute. I just have an ad macro which I use everytime I get to Stormwind or Ironforge. However, I do spend a lot of time in the AH :) If I get a whisper while at the AH, I'll do the enchant, otherwise, there's always next time.

Great job,Morthandeus, rateup.

There is something to be said about a person who can look past the obvious, and pull the truth from a sea of ignorance. Every time I see a "It costs so much" post I cringe. this is like the fools who bought a PS3 on ebay for a grand, then saying that it was realy expensive. Well If you choose to level the trade the most expensive way, sure it will be pricy, but if you choose to look in to the craft, you will see that it is a flood of cash, yet only to those willing to actualy work it.

Now i agree and disagree at this one...

I agree that the skill has some items that you can make an honest earning off of. No question about that, but its highly limited.

The guns are great for people looking to upgrade, your right, but most people would rather get a gun/bow in other ways, than collect mats/find someone able to make the gun (Plus, most people dont realize that engineers can make guns in the first place, the honest truth sucks!) -
Scopes can earn decent $$ IF you have the schematics -
I honestly thought the salt shaker would sell well, but honestly, I made 5 when i was leveling through that point, and I still have 2 and its been over 6 months since i made them -
The quest items are all well and good to make $$, but once again that falls under need, and if no ones looking for the quest then there is no $$ earned -

If your someone like me, who doesnt have the schematics to these higher level items to craft your basically stuck. I think the real key here, is engineering can be a great way to earn $$ IF you can get the schematics.

You need to keep in mind:
Leveling the craft can be unbearable, and very costly. I have found that I have no use for the items I crafted, and I couldnt even sell 1/2 of them.

I would have to say, take this craft if you like gadgets and want to have fun. Otherwise, I wouldnt pick this craft up as a moneymaker (thats just not what its made for), Your best to keep with the two you have now.

You can make guns, Scopes and Bombs and more. Although alot of the engineering made items can only be used by engineers. So yea. People buy bombs for Pvp, so they are quite popular.

I dont know wat to do.Im a lvl 18 swiching through proffessions.My skill in mining is about 130,my engineering skill like 35(lol).I just read throught all the post up here.I dont know wat proffession to stay on for money!Can someone tell wats best??(I'd really apprecite it.)

Capitolg hit the nail on the head. Based on reading the forums here, my 2nd dude that I made went skinning/mining. I am now level 40 and have ~140G and that is with doing nothing more than normal questing and skinning the critters that I have killed or found dead and mining whatever ore happens to pop up no my mini map. I have never logged on simply to run around searching for mineral veins and farm *insert mineral here*. Two gathering skills equal $$$$ and fishing as well but I just can't fish. Didn't even buy a fishing pole this time.

To top it of, I am a warlock so my mount cost 99 silver for the skill....had to rub that in for those of you who have to buy their mount:)

zebug, 140g at level 40 is nothing to be proud of if you have 2 gathering skills. I have that with herbalism and enchanting. I think skinning is not as profitable as many claims.

I've never done skinning, but from my observation it appears that skinning might not be as profitable as some of the others early on, but catches up later.

Sometimes I feel like a broken record,
you can choose to make leveling the trade expensive


I was able to level this gap for the amazing price of Free, using Mana Potion Injector, acutaly it got me a little past 360, where i started making Felsteel Boomstick and capped out at 375. Was it in a "Timely Fasion"? most likely not, but I surely did not spend thousands of gold.

Sorry, if I'd known about the guy who gives you 200 Super Mana pots for nothing, I'd have used your method too. As it is, I could have bought them from the AH, and guess what? Same figure pops up, approximately 1000g.



Well, the good news first, thanks for finding a recipe with easier mats.

Bad news: Felsteel Boomstick is still a (estimated) 1% drop from 5 highly contested mobs that don't spawn especially quickly.

Bad News 2: Assuming a skill up for every one crafted, you can reach 375 Eng with this recipe with the following mats:

900 Adamantite Ore.
480 Eternium Ore.
840 Fel Iron Ore.

I will leave it to the individual reader as to the feasibility of gathering these materials and the recipe on a high pop server.

My intention is not to diss Engineering, I love it and wouldn't change it for the world. My intention is to point out, that unless you have superhuman amounts of patience and free time, maxing engineering will cost you money. Caveat Emptor, as they used to say :o)


Edited, Feb 16th 2007 4:55pm by Eschatologist