easiest skill to levelFollow

Skinning is the easiest skill to level. Period. I have no idea why you are thinking of dropping it, since (absent leatherworking) it will always make you money.

I'm not going to make any other recomendations, since every other trade skill depends on the amount of effort put into it. By the title of your post, you appear to want to put none. Additionally, you didn't mention your class - some tradeskills just don't make sense for some classes, and ease of levelling would mean absolutely nothing.

If only that were true I might agree. I have a level 24 warlock tailor who can can craft some good mageweave items that I would love to send to my mage and priest but they are BOP. 24 is long way away from 70. I did have my main send higher cloth than the warlock could normally obtain at that level and the item (robes of power) is for levels above 24 but still way shy of 70. I don't have a leatherworker or a high level blacksmith so I don't know at what level the BOP items start to be made with those crafts. The one main craft skill that really doesn't matter what class you are is alchemy, because everyone can use potions.
If the BOP restriction was lifted from crafted items then we could probably have a situation where class was unimportant(and make some real money from crafting).

I’m one of those players who maps out which char/class/race will do what skills, way before I even create the char. Eg, gnomes get +engineering skill, draenei get +enchanting..or something like that..maybe it was +jewelcraft. Either way, the idea is that for many players, it does indeed matter which class or race does some skill.

The previous posts named some perfect examples. BOE items are no problem. Anyone can make a bag (via tailoring) because everyone needs a bag. But why would a warrior work up rep and skill to make BOP tailored items? In such a case, it only makes sense to use a class that can use the gear.

Also some players choose class skills to benefit a trade skill. A stealthing rogue or druid makes a great miner or enchanter, especially going into instances and kill bosses for loot. The rogue may not be the best choice for for blacksmithing, but jewelcrafting or engineering would be fine.

So while there’s no argument that boe recipes and items can be used to benefit anyone, the main things to consider are bop recipes or items you make that are bop.


I’m one of those players who maps out which char/class/race will do what skills, way before I even create the char. Eg, gnomes get +engineering skill, draenei get +enchanting..or something like that..maybe it was +jewelcraft. Either way, the idea is that for many players, it does indeed matter which class or race does some skill.

The previous posts named some perfect examples. BOE items are no problem. Anyone can make a bag (via tailoring) because everyone needs a bag. But why would a warrior work up rep and skill to make BOP tailored items? In such a case, it only makes sense to use a class that can use the gear.

Also some players choose class skills to benefit a trade skill. A stealthing rogue or druid makes a great miner or enchanter, especially going into instances and kill bosses for loot. The rogue may not be the best choice for for blacksmithing, but jewelcrafting or engineering would be fine.

So while there’s no argument that boe recipes and items can be used to benefit anyone, the main things to consider are bop recipes or items you make that are bop.

I found all the gathering skills to be easy…skinning, herb, mining, but skinning does have the benefit of getting worked up while questing.

And then you find yourself as, for example, level 70 mage with 350ish LW? What then? Every OL quest will give you more cash than anything you can make and sell, but you spent lots of gold, time and effort on leveling your useless skill.

So, drop it all and spend some more gold, time and effort on leveling something else from the start?

I dropped herbalism that was supporting my alchemy to get tailoring for my lock, and I can tell you its not easy or cheap to level new tradeskill from the beggining even when you are 70.
I dont dream about dropping any of my 375/375 alchemy/tailoring again. Its here to stay.

I do have some other weird combinations of classes and tradeskills, but those are alts I made specially for certain purposes. Like warrior with enchanting - she is DEing all crap greens I gather on my other toons and selling mats.
I have lvl 10 lock with LW too just to put up all the scraps into leather and sell them for bit more in AH.

Those toons are my bank toons but have tradeskills maxed for their level because thats what suits me....... but I would suggest you think bit more about what tradeskill you want to raise on your main.

There seems to be a strong debate as to what proffession is right, but the question really is, what do you want to do with it? Are you trying to make money, or are you trying to make gear?

My main is a level 41 rogue and has been skinning/leatherworking since day one. I am currently making stuff that exceeds my ability to wear, and I have pretty much made most of my armor, with the few exceptions of stuff I found that was better. I have many alts: pally (mining/smith), warlock (tailor/enchant), druid (herb/alch), hunter (mine/jc), mage (mine/engineer) and priest (mine/skin). All of my alts were created so that I would have all the tradeskills covered. I didn't want to pay 2g for elixers, so I made an alchemist, I didn't want to wait for iron buckles to show up on AH, so I made a smith. 36g for a salt shaker? I made an engineer. My approach was to be soley self reliant.

I do too. I have a bunch of low level alts who have odd combinations of crafting and gathering professions. It would have been nice if I'd planned it out beforhand but I didn't know that I'd get tired of my Dwarf miner/engineer and have a higher level miner who could send my Dwarf all the mats she needs for her engineering so my Dwarf dropped mining for enchanting and now I have something to do with all those low-level greens that I can't hardly give away at the AH.

As far as the high level crafted BoPs go, I figure that once I decide to take a character to those levels, then I can decide whether or not to change professions. My lowbie leatherworking Mage may make it to level 70 someday (but not anytime soon) but I have enough skinners that I could just drop her skinning for tailoring and she would just have to rely on my other characters to supply her with leather.

While my main is currently a blacksmith/miner, I may eventually get other characters maxed out in mining and my main could drop mining for another profession like enchanting, jewelcrafting or engineering and still have a good supply of 'free' materials to work with.



As far as the original question goes, I think that skinning is by far the easiest profession to level. It is the one profession that you can level without taking time away from your normal questing/leveling activities. Herbalism and mining are both semi-easy to level but you will find times where you need to take the time and go out seeking the nodes to skill up on. All of the gathering professions are cheap to level though and they are the ones that make the most profit for you as well.

For the crafting professions, it's important to have a cheap source of materials to level up on so you need to have the matching gathering skill on that character (or on an alt) to supply the mats. For tailoring and enchanting, you don't need a gathering skill to collect the needed mats. I think all of the crafting professions get to a point where it gets pretty expensive and/or time-consuming to get the mats to level up on or for the related quests (that can get you more patterns/recipes).

Well i wouldnt say there are class specific, you need to do this, proffs., but do what you think will benefit yur character. I mean i took skinning/leatherworking, because as a hunter i have to kill beasts for meat, and why not skin them while im doing it. Yet around 30-40 i completely didnt do my proffs, so even at level 47 i got 293 skinning, and 131 lw =(. So remeber to be constant in the upbringing of yur proffesions, they become quite handy later on. ^_- So dont make the mistake i did, now im going threw a crisis trying to figure out the expenses ill get to get to 300, and whether to choose dragonscale(for armor for hunter) or elemental(uber cash). =(

Edited, Jun 15th 2007 4:29am by Walalasumi

quite...i mean skinning and herb are my skills atm and i can say i owe alot to them...bought me my epic flying :) but if i ever max out a skill...340 skinning , 320 herb, i wouldnt drop it for anything :)