In this guide we’re going to be talking about how to Choose Profession in WoW TBC. This guide is massive, we’ve got all professions – primary and secondary and all of the specializations. TBC brought some welcome changes: depending on what profession you chose you have benefits exclusive to you and your profession. This includes Jewelcrafting-only gems, bind on pickup items and the consolidation of consumables.
There’s no more Dire Maul buffs, Songflowers, Ony and Hakkar buffs and changing layers, not to mention being online when they drop. It’s much more streamlined to prepare for raiding in TBC – just grab some food, two flasks and you’re pretty much ready to raid. This means that professions are where it’s at for getting ready for raids!
In total there are three secondary professions and 10 primary professions. You can only have two primary professions and there are no limits to how many secondary professions you can have. Jewelcrafting is the new profession in TBC and it is really really cool. Let’s talk about the secondary professions first, because they are the most straightforward.
When forming this guide, we were inspired by the experience and knowledge of an expert TBC player – Toyhouze. Toyhouze Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Toyhouze/. He has a lot of useful video guides on his channel for both young and experienced players. Be sure to watch the video on his channel to get the maximum knowledge about the game and the tips in the WoW TBC Classic.
First Aid
So First Aid is one of the three secondary professions available to all players in WoW. For players who don’t have healing spells or who aren’t also undertaking Alchemy as a profession the bandages like Heavy Netherweave bandage created by First Aid are among the best ways to heal yourself in battle or while out in the world without food. Overall due to the low number of materials necessary to level it First Aid is a wonderful skill for everyone to have capped. It will help with leveling even more with classes that lack sustain like warriors and rogues, but other classes can find it handy – like warlocks who life tap or want to heal their demon pet without using Health Funnel, out of mana paladins can also bubble bandage.
Since it doesn’t count toward your professional limit every class should learn First Aid. In TBC there are two new bandages: Netherweave and Heavy Netherweave bandage. The trainers for both Horde and Alliance to become a master and pass 300 First Aid are in Hellfire Peninsula – they sell you the master first aid book and the manuals for the two new types of bandages, so we’d recommend you just pick up all three when you get to Outland.
Fishing
Fishing is one of the most time consuming but rewarding professions in WoW. It’s pretty awesome, it’s a lot of fun and there’s a lot of flavor in TBC. As a master fisherman you can earn or catch numerous rare companion pets like Magical Crawdad and Toothy, you’ll also be able to catch fish that are used in important endgame cooking recipes like Huge Spotted Feltail for Fisherman’s Feast or Enormous Barbed Gill Trout for Hot Buttered Trout which are all really valuable raid consumables. You can also fish up gems, gear and fishing also provides reagents for other professions like Alchemy.
| Skill Required to Cast | Skill Required to Stop Getaways | Zones |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 25 | Azuremyst Isle, Dun Morogh, Durotar, Elwynn Forest, Eversong Woods, Mulgore, Teldrassil, Trisfal Glades |
| 1 | 75 | The Barrens, Blackfathom Deeps, Bloodmyst Isle, Darkshore, Darnassus, The Deadmines, Ghostlands, Ironforge, Loch Modan, Orgrimmar, Silverpine Forest, Stormwind City, Thunder Bluff, Undercity, The Wailing Caverns, Westfall |
| 50 | 150 | Ashenvale, Duskwood, Hillsbrad Foothills, Redridge Mountains, Stonetalon Mountains, Westlands |
| 130 | 225 | Alterac Mountains, Arathi Highlands, Desolance, Dustwallow Marsh, Scarlet Monastery, Strangelthorn Vale, Swamp of Sorrows, Thousand Needles |
| 205 | 300 | Azshara, Felwood, Feralas, The Hinterlands, Maraudon, Moonglade, Stranglethorn Vale, Tanaris, The Temple of Atal’Hakkar, Un’Goro Crater, Western Plaguelands |
| 280 | 375 | Hellfire Peninsula, Nagrand, Shadowmoon Valley |
| 305 | 400 | Zangarmash East |
| 330 | 425 | Azshara, Burning Steppes, Deadwind Pass, Eastern Plaguelands, Feralas, Scholomance, Silithus, Stratholme, Winterspring, Zul’Aman, Zul’Gurub |
| 355 | 450 | Terokkar Forest, Zangarmash West |
| 395 | 490 | Nagrand (Lake Sunsping and Skysong Lake Only) |
| 405 | 500 | Terokkar Forest (Blackwind Lake, Lake Ere’Noru, Lake Jorune and Silmyr Lake) |
This table will show you how much fishing skill you need to cast in certain zones and what skill you need to prevent the annoying “fish got away”. We’ve included all zones from skill 1 all the way to max. The biggest takeaway for TBC fishing from this graph is if you want to fish beyond the Dark Portal you’re going to need at least 280 fishing skills. When you head to Outland you can learn how to get your fishing past 300 from the book you buy from the Cenarion Refuge in Zangarmarsh. There are also fishing daily quests that reward you with a bag of fishing treasures which can give you a wide range of items and also some other fishing items which are kind of fun. Fishing, like first aid, doesn’t count toward your profession limit, so it’s worth picking up for all classes.
Cooking
Cooking is most known for the well-fed buff which increases your stats based on whatever food you ate. The benefits are myriad, and there is the potential to make profit from selling rarer food buffs on the auction house to those without the recipe or the skills. Cooking has helpful recipes to help while leveling and endgame and provides amazing raid buffs. Smoked Sagefish is one that is amazing while leveling, it gives you Mp5, it also is brain food which means it gives you both health and mana back while you eat it, so it’s a nice one for leveling.
If you’re thinking about leveling fishing then definitely consider leveling cooking at the same time because they really complement each other, as you catch the fish you can cook them and you’re leveling both professions at the same time. So in TBC the master cookbook will allow you to level up your cooking to a new max of 375 and it is sold by Baxter in Thrallmar for the Horde and Gaston for the Alliance in Honor Hold. Because cooking is a secondary profession like the other ones we talked about all players regardless of class or faction should level it to 375.
Mining
Mining is one of the most essential gathering professions in WoW, it involves extracting ore from mineral nodes throughout the zones and it provides reagents for Blacksmithing, Engineering and Jewelcrafting. You can see why it’s so valuable. These nodes are found using the miner’s basic ability “Find Minerals”, it shows node spawns on your minimap.
Mining is hugely popular and it can certainly be a big gold maker in TBC for the reagents it provides to multiple professions, so Mining can be profitable by either selling stacks of ore or smelting bars and selling those. So in TBC it’s important to know which is more valuable because of Jewelcrafting’s prospecting which also destroys ore to find gems, so definitely take a look at your service prices to know if you should be smelting it before you sell it or just sell the ore.
No matter what you plan on going Mining for it being a great profession for any class, so once you’re in Outland competition for veins is going to become much tougher, there’s fewer zones and flying mounts decreases at the time it takes to do your farming routes and reach the nodes. Fel iron can be found by making circuits in any zone but the two most advisable are Hellfire peninsula and Terokkar forest. Hellfire is useful because it has the highest number of node spawns and Terokkar is especially worthwhile for power leveling because you can quickly move to Nagrand to start collecting adamantite.
Adamantite is rarer than fel iron and will be the last mineral you’ll need to gather to cap. Like thorium there’s two types – standard and rich, and like the previous rich veins there is a difference of 25 skill levels between when you can gather normal and rich deposits to efficiently collect both. The optimal zone is Nagrand making complete circuits around the location, it should be enough to reach 350 but once you start looking for rich deposits specifically you’ll need to focus on your route. The nodes effectively spawn in a ring, and you should be able to streamline your hunt if you make a circle passing through Sunspring post down to the encampment just south of forge camp, here we continue around Oshu’gun to south to Kilsarro fortress and then following the eastern border of the zone up through Burning blade ruins, eventually passing around Garadar and returning to Sunspring. Once you’ve gathered enough you should be capped.
Now we’re going to talk about two endgame ores in TBC – Khorium ore and Eternium ore.
Khorium ore is essential to end game crafting in TBC, high-level Blacksmithing and engineering patterns require Khorium bars and high-level gems are prospected from the ore itself. The nodes to gather it are Khorium veins which can be found in all zones of Outlands. To farm most effectively, however, the two best zones are Nagrand and the Isle of Quel’danas. While Khorium technically spawns the most in Zangarmarsh we’d say that the size of the zone makes it a bit ineffective to farm. Instead in Nagrand widen your rich adamantite route to include twilight ridge and make sure to pass by the ring of trials and we think that’ll be better, otherwise the route is pretty similar. The Isle of Quel’danas is particularly useful to visit because of its small size, though there are fewer veins here than some other zones, completing a circuit around will take a fraction of the time compared to the others.
Eternium ore is a rare drop available from all nodes in Outland, out of these however higher level deposits like Khorium veins, Adamantite deposits and Rich Adamantite deposits all have a shared high drop chance, so because of this you can’t specifically farm for Eternium.
Blacksmithing
There’s quite a bit of changes to Blacksmithing. TBC Blacksmithing is basically allowing players to create their own mail and plate armor as well as two-handed maces, axes and swords, one and two-handed. So while in vanilla Blacksmiths were able to craft a number of high-value endgame recipes Blizzard has really expanded on that in TBC -your range of gear that you can create that is good is much bigger. Most smiths choose Mining as their gathering profession as together with Blacksmithing it has a huge potential, it also has a huge price tag especially if you choose to buy all your materials on the auction house, so this combination is suitable for most classes that wear plate and mail armor regardless of spec. Though it’s especially beneficial for tanks and melee dps, we’d really only recommend Paladins and Warriors learn Blacksmithing because of the abundance of plate gear in Blacksmithing but if you really really really wanted to, there are a few items for rogues and enhancement shamans in Blacksmithing but it’s generally not recommended for those two classes.
With Blacksmithing cap they’ll be able to craft gear like Bulwark of the Ancient Kings and Embrace of the Twisting Nether or weapons like Bloodmoon, Dragonstrike and Blazefury as well as a vast number of boe epics like Oathkeeper’s Helm and Hammer of Righteous Might. When it comes to leveling Blacksmithing since patch 2.3 Blizzard streamlined the process for training pretty much all professions, so as a result of that trainers in any major capital city can teach you from apprentice all the way through artisan. That is awesome because the only recipes you’ll need to acquire before heading to Outland are in Gadgetzan. It would be probably easier for you to train in a capital in Kalimdor if you’re powerleveling but you can do it however you want,
Once you cross through the Dark Portal the master Blacksmithing trainers will be in your faction’s first outpost in Hellfire Peninsula. There are also additional trainers from both the Aldor and Scryers in Shattrath.
Let’s talk about the specializations – Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing. From vanilla to TBC we would say that the value of Armorsmithing has increased and Weaponsmithing has gained three sub specializations to choose from: axe smithing, hammersmithing and swordsmithing. We would personally recommend Armorsmithing to Paladins, Shamans and Warriors, Swordsmithing wise all melee classes could go, obviously a rogue should not go Blacksmithing and then choose axe smithing 🙂 We don’t think that’s the greatest choice because rogues cannot use axes in the Burning Crusade
Engineering
Engineering is one of the more unique professions in World of Warcraft, it uses metal bars to create parts which are then used to create useful inventions like the Field Repair Bot 110g. Engineers are also able to make ranged weapons like Ornate Khorium rifle and the ammunition for them like adamantite shells. Once engineers cap they gain the ability to make a piece of profession specific epic headgear like hard khorium goggles. These are really strong.
When it comes to training once you reach Outland your master trainer will be at your faction’s first questing area in Hellfire Peninsula. The neutral trainer is not in Shattrath – instead all players can find Zyrol at Area 52 in Netherstorm. As a complimentary gathering profession most engineers choose Mining due to the high number of metal bars and fair amount of gems required to reach the cap, otherwise purchasing all materials materials to level engineering can get really costly considering that Engineering is going to be sharing these same materials with Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting and all classes can benefit from engineering regardless of spec. Any class can learn it, especially given the addition of those epic helms in this expansion which are very powerful.
TBC also added flying mounts and engineers can actually create their own flying machines so both Flying Machine Control and Turbocharged Flying Machine Control are recipes learned from trainers, so that’s also another added benefit if you want a very unique flying mount.
There aren’t any new specializations for Engineering in TBC but there are new items for each of the two already existing specializations – Gnomish and Goblin engineering. If you want to quickly go to the engineering trainer goblin engineering will probably have easier access to that trainer. We would say goblin is for PvP but really both specializations have things to offer, Gnomish generally is considered to have better trinkets and also take into mind the difference in teleport locations – so the ultra safe transporter for Gnomish brings you to Toshley’s station and the Dimensional Ripper for goblin engineering will bring you to Area 52.
Jewelcrafting
Once you reach Outland, to train master Jewelcrafting it’s similar to the other professions – your trainers are going to be in your faction’s first town which is going to be Honor Hold for Alliance and Thrallmar for Horde. There’s also plenty of neutral trainers all across Outland!
What’s awesome about Jewelcrafting is that it’s a new profession in TBC. It involves cutting gems to put them into gear or using them to craft rings, necklaces, trinkets. In order to find these gems Jewelcrafters need to use their main skill – Prospecting – on any ore which destroys it in the process in order to search for these gems. Once you cap your Jewelcrafting you’ll be able to craft really awesome gems. Because of all the ore needed to create bars and find gems Mining again is the most complementary gathering profession a Jewelcrafter can choose. If you don’t just know that splitting materials with Blacksmithing and Engineering can potentially raise the cost of metal bars in your server.
Finally Jewelcrafting is suitable for all classes and races, given its potential to buff players of all builds, so it’s worth noting that Jewelcrafting has Jewelcrafting-only gems, so like some of the other professions there are some things that will benefit just you for going those professions. These gems are bind on pickup – once you cut these gems, only you can use them, and they are stronger versions of other gem cuts. That’s something that is really really cool about TBC – depending on what profession you choose you have benefits exclusive to you from your profession.
Herbalism
Herbs gathered act as the primary reagents in Alchemy so these two are usually combined together. Elsewhere herbs are sometimes used in Enchanting, Cooking, Engineering and various other professions. Because Alchemy is suitable for all classes so is herbalism, and as the profession takes place across every zone there is really no specific race that benefits more or has an easier time leveling it.
We have found that blood elves get a ton of blood thistle in their starting zone, so maybe they have a slight edge of having an easier time leveling that – however out of all of the zones we would say that Zangarmarsh is the easiest to consistently level your herbalism in TBC. It has great biodiversity and mobs like Bog Lord that act as an herbalism node after it’s been defeated. You can also make complete circuits or focus on specific areas like the northwest corner around Marshlight Lake and Ango’rosh Grounds and also around Umbrafen lake.
Out of all the herbs that have an individual node one or two we would say are the most important – Manathistle and Fel Lotus. These two reagents are used in a number of highly useful endgame Alchemy creations as well as a couple of elixirs. The most nodes are in Terokkar Forest above Shatrath and around Skettls. The zone with the second most is Nagrand where they’re around Twilight ridge and near the border with Terokkar. The other one we mentioned is Fel Lotus, it’s used in making powerful flasks and flasks are super powerful in TBC because their effects persist through death.
Alchemy
Alchemy is the profession where you’re gonna be using the herbs from Herbalism to craft potions and elixirs, or using stones and reagents to convert one material into another – known as transmutting.
Alchemy is essential for high level raiding and PvP, as the potions and elixirs are some of the strongest buffs available in the game, there’s tons of resistance potions, there’s just amazing buff elixirs, all sorts of raid consumables. They’re absolutely vital for completing certain dungeons and raids, as well the materials Alchemists can create are necessary for almost all end game crafting.
To learn Master you’ll find your trainer in your faction’s first questing area in Hellfire Peninsula. Both sell multiple recipes you’re going to need.
Overall Alchemy is suitable for all classes, especially with the addition of endgame trinkets for almost all roles. In TBC most players choose to also take up Herbalism as their gathering profession, as purchasing all the herbs for your concoctions are going to be super costly if you’re just constantly going to the auction house buying whatever you need. From transmutations to elixirs, flasks, potions we would say Alchemy has probably one of the highest value creations, so we definitely recommend Alchemy if you haven’t done it before to just look at all the amazing stuff that you can create
Skinning
Skinning is the use of a skinning knife to basically skin either beasts, dragonkins or demons. Skinning is most often paired with leatherworking, the materials can be used for other professions but by far it is most often used with leatherworking because the two are basically perfect together. Skinning also has a pretty good gold making potential, you can sell lots of different hides that you find and they’re quite valuable because of the amazing craftable BoE epics that are added in TBC. Selling high level leather is really a very profitable thing to do.
To become a master skinner you need to meet a trainer in Honor Hold or Thrallmar. Also all players can learn it in Shattrath, but there’s really no reason to learn from him, we’d recommend learning in Gellfire so you can start leveling your skinning right when you are in the first zone. Another benefit with skinning is that it really nicely integrates with leveling, you can really easily level this profession while you’re leveling your character – you can just skin the creatures you’re already killing for leveling, so there’s no need to go out of your way to level this gathering profession. You can just integrate it nicely with what you’re already doing. However this makes it a very popular profession and can eventually drive down prices, if there’s just too much supply to meet up with demand.
To level up your skinning in Outland we’d recommend starting in Hellfire Peninsula doing the highlighted routes, then once you’re 330 continue leveling skinning, and at 350 farm the netherdrakes and Blade’s Edge mountains to cap off at 375. When it comes to skinning there are three reagents that are high value to look for, probably actually we’d say maybe four. Basically these reagents make very powerful items , we’re just going to be talking about a few of these very valuable reagents.
One of them is the Nether Dragon scales which are skinned from drakes and worms throughout Outland and the easiest places to find high concentrations of these are Netherstorm or Blade’s edge mountains. Felhides are most often found on elite demons or dungeons but also can be skinned from non-elite mobs, one of the easiest ways to farm it is to head to Manaforge Duro, another non-elite farm-friendly mob is Daggertail Lizard in Blade’s edge mountains.
Felscales – these are important for mainly crafting epic quality mail gear, it has a higher drop chance from skinning than most of the other end game materials and it can easily be farmed by flying through the northern part of Blade’s Edge mountains and skinning the various types of basilisks throughout the zone.
Next one we’re sure is no surprise – Thick Clefthoof leather is one of the unique kinds of leather necessary to craft endgame gear in TBC. It’s primarily skinned from clefthoofs.
The rarest of the materials that we’ve listed out has to be Cobra Scales, because cobra scales can actually only be skinned from three different mobs this can make farming them a little bit more challenging. Two of the mobs – Coilstar Cobra and Shadow Serpent both spawn on the northern ridge of Shadowmoon Valley making that the best spot to gather them, the other twilight serpent only spawned in Nagrand on Twilight Ridge so if one spot is over farmed you can go and check out the other one.
Leatherworking
Leatherworking in TBC has some new BoP and BoE recipes and specialized gear. Skinning is the only profession that is able to gather the necessary materials for leatherworking, so most players opt to pair the two. In terms of class and specialization leatherworking is suitable for all leather and mail wearers. You can find master trainers in Hellfire Peninsula – for the Alliance you’ll learn it from Brahman at Honor Hold, Barim Spilthoof will do the same for the Horde at Thrallmar, and all players can also be trained by Darmari of Lower City in Shattrath.
Leatherworking is in our opinion the absolute best profession for raiding and PvE due to the ability to create Drums of Battle and Drums of War which are very very useful in raids. If you take into account the combined benefit for the entire party you can see why it is so powerful. You can also craft leg enchants and all leatherworkers can make very powerful gear like Сarapace of the Sun and Shadow and Living Earth Shoulders. Leatherworking, like several other professions, offers you the chance to hone your abilities in a specific specialization when you’re at least level 45 and skill level 200. For Leatherworking these are Dragonscale leatherworking, elemental leatherworking and tribal leatherworking.
To decide which specialization is for you one of the easiest ways is to look at the endgame gear. We would say that for dragonscale leatherworking it is mainly for spell using mail – so elemental shamans and also there is the ebon netherscale set which we would say is okay for physical dps mail wearers aka hunters. Elemental is for physical dps leather wearers so we would say rogues and druids only, and tribal is for spells using leather wearers which is actually only druid. So while the specializations themselves are not new in TBC they can make powerful pieces like Primal Strike Vest, Windhawk Belt and Ebon Netherscale Bracers for example so definitely take a look at which specialization you think is right for you and what gear you want to go for and decide for yourself.
Tailoring
Tailoring is using cloth that you find on humanoids, similar to first aid, to create different bags and different cloth gear. Because Tailoring is able to make gear for any spec it’s an appropriate profession for really any cloth wearer so you’ve got mages, warlocks and priests, and because it doesn’t really require a companion gathering profession it’s most often leveled alongside Enchanting.
Although for PvE maximizing dps we’d say leatherworking is the best for Drums, we would definitely consider tailoring because of the powerful gear that you can actually use for some of these classes. Some of this powerful gear includes Mantle of the Nimble Thought and Hands of Eternal Light and Spellthread enchantments to gear like Runic spellthread.
Once you reach skill level 350 you can head on over to Shattrath Lower City and begin your specialization quest. Specialization has two primary benefits – the first is that when crafting either primal mooncloth, shadow cloth, spellcloth you’ll make two per cast depending on which specialization you choose. The second is that you’ll be able to craft a unique set of epic cloth armor and the set includes a waist, a chest and a shoulder slot and then it’s going to have a powerful set bonus.
We’re going to walk through specializations right now. We would say mooncloth armor it is going to allow you mana regeneration while casting, it’s gonna buff your int and your spirit. It’s basically for healers, we’d say that it’s for holy priests and if you wanted to we would say if you’re a resto druid it’s okay to wear cloth and you could go for this set.
The netherweave set heals players for 2% of the damage frost and shadow caused and buff into stamina and the spellfire set buffs and increases spell damage by 7% of your total intellect.
So based on the gear and what class you’re playing or on which cloth you feel like selling the choice is kind of up to you. Shadoweave tailoring is really for this frozen shadoweave set. so if you’re a frost mage, if you’re a shadow priest or if you’re using shadow spells as a warlock which you should be in most cases shadoweave is for you. Mooncloth tailoring is really for healing so we’d say holy priest or resto druid and then spellfire tailoring is for fire mages and destro warlocks, who are using primarily fire spells.
Enchanting
Enchanting is a powerful endgame profession in PvE and PvP, as you level it can give your gear buffs to make leveling faster. This profession is usually paired with Tailoring because it doesn’t require a gathering profession, because of this pairing enchanting is most highly recommended for cloth armor wearers of all specs, but it can also make sense for pretty much any class to become an enchanter.
Our highest recommendation is to the cloth wearers to also get tailoring with Enchanting. Enchanters get their materials to enchant by using a disenchant and in raids you’re going to want at least one enchanter to disenchant unneeded gear. This spell allows players to destroy gear of at least uncommon quality into dusts, essences and crystals. At high level enchanters can add buffs like Enchant Gloves: Threat, Enchant Weapon: Executioner and Enchant Boots: Surefooted. Also enchanters have an enchanting only enchant for their rings which increases all stats by 4, put that on both rings and because you’re an enchanter you’ll now have an eight to all stats lead on an otherwise equal set of gear.
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