Which Profession Actually Pays

One test, and it sorts everything

Split the trades by what happens after a sale. A consumable is used up and bought again — ammunition, bandages, potions, food, enchanting materials. A durable is bought once and worn for 10 levels — armour, weapons, bags, goggles.

Consumables give you a customer who returns on a schedule. Durables give you a customer who returns when they outgrow the item, which on the way to 60 is often never, because the next upgrade drops in a dungeon instead. That difference decides more about your income than the recipe list does.

Why Engineering is the argument

Engineering came up on the official forum this week and the verdict there was unsentimental. Most of the climb consumes components rather than producing anything a stranger wants: you buy bars, you turn them into parts, the parts become the next parts. The saleable end — explosives, gadgets, the famous jumper cables — arrives late.

The exception is ammunition, and it is a real one. A hunter who raids goes through it the way an alchemist goes through herbs. That is the only part of Engineering with a customer who comes back on a timetable.

That assessment is players', not ours and not Blizzard's, and it is about the beta. We are repeating the reasoning because the reasoning is checkable; the conclusion is theirs.

What Forever changed that matters here

• Everyone gathers from level 3. The gathering skills stop being a choice and become a floor, which means more raw supply and thinner margins on it.
• Camp stations make materials. A greenhouse grows herbs, a rock garden spawns a vein, a fermenter and a tanning rack produce reagents outright. Production no longer requires travel.
• 600-plus new recipes. The obvious ones will be crowded from week 1; the scarce ones come from blueprints that have to be found.
• Legacy points come from crafting, not gathering. Which means a pure gatherer never earns the points that buy the perk raising gathering yield.

So what do you pick

If you want income in the first month: a gathering skill you actually run, plus a consumable trade to convert it. If you want the best character at 60: whatever your class needs, and buy the consumables from someone who chose the first path.

The dishonest answer is a ranked list with gold-per-hour figures. Nobody has those for Forever, the beta wipes on November 4, and the prices that will matter do not exist yet. What survives the wipe is the reasoning.

Questions

Which profession makes the most gold in WoW Forever?

Nobody can answer that yet with numbers, and anyone who gives you a figure this month is guessing. What can be answered is the shape of the question: professions that sell something people buy again beat professions that sell something people buy once.

On that test the gathering skills and the consumable trades start ahead. A hunter buys ammunition every week. A player buys a pair of goggles once.

Is Engineering worth levelling for money?

Players on the official forum are blunt about it: most of the way up, Engineering consumes components rather than producing goods anyone wants. It is a slog, and the slog is paid for in materials you bought.

That does not make it worthless — it makes it a late payoff rather than an early income. If you need gold in the first month, it is the wrong first profession.

Do I need a crafting profession at all?

For money, no. For Legacy points, yes. Points come from non-gathering professions at 150, 225 and 300, and the perk that raises gathering yield is bought with them.