5 man dungeon leveling: Are professions viable?

[Syclone]

Those of you that are boxing a 5 man with dungeon leveling. Do you plan to level professions along with it? I am not sure if certain professions would even be viable such that you level past certain level herbs/mining nodes. I suppose this really comes down to if Skinning/Herbalism/Mining is viable in dungeons.

[Christaphonz]

I have looked into Herbalism and Mining in dungeons. You will fall far behind even with only one character farming the nodes. Just not enough nodes in the dungeons. Skinning is viable but you probably can only level 2 (maybe 3) characters with dungeons in a 5 man team. WC has a lot (maybe 6 herb nodes) but only 2 ore but the ore have huge level differences so you get levels with one then finally can mine the other node and you only get levels for that one. So one level in mining every time you run it?

I plan on having a Enchanter for DE and instead of selling the mats just throw enchants on your characters gear. Should help survivability and speed up run times. My tailor will be making gear for my mostly clothie group but otherwise would not recommend. Don't get a Tailor to make bags just buy bags from a bag vendor in any major city. The cost is WAY less then buying skills or time spent leveling tailoring to get bags better then the vendor.

That being said I am going to have a single character have each farming prof. I might have to level them by themselves but should not be hard as I am pushing to get them as high as possible before I run dungeons. I really want to get the gravemoss in GY and BlackIron ore from BRD.

Do you have any ideas how you are going to use those professions for your group? That makes the difference. How it really affects your plans.

[Lanser84]

With the amount of BRD I plan to do, not being able to mine the dark iron ore will be a hard pill to swallow. Accordingly, I'm quite interested in this topic.

My schematic plan for mining is as follows. For each dungeon:
1. Mine everything in the dungeon.
2. When I out-level the dungeon (character level), go back to a capital city and get skillups off smelting. (Perhaps even buy ore to do this.)
3. If the next dungeon has ore, do some mining circuits out in the world to get to the minimum level to mine that ore.

I'd love to know how much of #3 is likely to be necessary.

The other gathering professions are lower priority for me. As I don't see them being nearly as relevant at end-game if I'm going to spend most of my time running dungeons with my team. The primary consideration I'm using is whether gathering in dungeons makes more gold per hour than the team of 5 pulling the next pack. I suspect mining dark iron does, but the other professions don't have in-dungeon gathering that passes this test.

Herbalism:
This one seems less valuable (in dungeons) at end-game, and harder to maintain while leveling in dungeons. I'm tempted to try for 120 by level 27 for gravemoss in SM graveyard and stop keeping it maintained after that.

Skinning:
While it's the easiest of the bunch to keep leveled, my impression is that it will slow down the party pretty significantly. Is the gold per hour worth it at high level? Can a team of 5 do better in terms of gold/hour just pulling the next pack than stopping for 2-4 seconds to skin a mob?

(This reddit post cites 60g/hour at level 60 for time spent skinning: https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/...hile_leveling/.)

I'd change my mind if I saw highly valuable skinning opportunities in end-game dungeons. (I know about the Beast in UBRS, but I'm looking at 5-mans in particular.) My instinct is that it would be great in Sunken Temple (green dragon scale), but this is still lower gold/hour than end-game dungeons.

Thoughts? How many hours of out-of-instance mining might be necessary to keep mining up-to-par? Do any/all gathering professions outpace the gold/hour of grinding mobs and bosses with a team of 5? What gold/hour do you expect to make just clearing dungeons with a team without any gathering profs?

[Christaphonz]

....

Thoughts? How many hours of out-of-instance mining might be necessary to keep mining up-to-par? Do any/all gathering professions outpace the gold/hour of grinding mobs and bosses with a team of 5? What gold/hour do you expect to make just clearing dungeons with a team without any gathering profs?

What a wonderful reply. Hopefully Syclone wont be to angry if I hop in here and talk some.

Lanser you are on the money with mining in BRD. I was planning on having a single member in my entire team have every gather profession as to determine that gold per hour of each while I level to 60. Nothing is better then getting your own data. Unless you mess it up (which happens sometimes).

Lets start with mining. The first dungeon (from what I believe) that has ore is Wailing Caverns. It has a Copper and Tin vein. As I stated before your leveling speed starting at level 1 would be horrible (not that you are doing this). Also the tin can not be mined until mining level 65. By that point copper stops giving you level ups. The next dungeon that contains ore is Black Fathom deeps. It has a Silver and tin Vein. Again not much help to leveling. Also this dungeon you most likely will skip. (I wont as I plan to skin here.) RFK has Gold and Iron but only a single node of each. Twice more, Not that good for leveling but can help. At this point I stopped looking for nodes in dungeons as my main research is on <35 leveling research. I realize at the end this is from horde side perspective..

My current plans for leveling gather professions:
1. While leveling to 12 I have fedex quests in barrens for almost an entire level I plan to farm nodes enroute for said quest.
2. Before starting dungeons smelt to level up.
3. I am looting, vendoring, and skinning most stuff so plan to leave the dungeon almost every other hour. If I see I am coming into a Dungeon I can not gather. I will instead have the entire team leave after my bags are nearly full and farm my way back to Cities. (I have a lock and plan to summon most times but the lock will need skill training eventually.)
4. With my high demand for leather I will need to dump it a bunch and fully plan to take advantage to gather enroute. With an entire team going together farming mobs along the way will easily help my loss of exp. I plan to try and farm leaving dungeons instead of going to them to reduce waste of cheap grey items building up in my bags from non elite outside mobs.

To add to your "What gold/hour do you expect to make just clearing dungeons with a team without any gathering profs?" question. I have seen many guides for solo players describe running dungeons with herb or mining in places like DM:E to be good ways to increase profit. I can only imagine some dungeons it will be valuable. (Which gives an example of why I plan to test it live.) As you said BRD Dark Iron will be very good for increasing profits. Must be other hidden examples we can dig up.

Skinning is not a large profit maker but I plan to keep it up while I level and farming leather for a while. I hope I can make more money in the first couple days to buy high value items for cheap in a low capital market. Then hold them to sell months later. I am focusing on professions instead of leveling to 60 and farming high level dungeons. I realize this could be a HUGE mistake. I am under the assumption that while others are hardcore farming dungeons and looking for BIS they will sell BOE items for cheap to keep up with new spell cost and gear repairs (I think mount is kinda dumb to mention here, as every player is aware and if they play hardcore wont be worried about this). I plan to be capital rich on the 3rd or 4th day and buy BOEs like a mad man. While other players push 60 I hope to be investing in my future. This could be a mistake with farming BRD at level 55 for days might make way more money faster. I just believe others will be doing that so I want to do something very different from the crowd.

I understand some of the above is off topic but I hope it makes my points more clear and understood.

[Moorea]

how will you be capital rich starting with 0 copper x 5 in 3 days ?

(I also want to focus on professions and their co dependency and become known as the one place shopping for crafting need on my realm, but I don't think I can do that in days, more like weeks)

[Syclone]

Some excellent replies here. Christaphonz, don't worry! I want you to talk

I agree with many of the points made here. I was originally planning to go Tailoring and Enchanting which are of course the easiest ones for those of us dungeon farming. After reading the replies, I am thinking it might be best to bet on ignoring all of the other professions initially. I fear there's a lot more potential for time wasted with trying to keep them up to date, than there would be with ignoring and addressing them later.

There is even the possibility that the gold gained by ignoring professions (advancing, leveling, and farming faster) could actually be so much better that it allows you to buy the materials to level up some of your professions. Especially at the beginning where those who are picking professions only for extra cash are expecting lower prices.

[Longshot17]

Skinning, Tailoring and Enchanting should be very easy to keep up if you are Dungeon grinding. Consequently Leatherworking should be doable (as an example there is a ton to skin going through Wailing Caverns other dungeons have lots of cloth drops).

Mining would be the one you should set aside time to keep up as mentioned above it will pay off once you get to BRD level.

[Christaphonz]

There is even the possibility that the gold gained by ignoring professions (advancing, leveling, and farming faster) could actually be so much better that it allows you to buy the materials to level up some of your professions. Especially at the beginning where those who are picking professions only for extra cash are expecting lower prices.

As Longshot mentioned, Some professions will level very well in dungeons. While yes I worry people running higher level dungeons will just make more. I am under the firm belief they have other things on their mind. So yes you might make a little more money in higher level dungeons but so many people will be pushing for that, in the early days, it might be better to be elsewhere or do something else. That is why I am focusing on professions. What level 60 farming BRD on the 4th day will have mining at 235? Yes a few but those few are using it themselves not focusing on selling it. Or turning a profit on Blacksmithing in the first few weeks. I expect warlock gear sub level 20 will be higher price on the AH then other items. Many even boxers have said they want to level at least a single warlock to 20 for a summoning minion. Those players wont want to spend much time on that character and more then likely will buy gear or perhaps Wands...

@Moorea One of the many ways I plan to make money is to sell the low level enchanting wands to people out in the world. I will make less then sold on the AH but players with little money will be plenty happy to not have to make the trip and get a wand for cheap they can use until level 25 or so. I am kinda pushing to also get the enchant for riding speed increase. Hopefully I can sell that to some level 40s (While I am not pushing leveling around that time). With all my dungeon runs most BOP items will make great enchanting dust for my cheap enchants.

I find even with my investment banking. The byproduct or some frivolous item used in the production of something will always be profitable. More so then the thing everyone talks about. For instance just an example:
Hundreds of companies want to open stores that all sell the SAME thing (Lets say Granola bars). One of those companies will become the best and sell the most while others will still make money but most will fail. Why invest in the store, when you could invest in the Granola farmers? Well farming is hard and people are fickle. Why not the container the product is sold in? Almost everyone uses the same thing. Hell most times the same company supplies, the same, packaging for each company. I invest in the packaging company of a winning market and usually win that way.

All that to say most little niche you can think of will probably have a nice profit to it. I expect checking a couple Youtube and written guides that with little effort you can find BOE items that wont be farmed but still be in high demand. If everyone, or at least most, only do certain dungeons. Some BOE items will be less available and someone? Maybe you can take advantage of that.

I hope I was informative to those that needed it and spoke of tried and true wisdom to those that already knew. If I even spoke with wisdom. I never fail to learn something new here so glad I decided to starting replying instead of just lurking

[Thatsssfuego]

My team will cover the bases.

Pally will do mining and blacksmith. - I will run this as I go and possibly take some time after 40 to catch up if it falls behind.
Lock will Herb and enchant. - Since he can solo mara and parts of DM, it will be nice to have these skills. I will catch up on herb after 40. Enchanting is easy.
Mage will Skin/Tailor. This will be cake to level and provide my 3 clothies with gear.
Priest will be Alchemy and something else. Not sure year but possibly engineering. This could be my 60 pvp char.

[Hksix]

If you’re leveling by dungeon grinding (which you should be) then you should really only be doing tailoring and enchanting (and you only need 1 enchanter). Everything else will fall behind unless you spend tons of time going out of your way for it.

My team is going to be warrior, pally, 3 mages. The 3 mages all tailor/engineer. The warrior engineer+enchanting, and paladin alchemy+blacksmith. I’ll only be leveling tailoring and enchanting pre-60