FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT PHASE ONE:

Q: Gen, you are a god among gnomes, and handsome to boot. But if you tell everyone to take up gathering, who will buy the materials were gathering?! If theres no money in crafting, nobody will buy our materials!

A: It actually makes a perfect circle lowbies gather the mats, while highbies buy the mats and make crafted items (well discuss highbie strategy in a bit). These highbies in turn sell their items (for a profit) to other highbies and lowbies who NOW have money to spend (because theyre not wasting all their money trying to level up crafting professions!) It works really well like this.

Q: Gen, you are kind, intelligent, and have abs you could wash clothes on. My character is lvl XX, and Im a lvl YY Crafting Profession and a lvl ZZ Gathering Profession. And Im BROKE! Should I drop my crafting profession and take up a second gathering profession?

A: It depends on several things. If you are already close to lvl 40, you might as well keep the crafting profession UNLESS its really low level (like less than 125 or something) then ya drop it like a bad habit. If you are relatively low level but have a mid-level crafting professions, I would still drop it and take up a second gathering profession. Youll end up making much more money by the time youre 40, which is the real goal of this guide.

Q: My materials arent selling! The market is flooded with them and I keep getting them returned in the mailbox!

A: Ya thats going to happen from time to time. Some days you can sell a stack of something for 1g, the next day the entire AH is flooded with stacks selling for 20s. Its what I call the Retard Factor. The best thing you is get a general idea of how much stuff is selling for at that time, price your materials a little bit less that that, and hope for the best. Dont throw your hands up in despair when someone undercuts youits gonna happen. Just take your unsold mats and put them back on the AH someone will buy them, trust me!

Phase Two Levels 40-59 Its fine learn 2 craft

Youve hit lvl 40, you have your mount (sure beats walking huh?), youve learned all your new skills, and youve decked yourself out in some fancy new duds. Now what?

Well, you *could* stick with your two gathering professions. They will still make you a lot of money, actually more money than in the first phase because youll know have access to higher level materials. If you dont feel like busting ass trying to make money with crafting professions, stick with gathering by all means. You could stop reading this guide right now and have enough money to make you happy.

Still reading? Okay good lets talk about your first crafting profession

Pick a crafting profession that sounds fun to you. Dont worry, its going to make you money (except maybe Alchemy Im sorry I *still* havent seen proof that you can make lots of money off of Alchemy). What your going to do is drop the gathering profession that doesnt complement your new crafting profession. For example, if you want to take engineering, drop skinning and keep your mining. The one profession I do not recommend you take at level 40 (besides Alchemy) is Enchanting. Enchanting is a great profession but its not for the faint of heart, and its a #@%$! to level up. If you are dying to be an enchanter now, welcome to the poor house otherwise try to hold off until youre level 60 (well be discussing that in the next phase).

Now that youre level 40, it should be very easy to powerlevel your new profession to a certain point. Do everything possible to farm your own mats while leveling, it will save you a ton of money. This is important because you need your money for

SCHEMATICS, PLANS, FORMULAS, RECIPES, ETC!!! These are what separate you from all of the other people taking up crafting professions. I see twenty new threads every day asking how do you make money in leatherworking or whatever, and people usually reply you dont take herbalism its a goldmine. Im going to let you in on a little secret.

It takes hard work and a LOT of time and gold to make money in crafting!

You will NOT be rich from a crafting profession just by learning what the trainers provide! You have to spend gold on schematics/formulas/plans/etc to make the stuff that people really want to buy. Im not saying that every plan on the AH is going to be a moneymaker, but the ones that ARE moneymakers youre going to have to pony up the cash. Dont bother farming for them its a waste of effort just pay a reasonable amount for it on the AH.

Guess what? Youve just put yourself above probably 75% of the other crafters out there! Why? Because 75% of WoW players either dont have the gold to buy plans, or they refuse to spend money on them because people price gouge on the AH. Now instead of competing with 1000 engineers, you are competing with 250 of themand out of that 250 there will be quite a few that arent as aggressive in making money like you, you sly dog!