Choosing your primary professions Starting out . You can only have two primary profession s at a time . But they are not ' cast in concrete ' , you can discard a primary profession and replace it . And they are dirt cheap - Apprentice level training in a primary profession costs in your starting area . When you are first starting , you might benefit by switching professions to meet a goal . You can use this to get a fair upgrade to your starting gear cheaply , and stock up on some low level consumable s . The downside is that every time you switch professions , you lose all of your built up skill and recipe knowledge in the one you drop . Your professions provide more capability and benefit when you keep them leveled up as you progress through the game . However , building and service professions are also costly to progress in . One way to minimize this is to cherry pick the professions all at once ; start out gathering , farm gathering a bit , then switch to crafting and make some key items , but don ' t invest heavily in training , then switch to what you really want . This is useful when you first leave your starting area , around level 5 or 6 , where the crafting professions can produce useful gear upgrades immediately . By the time your character is in the teen levels , this strategy will no longer pay off . Choosing two primary professions . Though professions are cheap to start , your time is not . You will want to settle on two primary professions , or at least settle on not having any . Dual - gathering . One option is to take two gathering profession s , this can supply a very good income and will remove the expense associated with leveling a production craft . Even though gathering pays well , at some point you will probably want to take a crafting and / or service profession just to try it . Bear in mind that by holding off until you are higher level you can gather all your own ingredient s or material s , and you will not bump up against a proficiency level cap . You should be able to afford your recipes easily , as well . Crafting professions . " Production " professions can create potentially useful items . At level cap most production crafts have sought - after BoP items . Enchanting . is a nice profession to have while leveling , but can be expensive . Lower level uncommon ( green ) items usually do not sell well , disenchanting often yields more money and faster sales . If you take enchanting : Tailoring is a good companion profession for enchanting for the production of disenchantable items . Why bother ? Why not ? Even if you do not want to invest the time in leveling a craft or investing money to do so , you can take two gathering skills while leveling and have some supplementary income by simply gathering the items you come across . ' Why not ? ' is because a profession takes time . It slows down leveling . And , you really don ' t need one . Even just gathering takes time . Even selling the gathered items takes time . . . . Running in to town with the good . Putting up the auctions . Re - auctioning . It all comes down to time - if you are running through the world leveling like crazy , stopping to skin , mine , return to a vendor or auction house , sell , . . . it all slows you down ( see Power leveling ) . You can get good enough gear just from drops and quests . You can get comparable or better gear than you can buy if you do instances with groups . Even then , taking enchant to disenchant green items you don ' t want can help manage your bag space . Professions at high levels . High level characters have a dilemma , they are both very good at their chosen professions and yet have many activities open to them that diminish the relative value of their professions . High level characters will often have an alt that farm s materials , and might take two non - gathering professions . Key high level crafting has long ( multi - day ) cool downs , so having high level crafter alts working the cool down items can save time . If you are high level and you are considering changing your profession ( s ) consider that though you presumably have a lot invested in your profession ( s ) , you also have vastly greater resources for developing your new profession ( s ) and can much more easily buy or farm materials . Many players wait until their character is a high level before even choosing a profession ( see Why bother ? above ) .