To goblin or to level up, that is the question

EDIT: Welcome to all the people coming from JMTC. The post you are looking for is the next one down. Enjoy the rest of the blog. :)



With less than 2 days left, most people's plan for the first day of Cata is set. Many people will be trying for server first 85s. Some will be camping the AH taking advantage of those early mistakes by the leveling crew. Most WoW'ers will be sleeping, but those people don't know what they are missing.

I have seen some great tips on the gold making blogs on how to take advantage of the early days of the expansion.
These include:
Forgoing leveling and camping the AH
Hitting the Dark Moon Fair and getting low level greens and blues for new goblins and worgen
Gathering herbs, ore and skins for those on the hunt for server first professions
Leveling quickly to get those recipes that will make gear for server first raiders
and selling daily quest materials and rewards

I for one plan on leveling to 85 quickly and then maxing out my blacksmithing and engineering for my own raiding gear and for sales. Even with the outrageous prices on ores and crafting materials I see profits coming for those of us who can get in the market early.

WowInsider.com has a great write up on whats new with professions.
A few notable things I see to keep an eye out for:

There is a lot of recipes only found on a vendor in twilight highlands that is locked behind phased content that you have to be 84 to access.

Inscription and JC not only have their glyphs and gems, but they have blue crafted gear added in the forms of rings and relics. Also, Cut green gems vendor for 9g. Prospecting and vendoring alone will set a minimum vendor value on a stack of ore, depending on the prospecting average yield. For example: If a stack of ore on average gives us six green gems, these gems can be cut and vendored for 9g each, which means you will only ever find ore for less than 54g if a jewelcrafter hasn't logged in since it was posted.

With chaos orbs being bop, the sheer mountain of ore needed for BS, Engineering, and JC, expect prices on crafted goods to be higher than in wrath.

Leatherworking and Tailoring will be cheaper to craft so it they will be better for feeding enchanting for materials.

Alchemy has all their old items like flasks, potions, and transmutes updated and integrated more into the other professions. New things like potion of treasure finding and transmute: truegold will give this profession a little boost.

The way I see it there is 2 strategies to using your crafting professions for making gold: High volume of sales with a low profit margin, or low volume of sales with high profit margin. The way blizzard has set up base crafting materials this expansion really exaggerates this.
High volume/low margin: Inscription, JC, Alchemy, Enchanting, Tailoring*, Cooking, Fishing, and any Gathering profession.
Low volume/High margin: Blacksmithing, Engineering, Leatherworking*
*Tailoring and Leatherworking could be put in either category because they each are about a 60/40 split. I just put each one in their respective 60% category.

Hope this helps, and check back on the 7th for my live update post of my experiences of leveling on live.