WoW Forever Professions: Every Profession guide, Camp Buff and Best Combo

WoW Forever Professions adds more than 600 new recipes, and the crafted gear is good enough to replace dungeon drops while you level. You can still take any 2 primary professions in any combination, plus all 3 secondary ones (Cooking, Fishing, and First Aid), and each one now adds something to your campfire, from a Strength buff for Blacksmiths to a repair vendor for Engineers.

Below are every profession, its three camp features, what it crafts, what’s new in Forever, and the classes it suits best. Everything comes from the beta, so recipes and numbers can still change before launch on 4 November.

How campfires turn your professions into buffs

Camping is built on Cooking. Your Cooking trainer teaches the Basic Campfire, and you make it from Simple Wood, Flint, and Tinder, which you can buy from a general supplies vendor. You can’t place a fire within 100 yards of another one, so you’ll sometimes need to walk away from a busy camp to put your own down.

Once the fire is down, everyone can add one camp feature from their own professions, and anyone who sits or crafts nearby for 1 minute gets every buff at that camp for 1 hour. A Basic Campfire holds 3 features, a Journeyman Campfire holds 5, and an Expert Campfire holds 10, so a group of friends can build a camp with a full set of buffs. All camp features share a 1-hour cooldown.

Each tier 1 buff copies a class buff and doesn’t stack with it; the class version is stronger. The Fish Bowl gives 8% to all stats; Blessing of Kings gives 10%, so a Paladin buff replaces the camp one. The higher tiers are learned from blueprints, which drop in dungeons, and each keeps the tier 1 buff while adding something else, like a crafting station, a repair vendor, or an ore node. Camp buffs work in the open world and in dungeons, but it isn’t clear yet whether they’ll carry into raids.

Alchemy

Alchemy makes potions, elixirs, flasks, weapon oils, dyes and transmutes, and in Forever it has a lot more to use while you level. There are throwable potions now that work a bit like Engineering grenades: Caustic Smog does damage over time in an area, and Disorienting Smog lowers the hit chance of anything inside it, which can help a tank survive a big pull. The Dragonfire Potion breathes fire in a cone in front of you, and there’s a new transmute that turns Heavy Thorium into Legionite.

Plain Healing Potions have been replaced with First Aid. Alchemists get Rejuvenation Potions early, and Discolored Healing Potions later, which heal for more but hand you 75% of it back as a poison or disease over the next few seconds. Your camp line is the Mana Well at skill 20 (mana every 5 sec, like Blessing of Wisdom), the Fermenter at 140 and the Alchemy Laboratory at 300, which is where flasks are made.

Blacksmithing

Blacksmithing makes mail and plate armor, most melee weapons (everything except bows), sharpening and weight stones, shield spikes that hit back when you block, spurs for a little extra mounted speed and keys. The early recipes have been reworked so they’re worth wearing: Copper Chain Pants now have 1 Stamina, the Runed Copper version has 2 Strength and 2 Stamina, and there are blue mail boots with Intellect and healing that suit a Holy Paladin at around level 20.

Helmets are hard to find while leveling, and Blacksmiths can craft their own, which is a big part of why crafted gear can keep up with dungeon loot in Forever. The camp line starts with the Sharpening Wheel at skill 20 (Strength, like Strength of Earth Totem), then an Anvil at 140 and a Master Forge at 300, which the best Classic recipes such as Arcanite Reaper now need.

Enchanting

Enchanting doesn’t need a gathering profession, as you get your materials by disenchanting green and blue items you don’t want. Leveling the first 30 or so points used to be slow, but Forever hands out green scrap items early that you can disenchant for practice. New recipes include weapon enchants with special effects, such as Revelation, which gives extra critical strikes every so often, plus wands, staves, off-hands and necklace enchants.

Enchanters can also craft Paladin librams, Druid idols and Shaman totems, which are hard to find while leveling. The Enchanted Lute at skill 20 gives armor, all stats and resistances (the same as Mark of the Wild), the Arcane Salvager at 140 makes disenchanting more efficient, and the Arcane Forge at 300 is the station for relics and wands.

Engineering

Engineering makes bombs, dynamite, gadgets, scopes, guns, ammo, goggles and trinkets, and it still has Gnomish and Goblin specializations for their own recipes. There are plenty of new toys in Forever, including throwing items that turn your ranged throw into an area bomb, a Safety Sheep that explodes, a 960 battery pack for the Manual Crowd Pummeler and a Compact Critter Carrier that gives Hunters their stable on the go.

It’s the only profession with no camp buff, and it has the most useful camp features instead. The Reagent Bot at skill 20 is a vendor that sells class reagents and buys your junk, so you don’t need to go back to town with full bags. The Repair Bot at 140 repairs gear as well, and the Anarchist’s Workbench at 300 is a station for advanced Engineering recipes.

Leatherworking

Leatherworking makes leather armor early on, then leather and mail in about equal amounts, along with armor kits, quivers, ammo pouches and cured leather for epic crafts. Armor kits go on your chest, legs, hands and feet for a few silver each, so they’re a cheap stand-in for enchants while you level. A lot of the new recipes come from dungeon bosses or the Merchant’s Favor vendors, and some have more stats than dungeon loot of the same level.

The Camp Tent at skill 20 tops up the rested XP of everyone nearby to 5% of a level, which only counts on kills and does nothing if you already have more. The Tanning Rack at 140 is a crafting station that a lot of Leatherworking recipes need, and the Sewing Machine at 300 is needed for top recipes like Devilsaur Leggings.

Tailoring

Tailoring makes cloth armor, cloaks, bags, reagent bags (new in Forever), bolts of cloth, shirts and the Faction Banner. Many of the early recipes now carry spell damage, like the Pearl-clasped Cloak (3 Intellect and +2 spell damage and healing), the Green Woolen Vest (+4 and 4 Spirit) and the blue Arcanist Sash, which needs 8 Bolt of Linen Cloth, 2 Fine Thread and 2 Minor Mana Potions.

You don’t need a gathering profession for it, since cloth drops from humanoids you’re already killing. The Faction Banner at skill 20 gives Spirit to players of your own faction (like Divine Spirit), the Spinning Wheel at 140 is a station for many cloth recipes, and the Loom at 300 is needed for gear like Robe of the Archmage.

Herbalism

Herbalism works as it always has: you pick herbs from nodes in the world for Alchemy, and in Forever for First Aid’s potions too. Every gathering profession can now find scarce materials, which specific crafting recipes need, and you can learn Herbalism in your first level or two from the Wild Harvest manual, which the Nibbled-On Book chain in the starting zones offers you.

The Incense Candle at skill 20 gives Intellect (like Arcane Intellect). At 140 the Greenhouse grows herbs from seeds you find while picking, and at 300 the Seed Hybridizer multiplies seeds or combines them into rarer ones, so a Herbalist’s camp can farm for them.

Mining

Mining gets you ore and stone from nodes, which you smelt into bars for Blacksmithing and Engineering, and you can pick it up early from the Mining for Dummies manual. Ore tends to sell best in the first month or two after launch, when supply is low, and it stays useful later for things like Elementium bars for Thunderfury. Forever adds new metals too, such as Heavy Thorium, which you can only smelt at a Molten Foundry.

The Lodestone at skill 20 gives melee Attack Power (like Blessing of Might). The Rock Garden at 140 spawns a common mining node at your camp over time, and the Molten Foundry at 300 is the smelting station for Heavy Thorium.

Skinning

Skinning takes leather, hides and scales from beasts you’ve killed. You can start it from the Pelt Collecting for Beginners manual. It’s the gathering profession that takes the most effort, since you have to kill each beast first, and there are more Leatherworkers than before and crates to fill for Merchant’s Favor, so leather should sell well.

The Camp Chair at skill 20 gives 2% critical strike chance to spells and attacks (like Moonkin Aura), which is good for every class. The Field Guide at 140 lets anyone read it to gain Track Beasts, and the Trapper’s Workbench at 300 holds a trap.

Cooking

Cooking matters more in Forever than it ever did, for two reasons. Most crafted food now gives Well Fed with an extra 5% experience from kills, and low-level food gives the same 5%, so it’s worth keeping some on you the whole way to 60. Cooking is also the only way to make a campfire, and the Journeyman and Expert Campfires raise how many camp features one fire can hold.

Cooks can make food with Stamina, Spirit, Agility, Intellect or Strength, food that raises Fishing or Herbalism skill, and a Cookie’s Feast (skill 140) that lays out Stamina food for everyone at camp. The Iron Oven at skill 300 is needed for the most advanced recipes.

First Aid

First Aid now crafts Healing Potions, which used to be an Alchemy recipe. The Minor Healing Potion uses Mild Spices instead of the old Alchemy ingredients, and the higher ones need a herb, a vial and a Cooking spice, taught by trainers up to Healing Potion and by manuals after that. You’ll also make bandages, anti-venoms for poison, poultices for disease and tourniquets for bleeds.

The First Aid Kit at skill 20 gives Stamina (like Power Word: Fortitude). The Toxin Study at 140 and the Plague Doctor’s Laboratory at 300 both keep that buff and also hold free Healing Potions and cures for anyone at the camp.

Fishing

Fishing hasn’t changed much, but its camp buff is one of the best. The Fish Bowl at skill 20 gives 8% to all stats, the same buff as Blessing of Kings. At 140 the Fishing Rack lets you catch uncommon fish for an hour, and at 300 the Fishing Hut lets you catch rare ones, and both come with lures.

Fish feed Cooking, and some of them become oils that Alchemists need for flasks and armor potions. You can also fish up rings and other rare items, and the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza now has its own currency with new rewards to buy.

Merchant’s Favor unlocks the best new recipes

Two new reputations sell many of the new recipes: the Azeroth Commerce Authority for the Alliance, at Three Corners in Redridge, and Durotar Supply and Logistics for the Horde, just west of the Crossroads. You earn their currency, Merchant’s Favor, and reputation by filling Waylaid Supplies crates with the profession items each one asks for. The crates usually drop in the world, and you can also buy them on the auction house.

The vendors also sell rare level 20 helmets for Tailors, Leatherworkers and Blacksmiths at 30 Merchant’s Favor each, and a Certification for each crafting profession that unlocks an account-wide title, such as “the Alchemist”, once one of your characters reaches 300 skill.

Legacy perks that help professions

Legacy is Forever’s account-wide system, and it opens at level 25. Maxing a trade skill completes a Legacy challenge, and the points you earn can go into a Professions tree with perks like these.

Which two professions to take for your class

If you just want gold, take two gathering professions, since you can sell everything you pick up. For gear, take the crafting profession that makes your armor and the gathering profession that feeds it, then pick up Cooking, First Aid and Fishing on top.

Profession perks that aren’t confirmed yet

Each primary profession might also get a passive perk, but none of these are live in the beta yet and the details keep shifting, so treat them as possibilities until launch.

WoW Forever professions FAQ