The Evolution of the most Profitable Tradeskill

I think about WOW economics alot, and how the market affects the game. Today I wanted to hash out some of my thoughts about the past and the future of WOW professions. This is primarily related to what professions offer the most potential for profit.

Through the last 3 eras of the game, Vanilla, BC, and Wrath, each has had a dominant profession. By dominant I refer to profit potential. In the original vanilla WOW, I believe the most profitable profession was enchanting. In BC, it was Jewelcrafting and now in Wrath it is Inscription. Each profession is still very profitable, but with each new expansion a new king has come forth.

There are many factors that affect professions and their profit potential. These are the ones that come off the top of my head.

1. Application
2. Cost
3. Turnover

Application is how many uses does a profession have. Enchanting, JC, and Inscription have the most uses out of all other professions. To be a little more clear, lets take a look at the current king Inscription. Many of the low level glyphs are in demand for level 80s and level 15 characters as well.

This is not true with most other professions. Enchanting has minimal use for low level characters with the exception of twinks, and low level spells are useless to high level characters.Your not going to put +1 spirit on your level 80 shaman are you? No I didn't thinks so. Now take Jewelcrafting, you won't even see a gem slot till level 60 gear, and sadly enough the amount of gear with gem slots after level 70 has sharply declined. (evidence of this can be found by comparing the blue gear dropped in instances in Outland vs Northrend).

So how many applications a profession has, or how many items that can be produced for profit greatly affect the potential profit of a profession. Despite Enchanting and Jewelcrafting not having as many uses as Inscription, they still far outstrip everyother profession in application.

Cost is a factor in the ability to make items and sell them. I guess what I am saying is the percentage of the sales price. 'Glyph A' costs me 2 gold to make, and I sell it for 10 gold, my cost is 20%. Another reason that Inscription is King at the moment is that cost is almost non existant. Glyphs are subsidised by Snowfall Ink sales, make them for silver and sell tham for gold. Jewelcrafting would be next in this list with a very low cost of production, at least for common level gems. Enchanting however is actually rather pricy.

Finally Turnover, or how often are these items are being replaced. Repeat sales are the bread and butter of all normal businesses. If you cant sell it a second time, it makes it hard to make an effective living. One of the problem with Gear Professions, is that once someone has bought your epic crafted helm, they are never going to buy it again. Generally speaking, no one needs two helmets. But should they get a new drop, they will need new gems, and a new enchant, regardless of that fact that their old gear already had these. This is turnover.

So those are some of the factors that affect profession profit potential. It is interesting to note with each new expansion that the new profession instantly becomes the new most profitable profession. Makes me want to keep an alt ready for the next expansion so I can get a jump on whatever new profession is announced at Blizzcon. Anyone want to bet it will be based of leather or cloth?

One of these day's I return to this post and rewrite it with the correct economic terms, but I am lazy today.

Miy