Profession and skill popularity
This next post in my series on mining the World of Warcraft Armory looks at the crafting professions and secondary skills.
Some interesting statistics:
- Mining is the most popular profession, with 36.3% of level 70 characters taking it, followed by Herbalism at 29.9%. Jewelcrafting is the least popular profession with only 8.8% of characters investing in it at level 70.
- The most popular pair of talents is Alchemy and Herbalism, with 17.4% of level 70 characters taking the pair, followed by Blacksmithing and Mining at 13.3%.
- Currently, only 15.8% of level 70 characters have the ability to ride an epic flying mount. 95.8% of level 70 characters have the ability to ride a regular flying mount.
- Most characters don’t invest in cooking. 25.6% of level 70 characters have cooking 300 or better, and only 4.1% of characters have cooking 375. This is somewhat surprising.
- Even fewer characters invest in fishing. Only 13.3% of characters have fishing 300 or better, and 3.3% of characters have fishing 375. This is not surprising.
- Nearly everyone invests in first-aid, and the vast majority (79.7%) of level 70 characters have first-aid 375.
Read on for the details…
Here are the most popular professions for level 70 characters. These numbers add up to more than 100% because each character invests in two professions. For example, 36.3% of characters take Mining as one of their two professions. There are a few surprises in the graph below. The gathering professions rank highly, and so do the utility professions of Enchanting and Alchemy. Jewelcrafting is surprisingly unpopular, especially given it was newly added in the Burning Crusade. I was expecting Mining and Herbalism to be closer in popularity, but the output of Mining is a pre-requisite for three crafting professions (Blacksmithing, Engineering, and Jewelcrafting) while the output of Herbalism is a pre-requisite for only one (Alchemy). You’ll see why that makes a big difference in the table following this graph, where I look at the most popular pairs of professions.
Since every character can take two professions, and professions often complement each other, it’s more interesting to look at the popularity of pairs of professions. The table below shows the percentage of level 70 characters with each possible pair of professions. As expected, the complementary profession pairs make up five of the top six pairs. Enchanting with Tailoring somewhat unexpectedly comes in as third most popular. Another interesting one is Blacksmithing with Mining. Blacksmithing, by itself, is one of the most unpopular professions, with only 15.4% of characters taking it. However, Blacksmithing with Mining is the second most popular profession pair, with 13.3% of characters taking the pair. This means that 86.4% of characters that take Blacksmithing also take Mining. Leatherworking beats out Blacksmithing slightly in that respect, with 86.5% of Leatherworkers also taking Skinning.
| Profession Pair | % |
|---|---|
| Alchemy Herbalism | 17.4% |
| Blacksmithing Mining | 13.3% |
| Enchanting Tailoring | 12.9% |
| Leatherworking Skinning | 9.6% |
| Engineering Mining | 6.8% |
| Jewelcrafting Mining | 5.7% |
| Mining Herbalism | 3.2% |
| Tailoring Herbalism | 3.2% |
| Enchanting Herbalism | 2.8% |
| Enchanting Mining | 2.7% |
| Tailoring Mining | 2.1% |
| Skinning Mining | 1.9% |
| Alchemy Tailoring | 1.8% |
| Skinning Herbalism | 1.7% |
| Enchanting Skinning | 1.7% |
| Enchanting Engineering | 1.6% |
| Tailoring Skinning | 1.5% |
| Engineering Tailoring | 1.1% |
| Enchanting Jewelcrafting | 1.0% |
| Jewelcrafting Tailoring | 0.9% |
| Alchemy Enchanting | 0.9% |
| Engineering Herbalism | 0.8% |
| Enchanting Blacksmithing | 0.8% |
| Enchanting Leatherworking | 0.4% |
| Leatherworking Herbalism | 0.3% |
| Jewelcrafting Herbalism | 0.3% |
| Engineering Skinning | 0.3% |
| Engineering Blacksmithing | 0.3% |
| Alchemy Mining | 0.3% |
| Alchemy Engineering | 0.3% |
| Leatherworking Mining | 0.2% |
| Blacksmithing Herbalism | 0.2% |
| Blacksmithing Leatherworking | 0.2% |
| Jewelcrafting Blacksmithing | 0.2% |
| Engineering Leatherworking | 0.2% |
| Engineering Jewelcrafting | 0.2% |
| Alchemy Blacksmithing | 0.2% |
| Alchemy Jewelcrafting | 0.2% |
| Leatherworking Tailoring | 0.1% |
| Blacksmithing Skinning | 0.1% |
| Blacksmithing Tailoring | 0.1% |
| Jewelcrafting Skinning | 0.1% |
| Jewelcrafting Leatherworking | 0.1% |
| Alchemy Skinning | 0.1% |
| Alchemy Leatherworking | 0.1% |
Next, let’s look at who invests in each of the secondary skills.
Riding is classed as a secondary skill, and characters’ riding skill level is primarily determined by their level (e.g., you need to be level 70 to learn to ride a flying mount), and the availability of gold (e.g., you need 5000g to learn to ride an epic flying mount). The only interesting number for level 70 characters is that only 15.8% currently have the ability to ride an epic flying mount.
Who invests in cooking? See the graph below. Before the Burning Crusade, cooking was almost entirely useless. The Burning Crusade introduced some useful types of food that finally made it worthwhile to level cooking. However, with only 25.6% getting to at least 300 cooking, it appears most players aren’t taking advantage of the new cooking recipes. Only 4.1% players have gotten to 375. This isn’t surprising, as 375 isn’t needed to cook any of the useful food, and the only recipe (for Alliance at least) that will take you from 365 to 375 is Spicy Crawdad, and the Furious Crawdad are very difficult to catch.
Who invests in fishing? Only a few, apparently. Not very surprising, as fishing doesn’t get you any food buffs that you can’t obtain some other way, and fishing is pretty time consuming in general. These numbers might improve with the fishing changes coming in 2.1.0.
The numbers for first-aid look a little different to the other second skills. First-aid is pretty popular, with 79.7% of level 70 characters at first-aid 375. Most classes are expected to bandage occasionally when the healer is busy, and some of the instances pretty much require it.
