That's why we play video games, so we can make bandages, measure portions, and cut bait. Why do MMORPGs like the Classic World of Warcraft even have Secondary Professions? We already do these things in real life! It seems boring, it's totally optional and the wost of all, it costs money. Precious silver and copper pieces that you need for that mount when you finally hit level 40, never mind all of those class skills you need along the way.
That all makes sense, but you still shouldn't let your secondary skills fall by the wayside as you cut a path through your enemies across the land of Azeroth. They're handy skills and anyone can practice them in addition to all of the primary skills. Many of these are tied to professions or class quests to give you a boost there, too.
10 Getting Buff
If you're not a priest or druid, your personal buffs and those you can cast on others are rather limited. Warlocks can get a few laughs by casting Water Breathing on a party headed for Blackrock Depths or the Scarlet Monastery, but other than that most class buffs are pretty situational. There are always a few recipes that give you valuable buffs, even at low levels, and you learn a few of them for free as soon as you take on the Cooking profession. Most of these buffs include stamina and spirit, while others help your mana regen and even give bonuses to your existing class skills.
9 Holiday and Specialty Recipes
The myriad of options for everything for in-game chefs currently available in the retail version of World of Warcraft comes from how popular special or rare recipes turned out to be in the original game. Eggnog was a seasonal favorite in Classic WoW and lead to modern favorites throughout the expansions. If you're a melee class, learn to make Dragonbreath Chili and breathe fire on your enemies. Drink some special Winter Viel Eggnog made with love by a guildmate. Help a friend finish a meat gathering quest for a special recipe.
8 Fishing and Cooking, Together at Last
Why level one skill when you can level two? You don't have to depend on random dops or the Auction House when you need cooking materials. Plenty of the best recipes use fish as the main ingredient, so pull out your pole and get to work. Every capital city has a safe, interior body of water that you can use to level when you're just starting out. Higher-level food buffs require more of a risk when it comes to gathering mats. Recipes like Sagefish Delight, which restore both health and mana along with giving you a buff to your mana recovery, make it worth it.
7 Flint and Wood
When you learn cooking, you also learn the Campfire ability. A drawback to the campfire is that it requires mats to build, which can be inconvenient when you're a lowbie just starting out. The advantages outweigh the storage issues. A campfire is necessary for preparing food, telling stories or making the ambiance cozier. Set up one in the wilderness to get some cooking done, and the next thing you know you're surrounded by other players that are also using your cooking fire or just stopping by to get the Spirit buff.
6 Foodie and Fishing Culture
The recipe you find throughout Zeroth often contain clues about the region that they're from. Sometimes they contain snide jokes or pop culture references. The notorious Deviate Fish, that infamous Lewis Carroll callback, which you can fish up in certain places in the Barrens, contains only the words "Eat Me" in the description. Savory Deviate Delight, which got its start in Classic WoW, is the famous dish that turns you into a Ninja or a Pirate. Plenty of characters level their fishing and cooking just for this fish and their related recipes.
5 The Off-Healer
Leveling up your first aid is one way to make your character more valuable to a party and more self-sufficient in the wilds alone. Throwing a few off-heals during a tense fight will make you plenty of friends very quickly. First aid is also one of the few options for healing you have if you don't have the benefits of abilities like the Forsaken's Cannibalism or the Warlock spells like Siphon Life. Mages can at least conjure their own food and water. Rogues and Warriors have no such abilities and are especially vulnerable to the perils of questing, which is why leveling the First Aid skill for these classes is virtually mandatory.
4 Old School Questing
Some recipes are only available through vendors, rare drops or the neutral auction house. The recipe for Savory Deviate Delight, for example, is a rare drop in the Horde controlled Barrens. If you're an Alliance player, that makes the recipe even harder to find and more expensive to buy. On the other hand, thee are Alliance vendors that the Horde can't access, making an expensive purchase on the neutral Auction House the only option. That's what makes it so satisfying and rare when you finally do get it.
3 Make More Money
What's better than using your mats to make useful items? Selling those useful items, of course! Very few of the items you make or get in the course of leveling your secondary professions are soulbound, so you're free to trade them with friends, store them in the bank or sell them on the Auction House. That includes recipes that drop or are given as quest rewards. Food items that are specific to holidays are usually seasonal, with the mats fading away after a certain date. Some ingredients you can store if you want to make a holiday dish in the-off season and sell it for a handful of gold.
2 The Cloth Grind
When you or a gaming buddy to level their First Aid, it's time to grind. It's fun to have an excuse to return to those low-level instances that bothered you so much back when your toon was a mere teen. Destroying low-level dungeons to farm cloth is just as satisfying as it sounds, and some of the best dungeons are famous for their cloth drops.
It's not just great for First Aid. There are plenty of reasons to grind rep with other friendly cities, the most popular one being the ability to buy that faction's unique mount. Cloth donations are one way to do that, and unlike the quests, you never level out of it and it's repeatable forever.
1 Upcycling
There's a lot of stuff you pick up while questing or grinding that doesn't seem useful, but sometimes what would end up in the vendor pile can be used for your secondary professions. Nightcrawlers, for example, drop from Undead and seem useless at first but this is actually a powerful fishing buff. Engineers can make accessories for lures, so don't vendor those low-level gadgets too quickly. Remember that you can use them to grind up your secondary skills or sell them to someone else.