World of Warcraft: Classic is upon us after years of waiting for an official release, and the time draws nigh to equip your knitting needles to become the greatest Tailor in Azeroth. As a profession that specializing in creating light armor, as well as bags, this is a popular choice among Priests, Mages, and Warlocks.
Tailoring uses materials that can be found easily while questing, as cloth materials drop from all humanoid opponents. Similar to Leatherworking, where materials come from skinning slain beasts, Tailoring will have materials provided by doing nothing more than leveling a character. However, the amount needed to level will from 1-300 is quite high, and so one will need to decide between grinding areas to get the cloth they need, or waiting until they are higher in level and can more quickly acquire items by large scale Area of Effect (AoE) farming. This second method will be described later, and is the most efficient way to level up Tailoring.
Professions That Go Well With Tailoring
Enchanting is often one of the best choices for several reasons. First, while materials for Tailoring are found easily while questing, the same is not true for Enchanting. One must disenchant an item of Green or better quality to receive materials, which can be obtained while leveling up Tailoring. While you may be tempted to level Tailoring to sell items on the Auction House, the reality is that almost nothing you make while leveling will be profitable, because everyone is leveling at the same time, and there are no rich alts to send gold over for frivolous purchases.
In the late game, a master enchanter is always able to profit, but the road to that point is long and expensive. If you are instead looking to make gold while leveling, which is not a bad idea considering the expensive cost of a mount at both level 40 and 60, then consider taking any other gathering profession to sell materials on the Auction House. Skinning, Herbalism, and even Mining are all good choices if you prefer farming to make your money.
The Slow Leveling Process
Today, leveling up can feel like a breeze, especially with those recipes that provide numerous points of progression towards becoming a master. However, this is a relatively new feature in the game, and will not be present in the Classic version. Instead, we will have Orange, Yellow, Green, and Grey colors in the Tailoring profession window. Yellow and Orange are often the best bet, since each craft should raise your level by one point, but green may require multiple crafts and is inefficient for leveling.
Can I Power Level My Tailoring?
Put simply, you will not be able to power level in the same way we often to today. This goes back to the reasons from before, first that no one will have the gold resources at first to buy all the required materials, and those materials are also likely to be scarce on the Auction House, demanding a premium for their purchase.
Over time, months down the road, this will be a different story assuming that the player base remains strong. However, if we see a massive drop off shortly after launch, this will remain as true as it does near launch, and much of the material gathering will be done by you.
Where To Farm Cloth
In Classic, there is no level scaling of regions like we have now. With this in mind, you need to target specific areas to find each type of cloth. While cloth drops from any humanoid opponent, the areas below offer some of the most concentrated areas of opponents. As mentioned above, a great way to level farming is to out level an area by about ten levels or so, and then with a character that can AoE farm, begin kiting the dense areas of opponents.
For example, farms that contain dense groups of Defias affiliated humanoids are perfect to quickly tag as a frost mage, and then defeat all at once by using spells like Blizzard and Cone of Cold. In this way, you can more efficiently farm cloth to level faster, and this is also why it is simpler to level your character and not try to keep the profession scaled at the same pace.
With that in mind, here are some of the more densely populated areas:
- Linen Cloth is located in areas for level ranges 1-15, such as Ragefire Chasm (K), Stonecairn Lake at Elwynn Forest (EK), Trogg Mine east of Ironforge(EK), The Oracle Glade at Teldrassil(K)
- Wool Cloth is located in areas for level ranges 15-30, such as Redridge Mountains (EK), Stonetalon Mountains(K), and Ashenvale(K)
- Silk Cloth is located in areas for level ranges 35-40. Scarlet Monastery (EK) is an outstanding place to go once at a higher level because the dungeon is filled with humanoids that will follow you all the way through, so they can be tagged in masse and AoE farmed easily. The same is true of Razorfen Kraul (K)
- Mageweave Cloth is located in areas for level ranges 45-50 is easily farmed in Zul'Farrak (K), and Tanaris (K)
- Runecloth is located in areas for level ranges 50-60, and eventually becomes some of the cheapest on the Auction House as more and more characters reach the level cap and have no use for it. With that said, farming it is problematic because one cannot AoE farm other level 60 opponents as easily in places like Scholomance (EK), Stratholme (EK), Blackrock Depths (EK), Lower Blackrock Spire (EK) Dire Maul (K), Western Plaguelands (EK), Eastern Plaguelands (EK), and Felwood (K)
- Felcloth is located in areas for level ranges 55-60 and found in Dire Maul (K), Felwood (K), Azshara (K), and Blasted Lands (EK). It is necessary for endgame Tailoring crafts
- Mooncloth is the final type of cloth, but it does not drop from opponents. Instead, it is crafted at a Moonwell by using two pieces of Felcloth. It also comes with a whopping four day cooldown, and so it can take quite some time to create anything with it. A Flarecore Robe for example will require ten pieces of Mooncloth, and so 40 days of cooldown for crafting.
WoW Classic Tailoring Takes Forever, But Is Worth It
Although it may feel slow, Tailoring can be quite powerful for cloth users in the endgame. The rarest patterns that can be found from the most difficult content available are well worth the effort. With that in mind, one wonders if Classic will eventually lead to the first expansion with the Burning Crusade. If so, Tailoring was an outstanding profession choice there as well, with the endgame patterns being useful in the early stages of raiding.