Pets and Professions

[Jumi]

Started up a new character, a panda. Now I'm trying to figure out which professions she should take, and I've got it down to three (based on which pets are available): enchanting, inscription, and jewelcrafting. But since I can only have two, which of these two should I take? What costs the most to raise? What makes the most money? What can also snag me some mounts?

My other characters already have engineering, archaeology, and tailoring covered (also herbalism and mining).

Also, are those new Darkmoon Faire pets live yet?

[Kaellan]

How about jewelcrafting? there is the new sapphire cub, jade owl and the new mounts you could make. I don't know how much it costs to level though.

[Lysi]

Enchanting is a very useful skill all around. (I've never bothered to make the lantern, though, I bought it long before I'd leveled my enchanter.) I mostly make money from enchanting with the agility enchants you can get with Timbermaw rep (which only takes a few hours to grind now)--they are the best agility enchants in the game for heirloom weapons, so the market has never gone way (it helps if you have an alchemist to transmute Essence of Air). You can make money with some other enchants, too, but enchanting can be expensive to level. It helps to use an add on that tells you what items will disenchant into which mats. If a mat I need isn't on the auction house at all or it's too expensive, I might be able to find cheap weapons/armor on the AH that will disenchant into what I need. Also, your tailor can make items you can disenchant them for mats. I feel a little crippled every time I play a character that isn't an enchanter, because you have to just sell those soulbound items you don't want, you can't disenchant them. Of course it's always nice to be able to enchant your gear!

The two inscription pets are selling for cheap, I probably wouldn't choose a profession just to get those or to sell them. I find the glyph market confusing, I only have a low level inscriptionist and I do make some money, but you need to pick a lot of herbs to level it.

Jewelcrafting can be expensive to level, it helps if you mine a lot. I don't make much money at it, just make gems for myself and hubby mostly, maybe other people are better at making gold with it (maybe it helps if you have the luck of a good recipe dropping). I haven't leveled my jeweler up to 90 yet so I don't know first hand, I've heard the mats for the two pets are expensive. One nice thing about jewelcrafting are the Dalaran and Org/Stormwind dailies when you're the right level to do them.

If you're panda is a monk, another suggestion would be skinning/leatherworking. It's nice to be able to make your own armor. You can also make some gold at it selling leather and some armor. No pets.

There aren't many crafted mounts. And the few there are, you have those professions already--except for Vial of the Sands from alchemy. But it's so hard to find the recipe and you need high level archeology on your alchemist to do it, I'd say it's easier to grind gold and buy that mount, rather than make it (don't need alchemy to use the mount).

[Quintessence]

The new Darkmoon Faire pets won't be available until the next major content patch (5.1).

[Opallena]

My favorite two professions right now are Alchemy and Jewelcrafting.

Jewelcrafting is rather expensive to level, but when you max at 600 and get lucky with one or both of the new pet designs, it can be profitable with gem selling and the new Panther mounts

Alchemy isn't very expensive to level but rather annoying because you need various herbs to level. it is also profitable because of the Trillium bar and Living steel transmutations, as well as transmutating Rare gems for pandaria.

Overall, Both professions are easier to level on a new toon rather than power leveling though it doesn't hurt to have a main with a bit of gold.

I wouldn't recommend blacksmithing at all- if you've already done engineering its in the same level of annoying and expensive and its not profitable at all because most of the gear recipes require you to get spirit of harmonies

[Mairin]

A lot of choosing which professions you want/need is all personal preference but of the 3 you mentioned, inscription is by far the easiest to level if you're gathering your own mats. Unlike alchemy where it's "okay you need 10 of herb A, 20 of herb B and 30 of herb C" it's just a case of go to a relevant zone and quickly gather 60 of any herb you get your hands on. Even with the <expletive> CRZs I farmed a single session 1-525 a couple of days ago and 525-600 is insanely easy although a touch slower (if you go for the BoE/BoA staves which are fairly nice). As for a money maker, there's definately a few angles to try out but for me personally it's less about what money it draws in and more about what money it stops going out (glyphs/cards/inscriptions)

Also when paired with the obvious herbalism you have the benefit of milling on the fly, quest object tracking on certain plant-based quests, the ability to "skin" certain elementals, xp per gather and the option to "feed" an additional alchemist alt/friend if the need arose. I get that you want to consider a double crafter but as someone with a tailor/engineer and a tailor/backup scribe it gets to just be a bit inconvient. Personally I also have issues when I could across a node that that character needs but in order to gather it I'd have to switch toons and hope it's still there.