PvE Arcane Mage Best Professions – WoW Classic

Nevermore Nevermore • Updated June 7, 2025

Arcane Mages can use some professions to enhance their overall performance, resulting in higher survivability and overall Damage Output. Here we’ll showcase the best professions for Arcane Mage, including any other useful profession and the professions that should be avoided altogether.

Best Professions

  • Engineering is known as the best PvE profession that Arcane Mages can use, allowing them to create a variety of bombs, gadgets, and special Gear pieces. The profession is used to enhance AoE damage with Goblin Sapper Charge, Dark Iron Bomb, and Thorium Grenade but can be used in Single-Target scenarios as well if you are close enough to the target, resulting in quite some insanely high DPS. The main issue with Engineering is that the profession is very expensive to level up and maintain, requiring a large amount of materials that can drain your gold instantly if not paired with Mining or another good gold-generation profession.
  • Tailoring is yet another renowned profession for Arcane Mages, allowing them to craft great gear pieces that can enhance their performance at multiple stages of their journey. While the profession falls off after acquiring Dungeon sets and Raid gear, it pays off immensely until then, with some items even being viable in Raid content. In addition, it is usually paired up with Enchanting to generate a high gold return since it is easy to spam craft items and disenchant them.

Useful Professions

  • Mining is great if paired with Engineering, as it allows players to gather valuable ore and special gems that can support the proper use of consumables! While on its own is considered just another gold generation tool, the profession is vital if you plan on using Engineering during every Dungeon/Raid.
  • Enchanting is yet another useful profession if you plan on picking Tailoring, as it allows you to easily generate materials that can either be sold or used to provide enchanting services. The profession is useless without Tailoring, as it simply acts as another gold-generation tool harder to sustain than the typical gold-generation professions such as Herbalism/Alchemy.
  • Alchemy is one of the best professions for gold generation since consumables are a constant requirement for PvE. If paired with Herbalism or a large reserve of gold, having the profession will ensure that you generate profit or a steady supply of consumables for both you and your allies.
  • Herbalism is a great gold generation tool for any player as it allows them to gather herbs from across the world which can be sold or used with Alchemy to turn in an even greater profit. The profession is great even as a standalone, as it doesn’t require Alchemy to generate high amounts of gold.

Sub-Par Professions

  • Skinning is considered a bad profession for Arcane Mages as it only acts as a somewhat mediocre gold generation tool when compared to the other options, especially since Leatherworking is useless for them. The profession allows players to skin beasts and gather their hides.
  • Leatherworking is entirely useless for Arcane Mages since they can’t use Leather armor! The profession is barely viable as a BoE selling tool since you can sell BoE items to other players or the Auction House, however, there are other far more valuable gold-generation tools in the game such as Alchemy/Herbalism or Tailoring/Enchanting.
  • Blacksmithing is similar to Leatherworking, as Arcane Mages can’t use any of the items crafted with the profession. Blacksmithing is only good for creating special items such as keys or enchanter rods, but other than that, no Mage should ever use this profession in WoW Classic.
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

PvE Arcane Mage Best Professions

Luxrah Luxrah • Updated June 7, 2025

No World of Warcraft character is complete without professions! Along with their gold making potential, professions can provide powerful bonuses to your damage, healing, or survivability. This guide will go over the best professions for an Arcane Mage in Cataclysm PvE content.

Best Professions

wow classic professions engineering icon Engineering

  • Synapse Springs give you 480 Intellect for 10 seconds and can be used once per minute (this shares a cooldown with on-use trinkets, but it’s better than any trinket effect for Arcane)
  • Nitro Boosts give even more mobility to an already mobile class
  • Lightweight Bio-Optic Killshades are pre-raid BiS for Arcane Mages
  • Gnomish Army Knife can come in handy on any class that can’t otherwise resurrect allies
  • Jeeves and other convenience items are great for farming and solo questing

wow classic professions tailoring icon Tailoring

Useful Professions

inscription icon cataclysm Inscription

wow classic professions alchemy icon Alchemy

wow classic professions enchanting icon Enchanting

  • Enchant Ring – Intellect gives a total of 80 bonus Intellect when used on both of your rings
  • You’ll be able to enchant all of your own gear
  • Often used as a sister profession to Tailoring since neither skill requires its own separate gathering profession and Tailored items can be disenchanted for use in Enchanting

jewelcrafting icon cataclysm Jewelcrafting

  • Brilliant Chimera’s Eye gives 81 bonus Intellect in total if you use 3 of them (which is the max you can have equipped)
  • You can prospect ore and craft gems, Necks, and Finger pieces
  • Stardust is a powerful buff to your Sparkle stat!

wow classic professions blacksmithing icon Blacksmithing

  • Socket Gloves and Socket Bracer allow you to use two extra gems for a total of 80 bonus Intellect
  • You’ll be able to craft keys, enchanting rods, weapons, and plate armor, but most of it won’t be useful to you as a Mage

Sub-Par Professions

wow classic professions leatherworking icon Leatherworking

wow classic professions herbalism icon Herbalism

  • Lifeblood gives you a healing ability that doubles as a powerful Haste cooldown
  • You’ll be able to gather herbs for use in other professions

wow classic professions skinning icon Skinning

  • Master of Anatomy gives a passive 80 Critical Strike Rating
  • You’ll be able to gather skins and hides for use in other professions

wow classic professions mining icon Mining

  • Toughness gives a passive 120 Stamina bonus
  • You can gather ore and gems for use in other professions
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

PvE Arcane Mage Best Professions

Amery Amery • Updated June 7, 2025

Professions are a crucial part of your World of Warcraft character, potentially offering a large boost to your damage, healing or survivability, while also allowing you to generate some gold.

This section will cover some of your best options for professions as a Arcane Mage.

Best Professions

Like with most other classes & specs in the game, Engineering will be your strongest profession. For the second profession slot, we recommend Tailoring, which is generally viewed as the best 2nd profession for casters. However, Tailoring is not significantly better than the professions listed in the Useful Professions section (with the exception of Skinning, which is significantly weaker), so you could use any one of those instead for the 2nd profession slot.

Engineering is the king of professions for PvE content, offering a vast, vast array of different benefits.

The main benefit of Engineering lies in the Hyperspeed Accelerators gloves enchant, which gives +340 haste rating for 12 seconds, on a 1 minute cooldown. This translates into a ~10% cast speed increase with a 20% uptime, which is already amazing on its own — but it becomes even bigger when you use the Accelerators when your various trinkets proc.

Additionally, as an Engineer you have access to the Nitro Boosts boots enchant, passively giving +24 crit rating and coming with an-use effect which massively increases your speed for 5 seconds, allowing you to move out of dangerous AoE effects immediately.

Finally, just like in previous expansions, Engineers can use powerful explosives such as Saronite Bombs and Global Thermal Sapper Charges — granted, you will need to be a Goblin Engineer in order to use sappers.

As a Tailor, you gain access to the Lightweave Embroidery cloak enchant, a proc which gives you +295 spell power for 15 seconds with a 45 second internal cooldown. This translates into a possible +98 spell power bonus on average if it procs exactly every 45 seconds, or a +74 spell power bonus on average if it procs every 60 seconds, which is absolutely massive.

However, there is an opportunity cost attached to this bonus, as it prohibits you from using the standard cloak enchant, Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed, making it slightly weaker in practice. This trade-off is still very much worth it for us however, as stacking your cooldowns along with this proc can result in a massive DPS boost, which trumps what other professions can bring — though not by a lot.

Tailoring is pretty weak on the gold generation side, unfortunately, so the cloak enchant is the main benefit. However, there’s also some useful cloth gear you can craft yourself, which can be very useful for fresh level 80 characters, saving you some gold by not having to buy it on the Auction House.

Useful Professions

The following professions are considered viable, but offer a lesser benefit compared to the best professions, so they’re not recommended. If you’re not focused on making your character 100% optimal, you can use any of these professions just fine.

Jewelcrafting is an extremely potent profession for most classes / specs and that includes Arcane Mages. Not only do you gain access to powerful, Jewelcrafter-unique gems, but you also get to sell gems to others, giving you a modest income through this profession.

The main benefit of Jewelcrafting is the Jewelcrafter-unique gems, Dragon’s Eye, which are more powerful than regular gems, but are limited to 3 equipped at a time. The main ones you’ll be crafting as a Mage are Runed Dragon’s Eye, and using 3 of those will result in a +48 spell power increase compared to using regular epic gems — Runed Cardinal Ruby. This is 1 spell power better than what Alchemy offers, and 2 spell power better than what other professions offer — wow!

As an Alchemist, you gain access to the Mixology passive effect, which increases the effectiveness of flasks and elixirs you consume, but only if you can craft them yourself. This results in a +47 spell power increase when using Flask of the Frost Wyrm, our preferred flask. This is 1 spell power better than what most other professions offer — truly a huge boost! :P

Alchemy is one of the best professions for gold generation, as potions, flasks and elixirs are always relevant and in high demand. This makes it overall a great profession for an Arcane Mage if you don’t end up going with Tailoring.

As a Scribe, you gain access to the Master’s Inscription of the Storm shoulder enchant, which provides a +46 spell power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, Greater Inscription of the Storm. This bonus ties Enchanting, Leatherworking and Blacksmithing, and is only marginally worse than what the “better” professions offer, so if you enjoy Inscription, it’s a very viable choice.

Scribes also get to make Glyphs & scrolls, providing a nice source of income, but many will argue that the real benefit in Inscription comes in not having to grind The Sons of Hodir reputation for the shoulder enchants!

As an Enchanter you gain access to the Enchant Ring – Greater Spellpower enchant, which you can apply to both of your rings for a +46 spell power boost. This bonus ties Inscription, Leatherworking and Blacksmithing, and is only marginally worse than what the “better” professions offer, so if you enjoy Enchanting, it’s a very viable choice.

You also get to enchant your own equipment without needing to tip another enchanter, which results in a neat amount of gold saved, on top of the gold you can generate by enchanting others.

As a Leatherworker you gain access to the Fur Lining – Spell Power bracer enchant, which proves a +46 spell power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, Enchant Bracers – Superior Spellpower. This bonus ties Inscription, Enchanting and Blacksmithing, and is only marginally worse than what the “better” professions offer, so if you enjoy Leatherworking, it’s a very viable choice — though we’d generally recommend one of the other options.

There are sadly no other useful benefits gained from Leatherworking as you can’t even use leather armor, and you generally don’t get to make much or a profit with it either.

Blacksmiths can add 2 extra gem sockets to their gear — 1 on wrists, and 1 on hands. Socketing 2x Runed Cardinal Ruby into them translates into a +46 spell power bonus. This bonus ties Inscription, Enchanting and Leatherworking, and is only marginally worse than what the “better” professions offer, so if you enjoy Enchanting, it’s a very viable choice — though we’d generally recommend one of the other options.

Mages cannot use plate armor, so the extra sockets is all you get, and Blacksmithing is pretty poor for gold generation as well.

Skinners gain access to the Master of Anatomy passive, which offers a +40 crit rating boost. This is weaker than all of the other professions mentioned in this list, but at least it’s something.

Skinning is generally not that good at gold generation either, so it’s overall not a great profession.

Sub-Par Professions

The following professions do not offer any DPS-increasing benefits and are thus not considered viable for Arcane Mages in PvE.

Herbalists gain the Lifeblood active skill, which heals you for 3600 over 5 seconds, with a 3 minute cooldown. This can occasionally come in handy, particularly while leveling, farming or questing, but will generally never be enough to save you in a dungeon or raid.

On the flipside, Herbalism is one of the strongest professions for gold generation, as herbs are used in Alchemy and Inscription, and thus always in demand. This makes it a good profession to have on an alt, particularly a Druid, Rogue or Hunter.

Miners gain access to the Toughness passive, which offers a +60 stamina boost. This isn’t a small amount, but it generally won’t be enough to save your life as an Arcane Mage.

Mining is okay for gold generation, but as with Herbalism, it’s best saved for a Druid, Rogue or Hunter alt.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments