Way back when i first hit level 60, i realized just how worthless a profession Skinning was for me, and decided to drop it for Engineering to make PVP toys and other neat gadgets. As a result, I have two crafting and no gathering professions. I'm sure I'm not unique in this situation, and I'm sure with the cool new BOP weapons and other gear there's a lot of people who are contemplating swapping to a new crafting profession when the expansion comes out (or already have), especially those who have "disenchanting", now that it requires actual skill ranks to shard things.

My question for discussion here, then, is for those people who have worked to level professions past 300 on beta - what old-world patterns and materials are still effective for leveling up in the expansion, and thus what would be useful materials to stock up on before january when everyone's scrambling to skill up? Things like Rugged Leather are super cheap right now, but when everyone wants it to level up (you know, all three leatherworkers on every server), the prices are sure to go up.

What old patterns are still orange/yellow, and when do they turn green/grey? I haven't actively leveled up my professions at all on beta due to lack of materials, but i've noticed some recipes changing colors from where they are on live (thorium shells goes green instead of orange at 300, for instance), so i'm sure there's been some shifting around to keep leveling professions from being to easy or too hard.

Almost everything switches to new base material types right off the bat at level 60. Leatherworking has Knothide Leather, Tailoring has Netherweave Cloth (was that what it was called? I forget), Blacksmithing and Engineering have Fel Iron Ore/Bars...

The big thing I would recommend you start hoarding immediately would be Runecloth. The first new bandage type is Netherweave Bandages at First Aid 330. To get to 330, you need to make Heavy Runecloth Bandages...a ton of them. The last 10 or so First Aid levels require making those while the recipe is green.

Other than that, I didn't observe much need to stockpile any old material types to level past 300.

only stockpiling you need to do is for jewelcrafting, and for that are tons of 0-300 shopping lists floating around

i'm not necessarily just wondering what old world materials you *need*, but rather what old world recipes/materials are still effective for leveling. if i can go from 300-320 on rugged leather rather than knothide, i want to do that, because i don't have skinning to get the knothide leather. :-P the more old world materials each profession can use to level, the easier it is for those of us without gathering professions - and that's the question i'm getting at :-P

Right now on live, a number of leatherworking patterns: Core Armor Kit, Devilsaur Leggings, Runic Leather Pants, and Wicked Leather Belt (?!) all yellow out at 320 and gray out at 340. (This is Thottbot data.) I certainly plan to check the veracity of that once I get my main to the beta servers (if those keys ever go out...)

Take a look at what recipes you have now that are orange/yellow. Typically these will stay that way for about 10-15 levels, especially if you got the pattern at lvl 295+

Core Armour kits for LW
Mooncloth Bags for Tailoring (my mage has 40+ mooncloth at the mo)
Radient Gloves for BS are pretty useful, however for BS there's going to be a million and one requests for Fel Iron Rods, which you learn from the BS trainer at 300.

You are going to want at least 200 runecloth in my estimation, per character, to level first aid to 330. If you're a tailor you probably want 600 or so :) Having said that, runecloth and netherweave drop very frequently.

Enchanting is one of the ones that I found would benefit from stockpiling.

At 300 Enchanting Wizard and Mana oils are still Orange, as is Enchant Bracer: Superior Stam.

Wizard/Mana oils require some large brilliant shards and Stam to Bracers requires Illusion Dust.
I'd suggest at least grabbing a few stacks from the AH while they're cheap, it'll get you 20-30 skill points easily.

Interestingly too I haven't seen Nexus Crystals to be used much after 60 so I liquidated a lot of mine, and got some Large Brilliants instead.

I spent some time this weekend levelling engineering.
I am a goblin engy, so ymmv.

After going through bascially everything I had mined making it to 70 (having maxxed mining around level 66, a hell of a lot of ore), I am sitting at 326 or so.
I'm now either stockpiling mats to make mechanical yetis to level with or dropping engineering, depending on the quality of the recipies found before the xpac goes live.

Grats on reading his post...

For cooking, the Smoked Desert Dumplings made by Sandworm Meat keep giving skill ups for quite a while, even longer than some recipes you find on Hellfire Penninsula.

It is easy enough to check the thottbot.com/beta page for the item you're thinking of skilling up with to make sure it hasn't changed.

Presuming they don't modify things, of course.

For Blacksmithing: Light Obsidian Belts grey out at 340 and Elemental Sharpening Stones grey out at 320. Both are very easy on the mats (anyone doing AQ is going to have a few hundred small obsidian shards).

does anyone know the % for whether you gain a skill point when crafting an item based on its color? like - orange is 100%, yellow is 50%, green is 25%, or whatever? i'd imagine the information is available somewhere, and it'd certainly help people in determining how much of various materials they should plan to stock up on if they want to power through the early levels of their professions.

Funny, I spent quite a while looking for precisely this information just the other day - couldn't find it. Also couldn't find information about when a given recipe turns green (thottbott only has information for orange/yellow/grey).

Not all greens and yellows are created equal. If you look at some of the good crafting guides they're able to tell you which yellows almost always give a skillup and which greens almost never do.