TRADES

Cooking, always

any cooking trainer / level 5 to 30 / food that levels you / alone

I learned Cooking because the innkeeper in Goldshire stopped feeding me on credit. Tomas, the cook in the village, taught me for a silver, and for a week I lived on boar I had roasted myself. Most of it was burnt.

Why it pays

On Forever food does more than fill you. The travellers say crafted food gives 5 percent more experience from kills for fifteen minutes, and that the dishes of the very first cooking tier already have it. Everyone who levels wants that, and not everyone cooks. And as the first page of this chapter says, Cooking takes neither of your two slots.

The trainer's recipes don't make the money. On the beta Roasted Boar Meat, Spiced Wolf Meat and Boiled Clams all sold for less than the raw meat they are made from, because every new cook buys meat to level. Eat those yourself and sell your spare meat raw. The dishes that paid on the beta came from vendor recipes. Alliance cooks buy Recipe: Seasoned Wolf Kabob from Kendor Kabonka in Stormwind for 16 silver, and it turns two Lean Wolf Flank into three Seasoned Wolf Kabob. Horde cooks get Recipe: Scorpid Surprise from Grimtak in Razor Hill for a silver and 40 copper.

Legacy helps the cook as well. The travellers say its Master Chef perk gives a chance at an extra dish, ten percent a rank in the demo and up to half again at the top, and one of them puts his first five points there.

What you need

Level 5 and a silver for the first rank at any cooking trainer, then level 10, skill 50 and 5 silver for Journeyman. After that the trainers stop. The Expert Cookbook costs a gold, and in the data only Shandrina in Ashenvale and Wulan in Desolace sell it. One Simple Wood makes a campfire, and a trade supplies vendor sells the Mild Spices for ten copper.

How

1. Learn Cooking at level 5 and keep the meat you loot.
2. Cook the trainer's dishes up to 50 for your own bags, and eat while you level.
3. Buy the recipe for your faction, Scorpid Surprise at skill 20 or the kabob at 100. The stingers come from the scorpids of Durotar, the Lean Wolf Flank from the wolves of Duskwood and Ashenvale.
4. Sell the dishes that pay on the auction house and the meat of the cheap ones raw.
5. Buy the Expert Cookbook when the trainer has nothing more to teach you.

What can go wrong

A food market can be cornered. On the beta someone bought every food buff on one auction house and relisted them at many times the price within the hour. The experience bonus isn't in our data, and Blizzard can change it, or leave it off the dishes you happen to cook. Kendor's recipe is for the Alliance only, and the Master Chef numbers are from a demo.

BASTIAN'S VERDICT Cooking costs almost nothing, and it feeds me on the road. I'd take it on every character.