User:Pgunn/Profession Guide

Professions serve several roles in DOFUS, from acting as a source of kamas to providing things players need. Effectively making use of them takes organisation. This guide aims to help people, from newbies to those who have their feet wet, think about professions in a structured, effective way.

Kinds of Professions
There are several rough classifications of profession, each with its own characteristics. These are important to help people choose the order in which to acquire professions - as some professions depend on others, and new professions cannot be acquired until all the other professions for that character are level 30, a poor choice of order can hamper one's intent to progress. Similarly, if one is in a guild which provides plenty of finished products or raw resources, this may impact one's choice of profession order to take.


 * Raw Resource Gatherers - These professions provide raw materials, primarily for other professions. They are not very exciting, but they are a good source of kamas for new players and are very useful for later professions.
 * Refined Consumables - These professions take raw produce and produce items that are directly consumed by other characters (outside of crafting)
 * Equipment producers - These professions take raw resources (from gatherers and other sources) and produce equipment.
 * Maging - These professions are refinements on equipment production professions that use runes to alter existing equipment.

Not all professions fit neatly into those categories.

Grouping Professions and Inventory Management
Each character may take up to three professions (maging does not take a normal slot), and because characters do not share a single inventory, choosing complementary professions within each character can be helpful to avoid making a trip to the bank (or later, a trip to one's chest in the guild house or home) necessary to craft something. Depending on how much one keeps in the bank, this can save significant kamas, and it usually will save a lot of time to avoid the need to switch characters. Some professions provide resources useful for more than one other profession though, so perfect pairs are not always possible unless one takes some gathering professions more than once. Most professions involve carrying large amounts of some resources - use of equiipment to improve carrying capacity will make these professions much simpler. This can be done in three ways:
 * 1) Having a pet Bworky - Bworkys are often inexpensive in pet sellrooms, and they're fairly easy to feed. They directly improve carrying capacity (up to 1000 pods). Most people who are serious about professions have a bworky.
 * 2) Improving strength - Each point of strength a character has improves their pod capacity by 5. A strength set (minus, usually, the weapon, which is used for a profession tool) can improve pod capacity by a fair amount.
 * 3) Levelling up professions - For each level of each profession, the character gains another 5 pods of carrying capacity. For each L100 profession, the character gains a 1000 pod capacity bonus (which applies to maging professions as well)

Attitudes towards levelling
One can either make a sustained effort to reach high levels in one's professions, or adopt a more lax as-I-go attitude towards them. Most players will probably go through alternating phases of this (the latter makes more sense once the profession is of high enough level to generally be useful). This distinction may also impact the recipes one makes (or resources one gathers) - when one is trying to level, one generally is producing very large amounts of uninteresting items (or running marathon gathering sessions). Additionally, as players begin to approach L90, it begins to make sense to make a "final push" to reach L100 for the added carrying capacity (and other bonuses, if any).

The recipes available to each profession make a large impact on their ability to level - the materials needed for each recipe impact how easy it is to make in bulk (both in weight and expense). If one is hoping to level quickly, the easiest/least expensive recipe per experience point somewhere in the range of number of slot-categories that will give them experience will be the most effective way to level (more on this later).

On Materials
Some materials are gathered by gathering professions, while others are obtained through other means. Scanning the list of recipes and being able to tell the easy recipes from the difficult ones involves learning how easy it is for one to acquire everything in any given recipe - this will differ from person to person. There are three broad categories that are important to recognise:
 * Profession-Gathered resources - These are acquired by a raw resource gatherer in the fields, forests, and mines. Some of them are easier to gather than others. When one has a very high level gatherer for the relevant resource, the costs of this can feel negligible (e.g. a L80 lumberjack could gather 500 ash fairly quickly, although collecting 200 ebony may take some time and effort for even a L100 lumbrjack). Example: Wheat Cereal
 * Monster-gathered resources - These are acquired by doing combat and collecting monster drops. Some drops are more common than others, and some classes are more suited towards quickly acquiring plenty of these resources than others. The Gobball Dungeon, for example, is often run repetatively by high-level Cras and Sadidas for raw resources who can clear clear it in less than 20 minutes. This same task would take considerably longer for an Eniripsa or Enutrof. Example: Black Gobbly Leather
 * NPC-bought resources - Some resources are only (or primarily) bought from NPCs. It is important to learn these resources, both so one does not buy them above the NPC cost in the market and so one can plan the most efficient way to make kamas. The best way to identify these is to look at the wiki page for each ingredient to see if it can be bought somewhere. Example: Whetstone

For Profession-gathered resources, it is helpful to have a planned route to gether the resources one needs - resources are exhausted in a spot on a map by the harvesting, and eventually the map will be exhausted, making it necessary to move on to a new map. At high levels, one should establish a route of maps to harvest, both to most efficiently do single runs and to make easy loops that will leave the first map's resources respawning as one arrives back at them. If one is refining the resources somehow (e.g. Farmers making flour from cereal or Lumberjacks making planks from wood), the workshops near the resources might be worked into the loop (which can be useful because the refined product typically weighs less than the unrefined, allowing more gathering). One should naturally try to avoid where the collectors (centaur creatures guilds leave to steal resources) are.

Alchemist
Alchemists both gather raw resources and produce refined consumables. It is one of the easiest professions to get up to about level 60 and can make kamas easily along the way (if they're paying attention). They gain experience both from harvesting plants and making products from ingredients (which may or may not include plants). While they have a number of simple recipes of their own, if one also has access to a high-level farmer (who is aligned to Bonta/Brakmar), one can easily (and profitably) bring them up to L60 by having them mix rice (harvested by farmers in the aligned region of Water Pandala) in a flask (bought for 1 kamas in neutral Pandala) to make city potions. At level 30, they can usually make good kamas making magic dye for tailors and energy potions. Overall, alchemist is an excellent first profession because it's profitable, it doesn't depend much on other professions, competition is low for most resources, and the things it produces are useful to everyone.

Farmer
Farmers gather raw cereal, which they can make into flour. They're the easiest profession to get to level 100, as they get experience both from harvesting and making flour (they should always make the most complex flour they can to get the most experience). They are the first half of the useful combination of Farmer-Baker (they should bank most of their flour until they get baker), and at high enough levels can harvest Flax Cereal (which can be traded for Flax String, useful for Bow-Carvers). At L100, the returns from each cut of a resource increase dramatically. There are three places worth mentioning for farming: Overall, farmer is a very easy profession that on its own is unexciting and is not particularly profitable.
 * 1) Fields north of Astrub City - A very poor place because of the high competition, large numbers of collectors, and new players running around begging from and challenging harvesters. This is your only option if you are not pay-to-play. The workshop is northeast of Astrub City.
 * 2) Inglasses Fields - East of the 5,7 Zaap, these are conveniently near Astrub city and offer a variety of resources in close proximity without new players. Competition is generally moderate. The workshop is one north from the Zaap.
 * 3) Fields south of Bonta - An excellent place for farming, with large numbers of generally underharvested plants. Those making flour with plenty of different ingredients will need to run around much more to gather a variety, but this is generally made up for by the much lower competition and larger quantities. The workshop is almost due south from the south gate of Bonta.

Baker
Bakers are the other half of the Farmer-Baker combination. They primarily produce various breads (made of Flour, Water, Yeast, and occasionally other ingredients), which are useful for adventurers to recover health. They depend on a large supply of Flour - without the Farmer pairing, it is very expensive (and generally not profitable) to level them or produce goods. Because the Farmer-Baker combination is so common, sometimes various flours are completely unavailable in the market, so it is very unwise to take this profession first. Breads tend to sell well (although note that to sell the more complex breads, players must either travel to Bonta/Brakmar sellrooms or go into merchant mode - Astrub sellrooms refuse to sell breads over "L20" complexity). Overall, baker is a good profession when paired with farmer, providing a means to make profit from the flours farmers make from their raw cereals.

Fisher
Fisher (called Fisherman in game) is a gathering profession. They catch fish from rivers, ponds, and oceans using fishing rods. They're one of the most difficult gathering professions, as they usually gather only one fish per fishing attempt, each attempt takes significant time, and they have a high failure rate in harvests with early rods and at low levels. They are moderately profitable, as several popular pets and mounts eat fish. There are several locations worth consideration for fishing, and unlike most other gathering professions, proper equipment is essential to gathering effectively. Spare fish (once gutted) should generally be saved to level Fishmonger, which is a useful (but not essential) pairing with Fisher. Overall, fisher is a fairly difficult/painful profession that's moderately profitable when selling to those who have pets.

Fishmonger
Fishmonger is the other half of the Fisher-Fishmonger combination. They produce fish meals out of gutted fish, which are useful for adventurers to recover health. They rely on a supply of fish, so it is very expensive to level them without the Fisher pairing. Fishmongers are not particularly profitable because Fisher is less efficient at gathering suitable materials than their competitors, Farmer-Bakers, resulting in most players not even bothering to consider purchase of fish meals. Overall, while their top recipes are much better than those of Farmer-Bakers, taking Fisher-Fishmonger with the intent to produce food is unwise.

Hunter
Hunter is a gathering profession. Unlike other gathering professions, hunters gain their resources as special drops when they kill monsters while wearing a hunter tool in their weapon slot. This is useful because they can level their class level and hunter level roughly at the same time, and their abiliy to rapidly finish combats will make their profession work much more smoothly. High level characters with area-effect attacks (such as Cras and Sadidas) can very rapidly level in hunter this way. The actual experience comes from preserving the raw meat drops at a hunter workshop, and new meat drops are unlocked roughly every ten levels. Sequential Tofu and Gobball dungeon speedruns are particularly effective at gathering the resources to level hunter. Preserved meats cannot directly be eaten - while they can be sold on the market (usually at attractive prices), once one is able, pairing this with Butcher is generally wise. Note that while there are various hunter tools, the tofu wand can also be used in hunting. Overall, hunter is a good profession for those who don't want to spend much time on professions, are very effective in general combat, don't want to compete over gathering spots, and can spare their weapon slot for a hunter tool.

Butcher
Butcher is the other half of the Hunter-Butcher combination. They generally produce meals out of preserved meat, which is useful for adventurers to recover health. They rely on a supply of preserved meat, so it is practically impossible to level them without the hunter pairing. Butchers tend not to be very profitable because most people only check the bread sellroom for health recovery, although their products tend to be better than most breads. They're ideal for providing all of one's characters adequate recovery items as well as helping one's guild (if applicable), especially because the items don't come from lengthy farming/fishing sessions. Overall, butcher is a useful completion for hunters, as it provides a nice way to acquire health recovery items as a side effect from combats. Apart from the obvious Cra/Sadida class, solo Sacriers (who always need a steady supply of healing items) may wish to consider Hunter-Butcher if they can spare their weapon slot.

Miner
Miner is a gathering profession. They harvest ores from the various Mines, and can also produce alloys by melting large amounts of their ores together. Apart from some alloys (and a few other products), they don't rely on any other professions, and are very useful for equipment crafting. On most servers and at most times of the day, the mines can be highly competitive - it can be very difficult to level miner (or gather ore at all) in a crowded mine. It would be prudent for miners to visit every mine in the game before beginning to seriously mine, in order to familiarise themselves with the best routes through (and between) the mines, learn which mines are particularly busy on the server they reside (and at what times), and to learn which mines have the materials appropriate for them to gather. Miners will generally gather/level best when they have access to a large mine with little competition. Some ores (particularly bronze) are incredibly plentiful in most mines - sometimes to the point where miners will drop or destroy them, just harvesting them for experience if they're trying to rapidly level. Non-miners can thus sometimes acquire ore cheaply or for free by visiting mines and looking for drops or buying them from miners as they work. Mining can be fairly profitable, as ores are needed for many crafts. Making alloys is not a particularly good way to gain experience for miners - the absurd amounts of ore it requires combined with a poor experience return means that on a per-time basis it's generally more efficient to keep collecting ore than to melt it. Characters good at combat can make use of an inter-mine transit system. At L100, miners gain a significant drop bonus in everything they collect. Overall, mining is a useful profession for various types of equipment making and can be highly profitable, but the fierce competition in the mines can make it very frustrating and slow.

Lumberjack
Lumberjack is a gathering profession. They primarily cut trees to gather wood, which is useful to make various kinds of equipmnt. They don't rely on any other professions, and are very useful for equipment crafting. Lumberjack can be fairly competitive (although not nearly as much so as miner), and a good lumberjack run will most efficiently include several types of trees -- while ash tends to be very plentiful alone, most other trees tend to grow together in the various forests. Efficient lumberjacking relies strongly on planning efficient paths through screens in forests to avoid sitting in cut forests waiting for trees to respawn. The forests between "The Village" and the Scaraleaf plain are particularly good for low level trees - higher level lumberjacks who are willing to brave agressive Trools tend to prefer the Eltneg wood east of Bonta for higher-level wood (there are some specialty woods in various other parts of the world). Unlike miners, lumberjacks can get reasonable experience using the limited crafting abilities they have (at very low levels, ash planks, at higher levels the various wood shavings potions). Lumberjack is a fairly profitable profession, as many other crafts rely on it. At L100, Lumberjacks gain a significant drop bonus in everything they collect. Overall, lumberjack is a good, useful profession and can be highly profitable, although occasionally the competition, particularly for woods like Cherry and Elm, can make it frustrating and slow.

Handyman
Handyman is a profession that produces miscellaneous items that are not equipment or directly consumable. Their primary products are keys to dungeons and items for mount breeding. Handyman is very difficult to level, as dungeon keys tend to be made of items that do not drop very frequently from monster fights, and breeding items tend to require very large amounts of wood. For this reason, generally characters who take handyman are in a guild that can provide them with materials for keys as they drop as well as large amounts of wood. Guilds tend to be those who need breeding items, as it is rare that individuals can afford their own breeding pen and to replace breeder items as they wear out. Selling keys and breeder items can be moderately profitable, especially the more complex ones. Overall, handyman is a very difficult profession that relies on the support of a guild or a very high level lumberjack to level.

Jeweller
Jeweller is a profession that produces amulets and rings from raw materials. It relies primarily on wood and ore, and given access to even low levels of those professions, it is the easiest equipment-producing profession to take to high levels because of its many simple, low-material-requirement recipes (such as small rings of wisdom, amulet itbe, etc). The simple recipes also make it a very efficient profession to transform raw materials into runes (via crafting and then the item crusher). It is moderately profitable, although there tend to be large numbers of jewellers because of the simplicity of levelling the profession. At L65, Jewellers may take the Jewelmagus profession, which does not use one of the three profession slots. Overall, jeweller is a very easy equipment-producing profession, reasonably profitable and useful for supporting any of the magus professions through efficient rune-production.

Shoemaker
Shoemaker is a profession that produces shoes and belts from raw materials. It relies primarily on ore and various types of leather/wool. Given access to a miner and various ores, it is moderately easy to take to mid-levels because of its many simple, low-material-requirement recipes at low levels (the output of many runs of the gobball dungeon should be sufficient). It is difficult to take to high levels as the ingredients needed can be more rare and the recipes call for more materials that require combat drops. It is fairly profitable, as it is not as difficult to level as tailor nor is it as common as jeweller. At L65, Jewellers may take the Shoemagus profession, which does not use one of the three profession slots. Overall, shoemaker is a fairly profitable, mid-difficulty equipment-producing profession.

Tailor
Tailor is a profession that produces hats, capes, and bags from raw materials. It relies primarily on combat drops and magic dye (from alchemists). It is a very difficult profession to level because many of the ingredients used in its recipes are also tradable for stat scrolls (including those alchemists might use to make magic dye) and the few recipes that are made entirely of harvestable materials (such as Wooden Wings) are laborious to gather in sufficient quantity to level. It is highly profitable, as there is not a lot of competition, especially at the higher levels of the profession. The best support for a tailor might be a hunter-butcher, as the large numbers of runs of the Gobball dungeon they would find useful to do anyhow would also gather sufficient materials to help level tailor, even though no hunter-butcher drops are directly useful for tailor. At L65, Tailors may take the Tailormagus profession, which does not use one of the three profession slots. Overall, tailor is a very difficult but profitable equipment-producing profession.

Shieldmaker
Shieldmaker is a profession that produces shields from raw materials. It relies primarily on wood and monster drops. It is a fairly difficult profession to take past mid-levels because its recipes beyond 3-slots involve rare/expensive materials. Like handyman, this profession is best supported by an active guild (most likely an aligned one, as shields are not generally useful outside of PVP). Unlike other equipment professions, there is no Shieldmagus profession. Shieldmagus can be reasonably profitable, especially given the limited competition and that those most enthusiastic about shields tend to be very high-level. Overall, shieldmagus is a very difficult but profitable equipment-producing profession best taken with the support of an aligned guild.

Bowcarver
Bowcarver is a profession that produces bows from raw materials. It relies primarily on wood and flax string (indirectly harvested by a high-level farmer). It is moderately easy to level, given a good supply of flax string (be sure to trade 100 flax for 100 flax string - do not craft it) from a farmer and a mid-to-high level lumberjack. Its profitability depends strongly on the popularity of bows as weapons. At L65, bowcarvers may take bowmagus.

Staffcarver
Staffcarver is a profession that produces staves from raw materials. It relies primarily on wood and (at higher levels) monster drops. It is moderately easy to take to mid-levels given a mid-level lumberjack, although taking it to high levels is significantly more difficult as the monster drop ingredients are fairly expensive/rare. Its profitability depends on the popularity of staves as weapons. At L65, staffcarvers may take staffmagus.

Wandcarver
Wandcarver is a profession that produces wands from raw materials. It relies primarily on wood and ore. It is easy to take to high levels given a mid-level lumberjack and miner. Its profitability depends on the popularity of wands as weapons. At L65, wandcarvers may take wandmagus.

Axesmith
Axesmith is a profession that produces axes from raw materials. It relies primarily on wood and ore. It is easy to take to high levels given a mid-level lumberjack and miner, and some of the axes produced are usable to replace the basic lumberjack axe. Its profitability depends on the popularity of axes as weapons. At L65, axesmiths may take axe smithmagus.

Daggersmith
Daggersmith is a profession that produces daggers from raw materials. It relies primarily on wood and ore. It is very easy to take to high levels given a mid-level lumberjack and miner. Its profitability depends on the popularity of daggers as weapons, although specific daggers are used as tools to practice carver professions. At L65, daggersmiths may take dagger smithmagus.

Hammersmith
Hammersmith is a profession that produces hammers from raw materials. It relies primarily on wood and ore. It is moderately easy to take to high levels given a mid-level lumberjack and miner. Its profitability depends on the popularity of hammers as weapons, although specific hammers are needed as tools to practice smith professions. At L65, hammersmiths may take hammer smithmagus.

Shovelsmith
Shovelsmith is a profession that produces shovels from raw materials. It relies primarily on wood and ore. It is very easy to take to high levels given a mid-level lumberjack and miner. Its profitability depends on the popularity of shovels as weapons. At L65, shovelsmiths may take shovel smithmagus.

Swordsmith
Swordsmith is a profession that produces swords from raw materials. It relies primarily on wood and ore. It is very easy to take to high levels given a mid-level lumberjack and miner. Its profitability depends on the popularity of swords as weapons. At L65, swordsmiths may take sword smithmagus.

Magus
Magus is a set of professions that allow equipment to be modified from its original characteristics. It relies on runes, smithmagus potions, and equipment of a suitable type. All types of magus may imbue their items (of the sort they are a magus in) with runes, which attempts to add/improve that stat in the item, and magi of the weapons sorts may additionally attempt to convert the neutral part of the basic weapon damage into an elemental sort using smithmagus potions. Most magus professions are highly profitable, of course depending on how many magi of that sort exist and how large the demand is for maged versions of that equipment.

On efficiency
Efficiency in gaining XP can be calculated on two basic axes, weight and item-efficiency. One should always look at all the recipes that give experience - the more complex recipes are not always the most efficient either by weight or item-efficiency (in many professions, one should make a simple two-slot recipe until it no longer gives experience to be efficient).

Weight Efficiency
Weight-efficiency is most useful when levelling on plentiful/easily-acquired items - if the cost to access the bank is high (and one lacks a house or guild chest) or doing so is time-prohibitive, one wishes to gain as much XP as possible per weight unit of material so as to make as few trips as possible. This is efficiently calculated as experience given multiplied by the success rate divided by the sum (weight of material * number of material) over all the ingredients in a given recipe, given a simple expected_xp/pod ratio.

Item-efficiency
Item-efficiency is useful when the cost to acquire resources is not nearly-free and bank costs are not a major factor. There are two ways to calculate this - the simple one is XP/number_of_items, and is calculated as experience given multiplied by the success rate divided by the sum (number of each material) over all ingredients. Using this for all recipes that include ingredients that are not too hard to acquire provides a reasonable way to efficiently level. A more accurate (but cumbersome) way to calculate this would be to provide values for each material representing their difficulty in acquisition, and use that to weight the sum in the divisor - this would provide a ratio of expected_xp/difficulty (although maintaining difficulty values would become a burden, especially if one has, say, a miner who suddenly can acquire a new type of ore because they levelled, or when they hit L100, suddenly have the harvest bonus making its acquisition very easy).

Making a spreadsheet
It is not difficult, given reasonable spreadsheet skills, to make one that calculates these kinds of efficiencies and how much of any entered recipes can be made/carried for any given character. Quick set of ideas for those who know how to do it:


 * 1) Have one sheet devoted to inventory, with columns for materialname, weight, possibly difficulty-to-acquire, and current inventory
 * 2) Have another sheet to hold XP needed for each level, slots per level, success rates per level for each #slots (don't forget that some professions like baker give XP even on failure), and when slots cease to give XP
 * 3) Have one sheet per profession with places for current pods, current profession XP, and then an area to enter recipes. Use vlookup to pull the current weight and inventory from the inventory sheet to calculate makable, carryable, and the efficiency statistics based on the #items needed. This approach means the number of ingredients in the per-profession tables only need include materials used in this profession, producing a much easier to glance-at set of things to make. It should be easy to compute the given level and how much XP is needed to reach a tweakable "goal level" given these sheets.