This guide will explain to you the basic difference in various professions and give you recommendations on which ones are best suited for what callings.

Contents:

1. Gathering Professions
2. Crafting Professions
3. Choosing Professions
4. Additional Resources

Gathering Professions

There’s a total of three gathering professions in Rift, and they are butchering, foraging and mining. Butchering collects hides and leather from various monsters, foraging is used to collect plants, herbs and wood, and mining for collecting ore.

Each of these three professions gathers materials which are used for crafting professions. Alternatively you can sell these materials on the auction house if you don’t need them and make a decent amount of platinum.

Crafting Professions

Crafting professions for the most part use materials which you gather with gathering professions and turn them into something useful, such as equipment, weapons or consumable potions.

There are six different craft skills: armorsmithing and outfitting is used to create plate and mail, or leather and cloth items respectively. Weaponsmithing creates weapons for Rogue and Warrior callings, and artificing makes staves, wands and totems used by Mages and Clerics, as well as rings and necklaces which can be used by all callings.

Apothecary profession makes different kinds of consumable potions and vials used to temporarily grant health or mana, or other stats. Lastly there’s runecrafting, which doesn’t need any gathering professions but rather destroys existing items in order to gain materials that are used to improve other items.

Choosing Professions

The choice of professions is entirely up to you. Different callings have no use for particular items (for example Warriors don’t need cloth or leather items, nor do they use staves and wands) so make sure you pick professions that go well with your chosen class.

Here’s a basic breakdown of what crafting professions are useful for each classes:

• Warriors: Weaponsmithing, Armorsmithing
• Clerics: Armorsmithing, Artificing, Apothecary
• Mages: Outfitting, Artificing, Apothecary
• Rogues: Outfitting, Weaponsmithing

Runecrafting and apothecary are the only professions useful for all four callings, so make a note of that. If you feel you don’t need any of the aforementioned, those two are good choices.

Also remember that you should definitely get a gathering profession to go with your crafting profession as well, otherwise you will have to spend a lot of platinum on the auction house for purchasing materials.

• Mining: Weaponsmithing, Armorsmithing; also Runebreaking
• Foraging: Artificing, Apothecary; also Weaponsmiting
• Butchery: Outfitting; also useful for apothecaries and armorsmiths