I just got my Alchemy and Inscription to 525 and didn't farm a single herb. Spent about 11,000g total but quickly made back lots of gold just selling the good items I leveled off. Some elixirs and scrolls werent worth much, but I sold 5 flasks for 1290g. I posted a blue off-hand on the AH for 3500g. Lots of gems posted, uncut around 110-180g each, probably 20 of them. Also have a puregold bar I placed on the AH for 2000g which sold quickly.
I figure I spent 11,000g leveling both professions, but I'll make back about 6000g in sales and now I have both professions to 525. So in the end that's an acceptable price to me. Now I can transmute puregold bars daily as transmute spec, costs about 700g to craft and they sell for 1650-2000g on my AH right now. And I've switched my inscription over to Blackfallow Ink. I figure each ink is worth 30g, so glyphs cost me 90g to make now. But Inferno Ink is worth 210g and I write those off as a cost of doing Glyph business. So I'm stockpiling Infernos to make all the 4 epic trinkets. My plan is to roughly break even by mass producing glyphs, then make my profit with Inferno inks by making all 4 epic trinkets.
Next up is Jewelcrafting. I got to 490, doing my dailies now, but putting it on the backburner as I do dailies and buy more cuts. I can make metas on my Alchemist who I think will stay transmute spec. Depending how well Puregold bars sell, I might powerlevel my 2nd alchemist. If I can make 500-1000g a day off a transmute, I'll do it again this week.
Just posting to say the AH is viable if you see your profession as an investment. Takes a fair bit of startup gold, but many professions at 525 have a way of rapidly making it back and then some if you're creative. Depends on your server too of course.
I knew early in the expansion, mats would be expensive. I'm spending around 60-95g for stacks of cheap herbs, up to 200g per stack of expensive ones. Stacks of ore are 200g. So there is absolutely gold to be made gathering, I always knew that. But I was more curious about, can I make gold crafting at 525? Is it worth it to drop 5-7k on a profession and can I make it back quickly? The answer in my case was yes. Alchemy can earn back 6k in a matter of days selling off flasks and puregold. Inscription will take a little longer but I see massive potential in darkmoon cards. I'm excited to transmute metas on my alchemist then learn the cuts on my jewelcrafter.
I have 2 professions to 525 now, my goal is to get 2x transmute alchemists, 525 JC, inscription, maybe blacksmithing. And as I make greens with those professions to level, I'm sending them to my enchanter and I'll slowly level that as well. Even with high cost of materials there is lots of room to profit especially if you hit the 525 cap.
Edited, Dec 14th 2010 9:55am by mikelolol