Professions & Merchant's Favor
Browse recipes, crunch Waylaid Crates and see what Forever changes about professions.
Profession leveling calculator
Pick a profession and your skill range. For every skill point the calculator finds the recipe with the lowest cost per expected skill-up and turns that into steps and a shopping list.
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How the leveling calculator works
The leveling calculator builds a route from your current skill to your target: for every skill point it compares all recipes of the profession that still give skill-ups there and picks the one with the lowest cost per expected skill-up. The result is a list of steps ("skill 1–40: recipe X, craft 45 times"), a shopping list and notes on when to learn the next trainer rank. Prices from the shopping list also apply in the favor calculator.
What goes into the calculation
- Colours like in Classic: A recipe is orange from its learn skill and grey from its trivial skill; yellow and green lie in between. Orange always gives a skill-up, grey never does.
- Expected crafts: For yellow and green recipes the calculator uses the chance (grey − skill) / (grey − yellow) and rounds the number per step up. With some luck you need fewer.
- Cost: Without prices the calculator sorts by reagents per skill-up and prefers trainer recipes over vendor, drop, reputation and Merchant's Favor ones. Once you enter auction house prices, material cost counts; missing prices are estimated with the median of your prices.
- Trainer ranks: Apprentice up to skill 75, Journeyman up to 150, Expert up to 225 and Artisan up to 300. The next rank can be learned 25 points before the end of the previous one and needs a minimum character level, which the calculator names.
- Gaps: For skill brackets without a matching recipe in the data the route shows a gap. Usually these are unchanged Classic recipes you find at your trainer.
Step by step
- Pick the profession. Gathering professions are included, but their skill mostly rises by gathering – the route stays patchy there.
- Set start and target skill, for example your current skill up to 300.
- Set the options: trainer recipes only, include recipes new in Forever, and whether you craft intermediates yourself (the shopping list then buys their reagents).
- Exclude recipes you do not own or whose materials are too expensive. The calculator then looks for the next best alternative in that bracket.
- Enter your auction house prices in the shopping list. They are stored only in your browser and immediately re-sort the route by cost.
- Share the route as a link: it contains profession, skill range, options and your prices, so guild mates see the same calculation.
Practical tips
- Run the calculation once without and once with prices before you shop: the recipe with the fewest reagents is not always the cheapest.
- Use the trainer notes: if you forget to learn the Journeyman rank at skill 75 you get stuck – the route names rank, skill and character level.
- Look at the colours in every step. If a step ends in "green", switching earlier to the next orange recipe can pay off when its materials are cheap.
- Recipes with a camp station need a tier 3 camp object at a campfire. Plan such steps for a session with your group and check in the camp planner who can place the station.
- Selected professions have a detailed leveling guide with background; the calculator links it right below the profession picker.
Leveling calculator FAQ
Why does the route show a gap?
No recorded recipe gives skill-ups in that bracket – usually an unchanged Classic recipe missing from the data, or a recipe you excluded. Bridge the bracket with a recipe from your trainer or exclude fewer recipes.
How accurate are the craft counts?
Exact for orange recipes, an estimate for yellow and green ones based on the community formula (grey − skill) / (grey − yellow). The number per step is rounded up, so you are more likely to need fewer than more.
Where are my prices stored?
Only in your browser. They are never sent to the server. If you share the route as a link, the prices are part of the link and are taken over when it is opened.
Does the calculator work for gathering professions?
Only partly. Mining, Herbalism, Skinning and Fishing level mainly by gathering; the calculator only knows the few craftable recipes, such as smelting ore.
Do skill-ups from crafting intermediates count?
No. With "Craft intermediates yourself" the shopping list buys their reagents, but the skill-ups from those crafts are not included in the route.