Recipe colours and skill-ups

Profession skill doesn't grow from every craft — only from one that is hard enough. A recipe's colour shows how hard it is: how far your skill is above the recipe's requirement.

Four colours

You get the product at any colour — a grey recipe just teaches you nothing.

Points per craft

A successful craft gives 1, 2 or 3 points, as set in the recipe (113 recipes give 1, 52 give 2, 6 give 3). You can see the number in Supply on the recipe's card. Skill never goes above 300.

A worked example

The tailoring recipe "Weave Woolen Cloth": requirement 50, +1 point, 3 Linen Cloth per craft.

• skill 50–69 is orange, 70–89 is yellow: 40 crafts give 40 points and use 120 Linen Cloth;
• 90–109 is green: the next 20 points take about 60 crafts on average — three times the cost;
• from 110 it's grey: you still get the cloth, but no skill.

The "Woolen Mantle" (requirement 75, +2 points) stays orange and yellow from 75 to 114: those 40 points take about 20 mantles.

The rule of thumb is simple: level on orange and yellow recipes and keep green ones as a last resort. Ready-made 1–300 paths are in the references, for example Tailoring and Blacksmithing.

The same rule everywhere

• Gathering: a node's requirement = 1 + (land's base level − 1) × 5. A node always gives the material, and the point (+1) follows the colour.
• Skinning: the requirement is counted the same way, from the carcass's level — a beast, worgen or giant; that level also sets the hide tier.
• Fishing: by the colour of the fish that bites; but the best fish available to you always gives a point until the next tier opens somewhere.
• Disenchanting and scrapping: by the item's required level (not its Item Level); an item above your skill counts as orange.

What skill doesn't do

• It doesn't change the product: no better quality, no double output, no failures.
• It doesn't grow from Transmutation, Inscription, or applying enchantments and tempers.
• It doesn't depend on your hero's level.