How to unlearn a profession in World of Warcraft Classic

Professions, be gone!

WoW Rogue shrugging in Tinker Town, Ironforge, with a no symbol over the Engineering profession icon
Screenshot by Dot Esports/Remix by Tom Foley
Highlights:

• You can only have two primary professions at once in World of Warcraft Classic.
• You can unlearn professions from the Skills tab of the Character panel (hotkey: K).
• Make sure you’re certain, as unlearning a profession undoes all your progress!

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Professions are a big part of World of Warcraft Classic, especially in Season of Discovery and Wrath of the Lich King Classic. But you can only have two primary professions at once, a category that encompasses most gathering and crafting professions, so you need to choose wisely.

In WoW Classic, you can use professions to craft armor and weapons, enhance gear with enchants and gems, and create consumables like throwable dynamite and potions. Professions are a great money-making tool, too.

But what if you get bored of your professions and want to switch things up? Luckily, it’s easy to unlearn a profession so you can pick up a new one. Read on to find out how.

How to unlearn a profession in WoW Classic

WoW classic profession window with a circle and arrow pointing to the Unlearn Profession button
On the Skills tab (K), select your undesired profession and click this button. Screenshot by Dot Esports/Remix by Tom Foley

In WoW Classic Season of Discovery, The Burning Crusade Classic, and Wrath of the Lich King Classic, you can unlearn your professions via the Skills tab of the Character panel. The default hotkey is K. Open the Skills tab, click the profession you wish to unlearn, then click the red-and-yellow “no” symbol next to the skill bar.

Bear in mind that once you unlearn a profession, you’ll lose all your progress and learned recipes, and if you ever pick up that profession again, you’ll need to start again from level one. You’ll also start at level one for any other profession you learn. For instance, I had 150 Herbalism (which is great with Alchemy), but decided to swap it for Engineering so I can throw dynamite on my SoD Rogue tank. I had to level up Engineering from scratch, but it was worth it for the extra AoE threat.

How many professions are there in WoW Classic?

In WoW Classic and Season of Discovery, there are nine primary professions in total. The crafting professions are Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Enchanting, Engineering, Leatherworking, and Tailoring. The gathering professions are Herbalism, Mining, and Skinning. WoW’s first two expansions introduced two further primary professions for a total of 11: The Burning Crusade added Jewelcrafting and Wrath of the Lich King added Inscription.

As you can only know two at once, most players choose one gathering profession and one crafting profession. That said, you don’t need to stick to this, and you can go for two gathering professions or two crafting professions if you prefer. If you aren’t interested in crafting, just pick up two gathering professions so you can sell your resources on the Auction House for extra Gold.

WoW Classic also features three secondary professions: Cooking, Fishing, and First Aid, but you can know all three at once, so you never need to unlearn them.

Author
Image of Tom Foley
Tom Foley
Tom is the UK Associate Editor for Dot Esports. He's the former TCG Editor for CBR and holds a Master's degree in Chemistry from the University of Edinburgh. Tom spent six years as a Science Editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, and AstraZeneca before leaving science to pursue his dream career in games journalism at the start of 2023. He loves MMOs, RPGs, TCGs, and pretty much every game by FromSoftware—especially Dark Souls.
Author
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Jerome Heath
Senior editor at Dot Esports. Jerome has been in and around the gaming industry for the last eight years, and he's not going anywhere anytime soon.
Author
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Mateusz Miter
Freelance Writer at Dot Esports. Mateusz previously worked for numerous outlets and gaming-adjacent companies, including ESL. League of Legends or CS:GO? He loves them both. In fact, he wonders which game he loves more every day. He wanted to go pro years ago, but somewhere along the way decided journalism was the more sensible option—and he was right.