Q: Which profession to choose in ESOTU?
I would recommend all of them. Every gold you put into those professions will very likely come back to you one way or the other. It does take time to level up all professions, but it’s not overly difficult nor expensive.
Blacksmithing, Clothing, and Woodworking are really easy to level up. Just pick up raw materials whenever it’s convenient (don’t go too far off your path just for a node), refine the materials (you’ll get back plenty of upgrade materials which you can use or sell), and you can deconstruct all items you don’t need to gain some extra inspiration (crafting XP).
Most important thing with these three professions is to start researching traits as early as possible. Even if you don’t intend to craft that much now, you may reconsider in the future, and since researching all traits takes a few months (real-life time!) it’s wise to start it as soon as possible. Equally important (at least in my opinion) is to put points into Hirelings for these professions, you will be getting free materials in your in-game mail every day which can include quite expensive legendary upgrade mats.
Provisioning is not particularly useful when leveling, and later on you can just buy any food you need for relatively cheap prices. If you truly don’t want to bother picking up all materials you can definitely skip this profession and not lose on absolutely anything.
Alchemy is another non-favorite of mine, unless you plan on crafting and reselling potions to raiders. Otherwise you can just buy potions from guild stores, or even farm them yourself by killing monsters.
Lastly Enchanting is very difficult and expensive to level up. Like other professions you can buy whatever Glyph you need from other players, and typically you won’t be paying a high commission anyway.
In conclusion, if you don’t find any joy in crafting (personally I do), at least take and level Blacksmithing, Clothing and Woodworking. Research those traits and get those Hirelings up, they will definitely be worth the investment.
