Banker Race, Class & Professions... Why?

I have found that many players never consider the ramifications of their selection of Race, Class, and Professions when creating a Banker. Blizzard has recently taken the “Banker” into consideration with the special abilities they are planning for goblins as a player race. As those are not yet available let us discuss what is available and how to best use it to our advantage. Let’s spend a little time to familiarize ourselves with some of the benefits of these traits for a banker. Remember “Time is Money Friend” and speed is a consideration for any banker.

Race
Your race has a few influences on your banker. Your start location is only a factor as to how far you will have to run. The racial abilities are what are important here. The selections are as follows, Humans and Dwarfs for alliance, Blood Elves and Tauren for horde. Yes I have completely excluded the rest of the races as they have no influence on a banker’s requirements.

For the alliance we have Humans, because of the bonus to faction ability, are the best selection for the alliance. Their ability to grind up faction quickly reduces the fees that humans pay to the auction house. Dwarfs are the next best selection strictly because of their treasure hunting ability. If you are going to be playing the banker out in the world at all this is a nice way to make extra cash.

The Blood Elves’ racial ability of +10 to enchanting is the single best racial for the horde, where a banker is concerned. This allows the banker to make extra gold enchanting and disenchanting items for other players. Tauren bankers have two advantages. One is that they have the +5 to herbalism, the second is that the Auction house and mail box are both outside and with in eyesight of each other. This allows a mounted banker to travel rapidly between both locations.

Class
The class of your banker opens you up to a world of possibilities... if you choose the right class. Four of the class are to be considered for the role of banker; Mage, Shaman, Rogue, and Hunter. Each of these has a useful skill set that can benefit a banker. Can each of the other classes be a banker, yes, but their effectiveness is hindered in that they do not have the advantages that support the role of a banker.

In my not so humble opinion the Mage is the single best class suited to being a banker. The reason for this is simple; as you play your banker in the game the mage class gains the Teleport and portal abilities. What better way to get to your customers than by porting to them to take their money or being paid to send them somewhere else.

Shaman bankers are severally limited in their teleporting ability to their hearth city though this can be an advantage if that city is Shattrath or Dalaran. With the Ancestral Recall a good Shaman Banker can get almost any major city in 10 minutes. This is useful though more limited than the port used by the mage.

Rogues as bankers benefit from their lock-pick abilities. Vast sums of money can be acquired while leveling up your lock-picking. And since being a banker you will spend your time in a major city this is a good skill to have.

The last class to be considered for a banker is the hunter. This is simply because the hunter has no abilities to use in benefit of the banking industry but has the ability to farm items and resources rapidly with the use of their pet.

Profession

The concept of “it takes money to make money” is true for professions, though it takes very little money to make large amounts of money in game. A banker in the mood to make money will have two of the following professions.

Enchanting / Disenchanting ---> Perhaps the single most useful skill set, as a banker with this skill set you can make money enchanting or breaking enchanted items. If you have items that you can not sell on the auction house you can disenchant them and sell the dusts and essences.

Jewel Crafting / Prospecting---> Prospect ore for gems to place on the auction house or to prospect ores supplied by customers and charge a fee. Create items and sell them of course. When paired with Enchanting this skill set makes a banker extremely versatile. Create items that can be sold, or by destroying those items and selling the results.

Mining / Smelting---> Mining is the most useful gatherer skill set. The ability to mine and smelt the ore provides some of the most used resources in the game and there for the highest priced resources in the game. Gems are gathered while mining. Gems, ore, stone, and the bars from smelting all sell very well on the auction house.

Skinning & Herbalism ---> as gather professions these two are a guaranteed method of generating gold on the auction house.

All the rest of the professions in the game consume the resources generated by the previously mentioned professions. This makes the rest of the professions less viable to making a profit and therefor not good selections for a banker.

So when you decide to make your Banker take into account the Race, Class and professions, just as you would when playing a Meat Shield, Caster or Healbot.