World of warcraft: What's the best gathering skill?

Every time I meet a new player they all ask me the same question at some point or other: What's the best gathering skill?

I always have to give the same answer. "It depends on what you're looking for. Money, usefulness or ease."

The three gathering skills are mining, skinning and herbalism. I am going to do a quick summary of how they do in the three categories of Money, Usefulness and Ease one category at a time.

Money: Mining brings in very good money consistently as you progress through the levels due to high numbers of people aspiring to reach 450 blacksmithing with minimal effort --- Herbs are in high demand since WotLK was released and so prices have soared. The herbs are expensive from level 1 to 450 --- Skinning is one of the less used gathering skills, however there seems to be a high demand for endgame leather and so the prices are usualy good --- I would give the Money award to herbalism personaly due to the high price per herb.

Usefulness: Ores and gems from Mining are used in Blacksmithing, Engineering, Leatherworking, Enchanting and Jewelcrafting --- Herbs from Herbalism are used in Alchemy, Enchanting and Inscription --- Skins and hides from skinning are used in Leatherworking, Blacksmithing and Engineering --- I have to give the Usefulness award to Mining purely due to the number of proffesions it is used in!

Ease: This is a factor that is critical to most players. How quickly and easily they can aqquire materials --- Mining: Mining nodes are few and far between. Nodes are restricted to rocky areas and are normaly sought out by others who want them too. --- Herbalism: The bushes of herbs are also relatively rare. More often than not they also have restrictions on the types of area they appear in, stranglekelp only appears in water for example, however they can occupy a wider spectrum of areas than ores --- Skinning: Skinning is by far the most accesible gathering skill. Anywhere there are beasts there is skin to be taken. Beasts respawn quickly and places like Un Goro and Scholzar Basin are almost exclusively populated by beasts --- I would give the Ease award to Skinning because of the abundance of places to get hides from.

I'll leave it to you to make your own decision using this review of the gathering skills but I hope it can be some help.

Greg