Is it worth to level Crafting/Gathering professions while leveling?

[Avatre]

What would the best profession be purely from an income perspective?

In my opinion, and this is only once you reach the higher levels due to the recipes, it would be either Alchemist or Culinarian for the consumables that people use for raids(granted, most raid groups likely have specialists that create those items for the group already)

[Dhaid]

I'll keep that in mind. What would the best profession be purely from an income perspective?

In my opinion, and this is only once you reach the higher levels due to the recipes, it would be either Alchemist or Culinarian

Alchemist and Culinarian are the most consistent for income, the rest can all be done for some cash too though. One thing to keep in mind is that people can be rather lazy, so anything you can't buy from an npc you can sell on the market board for a profit. Not to mention there'll always be a need for glamor prisms, so a few low level crafters can get you some easy dosh.

You can also start getting cash from level one of non-fishing gathering since shards are needed for EVERYTHING below 50, including a few random things that are above. Course you can gather shards easier from skills by leveling up or with retainers or housing, but it's still something you can do from the start of gathering.

[Iscah]

Also worth noting: in ARR you can complete most MSQ and sidequests as a DoH/DoL (so long as you're at the correct level for the quest) and receive the reward EXP into that class. You don't need to have it equipped the whole time, just for the final step of talking to the person with the green "complete quest" marker.

They 'fixed' this in Heavensward, but it still works for ARR content.

[Frizze]

What would the best profession be purely from an income perspective?

From a purely income perspective, miner and botanist cant be beat. You go out into the woods and hit a rock with a hammer(or a tree with an ax), and you come back to town with stuff to sell. Your only expense is repairs and gear upgrades. The crafting classes also need repairs and upgrades, but they also need to have other materials to make their goods. Carpenter cant make a bow without some wood, armorsmith cant make a breastplate without some metal. You can go hit a tree and rock to get that wood and metal. The key to profit is spending a little time learning your servers market to know which materials are worth getting.

If you prefer to make rather then find, any crafting class can turn a profit. Use the same market research principal. As a lower level crafter, youre usually better off selling materials rather then finished goods. So you wouldnt make a bow to sell, youd process the logs into lumber and sell those(a blacksmith selling metal ingots is another example). Higher level and lazy crafters will often just buy the intermediate stuff if its too annoying to make, so theres a market just waiting to be discovered. You can also quest target. If you know that one of the level 25 leves requires ______, make some and sell them(with a good markup of course - sell in the quantity that the quest asks for for quickest sales) to people who would rather buy their levels then earn them.

[Avatre]

They 'fixed' this in Heavensward, but it still works for ARR content.

In such a way that you had to be the right classification of job, but could do the quest as a level 70 WAR, and claim the EXP on an appropriately leveled anything else(DoW/DoM).
I still do my moogle quests on CUL(which is the only 70 I have for crafters) and claim the EXP on a sub-60 class.

But with SB, you have to complete the quests as the class you started it as.

[Niwashi]

As a lower level crafter, youre usually better off selling materials rather then finished goods.

Besides typically selling at a nice steady rate, those intermediate materials also have the advantage of being stackable. If you're going to craft a whole bunch of stuff to sell, gear that takes up a slot per item will eat up inventory slots and marketboard slots annoyingly fast, whereas you can mass produce things like lumber or ingots, then sell them off gradually. (Culinarians and Alchemists have some advantage here, since meals and potions are also stackable, even in their finished form.)

[Maero]

As others have said Culinarian is always a sure bet as players that raid often purchase stuff and even alchemist i would say