If you are familiar with World of Warcraft and play you already know why Alchemy is needed and why it’s a good profession to get. You can make flasks, potions, and other helpful items that you can sell for gold on the Auction House, give to your guild, or use for yourself. There are lots of different items you can make and there’s something you can make that is helpful for every race and class.
With Cataclysm all professions have had their maximum skill levels increased to 525, this means that once again you must level up. I’ll be honest with you, compared to some of the professions Alchemy is a bit more complex to level up. It’s not that the items to make contain difficult materials to find or even that you’ll need to spend a lot of gold leveling up, but rather it requires you to level up using many different recipes.
In fact, I suggest that you make 13 different recipes just to level from 450-525, there are even some options in there that give you even more possible recipes to create. The good news, as I said before is that the mats aren’t rare and the recipes are simple and from the trainer. You will however, need to farm for the materials with Herbalism or buy them off the Auction House, which at this point in the expansion will cost you a lot of gold. So at this point your best bet is to get out there and farm for your herbs.