First Aid: A Beginner's Guide

First Aid is a secondary skill, so it does not count towards your two profession limit.

First Aid is a vital skill that every player should learn on all their characters. Just in case that wasn't specific enough, let me repeat that for you hard-headed folks. All characters should train First Aid!

I'm a healer, I don't need bandages

That's probably what you're thinking. This may be true if all you ever intend to do is solo content. This may even be true if you only group occasionally or perhaps you're just a backup healing class. But please, learn from my experience! Once you start going on raids or running Heroics, your mana will be a precious commodity. And you will not want to waste it during down times when a bandage would have worked to top off your groupmates. You might also need it when you're completely out of mana and the boss is almost dead. You never know when a quick bandage on someone who dropped out of combat would have given your party the edge by enabling him to hop back in for the finish. It's for reasons like this that all characters should have First Aid leveled as high as they can. Even if you don't need it, you never know when someone in your party will and your quick thinking will save the day!

First Aid can also be very useful for Warlocks and Hunters on their pets. I often use bandages to heal my pets in between fights so I can conserve mana and reduce downtime. Bandages are better than food for health regen, since the bandage heals in 6-8 seconds while most food takes almost 30 seconds to regenerate comparable health.

I'm telling you this now while you are still low enough to take advantage of my wisdom. There is nothing sadder than a level 60 (or 70 or 80) buying wool from the Auction House in order to skill up First Aid, and then selling all the bandages to a vendor because they can't actually use them. I know, I hear you saying "auction house". No one buys lowbie bandages so don't even think it. Trust me, I've been that level 60 idiot, and I don't want anyone to follow in my footsteps. When you look back on all the linen and wool you sold back in the day for 'good money' (did I really think 50 silver was good money??) you'll wince at how much money you'd be saving yourself now if you'd kept that linen and actually used those bandages instead of going for the quick buck. You might even surprise yourself how often you will actually use those bandages so you can conserve your mana for actual fighting.

All right, you've convinced me!

Great, now you need to find a First Aid trainer. The easiest way to do this is to talk to a friendly guard while you're in the city. They will point you to a First Aid trainer and even mark the spot on your mini-map. There are also First Aid trainers in smaller towns, but not always. The safest thing to do is train while you are in the city.

You'll start out with the ability to make Linen bandages and as you progress you'll be able to use Wool, followed by Silk, then Mageweave, Runecloth, Netherweave and finally Frostweave. First Aid practitioners also get the ability to make Anti-Venom, which can be handy for removing those pesky poisons that various spiders and bugs like to spit on you.

You can use bandages on yourself or other players. A player does not need First Aid to be bandaged, but they do need First Aid to apply a bandage. There is a 60 second cooldown on bandages, so you may not be able to use them after every fight. Bandages can also be used during combat with a bit of luck and skill. For those classes that have the ability to stun or root their opponent, they can back out of melee range and apply a bandage for quick healing. Bear in mind that if you're hit, the bandage is cancelled and the 60 second cooldown will be in effect. Also if a poison effect is active on the patient, this can disrupt the bandaging process. So it's better to either dispel the poison, wait until it runs out, or eat some food to heal back up rather than waste a bandage for this particular situation.

Most of the bandage recipes you need will be available from your trainer, but there are a few exceptions. All anti-venom recipes are unavailable from the trainer except the very first one. Neither of the "heavy" bandage recipes from the expansions are offered by the trainer. To learn new recipes, you can visit any trainer in Kalimdor or Eastern Kingdoms until you reach 300 skill. After that you'll need the Burning Crusade trainers in Honor Hold or Shattrath to move up to 375. When you're ready to go up to 450 skill, you'll need to hunt down the First Aid trainers in Northrend. Visit our First Aid recipe list for links to all the various trainers you may need.

A word on anti-venom.

You may notice that the handy First Aid chart includes three types of anti-venom, but only one has been discussed so far. That's because the two higher levels of anti-venom are difficult to acquire. The book that teaches Strong Anti-Venom is available only as a loot drop, and apparently has a pretty low drop rate. As a result it will be quite expensive when it actually shows up in the Auction House. Since it only cures poisons up to level 35, it's probably not worth the expense to most people. An alternative would be to farm Jungle Remedy in Stranglethorn. This cures diseases as well as poisons and has no level limit. I personally have used this on level 50+ ailments with success. It only drops off the 'caster' type mobs in the Kurzen compound, but you can get it for reasonable prices on the Auction House as well.

The highest anti-venom available is a faction-based recipe that can only be purchased from the Argent Dawn vendors in the Plaguelands. The recipe for Powerful Anti-Venom requires a faction level of "Honored" with the Argent Dawn in addition to 300 skill in First Aid. It's not difficult for level 60 players to reach Honored with Argent Dawn, but it will take some time so don't count on running out and buying this recipe the moment you hit 300 skill in First Aid.

300-375: First Aid in Burning Crusade

Once you reach Outland, you'll be able to unlock a new level cap of 375. As long as you're not in a great hurry, you can work on First Aid while you level. Most humanoid mobs drop runecloth between level 60 and 65, enough that you could just "make as you go" to increase your First Aid skill. I know it's not glamorous or gratifying to use this method, but it's free and it works :P The first thing you should do is visit your new Trainer. Alliance trainer Burko is located at the Temple of Telhamat or you can visit Aresella at Falcon Watch if you are Horde.

As soon as you get your new recipes, you'll be ready to make some bandages. As I said earlier, there's no reason not to go about your adventuring and use the looted cloth to make bandages. This will save you from having to buy runecloth purely to level up the skill. Then you can switch to Netherweave whenever you collect a decent supply of that. If you've been saving it while you level, you should have a few stacks of netherweave by the time you work past the runecloth phase. Once you get into the mid 60s, netherweave should be dropping regularly off of humanoid mobs. Places like Nagrand and Terokkar Forest (or higher of course!) would be your best bet if you still need netherweave. A tip for later: it's not a bad idea to overstock yourself a bit on Netherweave bandages. This is to compensate for the scarcity you'll probably find when you get to Northrend, which is especially true if you're a melee class who typically uses a lot of bandages.

375-450: First Aid in WotLK

When you arrive in Northrend you should immediately seek out your profession trainers in town. There are a full complement of them in both starting zones, whether you are Alliance or Horde. If you're unsure where to look, you can find them listed in our WotLK Noob Guide. Once you've unlocked Grandmaster training for First Aid and learned the new Frostweave Bandage recipe you'll be ready to go. The only thing standing in your way will be cloth. Frostweave has a pretty low drop rate in the early zones of Northrend, so it will take you awhile to level up your First Aid. Because of this it will be difficult to power-level First Aid unless you decide to purchase cloth from the Auctions. Bear in mind that you'll be competing with Tailors for Frostweave, so that may not be a cheap proposition.

Another snag you should be aware of is the Heavy Frostweave recipe. Currently it's only available as a loot drop in mid-level zones and dungeons. It also binds when picked up, so you can't trade it between characters. Now if you have some friends who want to escort you through a dungeon like Violet Hold, that's great. Otherwise it may take you a while to acquire the recipe, so there's not much point in trying to power up the skill. Generally folks will end up looting a copy when they hit Zul'Drak, as it has a pretty decent drop rate there. You don't have to be 400 skill to see the book when it drops, but anecdotal evidence suggests that you have to be at least 390.

The regular Frostweave bandage will probably see you through 400 skill, shortly after that it stops giving reasonable skill points. After that you'll probably want to start making Heavy Frostweave and hopefully you'll have the recipe by then. Unfortunately the Heavy Frostweave recipe turns green at 430, so you'll have to get the last 20 points in First Aid with a green recipe. When I reached that point it took me six stacks of Frostweave to hit the level cap of 450. Overall I would estimate it takes 12-15 stacks of Frostweave to go from 375 to 450. There is no achievement for doing this, and no tangible benefit tied to reaching max level in First Aid. There is an achievement for making 500 Heavy Frostweave bandages, but I can't imagine how long that would take. My rogue has been level 80 for over six months and hasn't even broken 200 heavy bandages, so it could take a year or longer without concerned effort. However, that's not necessary so feel free to take your time leveling First Aid as long as your bandage supply is adequate for you.