How Crafting Hirelings Work and Do They Suck?

Being a crafting guild this is one of those FAQs.

How do hirelings work?

You spend the skill point after you hit rank 3 in Clothing, Woodworking, Blacksmithing, Enchanting.  For provisioning you have to be rank 28 (its really easy to rank in provisioning).

Then, every day (roughly 24 hours from skill point spending), your hireling sends you a mail with a little store and a chest.  The chest will be called (crafting profession) chest.  The timeline of course could change with server maintenance, etc.  And if you haven't received it in 24 hours or so, just /reloadui or log off and back on - that's a mail issue.

Are they worth it?

I haven't had really great luck personally, but some have reported getting some really great stuff from their hirelings.  The most I've spent in hireling is 2 skill points in wood working.  Check out the pictures below for what I've received so far.

I should note that for 3 days, my Enchanting Hireling gave me completely blank chests.  I submitted a bug report each time, and I do believe it has been fixed now.

Since I spent the 2 skill points pretty early on for woodworking, I feel overall it wasn't worth the expense.  Now hitting level 30, I have more skill points available (and all those extra skill points since starting PvP), and hitting 22 woodworking it might be worth it.  As you can see, over the course of 9 days (roughly) I did get a legendary upgrade item which I would not have been able to get otherwise while adventuring.

So if you feel you're lucky, go for it!  You can always re-spec later at a capital city shrine.

Update 2+ weeks later:

The empty chests I've been getting have been fixed.  GM sent me the stuff I would have otherwise got in a mail.  Also, I'm seeing better loot from the hirelings overall, sometimes with a lot of good stuff.  Sometimes, still just a few pieces of common junk.

Everyone says 3 points is worthwhile in hireling when you can spare the points and have enough skill to get up that high.  I can see why with legendary upgrade materials periodically.  I will keep a new log once I put 3 points in.