Enchanting
Continuing the series on professions, I bring you Enchanting.
Enchanting is a hard nut to crack in many ways. It’s kind of a synergistic profession, in that it helps a lot of other classes and professions, without giving you very much thats really tangible to hold in your hands and say “I made this”.
I’d like to preface this by saying that I played Enchanter on my main for almost two years, all the way to 375 before switching at 70 for BOP gear related reasons. I heartily welcome all comments and your experiences, but what I’m going to say does not just come from data mining… I’ve played this one to the dregs of the glass. So even when I’m totally wrong on something, at least I’m wrong because I’m stupid, not ignorant 
Ok, first things first. What can you MAKE with Enchanting? What can you make that you can hold in your grubby little meathooks?
You can make ranged damage Wands, crafted Wands that, at the level they can be equipped, are better DPS than any BOE of equivalent level. You can make consumables called Wizard Oils and Mana Oils, consumables that apply either +spell damage or +mana per 5 seconds to your weapon and lasts 30 minutes per application. You can take leather or thorium bars crafted by other professions to make Enchanted Leather or Enchanted Thorium, materials used by other professions. And at the highest levels you can make Prismatic Spheres and Void Spheres, gem-like items that fit any red, blue or yellow socket and proved +Resist All. None of these are Bind On Pickup.
There is exactly one other item that can be crafted, and it IS Bind On Pickup. The Smoking Heart of the Mountain is available to equip at level 50, and is a Trinket that provides 150 armor and several +Resists. Also, you do not have to maintain Enchanting in order to use this Trinket. I speak from personal experience here, you can craft this Trinket, equip it, dump Enchanting later and still make full use of the Trinket. It is an outstanding early Druid bear tanking Trinket.
But wait, there’s more. None of what I just wrote is what is normally associated with Enchanting. In fact, there were many folks in my old guild that I would gift Superior Mana Oil or Superior Wizard Oil to that had never even heard of it before… and were in Karazhan. It’s kind of one of those things that slips under the radar.
Nope, what most folks think of when talking Enchanting is being able to apply permanant enchantments, enhancements, buffs, whatever you want to call them, to your equipment.
Before we get to the Enchants, let’s discuss materials first. You get your Enchanting materials from destroying magical equipment. When you learn Enchanting, you also learn it’s complimentary skill Disenchanting free of charge. Your Disenchanting ability is based off your Enchant skill level, and Disenchanting things at lowest levels is the cheapest way to skill up your Enchanting. So you take your Uncommon and Rare, even Epic items, and Disenchant them. This destroys the item, and gives you some materials in exchange. The higher the level of item, the higher the level of material you get. (Also the higher level of Enchanting you need to be able to Disenchant the item… you need a minimum 275 Enchanting skill to be able to Disenchant the level 70 items that you may get in Burning Crusade). You can Disenchant Bind On Pickup items you yourself picked up, but not anything in a Trade Window.
Now, the Enchants. You can Enchant your own gear. You can Enchant BOP gear of others that place it in the ‘Item Will Not Be Traded’ section of a Trade Window. You can place Enchants on Bind On Equip gear, and then place it in the Auction House, mail it, or do whatever to it including Disenchant it.
So let’s recap. You do not need a gathering profession for Enchanting. What you do need is a steady stream of Green and Blue items to Disenchant to make your mats. You can depend on random world drops and quest rewards for this, and I know many who have. Especially during the release of the Burning Crusade expansion, since quest rewards are Bind On Pickup, and for most people if they are useless rewards, the best they can do is sell them to a vendor for a few gold or destroy them to save bag space. An Enchanter can Disenchant them instead, turning the item into a valuable material that can be sold on the Auction House for pretty good money.
Since Enchanting needs a steadty stream of Green and Blue items to make materials, it goes well with another profession that makes those items. For preference it would have to be a profession whose items can be crafted from loot, instead of gathered materials. Blacksmithing makes items, but mostly requires mined ore. So too does Engineering. Leatherworking makes items but requires Leather, obtained from Skinning. (Or the AH, but we’re talking synergy here). However, Tailoring makes items, and it’s primary materials are the cloth that you loot from every humanoid, that most folks use to make bandages. At end game, what is the other material component Tailoring uses? That’s right… materials created from Disenchanting. Imbued Netherweave requires Arcane Dust, many recipes require Greater Planar Essence…. the two professions are perfect for each other.
So, we have a profession that makes caster Wands, +spell damage and +MP5 consumables for weapons, and goes very well with Tailoring. We’ll cover Tailoring later, I maxed that out to 375 also before dropping it, but for now let me just say that Tailoring makes ‘no brainer’ epics at end game for all cloth wearing casters. If you are a cloth wearing caster, and you want a profession that will provide you the best crafted BOP gear at end game levels, then you want Tailoring.
Now, here is the bad part of Enchanting… if you are going to take Enchanting, you really want to take it on your main. If your main is not a cloth wearing caster, this can be very painful, specifically because of the lack of BOP and other useful items at end game. The reason for this, is that you will NOT be able to Enchant any BOP gear your alts may have. No quest rewards, no boss drops. Only Bind On Equip gear that can be mailed/traded to your Enchanter, enchanted, and then mailed/traded back. If you take Enchanting on your alt, then unless you level him/her up to 70 and raid with him just as hard as your ‘main’, then that alt won’t have access to the good recipes that drop in end game instances and raids… and even if he does, he won’t be able to use them on your main’s Bound gear anyway.
In the end, even though I had maxed my Enchanting and Tailoring, this is why I finally dropped them both. Other guild enchanters had progressed farther in content than I had, and so they had recipes that were in greater demand. This was okay for a long time, but when I found myself having to pay other Enchanters for enchants I wanted on my alts, I stopped and asked myself why I still had Enchanting. It wasn’t helping my guild, and it wasn’t helping me. And while it was great to make all Primal Mooncloth Bags for my main, and Imbued Netherweave Bags for all my friends, there are only so many bags you can use.
If you, on the other hand, ARE a cloth wearing caster, please take my advice. Go Enchanting/Tailoring and don’t look back. You won’t regret it.
Enchanting
Let’s take a look at those few enchants, and the one item, that are truly ‘Caster only’ Bind On Pickup. The enchants, you’ll notice, require reputation with different factions to be able to buy. the Trinket requires crafting at the Black Forge in BRD.
- Smoking Heart of the Mountain (BOP)
- 750 armor for Dire Bears and Moonkin. Tasty.
- Only crafted at Black Forge in Blackrock Depths.
- Recipe dropped by Lord Roccor in BRD, easily stealthed/soloed.
- Enchant Ring - Spellpower (Self only)
- Bought from Keepers of Time QM at Honored
- Enchant Ring - Striking (Self only)
- Bought from Consortium QM at Revered
- Unlike weapon enchants, this DOES add damage to druid shapeshifted attacks
- Enchant Ring - Healing Power (Self only)
- Bought from the Sha’tar QM at Revered
- Enchant Ring - Stats (Self only)
- Bought from the Scale of the Sands QM at Revered
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October 4th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Enchanting is a very tough one. I use it for mainly mats for the good enchants I never see drop
It is nice to be able to help out guildies with free enchants even at times I have to beg them to let me enchant thier gear. I have no idea why… but I really have had to beg them to let me put an enchant on. I hear the excuse “I will get better gear soon… can it wait?” lol
October 4th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I hear that all the time too. I’ve even tried giving enchants away for free thru trade - just to raise my skill, and still very limited takers. Now, I mainly use it to make the stuff I get much better. If others ask and have the mats (very important on the higher level enchants) I’ll enchant things for them, but otherwise, its my own little power booster.
October 8th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I’m a level 64 mage with tailoring and enchanting as my professions. I have to say, I absolutely hate enchanting. Being a casual WoWer, i never the the mats or materials to enchant anything. I also rarely have the gold to buy what i need so i just use enchanting to disenchant stuff and then AH it. i use to save all the stuff i would get from a DE but my bank filled up quickly and I had no idea what i even had.
I think casuals would be better suited to gathering professions relying on them solely as a money making skill rather than something to make/enhance gear.
October 8th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
@Seg…. I appreciate your input, Seg. I agree that, many times, I would find my bank overflowing with mats because I saved everything against the day when I would suddenly be besieged with requests for enchants… requests that never happened.
The main reason I am making these lists is to show players, whether casual or hardcore, what benefits, exactly, they can expect from a profession that they could NOT get from the AH, and what Bind on Pickup materials they will need and where they come from so the player can judge for themselves whether they will ever realistically expect to see them.
It’s one thing to look at a profession, for example Blacksmithing, and see that there are AWESOME BOP epic swords you can make.
It’s something else entirely to level that profession to 375, and only then realize that the recipe, or the mats to make the weapon, only drop in SSC or Black Temple, places the casual player will NEVER see.
That is why I’m making these lists. I’m mkaing them for players who may have already farmed/gathered their fair share of gold, gotten their epic flight mount, have access to lots of daily quests for easy non-gathering income… and want to see what is available for BOP gear from a new profession.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Enchanting, errr more specifically, DE’ing, has been a boon to my bank account. I’m a casual WoWer too, but I’ve found on my server that no one really takes the time to break up DE mats into singles and auction them off at reasonable prices. I use Auctioneer/Enchantrix to scan for EQ to buy and DE for profit. The nice thing about selling mats is you’re not held hostage to hefty deposit costs, as there are no deposits required to post mats auctions.
I have yet to trade bark enchant offerings for skillups or money. I think that’s a dead end. Instead, I’ve worked my way up the enchanting ladder by using the money made from DE’ing lower level EQ to buy discounted higher level EQ. That, in turn, gets DE’d into mats for enchanting skillups. Once I’m skilled up to the point where those mats don’t earn add’l skillups, I then sell those mats to make money and move up to the next level of EQ/mats. Wash, rinse, repeat!
Caveat: I waited to pick up enchanting until I hit level 50 on my main, and I’m glad I did. I think it would be a costly and tough road for lower level characters.
Nice and informative blog, btw!