Tobold's Blog
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
 
Should I keep enchanting?

Not a rant. Please try for once to take this post as what it is: a honest question!

The story starts with the release of TBC. My priest gave up enchanting at that time to learn jewelcrafting. While leveling up jewelcrafting I produced a lot of rings and necklaces, and because many people did the same these crafted goods were impossible to sell on the auction house. So I created a blood elf mage, leveled him up to level 11, learned the enchanting profession, shipped all the jewelry to him, and started disenchanting.

Fast forward to 2008, the mage is now level 47. The priest started raiding and was using a lot of superior mana oil. Hey, I said to myself, no problem, oils are the one thing that my enchanter mage can make and ship to my other characters. For superior mana oil you need 310 skill, but due to a racial bonus the blood elf mage can get to 310 already at his current level. He was at 293 yesterday, and it turned out that getting to 310 is expensive. You need illusion dust and eternal essences, neither of which comes cheap. I managed to get part of the way with slightly cheaper wizard oil, but then spent like 200 gold in materials to get to 310. Learned the recipe of superior mana oil, and found out that I'd need a fel iron enchanting rod to produce the oil. For making that rod I'd need to get somebody to portal me to Outland and learn the recipe in Thrallmar. But even worse, I need the arcanite enchanting rod as well to make the fel iron rod. Together that is again more than 200 gold in cost.

So I didn't spend the money yet, I'm a bit low in funds right now, and first stopped to consider whether I really, really wanted to invest further into enchanting. My warrior is herbalist / alchemist, and my priest is miner / jewel crafter. Both of them can produce stuff that my other characters can use. My mage has tailoring, which I would like to keep to make things for himself and the priest, plus bags. But his enchanting profession isn't useful for my other characters, because they are on the same account and I can't have them logged on at the same time. I could pay to move him to my wife's account, but then I couldn't play the mage any more when my wife is playing her toons. The only useful thing as enchanter I can do is the mana and wizard oils, and those I could easily get for not much more than the cost of materials from the auction house.

One option, the cheapest, is to keep enchanting as it is now, at 310, and not invest in it any more. That would basically make my mage a disenchanter, not an enchanter. With 300 skill you can apparently disenchant all items in TBC, even epics. The advantage of having such a disenchanter is that usually the dusts and shards you get from disenchanting bind on pickup items sell for much more than vendoring those items. As many quests yield bop rewards you can't use, you'll at least squeeze a bit more of a monetary reward out of them. In groups it is good to have at least one disenchanter, for bop items found in dungeons that nobody can use. That isn't for personal profit, the shards are rolled for, but it's nice to have it available.

Another option is to ditch enchanting and take up something else. As I already have mining and herbalism on other toons, only skinning would make sense as a gathering profession. Could be profitable for selling the leather, especially as a mage who is good in mass killing animals. And some leather is used for tailoring, though not much. Or I take another crafting profession, but there only engineering would make sense. That is probably expensive to level up, and again not producing many useful things for other charactes. I loved having engineered bombs when I tried paladin once, but for a mage bombs aren't all that useful. There are some good goggles, and a lot of items that are just plain fun. Who wouldn't want to fly around in a helicopter?

The most expensive option is to level up enchanting to 375 and try to get as many good recipes as I can. I had a look through the TBC enchanting recipes, and it appears that very few are available from the trainer. Buying the more useful recipes from the auction house would cost thousands of gold. And then I'd still need to grind reputations and dungeons to get hold of the other recipes. I'm just not sure that this is worth it. I haven't seen any official Blizzard announcements where they state they are planning to change enchanting so that you could mail enchants to your alts or sell them on the AH. And standing in Shattrath or Orgrimmar for hours, peddling enchants in the trade chat instead of playing isn't really my idea of fun. Call me selfish, but why would I want to spent thousands of gold to get enchantments that only other people will profit from?

So I'm looking for advice, especially from people who leveled enchanting to 375. Do you feel the effort and gold spent was worth it? Or would you recommend just being a disenchanter? Or switching to engineering? Tell me what you think!
Comments:
I think Enchanting on your Main is extremly useful because you can disenchant in Instances and you upgrade the gear more frequently. When I was raiding my priest was Tailor/Miner and I always had my bank full. Then I ditched Mining for Enchanting and got rid of all the T1 and blue stuff (unfortunatly this included my damage gear and I had to farm it again for TBC *sigh*). It was great to have a disenchanter, esp. when you do Dungeons in small guild groups (we used to go Strath Living with just 3 people and made a nice profit).

Anyhow, the combination Tailor/(Dis)Enchanter is just plain great.
I spend 150g to level my Rogue to 250ish Enchanting because I had a tailor available. Runecloth belts are good for greater eternal essences and Nethercloth belts provide you with arcane dust and planare essences. Don't sell these cloth in the AH (or worse: to the vendor). Craft something useful, disenchant and make a nice profit. But never saturate the market ;)

In sort: Keep enchanting, it's better on your main but on an alt it's great in combination with tailoring.
 
Why not switch mining and enchanting on your toons? As far as I understand, your priest is your main, going on the occasional Karazhan raid, and probably having got a nice rep with most of the factions already. This means picking up at least some interesting enchanting recipes would be less painful than with your mage. And you could disenchant BoP-drops no one needs, and enchant your own main character.

Switching mining to your mage would leave you without ore to prospect for a little while, of course. But you're leveling your mage pretty quickly, so that's a very temporary inconvenience. Farming with a mage is easier than it is with a holy priest anyway.

To level enchanting on your priest, you can simply have your mage tailor green BoE's for the priest to disenchant and then use the mats to level your enchanting again. But that you already know, since you've got tailoring/enchanting on your mage right now.

Enchanting is always going to be an expensive profession to level, and not a brilliant money-maker at 375 (if you don't want to shout enchants all day :-)). But you could make some money buying cheap greens/blues off the AH, disenchanting them, and selling the mats. Leveling a profession like engineering is going to be equally expensive, so that shouldn't be an argument for/against switching between those two professions.
 
I do remember reading somewhere that it will be possible to create enchanting scrolls to trade/sell in the future (although I can't remember if they specified if it'll be in WOTLK or some undefined date). But I believe they're only planning to make lower level enchants available to trade with this system.

Both professions are ridiculously expensive to level up, I think. Engineering for a mage will be mainly the goggles and lots of fun items that you don't have to have. The transporters aren't essential, you can teleport everywhere, the jumper cables will hardly be used, without feign death or vanish you're not likely to stay alive after a wipe. It comes down to you deciding if spending a couple thousand gold is worth having world enlargers and helicopter mounts.

I would probably stay with enchanting, since the equipment you disenchant will end up providing quite a bit of the leveling costs anyway, or even if you decide to just stay a disenchanter it brings in good money. When I'm totally bored I also like to solo the pre-TBC high end dungeons which brings in lots of shards, essences and dust that currently sells for very high prices, which can be a good money maker, possibly even better than doing dailies when the prices are on the way up.
 
Engineers get mote extractors which from what I hear are quite useful.
 
As a mage enchanter I can enchant my own rings with +spell damage.

These enchants are available only to the enchanter, you can only enchant your own rings, so this is a bonus available only if your mage stays an enchanter.

Being able to make oils and shard the occasional BoP or random green which would otherwise be vendored is an added bonus.

On the minus side, leveling to 375 was *really really* expensive and slow and I still don't have the level 375 rod (collecting mats now :)). Being a tailor helped a bit.
On the plus side, I remember you got to 5k gold for your mount relatively painlessly. Think of the 200g you mentioned as 2 days of daily quests, that doesn't sound so bad does it? :)

As someone mentioned, I think in WotLK lower-level enchants will be able to be sold as scrolls in the AH. As always, like any non-gathering profession, don't expect this to be a huge money maker (if at all). Low level enchants will be high-availability-low-demand stuff I'm guessing...

These are the facts. Whether to stay enchanter or not is now up to you :)
 
I would keep enchanting, if only for disenchanting the stuff you make with Tailoring. But i would level it both at the same time. As some people before me allready stated, the tailoring/disenchanting works great and you can make a nice profit. The Enchanting materials selss very good on the AH and can easily pay for levelling up/ buying the missing materials.
Regarding the Mana/Wizard Oils: I would wait till you are in the level range. Until then disenchant only and let another Enchanter in your Guild make you the oils for you. As you are a Herbalist on your ohter Toon it is easy to get all the mats needed.
 
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=2111543053&sid=1&pageNo=1

1.4.3 Will Enchanting ever introduce item-based enchants instead of spamming around trade-channel to sell stuff?
1.4.3 Yes. However, Blizzard has said they might introduce it but not for the stronger enchant; this to keep the player interaction more alive for Enchanting.

Surely they should replace "interaction" with "scamming".

Such a dumb move to do something which should be a major improvement in such a half arsed way.
 
I'm rather disappointed with the professions as they are now. I think every single one should provide a way to earn money, something useful for everybody and something useful for your other toons. But now only some professions (like tailoring and engineering) provide useful things to yourself, others (like alchemy) are useful for all your toons and absolutely none is in any kind helping to earn money. Instead they are a huge money hole. Even if you get enchanting to 375 and get yourself some good receipes for an outrageous price on the AH, chances are that you won't make money. A good part of the people out there is used to enchanters that work for free, especially when the customer provides the mats. Nobody cares how expensive your receipes were or how much it cost to level to 375. You're only pushing a button, right? Most people will think like that and a good amount will hate you even if your fee is rather small.
This has gone so far that an alchemist is only 'allowed' to make your elixirs if he is an elixir-master and gives you all his procs for free. And if he gains a discovery while brewing your elixirs, you sure as hell get a present from him!
This behavior has led me to only use my professions for myself and my g/f, everyone else can get my stuff on the AH where I don't get insulted.
I also hope all enchants will be available on the AH, I'm tired of this 'interaction' which is based on spamming super-large macros in trade channel which wash away everything that might be useful.

To your actual question:
As it is now, all non-gathering-professions are only recommendable if you're the type of player that is proud of having them maxed out and tries to get every receipe without looking much at costs. Tailoring, leatherworking, blacksmithing and engineering can be useful if you don't want to participate in bgs or the arena, because you get 1-2 epics out of them. PvP provides most classes with all items they need to be good in soloplay, pvp and get a head start in Karazhan. Epics from professions do the same with higher costs and without being useful in pvp. The only exception I have found so far are healers.
 
I have most trade skills at level cap. And yes enchanting without self-trading is not that great, but I find it still much more useful than engineering, unless you love gadgets and toys.

Whenever I need enchants, even if my enchanter cannot make them myself I can get the enchants for free or cheap because I very likely have all the mats ready by keeping disenchanting going. If I need mana oil, I'm self-sufficient.

As a flip side, I almost never use my engineering.

Enchanting is by no means the most expensive profession to get to cap actually. Blacksmithing I'd rank as the worst and jewelcrafting is also rather considerably more painful and more expensive (unless you are lucky with drops, which I am not.).

The last 10-25 level points are rough for a lot of professions except tailoring and alchemy, which are rather easy.

I do hear you about the rods. In fact I did level blacksmithing mostly to support my enchanting and take the load of rod updates. Not sure if it was worth the effort (blacksmithing being a massive pain) but hey.

Seriously for any profession, only level them as far as you need them and stop if it's too expensive. If you want mana oil, go for 310 and stop. No need to grind 350-375 which is the really expensive stretch.

Once WotLK comes out that stretch should suddenly become considerably easier with a lot of the hard to get recipes suddely available from trainers.
 
With a level 40-ish enchanter at 275+ skill and a level 2 bank character supporting my main in Outland, I've made hundreds of gold -- by d/e of goods crafted while leveling other professions, d/e of drops, and d/e of under-priced greens and blues bought off the AH. There's an endless demand for top-end enchanting mats as people upgrade their gear.

In my case I only wanted to reach 275 skill to d/e up to level-70 blues, which avoided the expensive grind from 275-300, a range where the mats are old-world and in low supply.
 
If you're not aware of it, do remember that as a Jewelcrafter the Sha'tar quartermaster (at I think honored rep) offers a BoP epic gem recipe with +26 healing and whatever the +dmg is. You can only use that gem once on your gear, but it was a surprisingly little perk for my holy priest with JC to find out.
 
*surprising* perk. I hate when I make typos that can change what I meant to say.
 
If you're at 310 enchanting, don't drop it now. That'd be a ton of Gold down the drain. If you're unsure of what to do, just keep him as a disenchanter. The Arcane Dust and Planar Essences sell very well and should make you a good bit of Gold. Especially if you're planning on taking your enchanter into the Outlands - you'll have stacks of Arcane Dust to sell in just a few levels.
 
Oh, and as a 365 engineer who likes to PvP, I would not recommend engineering over enchanting at this point. Before the patch 2.3 changes to engineering -- ammo/arrow boxes and unrestricted-use potion injectors -- I was about to quit engineering for enchanting! And if you're thinking that engineering is a good profession for PvP, that is true for world PvP and BG PvP. But most engineering "toys" don't work in the Arena, and goggles have no resilience.

However, IMO, the biggest single 'plus' for engineering for a level-70 are the goggles that put gas clouds on the mini-map. If there isn't serious farming competition, with a fast flying mount I can collect about two primals in a couple of circuits around an area with my extractor (pulling 3-5 motes per cloud). I can collect air, water, mana, and shadow that way very quickly; a very great improvement over grinding over-farmed elementals.
 
My main is a 70 mage (Azynthas on Shadowsong). While I made it to 375 tailoring a few months ago, enchanting was only 156 when I hit 70 and it stayed there because I hated the profession so much. I ultimately ditched it and went to mining instead, which I have yet to get to any valuable level. Personally I regret getting rid of enchanting; as an earlier poster pointed out that there are some nice +spell enchants that you can only do for yourself. I think, if you're willing to take the loss of levels you've already gained, the best idea for you was suggested by another another previous poster -- switch the enchant profession to your priest main. We d/e half of the loot in Kara these days, so you will always have business on your raiding toon, and with other chars to provide the mats support, leveling your main as an enchanter shouldn't be terribly painful.

If you don't switch though, I wouldn't ditch the enchant skill on your mage, not after all the work and money you've put into it already. It will come in handy, and if you level the rest of the way to 375 slowly, well hey, it's an alt so there's no rush!
 
The cheapest & easiest way to level Enchanting passed 300 is to become your Guild's Enchanter. You get access to the rare BOP recipes, you get to raid the Guild Bank for Mats, and Guildies make the best tippers :)

My Rogue is my (Dis)Enchanter and I make a lot more money selling mats on the AH than I do by selling Enchants. When I learned Fiery I offered to do the enchant for 20g, this is when four shards were selling for 30g or more, and I still had people asking if I'd do it for free. No, I don't believe they were joking. Although I did give one Fiery away for free, to a Guildie on his lvl 6 Paladin. Yes, he was a lvl 6 Pally with a Fiery enchant :D
 
Avoid skinning like the plague. Skinning is the red-headed stepchild of gathering professions. I had it from release and just dropped it about 6 months ago and have never looked back. Skinning sounds intelligent, you're killing the mobs so why not skin them and make gold right? In practice, the majority of the skins you get are all but worthless and the handful of skins worth anything (Clefthide and Cobra Scale) aren't worth the time it takes to farm them. I can farm herbs for 1 hour and hit the AH and buy leather it would have taken me 4 hours to farm.
 
Well, that was until Clefthoof hide came into game. 1 hour farm = 20 - 30g of clefthoof hide, so I like skinning on my leatherworker Hunter...

Re Enchanting: Keep it.
Next expansion you can easily disenchant all the quest stuff/old purples/blues and use them later on. Second, send your alt all the green trash with low value (sell rods, weapons, plate armor >4-7g on vendor or AH them). Don't level beyond 360 yet its very expensive there.

Many other good reasons above but for one: You wife will be enchanted if you enchant her toons and chant your name with the highest praise. ;)
 
Just a few weeks ago I dropped mining and picked up enchanting on my main (70 feral druid in a Kara/Gruul guild). The primary reason was that enchanting gives me the self-only Enchant Ring recipes, while mining only gives me money. And using jewelcrafting and DE gives me enough income to cover the loss from not mining.

Since I had already been exalted with the major TBC factions, I picked up all the faction-based nice enchants.

Leveling to 375 was painful (I needed it to get the +4 stats to ring). I'm still trying to sell off excess wizard oil on the AH, fortunately for a little over cost of mats. I didn't sell a single enchant over tradechat; instead I ate the cost of each enchant by re-enchanting my own gear repeatedly. It probably cost me about $2k to get to 375, most of it near the end.
 
Well, that was until Clefthoof hide came into game. 1 hour farm = 20 - 30g of clefthoof hide, so I like skinning on my leatherworker Hunter...

Ever farmed herbs for 1 hour? I'd be pretty upset if I farmed herbs for an hour and got only 20-30g worth of herbs. Heck, every hour of herb farming should (on average) net you a Fel Lotus which is worth that much on it's own. Quite honestly I can fish the Highland Mixed Pools for an hour and make more than that.
 
I agree with what most people seem to be saying. Keep enchanting. Especially since there is the possibility (however slight) that enchanting may become scroll based and salable on the AH.

Avoid skinning like the plague. It's worthless. Unlike all the other gathering professions it has no perks. You don't get primals. You don't get rare/uncommon drops. You don't get random buffs. Nothing. It might take an hour to skin up enough mobs to make a stack of knothide leather (keep in mind, unless you're also a leatherworker all those bloody damn scraps are worthless). On my server, a stack of knothide goes for 6-11g depending on stocks. You could do a single daily quest in 5-10 minutes and then buy that stack instead.

Thick Clefthide is about the only worthwhile thing to do as the drop rate isn't too terrible and the mobs are plentiful (compared to cobra scales, lord, i have a skinner and I still just buy that crap), but you're still talking a LOT of time spent farming to get a single stack. Dailies are just a much better time-to-gold ratio.
 
Thanks everybody for all the advice. As there appears to be pretty much a consensus that skinning isn't all that great and engineering is relatively expensive for the advantages it offers, I'll go with the option to just keep enchanting without spending too much money for it.
 
Because of the way tracking works where you can only track one type of thing, it doesn't make much sense to take two gathering professions which require tracking, like mining+herbalism. So most people take a gathering and a non-gathering profession.

But if you level a char for the purpose of being a gatherer, being a skinner+something makes a lot of sense, you track the something (veins or herbs) and skin any animal you kill. You don't specifically farm the skins but over time it's a very nice income bonus.

That's my only opposition to the general consensus "skinning sucks". It does (in terms of gold/hour), but not as a "secondary" farming profession.

For the one who wrote "I can make more money fishing", right on dude. People don't understand what a great money maker fishing is. I can fish 10 Motes of Water in 20 minutes easily if there is not a lot of competition around. That's 15-20g per Primal Water, around 60g per hour if I keep at it and then sell them in the AH. And don't forget all the scroll cases, curious crates, useful fish and the fact you can better level cooking if you level fishing at the same time.
With all the discussion of primary professions, let's not forget the very useful secondary ones :)
 
Definitely keep it. Being able to send random greens from the main to a character is a huge boost to money, and well worth what you'll invest.
 
Post a Comment

<< Home
Newer›  ‹Older

  Powered by Blogger   Free Page Rank Tool