I was reading one of Tobold’s latests posts on enchanting and I just had to write a response. You can imagine my amazement when he wrote that he is one of the few 70’s who runs around without any major enchantments on his gear.
Why?
Because enchanting your gear is one of the most expensive things you will ever undertake.
The gear selection and vast selection of raid instances are at the point where you could replace a piece of gear you got today with one later on in the week.
So herein lies the dilemma. Why spend copious amounts of money investing in enchants for some item when it might be replaced later?
It’s like shopping for computer parts. You could upgrade your memory now or wait and watch it drop in price. You never know when a better deal might come along, right?
Let’s take a look at the price for 81 Healing to weapon. WoWecon.com reports Large Prismatic shards having a price of 19G (Ner’Zuhl has ridiculous prices with 25+G).
Primal Life: 10 gold x 8 = 80G
Primal Water: 20 gold x 8 = 160G
Large Prismatic Shard: 20 gold x 8 = 160G
That’s about 400 gold spent just to increase your healing by 81 on your weapon.
Obviously, your weapon is the most expensive piece to enchant. Factor in bracers, gloves, boots and your chest and watch the costs double or even triple on some servers. As raiders, I’m not sure what we spend omre of our money on: potions and flasks or enchants (or even jewelcrafting).
With costs like that, you want to ensure that your gear pieces that get are here to stay. I’ve had cases myself where I got an item one day only to replace it the next. What sucked the most is that I had the original item enchanted before I got the upgraded piece.
Knowing When to Enchant
Get the most out of your enchants! It should be an investment on gear that you know you won’t replace for a while. Typically, I follow the 4-week rule. If I know for certain that I’m replacing this item within 4 weeks, I won’t enchant it.
Start reading up on boss drops. Know which boss drops the items that you’re looking for. Calculate the probability of you getting an upgrade. Remember that not only does the encounter have to drop the item for you, you may need to compete with other players in your Guild for it. If you’ve got the most DKP, then you’re set since you can either bid a high amount or get first option.
Great example: Your Attumen bracers drop for you but you’ve been steadily collecting badges for better bracers anyway. You figure you’ll easily obtain the amount of badges you need within a week. Therefore you shouldn’t enchant your Attumen bracers.
Matt’s Philosophy: Assume what you want from a boss isn’t going to drop and enchant your present ones. Be the best player you can be statwise as that will help the Guild more in the long run.
Be prepared to pass on an item because your enchanted gear is better then that unenchanted piece. You can score major brownie points and save precious DKP if you pass it off to someone else.
Well said. Enchanting can be rediculously expensive. 25 gold on Ner’Zhul? I just recently enchanted my Light’s Justice and had to pay 35 gold a shard. Lol you may sit there and laugh thinking i got a bad deal, but they’ve been that high for months now. People should be thrifty when it comes to enchanting. Hell, you really could replace it the next day.
The price just hit 30 recently. It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s like the price of oil even.
Yeah, Arthas is at around 30g per shard too. =X
And when s3 came out, they were 40g for about a week.
Same with Gems, they’re definitely a huge money sink too.
Ahh enchanting…many issues with it. Blizzard adding the enchant soulbound rings did help a bit. But there are still too many issues with it. I am an enchanter becasue I enjoy professions. But looking back, I should have never choosen this. sure I can DE stuff, and give myself enchants, but a money making(gathereing) profession would have made life easier. and I would still be able to get all the enchants I have now (minus the rings) and have money left over.
As far as when to enchant. My rules go something like this.
Cheap(20g or less) enchants for blues you’ll have for a while
Every epic needs an enchant, the best enchants for epics you dont think you’ll replace in the next 3 weeks.
For the most part, this is sound advice to make the most out of your money. However, this is only works out well for blues and lower end epics. But in higher end raiding, it just won’t fly. My guild in particular has a rule that you must have your gear gemmed/enchanted to the best it can before you’ll be considered allowed to bid on an upgrade piece for that slot. Why? Because for progression, learning new bosses and such, the guild as a whole needs to have the best edge possible, which means enchants and gems on everything, consumables, and buffs. If I saw all of my healers sitting around without an enchant on their weapon because there was a chance that Vashj would drop her coveted mace sometime in the next month, yet it’s not always a one shot kill because heals lack just that little bit, I know I wouldn’t be pleased at the time wasted and repair bills. It’s not fair to your raid as a whole to just go halfassed with your gear. If you actually look at the stats your gems and enchants give you totalled up, you’d see a HUGE chunk of damage/healing/mana/HP.
The question whether to enchant or not goes together with when to enchant imho. I have my gear enchanted upon receipt (or as close to as possible, some enchants are harder to get than others), or not at all.
While not at the level-cap, I usually don’t enchant gear. I would not advocate enchanting before the cap either. Crusader on a level 40 mace for my enh. shammy was a fun exception though. I used it through to outland yesterday.
The question is always: Is the new item a major upgrade, or just a minor or sidegrade? No need to waste 200G in enchant mats for just some 2 extra RAP on a blue item. But if the item is not an upgrade, I won’t compete against others for it in the first place. Should I get it, I would probably have it enchanted. The people in your raid/guild who helped you get the item have to have the comfortable feeling that you are serious about your loot/gear.
But my two main toons are at a point where upgrades mean epic loot. It gets tricky when you are talking about greens and blues. Greens usually don’t need enchants, if they don’t happen to be very special. Special means featuring spell school resistance for example, if you need it for a specific encounter.
I considered blue items worth enchanting when they were on par with Dungeon Set 3, i.e. item level 115 and above.
In the end, it cpomes back to your virtual financial situation, and the role you are going to perform. If you piggyback on a Karazhan funraid with all tier 5 members, you may need less enchants on current gear to succeed than in a heroic Arcatraz PUG.