Disenchanting for friends and the Sunwell
by Daniel Whitcomb 
May 17th 2008 at 5:00PM
If you've played the level 70 game and done the Shattered Sun Offensive dailies, you probably know where this is going. On a good day, doing the complete Outland daily circle, I can come out with somewhere around 10 disenchant-worthy items between regular drops and Shattered Sun Supplies. Leafshine says she can sometimes spend up to 10 minutes working on Disenchanting, and I can believe it. Every time I process a batch of greens on my disenchanter, not only does it take some time to get through with them, then I have to process multiple piles of reagents, and figure if I'm going to store them, sell them, or use them to make a tailoring blue which I will then disenchant into a shard.
If added disenchanting for friends in there, I could spend all the day disenchanting. I have to commend Leafshine for putting up with it, and I don't think it would be a bad idea to start charging a disenchant fee - even if it's as simple as taking a cut of the materials. It's one thing to expect a disenchanter to be ready to disenchant dungeon blues that no-one needs, but it seems like another to mail your stuff to them and expect them to take their time to disenchant it free of charge. I know that friends should help each other out with tradeskill stuff, but there's a limit. Yeah, we're friends, we've raided together, but if I expect you to take 10 minutes out of your play time to help me out, throwing you some gold for your time seems like nothing more than common courtesy.
Filed under: Enchanting, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Economy, Making money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
hoeding May 17th 2008 5:06PM
I like your message. Where do I sign up for your newsletter?
Ayiak May 17th 2008 5:20PM
I usually send a letter full of greens to my friendly neighborhood Enchanter, but I also send a letter of Netherweave so they can get their enchanting up too. Both came from dailies and farming, so nothing lost for me.
Ayiak May 17th 2008 5:21PM
Blah, I meant tailoring. So sorry for double posting.
John May 17th 2008 5:34PM
This is somewhat related, what's the deal with the crafted items, specifically oils, any other tradeskill I can hit create all, and it does, oils, I have to hit enchant every, single, time, it can take 5 minutes (or more due to lag) to make a big pile of oils.
Unmei May 17th 2008 9:02PM
disenchanting doesn't come in Batch. you have to click each one you want to DE in order to get mats.
rick gregory May 17th 2008 6:48PM
Meh... and when they make pots? Or give me mats to help with something? 10 minutes every once in a while is nothing. If it's all one way, that's an issue, but even then... /shrug.
Deb May 17th 2008 6:08PM
I don't have a problem with sending guildies items to DE because I don't charge anyone for the countless hours spent as an herbalist picking herbs so they can have potions and elixirs for raids. It works out pretty even for me.
Keirin May 17th 2008 6:18PM
Exactly :) Another herbalist/alchemist here!
batgrl May 17th 2008 6:53PM
I never mind DE'ing for our guild - everyone tells me to take as long as I need and you can let items sit in your mail for aas long as 30 days. It's honestly not that time consuming or difficult - just a matter of a few clicks and then replying to the mail. (And yes, I'm getting multiple mail completely full of items.) I've had guildies try and tip me (everyone always sends a ty note) but I've always sent the money back as I'd honestly feel badly for taking anything for something that takes zero effort and that I can do while eating dinner or watching tv - a time I'd not be doing anything else in game anyhow, so no loss. If I had hundreds of people asking me to do this I'd probably feel differently - but then we have other enchanters that would help me out and also wouldn't feel the need for a tip for this. But then I also never took up Enchanting with any thought of making money - it was because it was useful for our guild, so I probably have a warped viewpoint. But I really can't imagine charging friends of guildmates for this when they always offer to help me do so many things in game. I just see this as my opportunity to help them.
batgrl May 17th 2008 6:56PM
Bah, I meant friends OR guildmates. I only DE and enchant for people I know.
Reddeth May 17th 2008 7:19PM
I get to see this from both sides of the street. On my Horde server, I need a friend's enchanter to DE all my stuff, but I have a high-enough enchanter to handle my guild's needs on the Alliance side.
From the Disenchanter point of view, I think the biggest problem is keeping track of who gets what mats after the melting is done. Sure, you can manage this by clearing out your bag before sharding for each client, but sometimes this adds to the time needed. Not by much, mind you, but it can add a level of annoyance.
As a customer of such a service, I do the following. Tips are usually refused from guildies, but we have an agreement that if some of the mats "stick to her fingers" (she is a rogue, afterall), that's fine by me. Also, I periodically look her up on Armory, see what level her enchanting is and do some research to figure out what mats she needs. Then I see what I can easily craft that produces those mats, go spend an hour or two farming and send 'em off to her with a note: This is for you.
I figure everyone likes to be appreciated.
Anteia May 18th 2008 12:01AM
See, this is the problem I have on my enchanter. I do enchants for free for guildies if I have the mats to do them with. As a result? I keep ALOT of mats on me. I don't really have room to move things around and try to keep track of how much dust/shards/whathaveyou came from the crap they send. So, I finally made a rule that if it's dust or the like, I keep it. If it's shards, those are easier to keep track of and I send them back. I just have too much trouble keeping track otherwise.
Zeplar May 17th 2008 7:22PM
If I disenchant a cheap green for someone and get more than 8g worth of mats from it, I take the extra. Generally you get 2-4 arcane dust or 1-2 GPE though.
Skarlette May 17th 2008 7:27PM
When I have a batch of junk to DE I send it to Guildie A, often along with some extra Netherweave so she can make tailoring stuff, to Guildie B, for whom I regularly Prospect ore, or Guildie C for, well, just a hearty thank-you. I'm always grateful. It's one of those things between friends where you all help each other out with various skills. Quid pro quo, it all works out.
If I was sending more than one mail's worth a week to any one person I'd probably offer more of a tip, but I don't usually bother anyone too often with it, and I have multiple friends I can call on for help, too. ;)
Dave May 17th 2008 7:30PM
I have an arrangement with a particular Enchanter to whom I send a set of greens every time I build up 12. He gets to keep half the mats.
Even with that, I've sold more stacks of Arcane Dust and G. Planar Essences in the AH than I can remember, have used more for enchants on two sets of gear (yay for feral druids) and have at least 2 stacks of each, plus a small number of Large Prismatic Shards sitting in my bank.
Chiroptera May 17th 2008 7:36PM
I DE for my guildies - it's a reasonable size large guild 300 people and I get between 100 to 180 items from 15 to 20 different people a day - it becomes quite a chore tracking who gets what mats back or clearing enough room to allow me to do it efficiently - I don't charge or skim the mats
Tekkub May 17th 2008 7:42PM
I don't mind DEing, hell I wrote an addon to speed things up for me.
My price is simple... if I keep the best item to come out of the crush. Not like they're going to miss it anyway, you're just taking the free money (vendoring the items) and turning it into more free money for them. As long as they get more than they would have vendoring, they have no grounds to bitch.
Sephran May 17th 2008 11:19PM
Since I have 2 70s doing sunwell dailes. I would accumulate ALOT of greens then have my friend de them all at once.
One time I had him disenchant about 40-50 greens from 4 days of dailies.
Sunwell FTW IMO
Dklee May 17th 2008 10:54PM
I'm a 375 jc and 375 enchanter, and being the nice guy that I am, I would never accept tips or payment from guildies for my services. In fact, I have no problems whatsoever as to offer my services to DE unwanted drops for any PUG party. However, some people will take advantage of you for being too nice. Just the other day, with the arrival of patch 2.4.2, which removed Cooldowns for void shatters, I had over 100 Void Crystals sent to me for shatter requests. Imagine going over 100 void crystals. Cast time for each shatter = 25 secs, Shattering 100x void crystals took me 41 minutes to complete.
At the same time, I make a living out of reselling gems on AH. I've had guildies coming to me with prospecting requests for about 20 stacks of ores. With those gems, I was asked to cut the highest demand of gems they could sell on AH, directly competing with my prices by undercutting me!
It's terrible, and I can't say no to them. It pisses me off, I often pretend to be afk.
katsuyakaiba May 18th 2008 12:13AM
I send stuff all the time for my Warlock buddy in the guild to DE. He said he'd do it for free, but I usually include some gold or if the cooking daily favors it, I cook him some spell damage food and send that with the items.