Enchanting changes in patch 3.0.8
by Alex Ziebart 
Jan 4th 2009 at 4:30PM
The developers have mentioned here and there that they weren't totally happy with Enchanting, as far as materials go. You need too much of it, and it's too rare to support the demand without becoming crazy inflated in price. Patch 3.0.8 was supposed to contain a few changes, and holy cow are there changes.I assumed the changes would be minor, like more dust coming from every disenchantment, but the MMO-Champion forums has compiled a list that surprises me quite a bit. It actually is a pretty sweeping change, reducing the material costs of a whole load of enchantments. Dust isn't the only thing targeted, they use less materials across the board.
In some cases, the material costs are halved, or more than halved. It's definitely not a small little change to Enchanting, waiting until the patch to enchant your gear will save you hundreds of gold. If you want to play it safe or are just curious, MMO-Champion has the full list for your perusal.
Filed under: Enchanting, Patches
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Beelzebud Jan 4th 2009 4:36PM
Nice to see them actually put some effort into enchanting. This is one area where they really dropped the ball in WotLK. It looked like an intern with a free afternoon set up the entire LK enchanting system.
I still annoys me that they got rid of the rare drop enchants.
Alkaios Jan 4th 2009 7:51PM
"It still annoys me that they got rid of the rare drop enchants."
^this.
I leveled my alt's enchanting to 375 after Wrath came out, but once I caught wind of Enchanting changes, I kept him there simply so he could still DE Northrend items. My alt bank is chock full of unused enchanting materials...and this is an awesome announcement for pack rats and people who haven't leveled Enchanting all the way like me =).
I glanced through some of the 425+ recipes....they used WAY too many materials per enchant. I'm glad I won't have to deal with it as much now.
I'm sure people who leveled through it to 450 will be pissed though.
Now if Blizzard could work on making the cooking leveling process faster...that would rock.
Grinn Jan 4th 2009 10:00PM
"effort in to enchanting"...ARE YOU KIDDING!!!!! This isn't effort, it is a stupid nerf that benefits customers at the expense of enchanters. Yeah it may be a little cheaper to power level your enchanting but in the end this change greatly devalues disenchanting as a gathering profession . This is economically a huge net loss for enchanters. Secondly, on most servers it is the cost of the Abyss crystals that really make the end game enchants expensive and it doesn't look like they are doing anything about lowering the requirements for those.
I still can't afford accuracy or beserker and my ability to make the gold to buy the requisite materials for them is about to be significantly diminished.
Perhaps worst of all is that since they have put some "effort in to enchanting" were aren't about to see anything fun or cool forever.
jrb Jan 4th 2009 11:14PM
grinn, you're perhaps the first person i've ever seen say something positive about the current state of enchanting.. and by current i mean at the time of them saying it, ever since the game came out.
enchanting has always been the most painful profession, the most thankless, and the one cost the most amount to level, and maintain.
any changes blizz can make to address it is all good.. i used to enchant back in the early days of wow, but because i liked to spend my game time not idling in ironforge i dropped it. Personally, i'm glad i can now buy enchants off AH, although i'm sure a lot of enchanters are making huge losses for no good reason.. still, any work blizz can do here is much appreciated, and will be felt by all players! good work.
Zrob Jan 5th 2009 2:05AM
Grinn,
Sorry, but I can't get with you on that.
First off, Abyss Crystals SHOULD be expensive. Let's look back a few months when Void Crystals went for pennies and shards went for big bucks. Then Vodi Shatter was introduced and GPE were the crazy expensive mat to have. Still you could go do dailies and reasonably expect to come out with a GPE or two when your day was done.
Also, when tier 8 comes out, Tier 7 will get facerolled for badges and the market will get flooded with Abyss Crystals.
Now I'm in the 430s and running heroics; begging my groups to let me NEED on the greens that dropped cuz I'm so starved for mats, and no I won't buy them, that's a fools game.
So, I have mats, what can I do? I can sell them, but then I don't have any mats to level with, and the only thing I'd buy with the gold is more enchanting mats.
Enchants mats are still going to sell and sell well just like they always did. Now instead of having to get the Scrooge McDuck size vault build you'll just have to go regular Federal Reserve Bank size.
Or maybe market speculators like yourself brought this on your own heads. If you hadn't overcharged for chant materials on the AH, we wouldn't have complained and the mat costs wouldn't have come down.
Little lesson in greed and conspicuous consumption here.
Deadly. Off. Topic. Jan 5th 2009 4:00PM
I don't get how needing a greed and being boastful about how you're not buying it at the EXPENSE of the group you are partied with is something to pride yourself at.
If anyone started needing the greens in a run I was in, I'd be annoyed. 1. I have my own private enchanter 2. Even if I don't d/e that stuff, it does sell to vendor. 3. Why should someone else profit over me because they chose to level a costly profession. There's more, but you get the drift.
Kiristo Jan 4th 2009 4:38PM
I never got past 275 with my 70 lock in BC. Then again, I'm lazy in general when it comes to professions, but I'm still happy to see this.
Amaxe Jan 4th 2009 4:49PM
It benefits the people who want the enchants but can't pull together the mats as well.
Getting dual berserker will be easier it seems.
Chukie Jan 4th 2009 5:17PM
the main cost of zerking is the crystals not the essences or dust
CM Jan 4th 2009 5:48PM
On my server the dust is way more expensive than the crystals.
Amaxe Jan 4th 2009 9:23PM
Opposite for me. the crystals are what ruins my savings :(, essences second, dust cheapest.
Radiophonic Jan 4th 2009 4:55PM
Now, how about Tailoring. The low drop rate of Frostweave has inflated prices well beyond what we ever saw with Netherweave (which was much, much more easy to get). Even with cloth scavenging, this stuff is far too precious a commodity to warrant needing 5 bolts for some poor quality green legs. As someone who refuses to use the AH on most occasions due to its rotten pricing, I'm very unhappy with what has been done to tailoring.
OK, I'm done. :P
Next, yes! Very nice changes to enchanting, a very smart move.
Clevins Jan 4th 2009 5:13PM
Oddly Ive never had an issue with FW. I have 250 in my bank and some bolts and imbued bolts. I get 2-4 stacks every night I run. It's 20g per stack on the server, so I can't even justify selling it really.
But yes, tailoring is worthless as a profession now.
On topic, they needed to do this. I hav the 23sp enchant on my bracers... the mats cost of t he 30 was 3-4 times more. For 7 sp? um... that was stupid.
Then again, why I have any crafting professions at all in Wrath is beyond me... there's really no reason for them.
The Claw Jan 4th 2009 7:09PM
Frostweave might be expensive, but come on, Netherweave was totally broken. It was so oversupplied that every day, if I could be bothered, I could go and buy a dozen or so stacks at the AH, for less money than I could make by making bandages and VENDORING them. When trade goods sell for less than vendor value, you know that something is wrong with the supply and demand balance.
Ondoe Jan 5th 2009 2:46AM
"When trade goods sell for less than vendor value, you know that something is wrong with the supply and demand balance." no that's capitalism that's how the real economy works companies buy things cheap assemble them for cheap and sell them for profit
infection Jan 5th 2009 12:02PM
FW is not an issue.
You being lazy is your real issue.
You can grind for FW, you can't grind for greens.
crsh Jan 4th 2009 6:12PM
Good to hear, 'cause I find that any enchant past the 415 mark have such high mat requirements that it does little to want to keep leveling it - that not in terms of using abyssal crystals or whatever, but 24-32 dusts + 12 essences for a single enchant that isn't anything special is kinda out of this world.
Fuseitana Jan 4th 2009 5:46PM
The Abyss Crystals were always the holdup for me and they only changed on a couple 'chants. It's still way too expensive due to the crystals.
Daniel Jan 4th 2009 5:46PM
I'm just not a fan of this "lets make everything easier" mode Blizz seems to be in lately. Yes, it's important to find the right balance. But topping out Enchantment (or any profession) should not be easy. It should not be impossible, or the situation where only 5-10 people on the server have it, but when everyone has 450 professions, what's the point. Part of the reason people take up a profession is to make money and when everyone has topped out why bother. It's cheaper just to get someone else to do the work. I think topping out a profession should be a real accomplishment, not just something that gets done every hour.
epsilon343 Jan 4th 2009 5:52PM
Well, at least on my server, the "5-10 people who have" it seems to be the norm because I rarely see an enchanter with more than 430 which is frustrating.
And for someone who needs enchants, it's ridiculous to require huge stacks of mats for rather pedestrian enchants.