Time is Money: Selling vs. Disenchanting
by Amanda Miller 
Mar 14th 2009 at 12:00PM
Today we'll be discussing the benefits of disenchanting items, and weigh them against your other options, such as vendoring and auctioning.
For the purposes of this discussion, I am going to assume that you aren't using the materials to level, but rather, are interested in making the most gold possible.
Perhaps you have met the Enchanters who proclaim on every forum and in each comments section that Enchanting is the only way to go for making money from greens and quest rewards.
While Enchanting, or rather, Disenchanting, is an incredibly useful tool for making money, it is a myth that you will make more money by always disenchanting everything.
Magic Number 73
The lowest level greens from Northrend are level 67 to 72. The magic number is 73. For some reason, level 73 greens suddenly begin to grant more materials when disenchanted.
As a general rule, you will make more money disenchanting an item 73 and above and selling the materials.
Items on the lower end are trickier. The "good" items, such as weapons, and "heavy" items, should be vendored, while the "light" armor pieces like cloaks, bracers, belts and gloves, are better off disenchanted. Check out Time is Money: Selling your quest rewards for more information.
What you get
Items level 73-80 will grant you 3-5 Infinite Dust, or 1-2 Greater Cosmic Essences.
Items level 67-72 from Northrend will give you 1-2 Infinite Dust, or rarely, 1-2 Lesser Cosmic Essence.
For today's purposes, I'll be ignoring blues and Dream Shards, as the shards are also used as currency.
Quest rewards do not have level requirements. Instead, look at the item levels (this is different from the level required to equip the item). Anything level 154 and above is generally equivalent to level 73 and above, but going with quests that require you to be level 73 are is a safe bet.
This means that any quests from the starting areas reward you with items that are below level 73, Dragonblight is also low, and Grizzly Hills and other areas are mostly in the clear.
Armor and weapons are very different when it comes to disenchanting. Armor has a 75% chance of granting dust instead of essences, while weaponry has a 75% chance to grant the more expensive essences, rather than dust.
Knowing your prices
It is important that you start monitoring the Auction House, if you don't already. If you don't have fun doing it manually, then consider installing an addon such as Auctioneer to help you do it at a glance.
You will want to determine the usual price for Infinite Dust and Greater Cosmic Essences on your server. As an example, each dust might sell for 5g while each essence might sell for 18g.
It is also important to know how much every item would sell for to a vendor. There are lightweight addons to help you do this, if you don't like addons that use up a lot of memory, although if you run Auctioneer, you can configure it to do this for you as well.
The Math
Yes, there is math involved, if you would like to be specific, although I will also hand you a couple of rules to avoid the math if you choose. The quick and easy way is to assume that you'll get dust for armor and essences for weapons, and take it from there:
V = the price the item will sell for to a vendor.
M = the average price of the materials that you are likely to get.
M is more complicated than V. For the lower end items described above, M is the price of 1.5 Infinite Dust on your server, because that is the average that you can expect to get.
For the higher level items, you will want to set M to the price of 3 dust on your server or 1 Greater Cosmic Essence. You might even make an average of the two. If three dust sell for 15g and one essence sells for 18g, then set M to 16.5g (15 + 18 = 33. Then divide 33 by 2, because two is the number of things that you added up).
Where V > M, vendor the item, or try to sell it at auction for more than the value of M. Where M > V, disenchant it.
When you're looking at weapons, set M to the cost of one Greater Cosmic Essence for higher level weapons, and and one Lesser Cosmic Essence for weapons level 67-72.
For the more advanced version:
- High level armor: 4 dusts (avg) x 3 + 1 cosmic, divide this all by 4.
- High level weaponry: 3 cosmics + 1 dust, divided by 4.
- Disenchant anything level 73 and up.
- Vendoring weapons will give you a reliable income. They will also grant reliable profit when disenchanted.
- Items below level 73 grant very few materials. Sell them at auction for the price of one Infinite Dust or more, or learn the rule about "heavy" items and how they relate to an item's value. Disenchant lightweight items, and sell the heavier ones.
Good old Bob heads to the Auction House every morning to purchase greens to disenchant. Bob usually buys anything 10g and under that comes from Northrend, hoping that after all is said and done, the amount that he paid that day (C) will be less than the total value (T) of the materials he got from disenchanting the items.
T - C = P and P stands for Profit. Bob hopes this is a positive number, and the higher, the better.
Bob's success is based on chance, or dumb luck. Bob could increase his profits in the following ways:
- Do a search for armor, level 67-72, and buy everything 5g and under. Here, I am assuming that one Infinite Dust sells for 5g. If it sells differently on your server, use that number instead.
- Do a search for armor, level 73-80. Purchase everything under the cost of three Infinite Dust.
- Do a search for weapons, level 67-80, and buy everything under the cost of three Infinite Dust.
- Always use your addon to double check that anything in the 67-70 range actually comes from Northrend and not Outland. People lose a lot of money by finding out that half of what they bought gave them Arcane Dust! Tip: If you don't want to use an addon, read the Disenchanting requirements at the bottom on the tooltip by clicking on your disenchant button and mousing over the item. If it says "requires Enchanting 275" then it is an Outland green. Northrend items will require a higher level of Enchanting.
- This will sound obvious but I do know people who mess this up on a regular basis. Set the Rarity to Uncommon so that you don't accidentally buy whites and grays.
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Tricks, How-tos, Features, Making money, Enchants, Time Is Money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Tyrannus Mar 14th 2009 12:08PM
Interesting - I'll need to get my enchanting up to 350 first, then I'll try this method
Freedomfighter Mar 14th 2009 12:17PM
Assuming that vendoring >73ilvl items is probably a mistake, and is very likely heavily server dependent. If your server maintains ridiculous prices for essences, like mine still does, it would be profitable to get 1-2 lessers as opposed to vendoring the materials.
Dabbler Mar 14th 2009 12:18PM
Great article, but wanted to add another suggestion for the lazy.
Put every single green/blue item on the AH at prices equal to your potential profit from enchanting, plus deposit.
I do this, daily. Using Bulkmail to handle the mail load helps.
In 2 days, if it comes back, disenchant. This method usually means it sells for what it "could" return in mats, and you always get the mats anyway if it doesn't sell. Keeping the RNG at bay is important. Priced as determined by Auctioneer and Enchantrix addons.
Michael Mar 14th 2009 2:06PM
What a wierd idea: You're minimizing profit.
You should be listing at 10-25% above deposit + enchanting value.
Otherwise, you're better off just DEing everything right away, and actualizing your enchanting value, (as all your current system does is delay your profits 2 days).
AyaJulia Mar 14th 2009 2:20PM
"Otherwise, you're better off just DEing everything right away, and actualizing your enchanting value"
I think what he means is, well....
You know how things can be DE'd for, say, 2-5 infinite dust? He puts the greens up for the value of five infinite dust, instead of disenchanting it and running the risk of only getting two.
Heja Mar 14th 2009 12:22PM
Mats over items is always my rule lol. Especially now while many people are leveling there skills still. In fact on my server I de several items daily for various players, more worth it to them than trying to sell higher end gear. For a whole days worth of items I charge 10 gold from one person. I have enough people doing this service I make about 80-170 Gold a day depending on the time of the week.
Thander Mar 14th 2009 12:22PM
I've just gotten into the habit of DE all BoE greens I find. My enchanter can use all of the mats either to make better bags for my alts or Dream Shards to purchase better enchants.
I'm not having too much trouble with money right now, so I'm fine not selling the mats. Just leveling an alt 70-80 is worth about 4k gold after finishing the quests in every zone (only solo quests).
Snapjak Mar 14th 2009 12:29PM
You need to mention that it's all based off of iLvl and not the level requirement. Just because you manage to pick up a level 70 green doesn't mean it's going to turn into infinite dust or cosmics. The item has to have an iLvl of 121 or higher to produce northrend enchanting materials. Someone might go to the AH with this advice and see a level 70 item, buy it, and have it DE into arcane dust.. not very helpful info.
Again... your advice about going to the AH and buying everything 67-72 is not good... there are still many items coming from outlands being thrown on the AH that are 67-70.
Snapjak Mar 14th 2009 1:39PM
I would like to add that the 73+ is also very misleading. You'll need iLvl 151+ in order to get the better DE rates. Lots of info can be found at http://www.wowwiki.com/Disenchanting_tables.
Tekkub Mar 14th 2009 2:46PM
Seconded, a good DEer ignores required level completely and only looks at iLevel. iLevel has a solid reliable pattern (see the table linked above), whereas required level is all over the place and unreliable.
danawhitaker Mar 14th 2009 12:36PM
No wonder I can't find any weapons or armor on the AH for my level, and when I do find a few, the prices are completely unreasonable. They're all being disenchanted or sold off for over-inflated costs. Thanks enchanters for ruining the BoE greens market, this explains a *LOT*.
Okay, maybe this isn't the entire cause for this, but I'd say it's a likely contributing factor at best, especially when a lot of people are willing to let a group or guild enchanter DE everything that can't be used instead of putting it up for sale. This is why creating a tradeskill that destroys good gear was a bad idea.
I have never put up a BoE green at a market-reasonable price that didn't sell. That tells me there's still a market for these items in the game. Now every time I'm in the AH and find no shields or one-handed swords in a five-level range around me I wonder if someone already DE'd a great item I could have used.
I'm not trying to unload on enchanters here, it's more my dislike for the way Blizzard implements this particular tradeskill. I hate the idea of items that can be used by someone else in the game being destroyed before they ever make it to market. I only vend things that I know are of absolutely no use to almost anyone (basically greys). The lower population the server, the bigger of an issue this is, because you don't have nearly as many people auctioning stuff off, and it's even easier for price fixers to corner a market and inflate the price of stuff.
Alaror Mar 14th 2009 12:59PM
Though I'd agree with your belief that Enchanting can mess up the market, you have to think about what things would be like WITHOUT Disenchanting. Right now the primary reason BoE greens sell is because there is a demand created by Enchanters, which is created because people want their gear enchanted. Without Enchanting I'm sure there would be a few that bought BoE greens, but in general no one would bother (the majority of them aren't good compared to those you can get from Dungeons and harder quests). If there was no demand for them, there would be a huge surplus, driving the price into the ground, making it likely people would instead vendor them.
Norcallights Mar 14th 2009 2:34PM
BoE greens that end up on the AH usually get sold to enchanters who are going to DE them for cash anyway. There's really no reason to equip a "of the " item. Quest rewards are too good and too easy to pick up.
I don't think you're missing anything when you don't find greens in the AH.
Impulse Mar 15th 2009 2:25AM
I get the feeling the level of gear you're looking at is below 60. The article is mostly directed to northrend-quality greens (level 68 and up). For players between level 58-70, the quest rewards in outlands and northrend are plentiful and do nicely for leveling. Most greens from these zones only sell to the enchanting market or the occasional twink picking up a 59 piece of gear. For azeroth leveling, quest rewards are a lot harder to come by and underpowered compared to BOE greens. However it's probably not enchanters buying up the expensive ones on your server. The demand for mid-level enchanting mats is sparse and largely only used by people leveling their enchanting. Items with desirable stats are sold for a high price because of their stats and the relatively scarcity of supply. Most servers (excepting new ones) don't have a lot of people killing the mobs that drop stuff in that level range. There's a fairly limited supply of leveling greens, thus high prices for ones than have desirable stats. Has nothing to do with enchanters.
Palusami Mar 16th 2009 7:21AM
Actually one of the reasons that you might not find as much greens on the AH is that it seems like Blizzard lowered the drop rate for them. To fund my toons I use to run vanilla dungeons for enchanting mats to auction (due to the no cost of placing it on the AH). Doing Baron runs, Stockades, etc. Last time I ran Stockades I only got 3 green BoE drops, while Strat Baron runs give 6 green and 3 blues BoE.
Paiid Mar 14th 2009 12:51PM
@9
You're absolutely correct. It's a common misconception that ANY item over level 73 or 74 will disenchant into the most mats. I DO NOT RECOMMEND this to people who do not use the Auctioneer addons. You may be fooled when you pay 10g for a bunch of Arctic Helms, crafted by leatherworkers, that is level 74, and find out that it disenchants as though it was a level 71 item. There are many more items out there like this.
This is very server dependent. Luckily, there is a way to counter a crashed enchanting market. If you find that the profit margin of buying greens and disenchanting is very small, instead, buy out a ton of enchanting mats that other people sell and pick up some Armor Vellum III and Weapon Vellum IIIs. You use those Vellums to create scrolls of your enchants.
If you can buy a stack of Infinite Dust for 70g, and end up selling 2 scrolls of a certain enchant for 50g+ you just made back your money. Granted, it will depend on certain enchants. Nonetheless, it is a great way to counter and adapt to a failing market.
I really wish they would preface these articles with a disclaimer about server market dependency. All-in-all, good article =D
Spiral Mar 14th 2009 1:47PM
Some of your math seems like almost guesswork.
quote:
# High level armor: 4 dusts (avg) x 3 + 1 cosmic, divide this all by 4.
# High level weaponry: 3 cosmics + 1 dust, divided by 4.
Where in the world did you come up with this? If you go to:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Disenchanting_tables
you can see exactly what *Item levels* disenchant into what. The formula for, say, an itemlevel 152-200 armor would go like this:
2-5 dust (avg 3.5) 75% of the time
1-2 greater cosmic (avg 1.5) 22% of the time
1 dream shard 3% of the time.
So you take weighted averages of the 3 (say D, E, and S are the going prices for dust, essence, and shards on your server):
(3.5*D*.75)+(1.5*E*.22)+(S*.03)
152-200 iLvl weapons is obviously quite similar.
(3.5*D*.22)+(1.5*E*.75)+(S*.03)
Anyway, curse you for getting this out into the open. :( Not very many people on one server can do this before the competition is just too high to be worth it.
Outlier Mar 14th 2009 1:50PM
Blizzard wants to homogenize play for characters... with this and the Cloth Scholazar Basin farm area, wowinsider is working hard at homogenizing our pockets...
Karilyn Mar 14th 2009 2:43PM
My greatest money making tip.
Enchanting mats don't require a deposit on AH.
If you are really sadistic about money making, overcut everyone else by about 150%. It might take a week or two for the enchanting mats to sell, but they WILL sell. And because they don't require a deposit, you can keep putting them up.
evankimori Mar 16th 2009 1:27PM
^ This.
Very well stated. No excessive deposit on AH for hosting greens over periods, no material comming back where you lost your fees, no 10-15g lost simply because it hasn't sold. Heck, I DE some of the BOE Blues I pick up as well simply because I know they won't sell due to bad stats or availability of better profession crafted gear at the level.