Should I disenchant or should I vendor for gold?

[Turalyon]

Just a quick question on what to disenchant and what to sell for gold.

My warlock is at 180 enchant, and he has reached the stage where he's starting to need mystic essences and vision dusts. He recently completed a couple of quests in Duskwood, where the quest rewards were Archeus (item level 35) and (something else, can't remember) (also item level 35).

Both items were soulbound and useless to him, and they could have sold for up to 75 silver. At this stage, that's a lot of gold for me. Checking the WoW website, both could have yielded greater mystic essences. So I took a gamble and disenchanted both, and both times I got a lesser mystic essence. So now I wish I vendored them for gold.

In retrospect, should I have vendored those items? Or should I just accept that is the luck of the draw when disenchanting items? (I have read that some high level enchanters vendor items that are worth more than 3g, and disenchant items lower than 3g.)

Thanks.

EDIT: Sorry, I meant to say mystic essence, and not nether essence. Corrections made.

[Lateraenema]

I've been wondering the same thing for a while. I'm ~160 enchant at the moment.

I'd say if gold is such an issue at the moment, then vendor it unless you are sure the disenchant is garunteed to get you a level in enchanting, then it's more worth vendoring for the gold.

Thats just in my experience, of course.

[milqueman]

well, I've played 2 characters that have been enchanters. The first charater was my very frist toon, so I had no cash flow from a higher level toon. Yes, money is an issue if you don't have a main to send you some gold. But after playing for a while, I've found out a couple things.

1. Almost all professions will be a money pit at first, thats the cost of keeping your profesion at a level thats useful to you while you go up in level.

2. Enchanting is a big money pit because while all other professions can sell there weapons and armor, the enchanter is stuck with the sometimes tough decision of "Do I sell, or do I DE?"

My opinion is this, DE it all. The reason is this.

1. the normal green stuff won't sell for that much to a vendor, but may sell for a little at the AH. But you need those dusts too, at least to level your skills.

2. If you want to level your skills pretty fast, so you can get to the "Good" enchants. your going to need a lot of materials.

3. Find the one enchant that's still red AND that uses the least amount of mats, or the easiest mats to aquire. Then DE everything you get to get those Dusts. go buy the cheapest Cloth level 1 armor you can get from a vendor, then enchant it over and over again. and voila, your skills are up. Also, keep that armor in the bank, and keep enchanting it as you gain skills. Buy a cheap set of cloth bracers, shield, chest and back piece. Also a 1h and 2H sword. if you don't want to buy it, then go kill a bunch of level 5 or so mobs until you have them.

4. You will also want to DE the blues and purples. YES the EPIC stuff. I know, it will sell for a lot in the AH, but depending on what it is and if you really need the money, The blue & EPIC stuff is what's going to get you those cool shards, which you will NEED for those cool enchants. The theory is, you will only be getting a limited number of blue & EPIC drops, so you will have a limited number of those cool shards, so never use a shard to gain Enchanting skills. Use those shards to enchant something that you really want enchanted and are going to use. If you get a skill-up, cool, more power to you, but use the dusts to gain your skills.

5. This is where the questions are answered. If you really NEED money, it's really not that hard to get. All you have to do is look yourself in the mirror and say "Today, I'm not going to quest, I'm not going to try and gain a level. Today I'm going to grind". If you have a gathering skill, GREAT! use it. Skinning, Mining and Herbing are all great ways to make money, and offset the cost of enchanting. Go gather stuff and sell it in the AH. If you don't have a gathering skill, but let say Tailoring, use that too. Most people take tailoring with enchating becuase tailoiring requires NO gathering skill. Tailoring is also a great match for Enchating because you can DE everything Green and better that you make. so this is what you do. Go kill every humaniod you see, take there money off there dead corpse, and take all there cloth while youre at it. If you want too, Sell the cloth in the AH. Cloth is a very good money maker. Once you have enough money, go get some more cloth. Make 50 of the same green thing, the DE it all. then get your skills up.


Bottom line, if you need money, go get it some other way, and DE everything. Your'e going to need pretty much every material you can get.

[Justinledwards]

DE everything is the way to go, don't even ask the question.

One other thing to note - you can make a break-even if you sell half your DE dusts and essences. You'll find that greater nether and greater eternals sell for loads and any large xxx shard.

So if you play it carefully, you will get almost as much as you would have vendored and still have DE mats.

[kodeeak]

If your server economy is good, I recommend de'ing everything and AH'ing it. It costs you no money to list de'd mats you don't need and people are shuffling their professions around all the time as new recipe's/patterns/etc are found..

that being said, my experience as a 371 chanter (4 more lvl's, oh my!)

I de everything I get at my level because arcane dust sells really well (46G per stack) and most of the chants I sell to people that don't require shards (int to bracers, assault on gloves, etc..) I can charge more for if I have the mats.

I usually sell half of what I de on any given day, unless the de'd mats are so low (soul dust for example) that I'll never use them or its more cost/space effective to sell now and buy if i need. I keep half around to chant stuff for guildies or respond to the "I need a chanter for XXXXX" posts in the trade channel.

I use auctioneer, so I can always see what my mats are going to cost. For most of the basic chants, if I'm providing a chant for a customer who wants to use my mats, I give them the going rate for the mats plus the chant requirements lvl x 2silver. So for lvl 300 chants, I charge mats plus 6G.. it lets me maintain some consistency and my customers appreciate it because they always know how much things are going to cost them.

For more rare chants where the recipe is not trainable.. (savagery, spell damage, lifesteal for twinks, crusader, fiery, etc...) I try and stay at the market value for my server so as not to crash the chanting economy if I'm using my own mats.. if someone comes to me with a mat, I ask what they're planning on tipping and decide where to go from there.

Arcane dust is a huge money maker, so de all those outlands greens you are lvl'ing up on your way to 70. I also keep an eye out for cheap ah outlands greens.. something for sale for 2G that can de into 6 arcane dust is well worth buying since it has a value of about 12G in dust.

Chanting is one of the most expensive professions to learn.. I have spent roughly 2k g getting to 371 and using many of my own de'd mats.

The benefit is that there are not a whole lot of high level chanters, because most people give up on it before they get there..

[emaciated]

It depends really. Disenchanting is like scratch ticket lottery.

Figure out the expected value of the dust/essence/shard from DEing vs. the vendor/AH price.

Sometimes items will vendor for more than the dust that comes from them is worth, so you would've been better off vendoring and buying mats instead.

Generally I find that it's worth it to sell BOEs on the AH if there's demand and they'll sell (i.e. leather with "of the bandit") and to DE ****ty BOEs with dumb stats that nobody would want (i.e an axe with +spirit, etc.).

[Your Average WoW Player]

Another thing with essences is, 3 Lesser X Essence equals 1 Greater X Essence. Keep that in mind. And always D/E the items that you don't need. Trust me, it might not be as good cash, but high level Enchanters are well tipped, especially if they have the good, high demand, kick ass enchants.

The only time you should be AHing/Vendoring items are when you know the matas you'll get from them don't help in anyway shape or form.

[rgirty]

If you have the auctioneer package it also comes with enchantrix, basically you can mouse over any item including quest rewards and find out the value of the item if you were to sell it to a vendor. You will also see what the item DE's into and the median DE value. Thats what I use to determine most of the time.

[Elfette]

I've just reached 225 enchating and I've only leveled my enchanting because the items I'm getting require 200+ enchanting to DE. I DE everything and sell the mats on the AH. Also, if you're looking for easy gold, do a heap of instance runs and hope you win blue BoP's on greed rolls and DE those, shards sell heaps better than if you were to vendor them. Also, the server I'm on.. lesser nether essence still sells for min 1g50s.

Basically what I'm saying.. DE'ing is MUCH better than vendoring soulbound items. Enchanting mats sell wicked on the AH.

Edit: ALSO! at level 40, i had 145g from disenchanting and selling mats on the AH, so i had no worries getting my mount. (lots of instance runs to get the mats for the gold though, but as a priest, instances are much easier and fun than soloing quests)

[pincopiones]

Use common sense. Lets says that u have:
Ring A - +10 Arcane Protection
Ring B - +8 Agility +4 Stamina

Ring A need to place a fee in AH and is less to sell (who needs arcane protction?) so the best options are sell to vendor for the quick cash or check for the equivalent price for the dust/essence in AH.
Ring B is more likely to sell for several gold in AH so is a very bad choice to Disenchatit or Vendorit.

Hope this help.

[rgirty]

It depends really. Disenchanting is like scratch ticket lottery.

Figure out the expected value of the dust/essence/shard from DEing vs. the vendor/AH price.

Sometimes items will vendor for more than the dust that comes from them is worth, so you would've been better off vendoring and buying mats instead.

Generally I find that it's worth it to sell BOEs on the AH if there's demand and they'll sell (i.e. leather with "of the bandit") and to DE ****ty BOEs with dumb stats that nobody would want (i.e an axe with +spirit, etc.).

It isn't scratch ticket if you DE 100+ items. You can get an odd de here and there but it is very accurate on a large scale.

If you de 3 or 4 items this can be true but for the long haul you will get some stable %'s.

[Turalyon]

Sorry for the late reply, but I want to say thank you so much for the feedback, especially to milqueman and kodeeak. I certainly didn't expect so much detail and useful tips when I started this thread, and reading it all has been very good for me.

Fortunately I have another main, a paladin miner/blacksmith, and I do make a little profit at the AH selling gems and bars. So I can send some gold over to my enchanter when needed.

Yeah, I do save my shards up. My enchanter did a 5% chance to absorb 25 damage (requires a large glimmering shard) on my paladin's shining silver breastplate, and that has been the best enchant ever that I've done at this stage.

I'm on a new server, and it seems the economy isn't all that good for the low level mats. Every time I check the AH, there doesn't seem to be any demand for soul dusts and strange dusts. I have about 40 greater astral essences that won't help me skill up, and which doesn't seem to be on demand. I'm not good with the costs of things, so I usually check the AH to get an idea, but with nothing listed, I can't get an idea. :grin:

And people don't usually ask for the mid-level enchants in the trade channel, they seem to be asking for the higher-level enchants which I'm not quite there yet (currently at 204).

My enchanter is also a tailor, and he can now tailor some level 31 and 32 items, so my worries on getting the vision dusts to skill up is no more.

But heck, the cost of mats to make those items at 25-31s per item, only to DE to get the vision dusts to skill up.. that is painful, but I'm grinning and bearing it. :grin:

Anyway, to get to the point, thanks again for all the tips. I will continue to DE everything and forget about what the vendor will pay me for it (well, maybe not the really low stuff that gives me strange dust, which will not help me skill up and which I can't sell at the AH).

[The Grailmaster]

I just made a warlock with tailoring and enchanting... to get the greens needed to help him level up i took my main (70 rogue) and solo ran a bunch of instances(VC, SFK, and SM) 2 runs per gave me tons of cloth and greens that i can d/e as i level my warlock up. You can do the same thing on your pally depending on his level. I'll be able to solo stuff in all the instances up to BRD, and some stuff in other instances. This is a great way to get the extra greens you need for dusts & essences. As far as blues go... if its a bop blue and sells for more than the price of 2 of the type of shard it would d/e into the I d/e it and buy the shard on the AH if i need it. Hope that helps

[Justinledwards]

the paladin approach - gather up the whole instance and hit consecrate :)

[Colossi]

if you are still going for 70, I say sell any greens that's worth more than 2 gold. you'll need the gold to buy your mount. anything less, DE it, cause at level 70 when you're farming for rep or doing instances, you'll be getting tons of greens.

so...

Less than 2 gold = Disenchant
Blues BOP (quest items) = Disenchant (it's not worth it to vendor them cause most likely you'll get a small prismatic shard or better)
Greens that's worth 3 - 8 gold = better to vendor it

[Justinledwards]

Hmmm if you have a green worth 8g it's going to be level 70 most likely.

Anything that level will DE to 4-5 arcane dusts (8-10g), 2 greater planars (12g) or a large prismatic shard (15g)

3g Greens are around the 60-65 level. They always DE to a minimum of 2 arcane dust or 2 lesser planars, which are worth 4-5g in mats.

It holds true for pretty much anything in between as well. I DE about 20 60+ greens every night as part of my AH run. I now have a network of folks who send me 60-64 greens for 4g COD and 65-70 greens for 5g COD. And I make a reasonable margin on that.

If it's a popular blue then Ah it. If it's .. of sprit / whale and most others except bandit then DE it for a small / large prismatic (large from 65+ blues)

If there are people selling arcane dust for 1.5g or prismatics for 10g, stick to your guns. Prices fluctuate 2 or 3 times a week with high time being thu-fri and Monday, with lows from tuesday usually. So just keep listing it till you get the price you want.

I currently have about 140 arcane dust on the AH at my price (1.85g) and am being consistently undercut - but a lot of other folks are maintaining my price as well. So in the long run it pays off.

[Juicyfroot]

Thats the biggest thing with DE AH profits, keep your own price and it will sell, dont scale it too far under other people's prices. Enchanting mats are free to put in AH, take your time and make the most profit possible.

[grifterr]

and it cost nothing to put ench mats on AH because they have no sell price

[DraedynLei]

I currently have about 140 arcane dust on the AH at my price (1.85g) and am being consistently undercut - but a lot of other folks are maintaining my price as well. So in the long run it pays off.

I'm not an enchanter but i generally trade in the reagent market. Over the last month, the price of arcane dust has just gone down a bit. It was at 2g for the longest time and always a consistent money maker if you buy the stacks for 30-35g and relist individually. now it's down to 1.35 or 1.4 and has been for a while. too many undercutters. too many people with stock piles of it. i myself have quite a few. i hope it lvls back out but so far the trend doesnt look promising.

[Justinledwards]

Heh you just have to wait for that time when the AH runs out. I noticed while questing that all my stuff on the AH sold quickly.... so I headed back and there were zero greater planars and zero large prismatics... so I threw all I had up at extortionate prices and they all sold really quickly. (eg large prismatics at 18g, greater planars at 7g). 2 hours later the undercutters were back and they were back to 10g and 4g.

I get a bit antsy sometimes holding onto a lot of stock like large prismatics - but every time there is a night during the week when the AH needs your stock :)