Enchanter's Guide to Cataclysm Buyers

In our next installment of the "depriving noobs of their gold" guide, I'm going to talk about Enchanting. Back in the day, it was kind of hard to sell enchantments to leveling players. They couldn't be bothered with the cost and sometimes even giving away lowbie chants didn't work! Of course, enchants weren't terribly impressive back then either. We've come along way in two expansions, enchantments have become more meaningful and prices have dropped. Players realize now that enchanting their gear can help them kill faster and level quicker.

Initially I had some trouble finding decent sources for lowbie enchantment recommendations. Apparently there just aren't notable twink guides for every class... who knew? Luckily I stumbled on a nifty site called Armory Data Mining. This helpful blogger mines the Armory and compiles stats on each class, broken down by level bracket. I was able to fill in the holes of my class information with his charts, for which I am grateful.

One thing to keep in mind with all of the recommendations I found is that low-level gear guides tend to be focused on PVP twinking. They're heavier on stamina than the average PVE player tends to be. Unfortunately PVP advice is the vast majority of the information out there, so I'm just going to go with it. A bit of extra survivability never hurt anyone :P

My level brackets are going to follow breaks for enchanting level requirements in combination with the PVP level breaks. The enchantments are broken into Vanilla (1-34), BC (35-59) and WotLK (60 and up). Since PVP bracket are generally done in groups of ten, my recommendations are based on BiS enchants for level 29, level 59 and level 69. For each slot I'm going to list enchants in order of popularity across the ten classes. Whichever enchants are favored by the highest number of classes will filter higher up the list than enchants that lower numbers of classes use. The lists start with the most popular enchant at the #1 spot and works down from there:

LEVEL 1-29 ENCHANTS
Back: #1 Superior Defense | #2 Lesser Agility
Chest: #1 Greater Stats | #2 Major Health | #3 Major Mana
Bracer: #1 Superior Stam | #2 Healing Power | #3 Greater INT
Boots: #1 Greater Agility | #2 Greater Stam | #3 Minor Speed
Gloves: #1 Greater Agility | #2 Healing Power | #3 Greater Strength | #4 Minor Haste
Weapon: #1 Healing Power | #2 Crusader | #3 Agility | #4 Mighty Intellect

LEVEL 35-59 ENCHANTS
Back: #1 Major Armor | #2 Greater Agility
Chest: #1 Exceptional Stats | #2 Exceptional Health
Bracer: #1 Superior Healing | #2 Assault | #3 Brawn | #4 Major Intellect
Boots: #1 Surefooted | #2 Fortitude | #3 Boar's Speed
Gloves: #1 Major Spellpower | #2 Assault | #3 Major Strength | #4 Superior Agility
Weapon: #1 Major Healing | #2 Mongoose | #3 Crusader

LEVEL 60+ ENCHANTS
Back: #1 Major Agility | #2 Greater Speed
Chest: #1 Super Stats | #2 Powerful Stats | #3 Mighty Health
Bracer: #1 Striking | #2 Major Stam | #3 Superior Spellpower
Boots: #1 Icewalker | #2 Greater Fortitude | #3 Tuskarr's Vitality
Gloves: #1 Exceptional Spellpower | #2 Crusher | #3 Greater Assault
Weapon: #1 Greater Savagery | #2 Exceptional Spellpower | #3 Berserking

HONORABLE MENTION
Boots: Minor Speed for enhanced travel prior to getting a mount.

You may notice in some cases that the best version of a particular enchant is ranked lower than it's cheaper cousin. This is because the data mined from the Armory is based on popularity, not firepower. Clearly there are more folks who prefer to go with an inferior version to save money over a better version. I believe this will continue to hold true with Cataclysm lowbies, I don't see them paying out the nose for the super-rare enchant to put on their BOE green gear. If they splurge anywhere, it will be in the weapon department. This is a good slot to target for nicer enchants if you have them.

Bear in mind that some players won't bother to enchant their gear as they level. But there should also be folks who want to level as quickly as possible and are willing to spend for it. Hopefully this list will help you if you decide to jump in and sell enchants to those people. Feel free to contribute your thoughts and suggestions in the Comments!
Posted by Kaliope at Thursday, May 13, 2010
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17 comments:

  1. Interesting. I have been consistently selling Icy and Unholy weapon enchants to dual-wielding twinks, but those aren't on the list at all.
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  2. Tweel - some of those enchants did pop up in my lists, but there weren't enough classes favoring them to boost them into the top 3-4 choices across all classes. This is likely due to the fact that casters and healers outnumber melee, plus Crusader has an unnatural following among Warriors and Paladins. Even up to level 60 when BC/WotLK chants should be trumping it, plate classes refuse to give up their Crusader. I only have room for about one enchant per role in these "top" lists, that's why runner-ups didn't tend to make it in.

    Obviously personal experience in your own market should trump my research, this is just a starting place for those who haven't already been in the lowbie enchant space. But I would say to anyone who already has a niche, stick with it! Use my list as a guide only if you're not sure what to try. And if you have a rare recipe (vanilla raid drop/faction recipe) I would experiment with those as well.
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  3. Lovin' this series! Does the list change at all when considering heirloom items? I gotta think people with heirlooms will not only enchant, but upgrade their enchants as they level. Thanks again for such great sites!
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  4. Kit - I'm so glad you're getting something out of these guides :) I'm working pretty hard on them, but I enjoy doing the research. It gives me something to focus on during this lull period we're having.

    To answer your question, heirlooms should not be affected by these lists. It's my understanding that heirlooms can only be enchanted with Vanilla enchants that don't bind the item to the user. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but for the most part Heirloom users will need to stick with the level 60 and under enchants.

    For more information, you can read all about enchanting heirlooms here:

    Heirlooms @ WoWWiki
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  5. An excellent guide and awesome research done. I was just talking to my friend about the low level enchants and which might be profitable for Cataclysm. Thanks for all the information!
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  6. As you said Kaliope, this is directed specifically at twinks.This being something i spent 2 years or so focusing all my efforts on.

    The 29 bracket has pretty specific gear used for gloves, chest and weapon. The weapon i would say is always going to be the skullbreaker for casters which is level 35+ Quest item which allows for 40Sdmg on wep instead of healing power and afraid to say even Healing power is out done by Spellpower in weapon which is 30sdmg not 29.

    Chest wise the Inferno robe is the best choice for casters due to being also a level 35+ item so 6 stats can be put on it..and for melee the Raptor Hide Tunic which is also level 35+ allowing for TBC enchants.

    Gloves now come from satchel of Helpfull Goods, once again being level 35+ so TBC enchants also apply to that.
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  7. infact, i'll actually get some links for you on the specific gear and enchants used for each class but generally in the 29 bracket, most of the enchants should be the level 35+ ones because of the amount Quest gear you can aquire at that level.
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  8. A good example of how the limits of the level can be extended by clever questing would be this hunter.
    http://armory.wow-europe.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Nagrand&cn=Talor

    Talor was one of the best players i had the pleasure of going against but a good example of the enchants a good twink is capable of getting hold of.

    The Engineering cloak is a good example with the agility enchant and wep with 70ap on it :)

    Another one to look at is my Priest who i accidently levelling to 30. Yes, i was livid. This one has the Inferno robe and the weapon, gloves and Chest i was talking about.

    http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Auchindoun&cn=Jujigatame
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  9. Yinx: I actually had a 29 twink in BC, so I knew about the 35+ questing scenario you've mentioned. I decided not to muddy the waters with that and confuse people by trying to explain how all that works. Most players will be so focused on questing and power leveling that they probably won't bother with collecting every piece they can get at each phase.

    The information I collected is based on twinks and their penchant for maximizing power. However the guide is aimed at crafters to show what the hot enchants are for each general range, so they can focus on providing them. But yes, I did see that the BC-level +40 SP was beating out the lower healing one for those who get their hands on a 35+ wpn. Ultimately it's up to the buyer to know which enchant they can apply to their items. All the crafter can do is cover their bases by making the +29heal and +40SP version if they have both recipes.

    As for the +29 healing vs +30 SP, the latter has notably higher mats. I decided to go with the heal version since it's cheaper and +1 SP is unlikely to matter to power leveling players. If you have the +30 version and you know it sells, by all means go with it :)
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  10. Yep, i fear I managed to go completely of course with that. Sorry, your welcome delete those posts, as you said, not relevent. I'm selling 30sdmg on wep for 850gold at the moment on Kara and Healing Power for 450. The one i would say is worth adding is Minor Run Speed on Boots.

    I'm selling them for 110 each and it works because people generally just get any old white or green boots and stick them on to make it easier running around untill either you get to level 20 for mount or you can stand in one place and use the Dungeon Finder. Up till that point, the running around is made alot quicker having the speed increase.

    Also in regards to Healing Power, the essence of water is the thing most people have an issue with getting. From my experience go park yourself a toon with and epic mount and a waterwalking ability in Azshara (DK are good for this) and litterally every 30 mins or so, do a run around the spawn points of Patches of Elemental Water on the coast. By far the best place i've found for them :)

    Yinx
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  11. Lol, you know what i'm gonna shush because you've alreayd mentioned it..didnt see.
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  12. Hehe, no problem. I don't think it hurts to discuss the merits of various options. I appreciate you bringing up the speed chant, I debated whether to include it. Ultimately I left it out because I thought people might feel it's too much of a PVP chant. But if you've seen that players value it for leveling too, I will go ahead and include it :)
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  13. I'm actually surprised Fiery Weapon isn't on the low-level. Perhaps partly from cost, or just the visual it gives off, but I sell these like hotcakes.
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  14. heck, I put minor speed on my bank toons until I found out about the SW hotspot, this reminds me I need to put it back on the ones who dropped it now.

    I've always had enough competition on the +30 sp enchant that I couldn't sell it for more than 400g normally, and often 300-350. Since 4.0.1, it's moving a *lot* slower, and mighty intellect is selling better than either. I still command a higher price for spellpower and healing power because of the rarity of the mats, but I'm lucky to sell one a week now, when I used to sell 1-2 a day.

    Mighty int is now just as good and probably better for both twink and leveling purposes, and those are now selling quicker.
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  15. Thanks for the tip Z-Gnome! It's been awhile since I looked at these lists, but with the new stat changes I can see Mighty INT being more competitive now.
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  16. Hello again Kaliope,

    Just a quick thing to mention regarding the PVP brackets as a lot of low level enchants are bought up by the PVP'ers. It was announced today that the brackets will now be in jumps of 5 levels instead of the previous 10.

    Here is the breakdown:

    10-14 30-34 50-54 70-74
    15-19 35-39 55-59 75-79
    20-24 40-44 60-64 80-84
    25-29 45-49 65-69 85
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  17. Thanks for sharing Shamon! I'm not sure how this impacts our enchanting list, but it will be interesting to see how this change affects twinking :)
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