A Return to Low-End Enchants

Posted by Aleithia at 8:00 AM

Remember back in the start of Cataclysm when the prices on high-end enchants were through the roof because of the prohibitive cost of Maelstrom Crystals? Even gold makers like me refused to pay those prices for the top enchants since they were a marginal improvement over the cheaper variety.

With the return of higher prices on maelstroms and heavenly shards, many of the high-end enchants (Landslide, Power Torrent, Windwalk, Bracers [Agility, Strength and Intellect] among others) are again becoming cost-prohibitive for people to purchase, especially when coupled with the smoother upgrade curve I talked about last week. Why would I spend between 2-3k on enchants for 378 Gear from Heroics that I'm going to replace soon (because we all think our next upgrade will be Soon™, right?) with 384 LFR Gear? I'll wait to purchase the best enchant for when I get my "best" drop, where "best" is defined as the highest level gear I think I'll be able to obtain.

A comparison of Low- vs. High-End enchants:

Weapons
Mending instead of Windwalk (Tanks)
Avalanche instead of Landslide (Melee DPS)
Hurricane/Heartsong instead of Power Torrent (Spell DPS/Healer)

Bracers
Speed (50 Haste) instead of Greater Speed (65 Haste)
Critical Strike (50) instead of Greater Critical Strike (65)
Most Bracer Enchants (50/65 Secondary Stats) instead of Agility/Strength/Intellect (50 Primary Stats)

Gloves
Exceptional Strength (35) instead of Mighty Strength (50)
Mastery (50) instead of Greater Mastery (65)

Chest
Mighty Stats (15 Primary Stats) instead of Peerless Stats (20 Primary Stats)
Stamina (55) instead of Greater Stamina (75)

Cloak
Critical Strike (50) instead of Greater Critical Strike (65)
Intellect (30) instead of Greater Intellect (50)

Legs
Ghostly Spellthread (55 Int, 45 Spirit) instead of Powerful Ghostly Spellthread (95 Int, 55 Spirit)
Enchanted Spellthread (55 Int, 65 Stam) instead of Powerful Enchanted Spellthread (95 Int, 80 Stam)
Scorched Leg Armor (110 AP, 45 Crit) instead of Dragonscale Leg Armor (190 AP, 55 Crit)
Twilight Leg Armor (85 Stamina, 45 Agility) instead of Charscale Leg Armor (145 Stamina, 55 Agility)

In most cases, the higher cost item sells for 7-10 times more than the lower end one. Some of the higher-end enchants (I'm looking at you Bracer - Mighty Strength) have huge markups (Around 1,000g on my server). Most however, tend to be not much better than the lower level enchants. But I've noticed that lately I'm selling a lot more of the low-end enchants than the high-end. So even though the lower-end enchants have a smaller gold markup, I make more gold on them because I sell a lot more.

Have you forgotten about the lower-end enchants and focused on high-end only? If so, it's time to revisit the lower-end, more affordable enchants.

Bonus Somewhat Unrelated Tip: Enchant scrolls can now be placed in enchanting bags. The change seems to be an undocumented (at the time) one that came with 4.3. If you keep a lot of scrolls in stock at any given time, it might be useful to pick up an enchanting bag.