[Enchanting] Thelegend's Guide to Gathering Enchanting Materials

**Thelegend** · May 17th, 2011, 09:04 AM

Thelegend's Guide to gathering Enchanting Materials

So, everyone at some point in their Warcraft career has wanted an enchant, has had to gather the materials for one, or simply wants to make one for profit. Of course, your first port of call is the Auction House, but there are inevitably people who enjoy playing with the materials market more than they do dungeons, so chances are, you will have to pay a premium for anything that isn't ridiculously common.

I came across this problem recently on my newly leveled Death Knight who absolutely had to have Enchanting in order to disenchant what was going to be the spoils of my latest plan for world domination (more commonly known as soloing old instances for fun). I, like most people gold savvy enough to be reading these forums, have enough gold that I don't need to worry about the costs, but it doesn't mean I want to pay a sometimes crazy premium for something I could possibly get or make cheaper through my own means! Who wants to pay 50g for [Strange Dust] when it's occasionally fun to slaughter hundreds of not so innocent mob in instances.

The first and probably most important thing to take from this guide is this: Pre-plan.

What I mean by that is, if you're planning to level enchanting as in this example (though it's equally viable for ANY crafting profession) then know your craft. There are guides all over the place including some very useful ones in the Consortium Quality Guides forum. These will give you a very good idea of what you will need to gather, so pre-plan. You can add all of the items you need to a snatch list using Auctioneer or to a shopping list on Auctionator then snap up anything that is priced at a reasonable level.

Enchanting Materials and where to get them
-Information compiled in part using existing guides on WoW-Professions and WoWWiki

Generally, I will split the material aquisition into 2 distinct categories, Professions and Instance Grinds / AH.

Disenchanting Information: This is just a general guide for the levels and the skills needed. There are a few exceptions to the rules, but generally a green armor item will give you more dust than essence, then a green weapon will give you more essence than dust. My minimum Enchanting levels might be out - if they are please feel free to let me know so I can amend them.

Profesions: This will be a list of the items that 90% of people or newer players will level their professions using. WoW-Professions is fairly commonly used as guides go, so i've based my lists on their guides as well as other gathered information from blogs, forums and WoWhead. You can obviously check on your own server for better alternatives based on availability of materials. I would look for these items as potentially cheap, quick buys on the Auction House, or alternatively consider the cost to create them by comparison to other means of gathering the end material.

Instance Grinds / AH: This isn't going to be groundbreaking information, but it can't hurt to know that if you quickly zerg through some older dungeons you'll get a few useful greens that can be disenchanted for your materials and equally a few blues from bosses (always check average prices first though in case you can get a higher price reselling and then using the proceeds to buy more than the disenchanted material values).

I will also mention the general level range you should for items within on the Auction House (somewhat ties in the with professions section).

Vanilla

Tier 1

Disenchanting Information

Required Skill: 1 - Uncommon Item Levels 5-15 - (1-3) [Strange Dust] or (1-2) [Lesser Magic Essence]
Required Skill: 25 - Uncommon Item Levels 16-20 - (2-5) [Strange Dust] or (1-2) [Greater Magic Essence]
Required Skill: 25 - Uncommon Item Levels 21-25 - (2-5) [Strange Dust] or (1-2) [Lesser Astral Essence]
Required Skill: 25 - Rare Item Levels 16-25 - 1 [Small Glimmering Shard]
Required Skill: 50 - Rare Item Levels 26-30 - 1 [Large Glimmering Shard]

Vendors

There are a total of 35 Vendors who sell the [Strange Dust] and [Lesser Magic Essence], often in multiples, for 8 silver a piece. Even if you don't personally need these, they are a nice flip for newer players to make a little gold with.

Professions

Strange Dust and Magic Essences | Small Glimmering Shard | Large Glimmering Shard

Tailoring

Jewelcrafting

Leatherworking

Blacksmithing

Instance Grinding / Auction House Snatches

The Stockade
Ragefire Chasm

Generally Uncommon and Rare items up to level 25. You will typically find the shards cheaply on the Auction House as they are easily obtained. The dusts are quickly made in bulk and potentially flipped for profit using the low level items created by profession powerlevellers.

Tier 2

Disenchanting Information

Required Skill: 25 - Uncommon Item Levels 21-25 - (2-5) [Strange Dust] or (1-2) [Lesser Astral Essence]
Required Skill: 50 - Uncommon Item Levels 26-30 - (1-3) [Soul Dust] or (1-2) [Greater Astral Essence]
Required Skill: 75 - Uncommon Item Levels 31-35 - (2-5) [Soul Dust] or (1-2) [Lesser Mystic Essence]
Required Skill: 75 - Rare Item Levels 31-35 - [Small Glowing Shard]
Required Skill: 100 - Rare Item Levels 36-40 - [Large Glowing Shard]

Professions

Soul Dust | Small Glowing Shard | Large Glowing Shard

Tailoring

Jewelcrafting

Leatherworking

Blacksmithing

Instance Grinding / Auction House Snatches

Scarlet Monastery
Uldaman

Generally Uncommon items up to about iLVL 35 and Rare up to iLVL 40. As with the previous Tier, these are usually pretty cheap as there's not much to do with them.

Tier 3

Disenchanting Information

Required Skill: 75 - Uncommon Item Levels 31-35 - (2-5) [Soul Dust] or (1-2) [Lesser Mystic Essence]
Required Skill: 100 - Uncommon Item Levels 36-40 - (1-3) [Vision Dust] or (1-2) [Greater Mystic Essence]
Required Skill: 125 - Uncommon Item Levels 41-45 - (2-5) [Vision Dust] or (1-2) [Lesser Nether Essence]
Required Skill: 125 - Rare Item Levels 41-45 - [Small Radiant Shard]

Professions

Vision Dust | Small Radiant Shard

Tailoring

[White Bandit Mask] - [White Bandit Mask] - This pattern is BoE so add it to your snatch list.
[Crimson Silk Pantaloons] - [Crimson Silk Pantaloons]
[Black Mageweave Leggings] - [Black Mageweave Leggings]
[Black Mageweave Gloves] - [Black Mageweave Gloves]
[Dreamweave Gloves] - [Dreamweave Gloves]

Jewelcrafting

Leatherworking

Blacksmithing

Instance Grinding / Auction House Snatches

Scarlet Monastery (Cathedral)
Scholomance

Generally Uncommon and Rare items up to level 45. Small Radiant Shards can go for something of a premium as they are used in [Enchant Weapon - Fiery Weapon] (Toggle Mats) . If you REALLY want them then it's fairly easy to blitz SM Cathedtral as you can run directly to Mograine, engage him and agro the entire Cathedral! Equally Scholomance, though a Maze to a new player, is full of bosses of human type mobs.

Tier 4

Disenchanting Information

Required Skill: 125 - Uncommon Item Levels 41-45 - (2-5) [Vision Dust] or (1-2) [Lesser Nether Essence]
Required Skill: 150 - Uncommon Item Levels 46-50 - (1-3) [Dream Dust] or (1-2) [Greater Nether Essence]
Required Skill: 175 - Uncommon Item Levels 51-55 - (2-5) [Dream Dust] or (1-2) [Lesser Eternal Essence]
Required Skill: 150 - Rare Item Levels 46-50- [Large Radiant Shard]

Professions

Dream Dust | Large Radiant Shard

Engineering - mentioned as a typically easy source in the specific tier.

[Green Lens] - [Green Lens]

Tailoring

Jewelcrafting

Leatherworking

Blacksmithing

Instance Grinding / Auction House Snatches

Dire Maul (North)
Zul'Farrak
Stratholme (Living)

Generally Uncommon and Rare items from iLVL 46 - 50. Large Radiants aren't usually that expensive, but you can run through Stratholme very easily solo. Same goes for DM North, however, that's more travelling than you would really want to do. Dream Dust is typically very cheap because it levelling players spend a LOT of time in Stratholme on LFG.

Tier 5
This is a key Tier as it's the source of a lot of the currently high profit twink enchants.

Disenchanting Information

Required Skill: 175 - Uncommon Item Levels 51-55 - (2-5) [Dream Dust] or (1-2) [Lesser Eternal Essence]
Required Skill: 200 - Uncommon Item Levels 56-60 - (1-3) [Illusion Dust] or (1-2) [Greater Eternal Essence]
Required Skill: 225 - Uncommon Item Levels 61-65 - (2-5) [Illusion Dust] or (2-3)[Greater Eternal Essence]
Required Skill: 175 - Rare Item Levels 51-55 - [Small Brilliant Shard]
Required Skill: 200 - Rare Item Levels 56-65 - [Large Brilliant Shard]
Required Skill: 225 - Epic Item Levels 56-88 - [Nexus Crystal]

Professions

Illusion Dust | Small Brilliant Shard | Large Brilliant Shard

PvP
[Sergeant's Cloak] / [Sergeant's Cape]

This is a simply amazing find that I read on Cold's Gold Factory. Cost is 55 Honor, which in conversion terms is nothing short of astonishing. It is BoP though so be sure to get it on your Enchanter so they can blow it up.

Tailoring

Jewelcrafting

Leatherworking

[Wicked Leather Headband] - [Wicked Leather Headband]
Green Dragon Mail (Toggle Items)
(Small Brilliant)
[Onyxia Scale Cloak] - [Onyxia Scale Cloak] (Large Brilliant)

Blacksmithing

Instance Grinding / Auction House Snatches

Blackrock Depths (Small & Large Brilliant)
Maraudon (Inner) (Small Brilliant)
Stratholme (Undead) (Small Brilliant)
Blackrock Spire (Large Brilliant)

Without a doubt, the [Enchanted Thorium Blades] is the best way to get your Greater Eternal Essences, this isn't new information to most. LBRS is a pretty fun and quick run once you know where you are going, for some decent Large Brilliant Shard returns. But, have you checked on the price of Onxyia's Scales, being old content now they are usually cheap as chips when available? The cloak itself is actually quite simple to create for a lot of old school Leatherworkers who Raided BWL in Vanilla.

================================================== =============================
Burning Crusade

Disenchanting Information

Required Skill: 225 - Uncommon Item Levels 80-99 - (1-3) [Arcane Dust] or (1-3) [Lesser Planar Essence]
Required Skill: 275 - Uncommon Item Levels 100-120 - (2-5) or [Arcane Dust] or (1-2) [Greater Planar Essence]
Required Skill: 225 - Rare Item Levels 80-99 - [Small Prismatic Shard]
Required Skill: 275 - Rare Item Levels 100-120 - [Large Prismatic Shard]
Required Skill: 275 - Epic Item Levels 100-141 - [Void Crystal]

Professions

Arcane Dust | Small Prismatic Shard | Large Prismatic Shard

Tailoring

Jewelcrafting

Leatherworking

Blacksmithing

Instance Grinding / Auction House Snatches

Hellfire Ramparts - Generally quickest for Small Shards due to it's linear nature.
The Shattered Halls - Generally quickest for Large Shards, again, due to it's linear nature.

If for some reason you are lacking [Large Prismatic Shard] then you can use [Void Shatter] as [Void Crystal] are either cheap or reasonably easily farmed at this point. There is a lot of potential for cheap dust and essences at this level because the crafted items are not highly in demand, yet need to be produced in bulk to get past TBC recipes.

[Small Prismatic Shard] is also readily available using [Nexus Transformation]

================================================== ======================
Wrath of the Lich King

Disenchanting Information

Required Skill: 325 - Uncommon Item Levels 130-151 - (1-3) or [Infinite Dust] or (1-3) [Lesser Cosmic Essence]
Required Skill: 350 - Uncommon Item Levels 152-200 - (2-5) or [Infinite Dust] or (1-2) [Greater Cosmic Essence]
Required Skill: 325 - Rare Item Levels 130-151 - [Small Dream Shard]
Required Skill: 350 - Rare Item Levels 152-200 - [Dream Shard]
Required Skill: 325 - Epic Item Levels 200-277 - [Abyss Crystal]

Professions

Infinite Dust | Small Dream Shard | Dream Shard

Tailoring

Jewelcrafting

Leatherworking

Blacksmithing

Instance Grinding / Auction House Snatches

Azjol'Nerub - Easy 3 bosses, may not be that quick though due to boss mechanics.
The Violet Hold - Quickly accessed in Dalaran - bosses are pretty easy by this point for a self healing class.

In all honesty, for [Infinite Dust] and [Greater Cosmic Essence] your best bet is almost always going to be [Abyssal Shatter]. The yields are exceptional if you note down the respective prices and snatch [Abyss Crystal] for up to 30g. You can usually find a flood of Dream Shards going cheap if you have them on Snatch from the people levelling alts through Wrath content as quickly as they can.

There are a lot of useful Enchants that people still buy at this level, so there is usually a fairly strong market with some competition. My personal best sellers are the Agility and Spellpower based enchants.

================================================== ========================
Cataclysm

Disenchanting Information

Required Skill: 425 - Uncommon Item Levels 272-305 - (1-3) or [Hypnotic Dust] or (1-3)[Lesser Celestial Essence]
Required Skill: 475 - Uncommon Item Levels 305-333 - (2-5) or [Hypnotic Dust] or (1-2) [Greater Celestial Essence]
Required Skill: 425 - RareItem Levels 272-318 - 1 [Small Heavenly Shard]
Required Skill: 475 - RareItem Levels 318-346 - 1 [Heavenly Shard]
Required Skill: 500 - Epic Item Levels 353-372 - [Maelstrom Crystal]

Professions

Hypnotic Dust | Small Heavenly Shard | Heavenly Shard

Tailoring

Tailors are pretty much forced to make 5 of each of the above in most guides as they are the most efficient way to level. This typically means prices far far below material cost and into the realms of disenchant value, [Spiritmend Robe] especially as it's good for 15 levels.

Jewelcrafting

AKA the byproducts of the "Shuffle". You'll find some people on high competition servers will actually sell these at far less than the disenchant value. Be especially on the lookout for Blue copies, especially Hessonite Bands which produce Heavenly Shards oftentimes well below the Sharded value.

Leatherworking

[Tsunami Boots] - [Tsunami Boots]
[Savage Cloak] - [Savage Cloak] (This looks like it could be a nice Twink cloak for those with established twink guilds)
[Darkbrand Boots] - [Darkbrand Boots]
[Darkbrand Shoulders] - [Darkbrand Shoulders]
[Darkbrand Chestguard] - [Darkbrand Chestguard]
[Cloak of Beasts] - [Cloak of Beasts]
[Cloak of War] - [Cloak of War]

Leatherworking is one of those professions that just seems to be expensive to level up. As a result most Leatherworkers accept that they won't make any money on the things they have to craft before they make it to the Leg Patches and what not up nearer the 500 Skill levels. The Blue cloaks especially can be seen very cheap on the AH as a lot of people have Heirloom cloaks (was very evident at the start of the expansion when you could snap them up for 30g a piece on my server). I would also look as a side venture into listing a few higher priced [Savage Cloak] and maybe barking about them as twink cloaks for the XP capped PvPers out there.

Blacksmithing

Blacksmithing isn't an area you will usually find crafted items at less than material yield (as opposed to cost) as Plate wearers always seem to snap up the greens for levelling because they are so stat perfect for the task. I've actually started turning a healthy profit on lower level green tanking sets in recent weeks with the new Call to Arms model. A couple are worth a look though, [Redsteel Belt] for example, could potentially be a cheaper route to raw materials than the JC shuffle for those that don't have a JC and Enchanter, then at the top end all of those Blue recipes are rather cheap in material costs should you need a supply of [Heavenly Shard].

Instance Grinding / Auction House Snatches

At this point not many of the instances are viable to solo. The best means of getting materials is typically via the various ore shuffles (server price dependent). As a lot of bloggers have noted; in price terms, you're profitable if you keep within the 6 / 36 rule. That being that 6g [Hypnotic Dust] and 36g [Greater Celestial Essence] means you can typically make gold from the shuffle with Ore prices of up to about 52g per stack.

Summary & TL : DR

There's a lot of ways to find materials, this list wasn't hard to find for me, it took far longer to actually write and edit than it did to find all these options. The best possible advice I could give you when gathering these materials is the same as it was in the first wall of text: Pre-plan

Over a broader timeframe with proper planning you can quite easily gather all your required materials for minimal cost, that can then be turned into healthy profits!

Feel free to suggest any constructive improvements or better ways you have personally found and I will update the lists accordingly.

**Sinshroud** · May 17th, 2011, 10:00 AM

Fixed a few item link typos for you and added a link for your:

Originally Posted by Thelegend

There are guides all over the place including some very useful ones in the LINK Consortium Quality Guides LINK forum.

Overall it looks like a very nice guide good job. I just skimmed through it and will read it properly in a sec.

**xnoodle** · May 18th, 2011, 07:16 AM

I would toss in [Wizardweave Turban] as a path for Illusion Dust/GEE's. Personally, I much prefer that over the headbands, as cloth is my usual limiting reagent in that shuffle.

**Thelegend** · May 19th, 2011, 08:33 AM

Added and +Rep - Thanks

**Raistlen** · May 19th, 2011, 12:51 PM

This post is.. litteraly... pure gold.. Thank you :-)

**Xsinthis** · May 19th, 2011, 04:04 PM

Just a note, items start DE'ing into full Heavenly Shards at 318, not 305

**Thandor** · May 25th, 2011, 03:22 PM

You left out some of the best tailoring items: white bandit mask and wizardweave turban.

edit: I see you added the turban

it's the best way to get GEEs and the best use for runecloth

The white bandit mask is the best way to get vision dust. Mageweave is often dirt cheap.

**Sterling** · May 25th, 2011, 03:23 PM

Originally Posted by Thandor

You left out some of the best tailoring items: white bandit mask and wizardweave turban.

It's just not updated on the front page. Doing that now.

**snazzk** · May 27th, 2011, 10:23 AM

Thanks for adding such a Great Guide. After reading thru it i remembered reading this post that i think would complement it while leveling enchanting. http://theahpile.blogspot.com/2010/0...ing-guide.html

**Reverb** · May 28th, 2011, 06:51 AM

The nexus transformation should be on this list. It converts 1 nexus crystal into 1 small prismatic shard.

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