The sad state of illustrious grand master enchanting

I haven't been very happy with the state of enchanting going into Cataclysm. Yes, archeology may have it bad, and that's an issue that affects more players than are affected by the problems with enchanting (assumedly), but that's why I wrote about it first, and now its time for my primary profession to take the spotlight.

You see, enchanting is in a rough spot right now. For those with no experience with enchanting other than having others enchant their gear, enchanting is both a gathering profession and a crafting profession. We "gather" materials by disenchanting green-quality or better weapons and armor, which destroys the armor and awards us with the materials we need to do our enchantments. The steadiest supply of green-quality or better armor is quests, and thus the best way to level enchanting is to gather materials by disenchanting weapons and armor awarded by the quests we do as we level up. This applies at all levels, from level 10 to the level range we find ourselves in now.

Now, once upon a time, an enchanter could disenchant any piece of gear, regardless of its ilevel, but in Burning Crusade, most gear was given a minimum enchanting skill that would be required to disenchant the gear. Gear awarded by quests in Vashj'ir, Mount Hyjal, and Deeopholm require 425 enchanting to disenchant (except a few of the rares, which require 500 skill), which is good and all, but upon entering Uldum, we are greeted with an ugly surprise. The quest rewards in Uldum, including the simple greens that we so depend on to obtain our basic mats, require 475 skill to disenchant. This is problematic, because there's no guarantee that an enchanter will reach 475 skill by the time he reaches Uldum. I myself just barely made it to 475 with the materials I obtained by disenchanting quest rewards from Hyjal and Deepholm, and I had a ten skill-point head start with my leftover materials from Wrath of the Lich King. In other words, I was only able to level enchanting 15 to 20 skill points with the materials I obtained from questing in Hyjal and Deepholm, and I was lucky enough to have the 25 skill point head start thanks to advanced Wrath of the Lich King recipes (enchanting becomes very costly to level with Wrath of the Lich King recipes around 425). Someone who didn't get that head start would be even more likely found himself unable to disenchant his quest rewards. He'd probably have to go back to whichever 80-82 zone he hasn't already completed so he can obtain more materials, which I found myself doing, so even that might not be enough to push him to the 475 level. In other words, enchanting has the potential to flat out break for someone trying to level it along side a typical leveling pattern. Enchanting has never been an easy profession to level by any stretch of the imagination, but this is just not acceptable.

How to fix this issue? Well, lowering the minimum required skill to disenchant Cataclysm greens would be a start. The lowest skill required to start learning recipes that use Cataclysm-era materials is 425, so it seems a bit of an unreasonable jump for lowly greens to go from requiring 425 skill to 475 skill, since that's fifty skill points the enchanter could potentially need to earn with only two zones' worth of materials. If that number were lowered to 450, this issue could be solved easily and with minimal effort.

That's the main issue I have with illustrious grand master enchanting as it is, but there is a more minor one that has taken up my thoughts, too: currently, all Cataclysm enchantments are restricted to ilevel-300 gear, and I find that just plain unjustified. The highest ilevel of gear anyone can obtain from Wrath of the Lich King content is 284 (from heroic 25-man Lich King and Ruby Sanctum), and while Hyjal and Vashj'ir quest rewards have a lower ilevel than that, Deepholm's quest rewards don't, and is it that unreasonable for players to want to enchant their Cataclysm gear with Cataclysm enchants? It would be just as easy for Blizzard to restrict the Cataclysm enchants to ilevel 285 and above; it would have the same effect of preventing Cataclysm enchants from being used on Wrath gear, and it would allow enchanters to start using their new and exciting toys earlier.

In fact, why not just lower the minimum ilevel for Cataclysm enchants to 270? 272 is the lowest ilevel of Cataclysm gear, so this minimum would allow enchanters to use their new toys as soon as they entered Cataclysms content. Yes, this cutoff would include some Wrath of the Lich King gear, but it would only include gear obtained from the hardest of raid instances. And though I may be wrong, I was always under the impression that these minimum ilevel restrictions were put in to prevent high-level enchants from being put on low-level gear, so you couldn't add 130 agility to the Alarmbringer's Mace. But now that the era of Wrath of the Lich King is over, the only gear over ilevel 270 that anyone can reasonably expect to get is Cataclysm gear, and considering that Wrath of the Lich King raid gear that is over ilevel 270 is better than Cataclysm quest greens of the same ilevel, I don't imagine that allowing Cataclysm enchantments on such gear would create a stat imbalance at all.

Now, one might say that stat imbalances are exactly why these seemingly-unreasonably high minimums are required. Take at look at the Beakless Polearm, for example. It's a quest reward from Vashj'ir, one of the two lowest-level zones in Cataclysm. If one were to enchant it with the Mighty Agility enchantment, the amount of agility it provides would be almost doubled, and that could be considered an imbalance in terms of how much of an effect enchantments are supposed to have. But it all balances out in the end, because as a green-quality quest reward, the Beakless Polearm won't remain the player's weapon of choice for very long. It will soon be replaced, and a player will go through materials very quickly if he tries to keep all of his replacement weapons enchanted. Thus, though the benefit of applying such a powerful enchantment to such a low-level weapon might be high, the amount of time that the player will use that weapon is comparatively low, and thus the total benefit he gets out of that enchantment will be about the same it would be if he had enchanted a higher-level weapon.

You might be wondering, why is this even an issue? After all, no player in their right mind would enchant gear they plan on replacing soon, so who would put an enchantment on a green-quality weapon? No player who isn't an enchanter, that is. We enchanters are the only ones who would have access to a steady enough stream of materials that we'd be comfortable enchanting green-quality gear, so it's not unheard of for us to do just that. If it weren't for the fact that I have materials to spare due to disenchanting all of my quest rewards, I would never have put 50 haste rating on my Bloodcult Handwraps, yet because I have dusts and essences to spare, I did just that. Of course, given the choice, I would have put that enchantment on my Corecrusher Gloves, too, but they were too low level for me to do so.

Since enchanting is the only profession I have any experience with in the illustrious grand master range (other than herbalism, which is doing just fine, thankfully), I now put out this question to my readers: are other professions suffering similarly? Do you find yourself unable to properly level up your primary professions whilst leveling up normally? Or is enchanting the only profession suffering from these kinds of issues?

Should all crafting professions have related gathering professions?

Monday's Breakfast Topic on WoW.com got me thinking about tailoring and enchanting, two crafting professions that don't have a gathering profession associated with them. (Tailoring once used leather for some of its patterns, but that practice petered out after the release of Wrath of the Lich King, and though enchanting uses some materials that can be gathered with mining, it's hardly enough to make pairing the two a foregone conclusion.) All of the other crafting professions have some gathering profession associated with them: blacksmithing, engineering, and jewelcrafting have mining; leatherworking has skinning; and alchemy and inscription have herbalism. This makes tailoring and enchanting a couple of black sheep in the professions world. Though it used to be common practice to pair the two, considering that they were nicely self-contained, as far as I know, this practice is less common today. I myself am an enchanter who took herbalism as his second profession, partly to make some money on the side and partly because I love Lifeblood (especially as a tank, though I may switch to mining at some point in the future--probably not until I have a max-level alt with herbalism).

But that's beside the point. Considering that these two professions are outside of the norm, in that they are self-contained in both the gathering of their materials and the crafting of their items, should they have an associated gathering profession? At this point in the game, it's probably too late to make a such a drastic change to the profession system, but one can still consider whether we are better off with this system or whether it would have been better to associate those two professions with a gathering profession.

I use the word "would" because with the system as it is, it is perfectly justifiable for tailoring and enchanting to be self-contained professions. For starters, Enchanting is expensive to level up and use. If you level enchanting as you level your character, you lose out on the money you would have made selling your extra quest rewards and green items. (blues are usually worth enough that if a blue item is BoE, it's better to sell the item and use that money buy shards if need be than to disenchant the item.) Having enchanting as an independent profession allows the enchanter to take a gathering profession, allowing them to gather items to sell on the auction house to offset the cost of leveling enchanting. The same reasoning applies even when the enchanter reaches the skill cap. They still lose out on the money they could have gotten by selling BoE greens (I disenchant them, at least), but by having a gathering profession, they can offset that cost.

Tailoring, as it is, is also justified in being a stand-alone profession. Tailoring stands out to me as the most limited of the crafting professions. Alchemy makes potions that everyone uses, blacksmithing makes armor for three of the classes in the game and weapons for everyone, engineering is just all kinds of fun, everyone needs their armor enchanted, jewelcrafting makes jewelry for everyone and gems that are not only for all classes but also for all gear levels, inscription makes glyphs for everyone, and leatherwoking makes armor for four classes. Tailoring is the most limited profession after leatherwoking, making armor for only three classes and nothing else*. With such a limited objective market, it's reasonable for tailors to be allowed an additional profession slot with which to add some more utility to their character.

Now we move from the realm of the here-and-now to the realm of the what-could-have-been. Suppose Blizzard had made tailoring a more expansive profession and made enchanting linked to mats that don't deny the player a source of income; would they have been justified in linking both of them to a gathering profession? If we ignore the logistics of how they would have done this when we consider this issue, then there seems to be no logic against it. However, the logistics are where the idea falls apart. Skinning would have been the logical choice to pair with tailoring (it needs the love; it has no use outside of leatherwoking and minor use in some other professions), but how to make cloth out of leather? Perhaps there could have been a gathering profession that allows tailors to gather cloth somehow (perhaps from the clothes of their enemies), but enchanting would need to be linked to that one as well to prevent it from becoming a second one-crafting-profession gathering profession (skinning being the first). I could conceive of cloth being the base material for enchanting; it could be used to apply patches to gear, patches that have been infused with various materials gathered by the enchanter. However, this would leave no way for people to gather cloth to make bandages with first aid. Some other way for them to make bandages would need to be implemented, but no other commonly available reagent would work from a realistic point of view. Thus Blizzard would need to add some sort of specific reagent to first aid, but that would create an orphan reagent that is useless for all other purposes, or else they could add a way for players with first aid to also gather cloth for their own purposes only and oh no I've gone cross-eyed.

Yeah, it's a logistical nightmare. I'm glad Blizzard chose to make enchanting and tailoring the way they are.

*I realize that tailors can make two different cloaks that all classes can use (though only caster classes would use), but leatherworkers can also make two cloaks that all classes can use, as well as armor for four classes. My only point was the tailors have the most limited market in terms of what they can make, and their two cloaks don't change this fact.

Are group members in an instance group entitled to the disenchanter's services?

With the announcement of the way the new loot system will work in patch 3.3, the wow.com comment section was in a flurry of people debating whether groups are entitled to an enchanter disenchanting their blues. As an enchanter, I can personally relate to this issue: enchanting is not a cheap profession to level, and because enchanting recipes aren't rare these days, we can't charge what we used to be able to charge for them. As such, the main use of our profession becomes making shards out of the unwanted blues in heroics. Many enchanters feel this is unfair, for herbalists aren't expect to share the herbs they gather from herb nodes within dungeons, and ditto for miners with nodes and skinners with bodies. Is this fair? That is the question I want to consider today.

It is important to remember that, unlike the gathering professions, enchanters are taking items that players could otherwise use. If you have a group with no herbalists and you pass by an herb in a dungeon, it makes no difference to your group that it is there at all. If, however, you do a dungeon run with no enchanters, you can sell the blues for a few quick gold. (It's not much, but this ring sells for about five gold, for example) As such, when an enchanter rolls greed on every BoP drop in an instance (as most do to make the process easier), he is denying the other members of the group potential gain, something that does not happen when an herbalist takes an herb. As such, if the disenchanter gives everyone in the group the same chance to gain the item as him by rolling greed along with them, then they have no claim to any shards he gets from disenchanting the items. However, by greeding on the pieces for the purpose of DE'ing them, the disenchanter does in fact owe it to the group to give them back the shards. (Of course, since I tend to get the lowest role, I am always considering keeping a shard for myself, no matter what the roles are. But I digress.)

Still, I have not considered the question of whether the group is entitled to the enchanter's services. Does the enchanter owe it to the group to disenchant its unused BoP items into shards to give back to them? From a purely practical standpoint, he certainly does. Dream shards sell for abut 10 or 15 gold on my realm, much more than a player can get by selling the gear to a vendor (except in rare cases, like 2H weapons). Of course, there is the issue of simply taking the effort to disenchant the item, but this won't be a concern after patch 3.3.

That said, one issue I saw brought up a lot in the comments on the wow.com post was that the inclusion of the new disenchant option on the new loot interface took away the enchanter's choice. Enchanters will no longer have a choice as to whether their profession is taken advantage of, and many enchanters in the comments section of the post were quite indignant that the widespread taken-for-granted-ness of our profession, one that is incredibly expensive to level, is now being institutionalized. To this I say, so what? Yes, disenchanting is probably the most under-appreciated profession-related job in the game, but we aren't going to change that by being stingy with our services.

To those angry enchanters, try to think about it this way: when you enchant someone's gear, how frequently do you do so with your own mats? How frequently do you do with theirs? The fact is that most of our business is done with people who buy their mats off of the AH, and where do they get their mats? Us. Even if you withhold your disenchanting services out of hope to raising the prices of dream shards, other enchanters will gladly disenchant stuff for people, keeping the market flooded. Point is, there is no point in withholding disenchanting services, and though we won't have a choice after patch 3.3, there is no point in doing it now.

A guide to basic instance etiquette

Having run dungeons more frequently recently, I am convinced that a new guide on what is acceptable and what is not in an instance is necessary. The unspoken rules that we expect everyone to just know can no longer serve our purposes. As such, I have written down a list of instance sins I see committed far too often. Follow the advice bellow, and you will make many friends and few enemies... ok, I can't promise the many friends part, I can promise the few enemies part.

1. Know the encounters
Even if you have never run the instance before, this is the digital age, and we have things like WoWWiki to help us. Look up a dungeon before you run it, and read the strategies for each boss. That said, it's ok to ask for a reminder about what a boss does, as long as a short reminder makes you remember all the strats you read.

2. Stay behind the tank
If you happen to accidentally aggro a patrol, if the tank is in front, the patrol will attack him. The tank may also know something about the aggro radii of the mobs in the instance that you do not. If you are the tank, don't get too close to the enemies unless you are familiar with the instance and the mobs' aggro radii.

3. Never use the greed button unless you are the disenchanter
This is a personal pet peeve here. The easiest way to go about distributing loot in a 5-man instance is this: you need on an item if you need it, pass if you don't, and greed only if you are the disenchanter. Not A disenchanter, THE disenchanter. Saying "I'll greed for DE" is enough to designate you as the disenchanter, but only greed after saying you are going to. It will behoove you to have only one disenchanter, as it makes passing out the shards at then end easier. If no one in your group is a disenchanter, then you can find that out the hard way and roll on the item no one won. After that, and only after that, everyone can greed if they don't need an item.

I should add as an aside that we are in the middle of Brewfest, and that any loot you get from Coren Direbrew cannot be DE'ed, so he is the exception. Greed if you don't need it, need if you do, pass if you have absolutely no use for an item.

4. Stick to your designated role
As I healer, I have sometimes contemplated trying to cast damaging spells in caster form or using easy instances as an opportunity to level my weapon skill. These are the kind of ideas that kill groups, which is why I have never done them. They all distract me from my real role: keeping the group alive. We all know the three roles: tank, DPS, and healer. While in an instance, you should stick to your role and not try to partake in another role just because the run is going smoothly. Now, there is one exception to this rule: it is ok for a plate wearing DPS to taunt a mob off of the healer if the healer is a squishy, but keeping the aggro afterward, even when the tank is trying to pick up aggro, is dangerous and can lead to wipes. Similarly, even if you can take the damage, no DPS should ever strive to out-aggro the tank and, if you find that happening, you should tone down your damage.

5. Chill out
It is just a game. Every piece of loot that causes drama is, in the end, nothing more than a string of zeroes and ones. These days, if there is a bad roll, the item can be traded, so there is rarely just cause to freak out at someone for anything. Even if someone is doing their job really badly, just give them some advice. If they are just completely bad, you can always ask the leader to kick them from the group. If the bad player is the leader, well, you have better things to do with your time, anyways. Also, no matter what may be the cause of your anger, these is still a keyboard between you and other players knowing you are angry. Thus there is no reason to impulsively write about how angry you are.

6. Don't run an instance if you know you may not have time to complete it
I feel stupid even writing this, but two people in just the past few weeks have left groups I was in during the run, and they knew they needed to leave. This shouldn't require any explanation. Instances take time; factor that into your schedule.

7. Join the vent channel and get a microphone
This only applies to raiders, but there is little reason to not download Ventrilo and join your guild's channel during a raid. It always helps to hear that boss strats before the fight, in case you forget, and if you disconnect, you can let your guild know what happened so they won't replace you. I often find that the people in our raids who disconnect are the people we PUG who said they didn't need to listen to the Vent because they "knew the fights." These are the same people who act indignant after taking fifteen minutes to log in again and loosing their spot. Yes, that has happened.

8. Don't cause a wipe in Heroic Violet Hold
It's a really short, easy instance, but the fact that you need to do the whole thing over if you wipe means no one wants to run it twice. It may be pretty easy, but keep your wits about you regardless.