From farmers and AH players who buy out the items and repost them. Don’t you notice the names of the people posting those mats are never the names of enchanters?

I always tip people, even though it’s just “pushing a button”. After all, that person could be out adventuring and having fun, instead they’re spending those few minutes meeting me somewhere and helping me out.

At the same time I don’t ask for tips for alchemy or whatever, though I appreciate them and think people should give them.

I fully agree, most people won’t pay for disenchanting service, and you won’t make money by trying to charge for it… But, giving in to expectations and freely giving away your potential moneymakers isn’t helping your cause any. =/

At the end of the day though, my enchanting alt still makes more money than my leatherworker. And I think that’s the base of why enchanters don’t get much sympathy. Very few production tradeskills really make money (glares at JC) and even the ones that do generally take a pretty massive front-load investment. It’s all in the gathering side – my mining comes close to making cash as fast as dailies do.

I mean, go back to the original post for a sec? Foton said he dropped 800+g in mats almost as an aside, then questioned the additional 10g tip? Focus on your mats, and that’s where the cash is.

You did not address what I said about the greens being sold on the AH for what the disenchanted mats are worth anyway. I haven’t really tried selling a disenchant service but when you can just sell the greens and get the same gold I doubt many would pay for such a service or pay more than a coupe of g.

About the sharding, I don’t win anything by refusing to do the service (ok I guess if all enchanters did it, there would be less shards around) because I still have the exact same chance of winning the shards. Would be better if shards were BoP like nethers so I could get them because I’m the only one who really has a use for them.

But as you said, the main point is that I have seen very little gold returned from choosing enchanting and believe me I’ve tried. Disenchanting quest rewards is probably the best but most of those I’ve done already during my journey to 70 and after.

When I ask in /trade for a particular enchant, I always say I’ll tip. That takes the uncertainty out of the equation for the one who has to meet with me and take time out of their day to do it. And I’ll always tip a minimum of 5g for any trainable enchant above level 300. If it’s a drop recipe, then I’ll tip 10g.

If you don’t like the idea of tipping, then tell enchanters you’ll pay for the enchant using your mats and then ask them for a price when they whisper back to you. This is all a matter of consideration and communication.

High level enchanters need some compensation. You figure out how you are going to do it.

I see your point, but you missed mine. Do you charge for disenchanting a bag-full of green BoEs? If not, why not? I mean, you’re just pushing a button, right? You still had to grind that skill to 300. Disenchanting a bunch of stuff is no different than enchanting something. Takes high level of skill and your time, and you really should be charging for both.

Also, be aware that you’re deflating your own selling market by producing raw materials for other people. With that in mind, why wouldn’t you charge?

As for the instancing, sharding and rolling is accepted, yes, but certainly not required. If it’s a service that you don’t want to perform, feel free to fail to mention that you disenchant, and Greed the BoPs with everybody else. You still get a fair shot at the drops, and reap all the profits of being able to turn your drop into a more valuable resource. Just… wait until you’ve dropped group.

I see your point, though, and I do understand. You want compensation for working your skill up like every other profession. When you set expectations of payment, and stop giving away your biggest money-making skills, profits will rise. Just treat it like a buisness, and your customers will too. Well, maybe that’s optimistic. But they will become paying customers, and you chuckle all the way to the bank when they call you names.

As many have stated, the fact that the WoW crafting system involves zero skill (read: dude, you’re just pushing a button) is the actual problem here. It leads people who don’t have that profession to believe that the service itself is of no value.

My approach to making money with enchanting is to sell enchants by advertising that I have the mats, and my profit (tip, fee, w/e) is built into my price. I just pass the cost on the consumer like a true capitalist. Savagery is a gold mine when sold this way.

The method’s i use for doing this are quite simple:
1) Buy stacks of adamantite ore off the AH
2) Prospect into gems.
3) Vend all the green-quality gems and powder
4) Cut the blue-quality gems into the current best seller of that colour
5) Profit.

For an example i bought 1000g of ore on Sunday morning. Today i have 1500g worth of completed auctions in my mailbox. Obvisouly it varies depending on your servers market. I also made 3500g in a week just by saving up gems to sell when the season 3 gear hit.

What’s more, even in instances disenchant always benefits the whole group and not the enchanter itself, the shards are always rolled for.

What I did instead was to offer them at a fee that included the mats when I was a lowbie. Even if it was at a loss, getting something was better than doing for free and contributing to the misconception that performing the service had no value. When that didn’t move along fast enough I’d enchant my own crap over and over rather than give it away.

Let enchanters sell their enchants packaged in some manner on the AH like the other professions. AC2 used a totems which were enchants prepackage for sale on the AH once the AH was implemented into the game. Before that it was enchanter must do like WOW.

Problem with assuming the fee was absorbed with the mat costs is that that’s not likely to be the same person. I’m not willing to get nothing for my service just because you paid sambo 300g for mats. In that case, let Sambo enchant your stuff. Last point as been mentioned, not only enchanters post enchanting mats on the AH.

I believe one of the reasons they added the requirements of skill to DE was to stop thieves from retraining skills on hacked accounts to enchanting and then sharding people’s gear. Having your bank and gold emptied is one thing. Having a 300 skill reset and your gear sharded is a whole other story.

I’ve noticed post TBC that alchemists are offering free combines if people bring mats. They’ll be sorry in the long haul that they started doing that, but I guess it’s hard leveling below 300 now on mature servers. That plus their glut got busted with the addition of the potion and elixir types which reduced the amount of potions people need for raiding. Oh well.

Calm. Down. =P