Classic is getting close, and today marks the first post on classic goldmaking! Every Monday I will be writing about goldmaking in classic so you can all get that sweet epic mount. We will be doing some theorycrafting for a while, and everything will be in flux at the beginning, so buckle in. The first topic is the goldmaking mainstay enchanting shuffle.
Shuffle basics
The enchanting shuffle has generally been based around buying cloth, crafting a tailoring item en masse, then disenchanting it into dust and essences that you can sell on the AH. The first shuffle I learned was actually based on classic materials and I think it will rear it’s head again. It is fairly simple to do, even without TSM as you can use macros and simple AH addons and rules to easily figure out if it’s worth it.
Classic shuffling theory
I think shuffles will be great in classic. There are a TON more enchants in classic than in Bfa, and they use a wide variety of materials. This makes the end game dust and essences very sought after. The various rare and epic shards are also likely to be very highly in demand and there may be shuffling opportunities to engage in for those as well.
The materials
There are 5 levels of enchanting materials in classic representing different item levels. Classic has more types of enchanting materials than BfA though as in addition to the common dust, rare shards and epic crystals you have uncommon items called essences. Each “level” of dust, essences and shards represent a potential shuffle so there are a lot of potential shuffles!
Disenchanting in classic
The three classes of items you can disenchant will have different potential drops. The typical setup in classic is that uncommon armor will have 75% chance of yielding some amount of dust, a 25% chance of yielding some amount of essences and a ~1% chance of yielding a rare shard. Uncommon weapons have it flipped so a 25% chance of yieldig dust and a 75% chance of yielding essences. Rare items will yield some amount of rare shards and epic items will yield some number of rare crystals.
Material usage
Dust is typically used in much larger quantities than essences so they are usually the main focus for any shuffle based on uncommon items. To find out if a shuffle is profitable the easy way is to take the price of the average number of dust you get per disenchant and compare it to the cost of the needed materials. So if an item yields 2 dust on average and requires 5 of some cloth you know that you need t buy cloth at less than 2/5ths of the price of the dust to be profitable. Essence value can be very different with essences being hugely in demand, and some having very low. If the essence is actually valuable you can include it in the calculation, but then you would need to use some kind of spreadsheet.
Finding the right items
Disenchanting yields in classic will be different for every item. Unlike in BfA where every uncommon BfA item yields the same amount of dust. The best items will therefore balance time spent crafting versus the cost of crafting and the materials you get. Crafting lots of bolts or crafting too many items can quickly limit your profits as you get limited by time.
A list of the shuffles
Linen / Wool into Strange dust and Magic essences
Strange dust is the entry level material for Enchanting. The essences at this level are typically much lower in value as they are not used much for leveling. The major use case for the dust will be players leveling enchanting. Candidate recipes include: Brown Linen robe Handstitched Linen Britches, Heavy Woolen Gloves and Gray Woolen Robe.
Silk cloth into Soul Dust and Astral Essence / Mystic Essence
Silk cloth will let you craft items in the right item level range to give you Soul Dust and Astral Essence.
Top candidate recipes include: Azure Silk Cloak and Azure Silk Vest
Mageweave cloth into Vision dust and Nether Essences
This is the first shuffle I ever learned. The best recipe used to be White Bandit Mask, which is a world drop, so keep an eye out on the AH, it only requires a single bolt of mageweave for an average of 3.5 dust. Other potential recipes include: Black Mageweave Gloves and Black Mageweave Robe
Mageweave Cloth / Runecloth into Dream Dust and Nether Essence
In this tier both Mageweave Cloth and runecloth based items can fall in the right item level. The mageweave recipes will typically require various extra materials and it’s hard to tell if this will be more expensive than Runecloth or not, as the runecloth recipes are “simpler”.
The top candidates for this shuffle are: Red Mageweave Headband, Runecloth Belt and Runecloth Robe
Runecloth into Illusion Dust and Eternal Essences
This is the end-game shuffle for max level materials. It is used in a lot of the best enchants in the game and Wizard Oil which is the prefered weapon oil for casters. It will obviously have strong demand just like end-game materials always have had.
Top candidate items for this shuffle include: Wizardweave Robe, Frostweave Pants and Brightcloth Pants
Shuffles for shards and crystals
It may be possible to shuffle for the various shards and crystals. It is however a little to hard to gauge the prices of the various rare crafting materials to give any tips on which recipes could be worth it, so we will just have to wait and see.
Materials needed to level enchanting
This Wowhead guide shows you a way to skill level 300. To get there you need materials as in the table below. As we see Dream Dust stands out as the most numerous one by far, followed by Strange dust and Vision Dust. Strange dust has a very low barrier to entry and will thus have less value than the others. Getting to the Dream Dust shuffle quickly can be VERY profitable though as everyone who wants to level enchanting will need a LOT of dust.
On the Essence front we see that Nether and Magic essence stick out. Magic essences are once again quite easy to get, so the Nether shuffles will be great. This is one of the main reasons why the Vision dust shuffle is so good.