Enchanting shuffles are a tried and true goldmaking method, going all the way back to at least the original TBC. So let’s look at what this is and how you can profit!
What the hell is a “shuffle”?
A shuffle usually refers to any goldmaking method were you turn one base material into another one, in volume. The usual ones have typically been to craft various tailoring items with basic cloth and then disenchanting them to get enchanting materials. Throughout the years there have been more or less complex variations on this theme. The relevant ones in TBC will typically use tailoring and enchanting however. The main reason for tailoring is that cloth is typically very abundant, since every player generates cloth. This usually means that for any given item level a crafted cloth item is usually the cheapest way of getting an item.
Classic and TBC era mats
The nice thing with TBC is that due to enchanting giving some very strong max level benefits both classic era and TBC era materials are in demand, and there is a large number of potential shuffles. We’ll take a look at some of them in this post, but there may definitely be more of them. The easy way too find these is to look at the wowhead pages of enchanting materials or crafted items to figure out what items can be crafted to get a specific enchanting materials, or what the cheapest items could be to get a specific material.
Example shuffle: Vision dust
The vision dust shuffle is my favorite shuffle and the first goldmaking method I learned back in actual TBC. It is a very simple one, using tailoring and enchanting to generate vision dust and Nether Essences. The vision is very simple, utilizing the White Bandit mask recipe which requires one bolt of Mageweave cloth. On average you will get 2.5 vision dust and some lesser nether essences. The simple rule of thumb is that you will make gold as long as the price of vision dust is more than 2 times the price of mageweave cloth.
The recipe is BoE, so you can simply pick it up on the AH.
Arcane Dust
The staple TBC material can also be shuffled through Netherweave belts. These cost you 18 netherweave cloth and 1 rune thread. On average you will get 1-5 Arcane dust, 0.55 lesser planar essences and 0.03 Small Prismatic shards. The simple math is then that you need to buy netherweave cloth for less than 1/10th of the price of arcane dust, and you will probably make a profit. On my realm about 2/3rds of the value is from arcane dust, which means you can go slightly higher than one tenth and still make a profit, so take a look at the TSM Disenchant value for the correct numbers!
Other candidates?
These are the two main shuffles I have utilised. For other options you can check out my post on theorycrafting the classic enchanting shuffles to see if any of them are profitable on your realm, or you can look for other recipes that show a profit. Good luck!