Enchanting

Is Enchanting worth taking?

Yes if you are a caster also taking Tailoring, or if you want the most durable gold engine in the game. It earns Legacy Points at 150, 225 and 300.

It is not a levelling-power profession — you pour money in and sell enchants at 60. But Forever gave it an argument it never had: Malleable Essence of Nature, the gating reagent for every crafted tier piece in Blacksmithing, Leatherworking and Tailoring, is only obtained by disenchanting items from the two new raids. Every crafted tier set in the game runs through an enchanter.

At the beta cap its three new class relics are best in slot — one source calls each "the best relic at level 20 in my gear lists."

What it pairs with

Tailoring, and for the vanilla reason, unchanged: "Enchanting doesn't rely on a particular gathering profession, so Enchanters occasionally pursue Tailoring to allow them to quickly create magic items to disenchant."

Yes, it still has no gathering profession and is still funded by disenchanting. That has not changed.

What Forever changed

This profession changed more than any other.

• Two brand-new enchant slots. There are now five Necklace enchants (Agility, Strength, Spell Power, Healing Power, Deflection — all at skill 210) and an Off-Hand enchant at 300. Neither slot is enchantable in vanilla.
• Proc weapon enchants at skill 140 — the first low-level enchants with effects rather than stats:

- Insight — a chance on casting to increase Spirit by 100% for 10 seconds

- Recovery — triggers when you are parried or dodged, healing 5% of maximum health

- Revelation — a chance, when a non-periodic spell fails to crit, to grant 100% critical strike chance to your next spell

One source puts Revelation "in 17 of my 31 level-20 gear lists."

• Enchanters now make class relics. Eleven new ones — Druid idols, Paladin librams and Shaman totems — at skill 130, 210 and 300. Several reference abilities that do not exist in vanilla at all.
• Disenchanting itself got better, through the camp: Arcane Salvager at skill 140 "enables more efficient disenchanting." How much more efficient is not published.
• 84 of 165 enchants had their reagents changed, overwhelmingly downward. Enchant Bracer Stamina now takes 3 Soul Dust where it took 6. Boots Greater Stamina takes 6 Dream Dust where it took 10. Enchanting is materially cheaper in Forever.
• Six Season of Discovery enchants are obtainable — but twelve more sit dead in the client with no vendor selling them, including Retricutioner, Dismantle, Excellent Spirit and Superior Intellect. If you played Season of Discovery, do not assume your enchants came with you.
• New craftables: staves, off-hands, seven new wands, and three new Heart of the Mountain trinkets at 285.
• New gloves enchant, Lotus Claw at 295 — "a small chance to acquire Death Lotus when gathering any herb in Hyjal."
• Profession perk, new: ring enchants for attack power, spell power or Stamina, on your own rings only. A later-expansion perk in a vanilla relaunch. Values, skill and cost are not published.
• Certification at 300 for 1,000 Favor → the title "the Enchanter".

Specialisations

There is no Enchanting specialisation, in vanilla or in Forever. Do not go looking.

Levelling it

The four rods gate everything above them, so buy the materials for each before you need it: Runed Copper Rod, then Runed Silver Rod at 130, Runed Golden Rod at 173, Runed Truesilver Rod at 218.

1. 1 → 130 — Bracer Inferior Stamina → Chest Inferior Stamina → Bracer Minor Stamina → Shield Minor Stamina
2. 130 → 218 — Bracer Lesser Stamina → Boots Lesser Agility → Bracer Strength
3. 218 → 262 — Cloak Greater Defense, then Gloves Agility, ~68 crafts — the wall
4. 262 → 300 — Bracer Greater Strength → Shield Greater Stamina, ~27

Shopping list to 225: 176 Strange Dust, 74 Soul Dust, 38 Vision Dust, 9 Lesser Astral Essence, 4 Lesser Magic Essence, 32 Mote of Magic, plus the four rods.

225 → 300: 182 Dream Dust, 68 Vision Dust, 40 Lesser Nether Essence.

The shape is unique: the cost is not gold, it is throughput. You need a stream of green items to shard, which is exactly why the Tailoring pairing exists.

What is not known

How much more efficient the Arcane Salvager actually is. Ring enchant values and requirements. Whether any vanilla enchant was removed.