How to be an Enchant Buying NubFollow

What I'm about to write must be an act of plagarism. Somewhere out there in the vast intarwebz is a guide that teaches people how to be first rate morons when trying to get their gear enchanted. I say this because there's a (would be) sneaky method being employed by a lot of people on my realm (and I doubt it's new). So to save folks some time searching for this mythical nub guide, I thought I'd paraphrase it here for you.

1) Do a tiny bit of research. You're looking for two specific things.

a) An enchant that gives a very good stat bonus, a really cool glow, or ideally both.
b) An enchant that you cannot possibly afford.

2) Advertise in the Trade channel that you are looking for the enchant you have chosen. Include in the ad that you would like a prospective enchant provider to /w you.

3) When you get a victi...err...enchanter responding to your add (whether or not you've even discussed the price of the enchant yet) ask them to buy the mats for you. Tell them you'll pay them for the mats when they do the enchant. It is very important during this stage that you double check to make absolutely certain you have nowhere near enough gold to pay for the materials.

By this time, you've pretty much assured yourself of Nubhood. But this is WoW, where a grey nub is rolled every minute, green nubs abound in cities and the Barrens, and even blue nubs are easy to come by. No, you want to be the Purple Nub. If epic nubhood is your goal, continue:

4) If the enchanter refuses to buy the mats for you, invest a little time into trying to convince them. Promise them you'll pay them. Make up some excuse about why the enchanter should be the one to buy the mats.

(If the enchanter doesn't refuse, buys the mats, does the enchant and then stands there waiting for you to pay them, you have immediately ascended to epic nubhood. If not, at least try and salvage a good, solid blue ranking).

5) If the enchanter still refuses, become belligerent. Tell him he's ripping you off. Tell him you've had the same enchant done for less than half that price. Call him dirty names. Really work him over as best you can. The longer you can do this, the better your chances of solidifying that blue nub status.

Anyone can be a nub. To be a truly outstanding nub, follow the above recommendations. Nublette virgins will cry themselves to sleep for weeks when they receive word of your exploits, because they know they'll never have anything to offer a nub of your stature. Rejoice in your nubhood. You've earned it.

I've had the above scenario occur twice in the last couple of weeks. The first was someone wanting a weapon enchant with a reagent cost of ~30g. He insisted I buy the mats and I managed to squeeze the truth out of him: he had 3g and change to his name.

The second came today. I spent 5 hours grinding Timbermaw rep -> Friendly so I could get enchant 2h weapon +25 agility. Naturally, with a shiny new enchant I was wanting to use it. I would have no chance of getting a skillup from it (290 recipe, I'm 350 skill). Materials are 10 x Large Brilliant Shard (8-10g each), 6 x Greater Eternal Essence (10g each), 14 x Illusion Dust (1.5g each). I flat out laughed at him when he told me to go buy the mats and he'd pay me when I did the enchant. ("hahahahahaha NOT A CHANCE. Do you have any idea how many buffoons try to talk me into buying mats they know they can't afford?") He offered me 100g. That's right...160-200g worth of materials, for which I get 100g back. He said that's all he had and he knew someone who had done it for that price before. I told him to go get that person to do the enchant. Because...you know...a level 56 Hunter can afford to spend 100g on a weapon enchant every few levels.

My sense is that someone who only has 100g to put towards a 200g+ enchant can't afford the enchant. I appreciate there are a lot of people in a position to fund their alts from their mains and I look on that as sort of an earned privilege. Hell, I'd do it.

And I agree, it's not funny. I was putting a pseudo-satirical spin on a situation that reminded me today of exactly why I go out of my way to ignore people and their "WTB <enchant I can't afford/don't want to pay for> wisp me" whenever I see them.

I used to think it was because I was sticky about my prices. If I was doing an enchant for a stranger, the price would always be common market price of materials + markup (10% or so, depending on the enchant). I got no end of grief from that, because my realm was (and still is) bursting at the seams with enchanters undercutting themselves for the sake of recovering a little gold in the skillup process. (Losing 10-20g on a Fiery Enchant is so, so much better than spamming a 3g enchant on yourself, but meh).

I then adopted the policy that I will do the enchant if you provide the mats. No discussion to be had on the subject. I'm quite firm if people try to negotiate. I do not buy mats for people, and I do not use mats from my "private stock" on strangers. If you want the enchant, the safest, easiest, most hassle-free way for me is to link the formula for the prospective buyer so they can see the mat list, run off to auction, buy the mats, and then have me do the enchant. At the very least, it helps foster a sense of understanding that no I am not, in fact, gouging you...that's what those large shards and greater essences really cost.

Taken a step further, I won't even travel to do the enchant. It seems that 9 times out of 10 (or more), the buyer has already spent way more than they thought they would and have little/nothing left over that they are willing/able to tip. Travel from Shattrath to any other major city is a breeze. Try getting back to Shattrath from Darnassus when your hearthstone still has 45 minutes on cooldown. I refuse to go out of my way to enchant for anyone outside of my guild. So many players see enchants as "gilding the lily" when in most cases, the enchant (if it's worth it) can cost several times more than the gear is worth.

The same situation I was watching my friend go through. We leveled to 70 together, we farmed together, and I know exactly how much time and effort took him to level his enchanting and get all those formulas.
I leveled my newly picked tailoring pretty high on netherweave I got from just helping him get that +30 int from BEs in Netherstorm.
He couldnt afford his epic mount because of the money sink raising enchanting.
He had to grind rep like mindless machine to be able to buy some formulas.

And then comes along some totally clueless brat and starts whining about prices...

He is doing the same thing now - no mats providing. You want him to enchant your gear you get mats, AND he has set prices for service too. No arguments and discussions about it.


Edited, Aug 7th 2007 8:33am by Sethy

I have one. I actually just dropped 375 skinning to take up mining a few days ago. I'll spare you the rants about people who run up to the nodes I'm actively mining and try to take a whack...

Seriously though, stop for a moment and think about the consequences to an enchanter that would come from buying up a few hundred gold worth of reagents for someone who tries to get away with dropping 13g in the trade window saying, "That's all I have." That can represent an enormous loss to an enchanter. Reagent markets are highly unstable on my realm, meaning that I could have the gold tied up on those reagents for a week or more, and even when they did sell it could be at a substantial loss.

I put a pseudo-humorous spin on it this time because it seemed a novel thing for me to do. Nevertheless, I know people for whom 100g is a ton of gold. I know people who are very trusting of other players. So imagine if you will, having them grind rep for hours to get their hands on an a rare enchant (ie. very, very few poeple on my realm have it) and the first time they go to use it on someone it costs them 50g or more when everything is over and done because some absolute **** is playing silly little games trying to get uber at someone else's expense.

This sorts of things ought to be made public, I reckon. Make no mistake, there wasn't a thread of altruism in my decision to post this, but if one person reads it and adopts for themselves the policy of, "Your mats or **** off," and saves themselves a mammoth loss as a result, I'd say that would make it all worth it. Otherwise, this is a poorly disguised rant, and the people who most need to read it generally don't come to places like this.

Actually at this point I'd say that the enchanter is the one who's risen to epic nubhood.

The real lesson to be learned here is...

Nothing ever good comes of responding to random people wanting enchants in the trade channel. It only causes headaches.

QFT.

I especially love the ones that are "Looking for enchanter". Do ya just want to know what we look like or did ya want something?

Oh ya. If I had matched his nubness and run off to the AH to buy the mats, one of two things would have happened:

1) I'd be out 100g on the deal.
2) I'd have 200g tied up in reagents I wouldn't be using any time soon, which would probably translate to a 20-30g loss by the time the auction undercutting/fees took their toll.

And that was just yesterday. I get people asking for enchants and then asking me to go buy the mats all the time. (Thus my would-be humorous reference to a mystical guide out there that is advising people to do this.) Generally speaking, if someone asks me to buy the mats for them, I know something is not right and will usually tell them to go find someone else. It really does bother me, however, to think of the decent folk who might get sucked into a scam like that.

Edited, Aug 7th 2007 11:10am by AureliusSir

People who do these type of things are jackasses.

What pisses me off personally is tailors that make something for "your mats and my nether". Now I am supposed to trust someone I know nothing about with 8 primal mights and few other things?

I tried to explain to some people that only fair would be to make that whatever (in this case battlecast) at request and trade crafted item for mats and gold to customer. Yes, there is slight risk someone will order and not get it but then BoE items can always be sold in AH.
I find the risk they would take with making things in front is lot less than me taking the risk of just giving them over 1k g worth mats with no guarantee of getting anything for it.

I have a few minutes so think I'll add to the ranting.

I hate enchanting, however having levelled to 350 I'm now loathe to drop it and do something less evil.

I'm currently thinking of just enchanting my own stuff to raise levels as I can't seem to get anyone interested in buying my enchants (they don't even respond to the trade ad :() and I have a bank full of dust and essences.

I've never had a problem buying the mats for enchants, back when 1h agility cost 150g easily on my server I'd just check the AH for mats I didn't have and then quote the buyer a price based on mat cost and mark-up, if they agreed then I'd buy the mats and do it. Never had a problem with people not being able to pay, but maybe I've just been lucky.

What I really hate about enchanting though is when low levels provide you the mats and a reasonable tip and then tell you they spent all of their money on an enchant that was a) probably useless for their class and b) they will out grow in a couple of levels. I feel so bad taking peoples money when I know they should be saving for their mounts.

correction, "/2 LF enchanter" is all you need. putting your desired enchant into the trade channel will yield fewer responses. unqualified responses still count as responses, afterall.

Please add: whisper anyone who advertises enchanting in the trade channel for your Agi enchant. then, a minute later when they repeat their ad, ask them AGAIN if they can do your Agi enchant (they may have ran kara or grinded timbermaw revered within that 60-second gap). do NOT bother looking at their names to determine if you've already asked that enchanter about your desired enchant.


Edited, Aug 8th 2007 12:25pm by ixidoria