News Flash : The Enchanters Union has declared that Enchanters are going on strike. Experts predict that Jewelcrafters and Mages will soon follow.
As self appointed president and sole member of the Dath’remarian enchanters Union I declare that Free Enchanting services will no longer be rendered to the general public. Requests for enchants in Trade – In General – in Yell will be ignored until a correctly worded request accompanied by offer of tip is detected. (Free Services still available to friends and guildys)
I’m often in and out of cities often, and so I see the Enchanter wanted posts in trade all the time. Some are people who don’t even say what enchant they want – even as mentioned by Random Ravings ( One F word in that post in case u have filters/work restraints.. ) “Looking for high – level enchanter PST” Seriously why would I respond to that?
I watched one guy spam for an hour looking for the Dodge to cloak – While on my alt I suggested he would get a better response if he offered a tip.”Why should I?” He replied back – “they could get a point out of it” In the end because he belonged to a guild for which I had positive experiences with I logged over to my main and did it for him.
I know tipping has been blogged about before and there is no right answer to how much an enchant/Item crafting/Gem Cutting is worth. I have along the way been collecting as many of the rep enchants as possible. Some of these came at a great cost to myself in time and gold. Leveling high enchanting is not cheap or easy – and its not like people are queuing up at your door for the enchants that will help you level. A tip is a gesture of goodwill.
I don’t expect tips from friends or Guildys… I utilise their skills for Gemcutting – they utilise me for enchanting – we have a common bond, we are building/maintaining a relationship.
If you think that you shouldn’t offer a tip because they ‘Might’ get a point out of it.. well.. I don’t need points, nor really do I need gold. I need your acknowledgment that effort went into this skill at a cost, and that I am providing you a service, stopping what I am doing, linking you the enchant so you can check the mats, waiting for you to get the right mats from your bank/AH – and most of the enchants that people want are the ones that level 375 enchants have, and they don’t need any more points. So you need to make me want to help you. Be it through incentive, or that its easy to do. Enchanters do not stand in cities all day waiting for someone to help.
and Yes I enchant peoples stuff in citys all the time for free, I also ignore twice as many requests on trade, because its not worth the effort / conveniant to reply – a lot of people ignore requests all the time.
however…. when the expansion comes and enchanters are looking to level their enchanting again – you will find an abundance of crafters in all forms offering free /cheap services for those points, and there will probably be in increase of people paying you to use them to enchant.. ( I’m going to try and stock some mats for the enchants that aren’t grey so I can get the skill up) But until then..
1. know what enchant you want and the Mats – a request for the enchant mats link will most often be answered
2. Offer a tip / to tip
3.Offer to come to the enchanter where possible / or identify where you are.. ( so I don’t have to shift click or work out how to get to you)
3. don’t spam it. ( I know using the trade channel for legitimate reasons is a rare thing ) but there is a reason why people disable trade channel)
4. Don’t ask for someone “to make my weapon glow red or blue”
EG: LF Enchanter in SW for [ Enchant weapon – Mongoose] have mats will tip.
if you do the above you will find that you will get more / quicker responses to your request.
Provided by 
Pugnacious Priest's Warcraft Blog 
As a 375 enchanter I keep my profession choice a secret. I don’t watch trade, and I hate dealing with “the public”. The great unwashed in WoW is worse than the real public.
I enchant my gear, and that of my guildies and friends. Otherwise I’ll say I can DE and thats it.
Why? Too many bad experiences just like those you describe and worse. Here is a message to all those folks looking for an Enchanter: be specific, have mats, come to me, tip, and do as you’re told.
How about a 5% “tax” on enchants. Base this on the worth of the mats that go into the enchant.
Say your getting a simple lower level enchant that may cost 1g worth of mats… then the “tax” to get that done should be 3s or thereabouts.
Moving up:
<10g (your lower level Outland stuff) = 50s
50g (mid level Outland stuff) = 2g 50s
100g (stuff with primals etc) = 5g
500g (weapon enchants, hard to get enchants etc) = 25g
This doesn’t hurt lower levels who can only afford your basic enchants (especially if this is their first toon), but anyone who can afford the mats for Executioner, Mongoose etc can surely pony up the 25g for the service.
Simple, effective, profitable.
I have stopped relying on tips as an enchanter. I now charge a fee for enchants that need rep to obtain or that drop in instances. I’ll let the “customer” know beforehand and he/she is free to take it or leave it. I don’t really need the money but I was tired of getting 1g tip for stuff like Mongoose and Executioner with all the hassle of dealing with people without mats and expecting me to get to where they are.
When I leveled enchanting, I did it 99% on my own. I did spend about 5 points “spamming” trade channel – probably the worst 5 hours of WoW playtime ever.
Why?
I was trying to level, so don’t ask me about the 175 skill enchant.
Well, ok, ask me for it.. but you come to me, with mats, ready to go.
I had a couple of folk like that that disturbed the other toons that wanted the enchants I wanted to do.
I don’t think people appreciate the time, cost and energy that goes into enchanting – they think it’s like skinning. They assume you are raking in the cash from everyone else, so why tip, why come to you, why do any research.
It even annoys me when mates ask “can you do x enchant, what are the mats”.
a) they know what x enchant will do (probably looked it up on the net) so why ask me what the mats are, and
b) I gave them all the link to my professions list, so they could see in advance.
Actually the same one kept bitching about the fact I had no agility enchants.. I kept pointing out that the ones he wanted were BoP drops – and I didn’t have the time to run the instances until they dropped (and when I asked, he was always too busy to help).
Ultimately I worked on the ones that were going to benefit me, and as many of my mates as possible… but I don’t like getting slagged off for not having the one that someone wants.
Where’s the petition… I will sign.
As someone who has a blacksmith (it’s my perky priestess, but — shhh! — don’t tell anyone), I can’t stand it when people ask in Trade for a blacksmith but fail to ask what they’re looking for. Since I do like to go out of my way to help people I usually reply, but knowing ahead of time what they’re looking for would let me better choose if I should reply.
A few months ago I decided that I wanted Boar’s Speed on my boots. As a holy human priest with more Spirit than a flock of cheerleaders, I decided Vitality wasn’t as much of a benefit as the added Stamina I would gain. However, no one on my server seemed to have the enchant — except for a good friend of mine who had recently quit the game. I finally found someone who had it and I tipped him big. Somewhere around 60 gold, I believe. I found it worth the hassle and now I send all of my friends to him when they need enchants while admonishing them to tip well.
a priest blacksmith 🙂 I dont mind tipping verywell for something i want.. but i certainly like the idea of a fee or a tax.. Auctioneer will give you a aprox worth of the total enchant mats – and Im looking at some serious time in getting the Argent dawn rep +24 healing enchant – I guess I just have to be strong and ask for the tip if they don’t offer..
Cheers for the linky 😛
Believe it or not, my Priest used to be a Blacksmith too. There was a guy in an allied guild who could make all the Dark Iron stuff and he promised to take us on a crafting run “when he had time” to get our tanks geared up. Well I got mighty tired of waiting for “when he had time” so switched to Blacksmith on my Priest, levelled it to 300, ground out Revered with Thorium Bortherhood and made all the gear myself. And did it before “he had time” too.
As for enchanting, I’m much the same as everyone else. Friends and guildies get it for free if they have mats, or if I have mats and they’re realtively common. Anyone else I expect a tip from. If you give a shitty tip you go on The List. If you don’t tip at all, you go on The List. You do not want to be on The List, because it’s shared by my Potion Master, Elixir Master, Master Armoursmith, Master Axesmith, Master Jewelcrafter, Master Spellfire Tailor, Master Mooncloth Tailor and Master Shadoweave Tailor.
Remember, tipping is for today, but getting on The List is for life.
oh – what is this list you speak of I’ve heard of an add on that does something similar.. but not for cross toon…… I keep notes of people who can make rare things if I have used their services, I was considering starting a spreadsheet but thought that might be going a little too far….
A tip is voluntary, a fee is something you ask for.
If you want a fee, ask for it, if you dont care, just be nice(probably nicer than the person looking for the enchant) and you Might get a tip.
Call it a fee, call it a tip. Gold by any other name would be worth as much.
Personally I refuse to enchant anything for anyone I dont know for free. I give to amnesty international, not randoms in warcraft. (naturally I dont accept money from friends or guildies unless they really really force me to)
I don’t however, like to specify how much people should pay me. This is simply because to some people 10g is a huge amount of cash, while others wouldn’t notice 50g one way or the other. Instead I let my customers decide how much to tip me.
Often they will press me for a figure, and my standard response is to quote about double what I’d like to get for the enchant, but say “or whatever you can afford” or words to that effect.
Sometimes I get 1g. Sometimes I get 20g. Depends on the person and the enchant.
So in my case s it a tip or is it a fee?
… and does it matter?
^^ same MO for selling ports btw. Once I got paid 15g for a portal!
A gratuity… acknowledgement that I am doing something for you… I guess a tip or a fee covers that.
People get upset when you refuse to do something unless they pay you – and thats the hesitation in the having to ask. I shouldnt have to ask. I don’t have to answer – u need to want me to do it for it.. Market your need. Its not like an enchanter is recongnisable by class I have to let you know I can do it. ( Eg poor mages and their whispered requests for ports.. (Though I did help a lost Level 5 human get to darnassus yesterday to see his friend by logging over to my mage and porting him there for free)
I won’t respond to /trade requests that aren’t specific. What do you need, where are you, do you have the mats? (I never have excess mats so if you don’t have ’em, I won’t answer you anyway.)
Tips are nice: I like to think of them as a token of respect for my skill. You’ll get a quicker response if you offer a tip, but I won’t (necessarily) ignore you if you don’t.
@ Pugnacious: The List is my ignore list. I’m not 100% sure but I believe the addon is “IgnoreMore”. It shares my ignore list between all my toons. I decided I needed something like that when someone I never met before got me to make Bolts of Netherweave out of 120 stacks of Netherweave Cloth, then make Netherweave Bracers out of the Bolts, then disenchant all of them for mats. And didn’t offer a tip. On that day, The List was born.