Selling Enchants Without Vellums
Every other profession ends with an object somebody can post. Enchanting ends with an effect on another player's gear, and that one difference decides how the price is found, who buys the dust, and why the whole trade happens in whispers instead of on a board.
There is no item to post
Under the Classic ruleset an enchant is applied to an item that is already sitting in an open trade window. The enchanter and the buyer stand in the same room, the item changes hands twice, and what comes out is a property of somebody else's weapon or chest piece. Later expansions added vellums, a consumable that holds a finished enchant and can be mailed or listed like any other good. Forever keeps the cap at 60 and keeps the original trade, so the output stays an act rather than an object.
That removes the enchanter from the one place where prices are public. A miner can read what ore sold for yesterday and post accordingly; an enchanter has no equivalent, because posting, deposits and undercutting only apply to things the game can hold in a slot. The only part of the trade that touches a listing is the material side: dust, essences and shards are ordinary items, and they have a market with a visible history. The labour attached to them does not.
The practical result is a market that looks empty from the outside. Nobody browsing an auction house would know how many enchanters are working a capital, how busy they are, or what they charge, and the only way to find out is to stand in the same chat they do.
The price is agreed in chat
Because there is no board, the quote arrives as a line of text. An enchanter advertises which recipes they carry, a buyer asks for one, and both sides settle the terms before anyone walks anywhere. That makes the trade channel in a capital the actual price mechanism for this profession: it is where supply is visible, where competing quotes appear within a few minutes of each other, and where a recipe nobody else has gets noticed.
Price discovery here works on memory rather than data. A buyer who paid once for a given enchant carries that figure to the next purchase; an enchanter who hears 3 other people advertising the same recipe adjusts downward without ever seeing a sales chart. Rare recipes behave differently again, since the seller is quoting scarcity rather than labour, and scarcity in this market is a matter of who logged in tonight.
Reputation does real work in place of a listing history. Guild channels, friends lists and a name that people recognise from standing in the same spot every evening are what bring repeat requests, which is the part of what an enchanter actually earns that no profession guide can put a number against.
Who supplies the dust
There are 2 common shapes to the deal, and they price differently. In the first the buyer brings every reagent and pays the enchanter a tip for the cast, which keeps the enchanter's risk at zero and turns the fee into pure labour. In the second the enchanter supplies the materials out of their own bank and quotes one figure for the finished result, which is a higher number but includes goods they had to buy or disenchant first.
The second shape makes the enchanter a trader as well as a crafter. Dust and essences have to come from somewhere, usually from buying green items to break down or from stock built up while levelling the trade, and the same stacks also feed skill-ups, which is where materials consumed by profession ranks compete with materials held for sale. An enchanter sitting on a full bank is carrying inventory risk that a tip-only enchanter never touches.
Settlement is direct in both cases. Gold moves hand to hand in the trade window, there is no deposit, no cut and no waiting for a buyer to appear, and nothing about the sale is recorded anywhere the two players can point at afterwards. It is the same pattern as the rest of work sold for coin rather than goods, with the difference that this one needs a profession slot behind it.
What we have not seen confirmed
We have no statement from Blizzard about vellums in Forever, in either direction. Everything above follows from the trade working the way it works at a cap of 60, and if a vellum-style item were added later the market described here would change shape immediately: the enchant would become postable, the price would become public, and the chat-based part of the business would shrink to rare recipes only. Treat that as a scenario, not a plan, because no date or intention has been published.
The same applies to any ordering system. A queue that lets a buyer request a craft from a distance would do much of what a vellum does, and whether anything of that kind exists in Forever is covered in how crafting requests are placed rather than assumed here. We also have no information on whether the crafting changes announced for other professions touch enchanting's costs or recipe spread at all.
Questions
Can I buy an enchant from the auction house in Forever?
Not as a finished enchant. The auction house holds items, and an enchant applied under the Classic ruleset is an effect on gear rather than an object, so what you will find listed is the dust, essences and shards an enchanter needs, not the work itself. To have the enchant applied you arrange it with an enchanter and meet them.
Who is supposed to buy the materials?
Both arrangements are normal. Either the buyer brings every reagent and pays the enchanter a tip for the cast, or the enchanter supplies everything from their own stock and quotes a single figure that covers the goods as well as the labour. The second is the larger number because it includes items the enchanter had to buy or break down first.
How do people find an enchanter if nothing is listed?
Through chat and through contacts. The trade channel in a capital carries the advertisements, guilds handle a large share of requests internally, and a name that people recognise gets repeat work. There is no in-game directory of who has which recipe, so asking in the channel remains the standard method.
Does the enchanter have to be in the same place as me?
Yes. The item goes into a trade window, the enchant is applied there, and the item comes back in the same window, so both characters have to be standing together for the exchange. That is why enchanters tend to work from the cities with the heaviest traffic rather than wherever they happen to be levelling.
Sources
- Blizzard's own news channel for Forever announcements, including anything that would change how crafted work is delivered — World of Warcraft news.
- Reference pages for the Classic version of the profession, useful for checking which recipes exist and what they consume — Wowhead Classic enchanting.