Insider Trader: Uldaman or bust!
Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.
It's a brave new world for young enchanters training in the mysterious ways of their craft. Enchanting's infamous artisan-level training roadblock used to demand that enchanters fight their way to a trainer located inside the Uldaman instance in order to train new skills, formula by formula. Nowadays, many players who own The Burning Crusade expansion can avoid this dastardly errand by porting across the Dark Portal to Outlands enchanter trainers. (No, you can't physically step through the portal until level 58 -- but you CAN accept a mage portal or warlock summons at any level -- and what a great place to be hearthstoned!)
As you'd expect, there are a couple of caveats to this solution. All but one of the enchanter trainers in the Outlands (including those in Shattrath City, Honor Hold, Thrallmar and The Stormspire in Netherstorm) are Grand Master Enchanters who train enchanters from a minimum skill level of 300. The lone Outlands trainer handling lower-level training is Enchantress Volali. Unfortunately, her persnickety choice of residence in the Scryer's Tier in Shattrath City puts her squarely off-limits to anyone who's chosen to ally with the Aldor and to all young Draenei, who are automatically friendlier with the Draenei Aldor. (Young Blood Elf enchanters, who are naturally on better terms with their kinsmen the Scryers, can visit Enchantress Volali without issue.)
If you're any race but Draenei and haven't yet chosen sides in the Aldor/Scryer faction tussle, you can train with Enchantress Volali in Shattrath City at the artisan level or below and with the Grand Master Enchanters above 300. But if you're a Draenei or less than neutral faction with the Scryers, you'll need to stick to the old-world trainers until you reach 300 -- and for artisan-level training, it's back to Uldaman for j00!
Uldaman or bust!
Most young enchanters face the fairly distasteful prospect of battling through packs of deadly scorpids to reach the artisan-level trainer (level 225) inside Uldaman. It's not a question of tiptoeing around critters to reach the right spot; you must actually kill the scorpids in Master Enchanter Annora's pit in order to make her spawn.
The easiest way to reach Annora is through the back entrance at Echomok Cavern, a small cave protected by troggs that opens onto a hillside at coordinates 66,43 in the Badlands. Take a right at the first tunnel branch and continue straight to reach the scorpid pits. You don't technically have to kill anything until you reach Annora's pit, which is the one with a tent, but you do have to kill the non-elite scorpids in her pit to convince her to bring her toys out to play.
In this day and age of high-level friends, the trip shouldn't be too difficult to arrange -- but it's not something you'll want to do over and over every time you've skilled up enough to train a new enchant. Remember that Annora is a trainer, not a vendor, so you can't buy formulae ahead of time; you have to have the skill right then and there.
It used to be that Annora only offered training to skill level 250, so it was fairly easy to stock up with gold and materials to train from 225 to 250 in one fell swoop. Now, Annora can take you up to 295, so you'll need a lot of careful planning to minimize the number of trips you'll have to make. Several different combinations of enchants can skill you up through the 200s fairly quickly, depending what formulae you've been able to purchase or farm.
You'll need:
• Training fees (5 gold for Artisan Enchanting)
• Appropriate-level enchanting rods (or the materials to make them)
• Items on which to perform skill-raising enchants
• Components for skill-raising enchants
• A plan for raising your skill right there on the spot, so you can train as high as possible in one trip; use a site like Wowhead and leveling guides like this one (although most guides still refer to the days when Annora stopped training at level 250) to help plot your training strategy
Lisa Poisso is a freelance writer who's still in recovery from dragging her guildmates on multiple trips to Master Enchanter Annora back in the days when venturing into a scorpid pit was still considered a fearsome battle.
