Forum:What really is an enchantment?

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This is for those who haven't been paying attention to my Enchantment/Augment/Imbue/Enhancers edits... What set me off was wandering through the WotLK engineering recipes and wondering where to put things like the [Nitro Boosts].

Before WotLK, an "enchantment" was: a permanent attribute added to an item through the use of the Enchanting skill. Now, both Engineering and Blacksmithing have recipes that are functionally identical. WotLK also introduced a whole category of item that we currently would classify as "augments", in "enchantments on a scroll" that are functionally identical to armor kits et al.

While I would agree that there isn't a LOT of reason to have a separate page for each "enchantment on a stick" as a separate page from the "enchantment recipe", the very fact that I can forecast the category for it means someone will want it. (Edit: [Wizard Oil], [Smoking Heart of the Mountain] might disprove my preference...) (Further edit: okay... on adding enchantment scrolls TO Category:World_of_Warcraft_enchanting_crafted_items. Sorry...)

Part of the problem is that, in creating the augment category, we conflated "item that confers a permanent attribute" with "the permanent attribute conferred". Reasonable at the time, as there were enchantments, and "augment items", and the two didn't mix.

What I cannot identify, if we have it currently, is a category for "all things that occupy the permanent-added-attribute" slot on an item. (Come to think of it, do blacksmith socketings occupy this same slot, or are they a separate addition?) I also do not find a category specifically for "all tradeskill recipes that directly add a permanent attribute", though Enhancers comes close. Enhancers includes imbues, though, which occupy an entirely different mutually exclusive slot.

And on names for any of these hypothetical categories, Enchanting grandfathers in pretty much any name that could be confused with "enchantments".

Thoughts? --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 19:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a situation where Blizzard didn't deign to tell us how to group abilities that apply a permanent bonus. Sometime in the past there was an argument about using the terms augment, enhancement, and enhancer for various items that apply permanent bonuses and it was never fully resolved. I suggest we re-use one of those terms for abilities that apply permanent bonuses, since the use of those terms was never officially indicated anyway.

How about this:

Augment - An item that applies a permanent bonus to items and is consumed during application. Pretty well established in WoWWiki by now.
Enhancer - An ability that applies a permanent bonus to items on other players items (but can include the user of the ability's items) and usually consumes some ingredient to use.
Improvement - An ability that applies a permanent bonus only to the user of the ability's items and usually consumes some ingredient to use. Doesn't conflict with Enhancement which should probably be reserved for the Shaman talent tree and retired as a meaning for anything else.

Amplifier could be an alternative to improvement. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:10 PM PST 3 Apr 2009

Ok, I'm not getting those. Can you provide examples? All I could come up with is: Augment =

[Eternal Belt Buckle], enhancer = ? Only thing I can think of there is an enchant. Improvement = another enchant? The results of an enchanter putting mongoose on a weapon or on a scroll that someone else then uses on a weapon are identical, there's no difference between them aside from the presence of the weapon vellum. The end results are the same. They honestly seem pretty much the same to me. Do we really need a lot of oddball names for things that do the same thing? Items have one permanent change slot and one temporary change slot. You can put mongoose and a sharpening stone on one sword, or +35 agility and a mana oil, but you can't put crusader and a titanium weapon chain on the same weapon. --Azaram (talk) 07:55, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

We're talking about things like Eternal Belt Buckle which are not enchants, but apply permanent bonuses including [Runic Spellthread], [Fur Lining - Attack Power], [Jormungar Leg Reinforcements], [Titanium Plating], etc. Some of these are items and some are abilities. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:10 AM PST 6 Apr 2009

Here's the simple way to look at it, spells and items that overwrite each other are all enchants or augments depending on the source. The *only* thing that does not overwrite these are adding sockets from a blacksmith. These days the line between augment and enchant is fairly blurred thanks to enchanting scrolls, the old logic was augments are items and enchants were obtained directly from an enchanter via the "will not be traded" slot of the trade window. Personally I'd just call sockets an augment and give a note that they don't overwrite enchantments on the item. User:Tekkub/Sig 19:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Does [Socket Gloves] also stack with an enchantment? Don't know that anyone actually reads category descriptions, or I'd suggest a subcat under augments for the socketings (as well as on-page "doesn't take enchantment slot" note). --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 19:35, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a single coherent opinion on this yet, but I do have some opinion fragments: "Enchantment" should not be used to describe items or spells created by other professions. I lean away from "Enhance" simply because it looks too much like "Enchant" (and also the shaman talents). If there are only three slots -- permanent, temporary, and socketing -- then whatever word is used, they can be categorized as one of those 3 as well. IE we can call them Foobars, and then there are Permanent Foobars, etc. (and we don't need a special other word that means "Permanent Foobar"). It is not important (to me anyway) to name things differently depending on whether it's an item or an ability/spell that creates the enhancement. Whatever scheme is chosen, any new category names should be SHORT! I don't want "World of Warcraft Permanent Emngineering Waist Augment abilities". I guess that adds up to my 10c. -- Har vey drone 21:57, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

^-- What he said. --Azaram (talk) 10:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Could we all agree on that:

Imbue is a temporary enhancement, such as mana oils, spellstones etc.
Enchant(ment) is a permanent enhancement from an enchanter, or an item created by a profession, such as the leatherworking leg armor.
Augment is a permanent enhancement from an item that is not crafted, such as arcanums.

Blacksmithing sockets (Eternal Belt Buckle, blacksmith-only sockets) are a bit more complicated as they don't fit in either category. --g0urra[T҂C] 11:17, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Since there's no functional difference between the arcanums and a normal enchant made with a foo vellum, is there really a need for a different name...especially since there's only a couple of things named 'arcanum' anyway? It's an item that puts an enchant on a weapon/piece of armor. No real difference, except that the guy who makes it is an NPC instead of IrTehEnhcantarlolz. Personally, I'd lean toward 'add on' or 'addition' just because it's fairly clear, even if it's not in-world foofy. You can add on 40 spellpower, or 35 agility, or a set of spurs, or some oil that gives you mp5...

Eschewing Obfuscation, inter alia, --Azaram (talk) 02:15, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

The auction interface categorizes enchantment scrolls, belt buckles, armor kits and other permanent non-gem equipment upgrade items in Consumable > Item Enhancement, so I think we should consider "item enhancement" the official term. I'm not aware of any official general term for temporary item enhancements such as oils, sharpening stones and lures, the auction interface them in Consumable > Other. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 02:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

(Taking this discussion back to the top indentation level...)

Gourra - I think the definitions I used were...

Imbue - temporary (no change from current)

Augment - permanent (item intercessor)

Enchant - permanent (no object intercessor)

The trouble (as mentioned previously) being the connotations of Enchantment tradeskill upon anything bearing the word "Enchantment". Your definitions roll "enchantment scrolls" into the Enchant category, which I don't particularly object to (given the 1 to 1 mapping), but also rolls eg shield spikes in, which don't have a "non-object" mode.

Azaram - If there were more arcanums, there'd probably be a category for them specifically. Checked a few arcanums, though, and it appears that though they satisfy the "augment" definition, they currently don't have that category. Perhaps an oversight. They do have "leg enchant" and "head enchant" categories, though.

Gordon Ecker - I think "Item Enhancement" might be a good replacement for the "enhancers" category, though I'm not sure if it would solve any of the other issues. (Note my earlier comments about Imbues being a bit out of place among the permanent attribute items, but not having a good place for it to go.)--Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 22:28, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

"Item enhancement" is reasonably ok with me, but you didn't really answer my question... why do we need all these words to mean the same things? Since none of them are used in the game but 'enchant', anybody who sees them in the wiki is going to have to search to find which is what... and to what end? The 'Enchantments by slot' page is one of the most useful... and until I looked just now to get the page title, I'd never seen the Imbue page. Wouldn't even have known to look for it. --Azaram (talk) 10:38, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

We came up with Augment way back when because Blizzy had no nomenclature for the items. Enchants were not on vellums at that time, and the AH put a *lot* of items under "miscellaneous". It made sense back then. These days I agree that there isn't much need for distinction, and we normally try to stick to Blizzy's names unless they create more confusion (the old gem/jewel crap)... so I say enchants and augments should be rolled together into "Item enhancements". Maybe redirect Enchantments over to the same page, note that the two words can be used interchangeably, and link to the old by-slot page (which really should be broken up into pages for each slot). If smithy sockets are listed on any of these pages, they should include a bold note that they do "stack" with enchants because they aren't actually an enchant. User:Tekkub/Sig 18:02, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

That sounds best / least confusing to me... --Azaram (talk) 01:43, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

So does this mean Fur Linings should just be considered enchants even though you can't put them on other players? I don't like it. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 3:37 PM PST 16 Apr 2009

Since it's exactly like the enchants that enchanters can apply to their own rings, why? --Azaram (talk) 09:41, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The Patch 3.1.0 notes refer to

[Titanium Plating] as a "shield enhcantment", and refers to "engineering enchants" and "tailoring enchants", so it seems that "enchant" and "enchantment" now officially refer to anything which occupies an item's enchantment slot. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 00:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)