THE WOW FOREVER COLLECTION · DISPATCH · RESEARCH CHECKED NOVEMBER 1, 2026
Short answer: WoW Forever launches on November 4 without enchanting vellums. You can only put an enchant on an item by opening a trade window with the enchanter (or by being the enchanter), so enchants can't go on the Auction House and you can't make one on your main and mail it to an alt. Players have been asking for vellums since the first week of the beta, and the argument has blown up again this weekend. Blizzard hasn't replied in any of the threads, so there's nothing to suggest vellums will be in at launch.
How big the argument is
This isn't one angry post. On the US forums alone, the main threads look like this as of Sunday morning:
| Thread | Started | Posts |
|---|---|---|
| Enchanting Vellums PLEASE | October 23 | 317 |
| I dont think people realize QOL destroys the quality of the game (the case against) | October 29 | 283 |
| Enchanting is not alt friendly? | October 28 | 261 |
| Enchanting needs Vellums | September 29 | 243 |
| Why is Vellums not a big subject? | November 1 | 151 |
| No Vellum because of community/flavor? | October 26 | 42 |
The September thread has over 5,000 views and more than 1,000 likes. The newest one went from zero to 150 replies in about eight hours overnight. The EU forums have their own: "Enchanting vellums" (90 posts, October 22) and "Enchanting Vellum" (58 posts, October 13).
No Blizzard employee has posted in any of them. The September thread is full of people asking "Any word from blizzard on this issue?" and nobody from Blizzard has answered. Vellums didn't come up in any of the six WoW Forever podcasts either, and the official beta development notes don't mention them.
What vellums are, and where they came from
A vellum is a blank scroll an enchanter can target instead of a piece of gear. The enchant is stored on the scroll, and whoever holds it can apply it later. That's what lets enchanters list enchants on the Auction House and mail them to alts.
People keep calling them a Wrath feature or a retail feature, and the first is roughly right. Armor Vellum and Weapon Vellum arrived in patch 3.0.2, the Wrath of the Lich King pre-patch in October 2008. Scribes made them with the then-new Inscription profession, and they came in three tiers depending on the enchant's level. Patch 4.0.1 in Cataclysm merged them into one all-purpose Enchanting Vellum, and later enchanting vendors sold it too. Even then, a vellum couldn't enchant an item sitting in the trade window's "will not be traded" slot, so face-to-face enchanting never went away.
So in 2004 enchanting worked the way Forever has it now, and Blizzard added the fix four years later. Wowhead's WoW Forever database has no vellum item at all, which fits with nobody expecting them on day one.
The case for vellums
The arguments for vellums keep coming back to the same few points.
Every other crafter can use the Auction House. Blacksmiths, Leatherworkers, Tailors and Alchemists can post what they make and go back to questing. Enchanters have to stand in a capital and advertise. One poster put it bluntly: why should Enchanting be "the only one that has to stand there like a fool spamming?" Armor kits, which do almost the same job as an enchant, already go on the Auction House.
Forever has no realms. On a 2004 server everyone knew the two or three good enchanters. Forever is realmless, with one big world per ruleset, so Trade chat in Orgrimmar or Stormwind is going to be far busier. Several posters say enchanting will end up "ruled by spamming, addons and bots", and players who remember Classic in 2019 know that auto-whisper and auto-invite addons were already grabbing the first reply to every "LF enchanter" back then.
Alts. The "not alt friendly" thread is the most practical one. If you level an enchanter on your main, the only way to enchant an alt's gear is to enchant Bind on Equip items before you mail them over. Once something is soulbound on your alt, your own enchanter can't touch it. Every other profession lets you craft and mail.
Scams and gold. Trading mats to a stranger means trusting them not to log off with your Large Brilliant Shards. And since Blizzard started banning RMT accounts in the beta, some enchanters worry about tips. Kaivax's October 27 post said Blizzard had actioned accounts that had bought gold "delivered to a different player who provided a service", and told players to "always directly transfer gold from the player buying the carry (or other activity) to the player providing the carry." A customer tipping their enchanter directly is exactly what that post asks for, so normal enchanting isn't the case it describes. But enchanters still have no way of knowing where a stranger's gold came from, and with temporary economy holds in the game, some would rather not take payment from strangers at all. Vellums would let them sell through the Auction House instead.
The case against
The other side is just as loud, and some of the people making it are enchanters.
The main argument is that enchanting is one of the few things in the game that makes you talk to another player, and that a Classic-style game should keep it. "Receiving enchants from players is a huge part of the classic vibe," one reply in the 317-post thread says. Another poster, who says they're an enchanter, votes no because vellums "strongly encourage the breakdown of social interactions between players."
The 283-post "QOL destroys the quality of the game" thread is broader. It's about friction in general (mob tagging, respec costs, travel), and the argument there is that every convenience sounds harmless on its own but together they turn Forever into retail. Vellums are one of the examples people use on both sides. The "slippery slope" reply shows up a lot: first vellums, then a dungeon finder, then LFR. Blizzard has already said there's no Group Finder and no summoning stones at launch, and a "please do not add a retail style automatic dungeon finder" thread passed 150 posts this week, so that fear isn't only about enchanting. The pro-vellum side answers that some things in 2004 weren't a design choice. Blizzard just hadn't built the better version yet.
There are middle-ground ideas too. EU players have suggested making vellums expensive, giving them a cooldown, or making them account-bound so they only solve the alt problem. One suggestion was a profession version of the group finder, where you list yourself as an enchanter and customers find you. None of these has come from Blizzard.
What enchanting in Forever does have
The profession itself got a decent update. According to the beta data we used for our Enchanting leveling route, most early formulas need about half the dust they did in Classic, Runed Copper Rod uses a new reagent called Mote of Magic, and enchanters get staff, wand and necklace enchants, with ring enchants shown at the reveal. Enchanters also add camp features to the campfire system: the Enchanted Lute at 20, the Arcane Salvager at 140 and the Arcane Forge at 300. None of that changes the selling problem, but if you're deciding on a profession it's still worth a look. Our professions page compares the passive bonuses each one gives.
What to do on November 4 if you're an enchanter
Until Blizzard says otherwise, plan for 2004 rules.
- Enchant your alts' gear before it binds. Bind on Equip gear can be enchanted on your main and then mailed. Once it's soulbound, only another player's enchanter can do it.
- Use the "will not be traded" slot. As in Classic, customers can put their item there so it never actually changes hands, which takes away one of the main scam worries.
- Take tips straight from the customer. That's what Blizzard's October 27 post asks for. Don't accept payment through a middleman.
- Lean on your guild and friends. In a world without realms, the Familiar Faces system that keeps you near people you've grouped with is the closest thing to a server where people know the good enchanters.
- Don't count on Enchanting for early gold. Every Classic launch has taught the same thing: in the first weeks, disenchanting and selling dust makes more money than selling enchants. If you just want gold, look at gathering instead.
What happens next
Blizzard hasn't said anything for or against vellums, and with three days to launch there's no build data showing them. Forever's big updates are planned about every four months, and Blizzard has changed course after big forum threads before (the RP-PvP ruleset went from "no plans" to launch in a week). If enchanters spend launch week stuck in Trade chat, this will probably come up in the first post-launch podcast. We'll update this page if Blizzard responds.
Sources: Enchanting needs Vellums, US forums (September 29, 2026); Enchanting Vellums PLEASE, US forums (October 23, 2026); No Vellum because of community/flavor?, US forums (October 26, 2026); Enchanting is not alt friendly?, US forums (October 28, 2026); I dont think people realize QOL destroys the quality of the game, US forums (October 29, 2026); Why is Vellums not a big subject?, US forums (November 1, 2026); Enchanting Vellum, EU forums (October 13, 2026); Enchanting vellums, EU forums (October 22, 2026); Please do not add a retail style automatic dungeon finder, US forums (October 30, 2026); Kaivax, Gold Transactions Must Be Direct (October 27, 2026); Blizzard, World of Warcraft: Forever Goes Live Globally November 4; Warcraft Wiki, Enchanting Vellum and Armor Vellum patch history (checked November 1, 2026).