Netherweave Pants

I have done some research to conclude what tailoring item to craft for disenchanting. At an initial look I concluded the only options worth comparing would be Netherweave Belt (or the bracers in the same set) and Netherweave Pants. The belt costs half as much cloth to make but the pants are more valuable for disenchanting. So it came down to some basic math to see which one would be most economic to spam.

Price assumptions:

Netherweave Cloth 15s each
Rune Thread 45s each
Arcane Dust 1g50s each
Lesser Planar Essence 2g each
Greater Planar Essence 6g each
Small Prismatic Shard 6g50s each
Large Prismatic Shard 25g50s each

(somewhat simplified prices based on my home server - adjust if your server's prices are very different; I assume 10% discount with the vendor, could be lower or higher depending on faction standing; also lesser essences and small shards may have distorted prices on the market sometimes but I always just treat them as one-third of the larger item)

Netherweave Belt:

Costs 3 Bolts of Netherweave and 1 Rune Thread
Total cost = (cloth: 3 x 6 x 15s) + (thread: 45s) = 3g15s

Disenchants to
75% 2-3 Arcane Dust (average 2.5)
20% 2-3 Lesser Planar Essence (average 2.5)
5% 1 Small Prismatic Shard
Average value = (dust: 0.75 x 2.5 x 1g50s) + (essence: 0.2 x 2.5 x 2g)
+ (shard: 0.05 x 6g50s) = 4g13s75c

Profit = 4g13s75c - 3g15s = 98s75c

Netherweave Pants:

Costs 6 Bolts of Netherweave and 1 Rune Thread
Total cost = (cloth: 6 x 6 x 15s) + (thread: 45s) = 5g85s

Disenchants to
75% 2-5 Arcane Dust (average 3.5)
20% 1-2 Greater Planar Essence (average 1.5)
5% 1 Large Prismatic Shard
Average value = (dust: 0.75 x 3.5 x 1g50s) + (essence: 0.2 x 1.5 x 6g)
+ (shard: 0.05 x 25g50s) = 7g01s25c

Profit = 7g01s25c - 5g85s = 1g16s25c

The conclusion, if all my math is correct, and given the above market prices, is that the Netherweave Pants are the better item to craft.

An added consideration is the time spent making each individual item and disenchanting it (and possibly mailing between characters if your tailor and enchanter are not the same toon). Even if the belt / bracers were slightly more profitable, it's more time consuming to process so you should still go for pants.

It's been a while since I was doing this for profit but I remember doing belts back then because the price of Arcane Dust was higher, so the same calculation revelead it to be better. The belt is more economical for producing dust so if you can sell stacks of 20 dust for 40g or more then you should probably do belts instead (all other prices being equal).

If you have 275 enchanting, these are a nice easy way to get arcane dust and sometimes greater planar essence. I usually average 4 arcane dust from DE'ing these, sometimes 5, and sometimes 2 greater planar essence.

For half the netherweave, you can make the lower level netherweave belt and bracers. I find you get about half the enchanting mats, but with the 50s cost of rune thread, making these is probably a bit more profitable in the long run.