WotLK - Inscription
Posted on August 2nd, 2008 by Lithanial under Auction House, General Tips
Wrath of the Lich King will be introducing a new profession to the game upon release that stands to have a very large impact upon the game economy. There is currently little in the way of comprehensive information available about Inscription but what little we do know puts you in a position to exploit the changes that Inscription implementation will have on the game as a whole.
So what do we know about Inscription?
To begin with, we know Inscription is a crafting style profession that is fueled by the gathering profession herbalism. All inscriptions seem to be created by a mixture of inks and parchments; parchment is bought from a vendor while inks are created either directly from raw herbs, or from a pommace.
A pommace is created by the process of milling herbs; this works in a similar fashion to a jewelcrafter’s prospecting ability but renders down stacks of 5 herbs rather than ore.
Once an ink is made an inscriber can create a variety of items with them, all of which have the potential for resale. The first items that are created by an inscriber are scrolls such as a scroll of intellect. Previously these were only found randomly throughout the world to give yourself temporary buffs to your raw stats but will now also be created by an inscriber. By utilizing scrolls, a player can ensure they remain fully buffed even when soloing.
The second important creation from an inscriber is the combination of Bleached Parchment and Treated Vellum. These two items can be utilized by enchanters to store enchants within. With an enchant stored within, an enchanter can then place the item on the auction house for use by others to use on their own equipment without needing to directly trade with an enchanter.
Finally an Inscriber can create Glyphs. Each character in the game will be given 6 Glyph slots of varying power. A Glyph will act to change the properties of certain spells either cosmetically or through significant increases in power; as such Glyphs will be in demand from all high level players capable of utilizing them.
Minor Glyphs will largely only be cosmetic changes to add more character to spells or slightly increase usability without any real change in a spells’ power; effects will include increasing the duration of buffs or changing of a spells’ graphics.
Lesser Glyphs provide small game play changes to a spell by reducing its costs or providing minor power boosts without massive changes to the ability; examples would be reducing the rage cost of debuffs or increasing the chance of certain attacks hitting.
Greater Glyphs will significantly improve the way in which an ability works and will be the most sought after glyphs. An inscriber will get an additional Greater Glyph slot compared to other players as a profession advantage. Examples of Greater Glyph effects will be to improve your spell damage or add secondary effects such as snares or knockback resistance to them.
So, how can you exploit this profession to the fullest? The answer is simple; when inscription is implemented the demand for herbs is going to skyrocket. Not only will people need low level herbs to raise their skill level in inscription, but in the long term, Inscription demand for herbs will continue to be high as other players demand Scrolls and Glyphs.
Those who are prepared will be able to stock up on a large variety of herbs and sell them for a fortune on release of the expansion; you won’t even need to be an herbalist to benefit. Simply scour the auction house to build up a stockpile and seek to dominate the market.
(Keep in mind that the last time Lithanial gave a gold-making tip Lawbringer tested the information on several servers - and made more than 15,000 gold on one toon in less than two weeks. You have several months before the xpac comes out, if I were you I would follow Lithanial’s advice and buy every herb you can get your hands on for the next couple of months. The release of the expansion will mean massive profits as demand rises through the roof if you can control the supply of herbs of all levels to the ah!)
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Great news for herbalist!
I gonna make a toon just to store herb now.
HELL, IT’S ABOUT TIME. I play with a partner so we always have a group and among our many characters (we each have about 8 characters on each server we play) I chose one of mine to be the enchanter. How devestating then that I can enchant all of my partners characters gear but only the gear of my enchanter itself. In terms of personal use, Enchanting is as “Bind on Pick up” of a proffesion as Engineering. But no longer!
As for herbalism, that is also a welcome inclusion to have a use for it besides alchemy. If Insription required mining I would have to go down to the Blizzard headquaters and go on a rampage.
Peacebloom now a valuable herb? Is the sky raining fire?
is there much point when people can just go to the AH and get them for cheaper than we would be selling them for?
Actually, that IS the point. When inscription goes live herb prices will leap and they won’t be able to get them at the ah for cheaper any more. All prices will rise, so the herbs you got for regular ah prices will be bargains. When everyone else raises their prices by probably double or so, you will still be able to undercut them and except a 75% profit.
already prices for herbs are going up as people are clearing out the ah constantly they go up slightly in price each time
well as far as the point of selling them they are basically saying dominate the market now by buying everything you can get a hold of. Then when the expansion comes out sell it all for much more than you bought it for increasing your profit with minimum ammounts of gold
of course there is a reason cause come the XP and there will be no “cheap” herbs left in the AH they will be bought out instantly. and if you have a large enough stockpile your bound to make plenty more than your investment back.
and if someone does put up auction lower than yours. Buy it out. simple it seems to me. i’m goin now to check on some herbs at the AH.
i have bought now 2000+ Gold worth of misc herbs.
Thanks!
Great tip, time to start stocking up on herbs!
Great information. I have a 70 warlock with 375 herb, but i haven’t played him in a while. i’ll have to make my new druid herb
so, that’s also means when my 55 Death Knight pick up Inscription & Herb, he will have to run back to starting area to get silverleaf…..
/buys every herb
Well one thing that I’ve learned from playing this game is Blizzard is not stupid and they love backdooring you with something they failed to mention eg, splitting voids, oh but you have to be 375, have some ungodly enchanting item, have to wait until the phase that releases the item OH and its 12 hour CD. So all these things they are given DK and that inscription will be Herb base, i will find it very amusing if you can only level inscriptions with Northrend herbs. Don’t think it will be as simple as it seems to be. Always read between the lines…
I made a lot of money from buying void stones before the patch.
Sure it wasn’t a 300% increase but it was significant…like from 20g each to 30ish :O 2000g to 3000g is still nice in my books
Plus how much would people complain if they had to reach level 70 to level inscription o.o;;;; Blizzard is smart, your right, but Herbs have never been as valuable as say… Mining. And considering some herbs are almost as hard to find, it’s a bit unfair. So I think it’s reasonable to assume that they would increase the value of herbalism by adding additional an use for it.
just like jewelcrafting however, inscriptions will start low using the old skool starting zone herbs, and continue onwards. so they wont do it that way as professions are made to be able to be leved at the same time as you elvel, so the items your making use items easily avaliable at your level but also as weak as your level
I believe Taborious makes an excellent point. While I doubt the whole proffesion would require Northrend herbs, no one knows just what it will take so its a tad premature to collect any herb you see on the market. I think you would feel pretty foolish if you bought 2000g worth of herbs to realize only half are useful.
On another note, although everyone wants to give the new proffesion to their Death Knight, don’t! Give it to a lowbie or any character you have that has already leveled herbalism. Considering (or assuming) herb prices are going to sky rocket, you are going to want to have your own herb supply, and why level herbalism from scratch?
hmm thinking about that you could be right
while the demand for herbs will go up overnight, there will also be 10,000 death knights on each server running around herbing more than they need and selling it, so the supply will go up as well. not sure if there will be as big a jump as people are hoping for.
deathknights are starting at lvl 55 (from memory have to double check) so they wont be hanging around starting zones farming as tehy level up.
yay for my lvl 70 herbalist/alchemist shamie!!!!
this is gonna be sweet….epic flying here I come!
For all you people who think that people will honostly stick around and farm herbs for oh say 300 levels will be in for a shock. If there is one thing I’ve learned it’s that people tend to be lazy. Although i dont discount that people some people will go and relevel it ( I will on my DK thus completeing my gathering professions). For every one person who levels it as it should be there will be at least a dozen who will power level. I have been stockpiling herbs from before this post. I was also in on the big JC rush and i fueled all the shammies (using nuetral AH) with an extra one handed weapon when they got there new talent. I doubt this will be any different than the previous “Crazes”. And yes any herbs I dont use on my DK (inscripting and herbing) will be shipped off to… you guessed it the AH. The only unfortunate thing is that with this sorta stuff getting out the prices for everything are increasing each day since I started (starting at about 2g (high) for a stack of earthroot now at about 5g (high)). I also plan to only dabble in low levels becuase the upper levels will be a lil more common to find (with the DK craze suporting them) not to mention all the outlanders who will be saving up there herbs.
Well, i know it’s been a while since i’ve posted. been busy in game. but i see this as an even better chance to maximize the utility of ALL Herbs. ESPECIALLY RARE ones. aka Ghost Mushroom and Black Lotus as well as Swiftthistle for low levels. Farm up fellas. I got a feeling it’s going to get intresting..
maybe they could help skinners and use leather too, come on bliz!
ok this is great but exactly what herbs should we be buying? the low lvl stuff like peacebloom and silverleaf, or the higher end stuff like say Arthas’ tears ( idk im not herb)? i have no luck with gold and this just might be a great help
MAN at last. thank u blizz. the auction on my server sucks atm for herbs and as a resto druid with alch and herbs i suffer for it. on avergae using gatherer (btw it is THE best addon 4 herb/mining . ) will take me 1 hour (slow flight form) 2 farm a stack of 30 ragveil. sounds all fine and dandy right so i stroll / flap along 2 AH thinking will make myself a nice little 30-40 g …….. stack of 30 on AH 15g R U HAVING A LAUGH one of the rarest and most useful herbs at 70 15g -.- and ppl ask my y i struggle 2 even gem my gear out sometimes
Low levels are dangerous here because of the fact that many people will start an alt and whilst their leveling it, pick up herb and boost theire hgiher lvl DK with it, ( I will ) :D, I Just think that you guys should really think about looking at the 30-50 zones for herbs because the lower ones will be alt raped and the upper ones will be DK raped. you gotta grab that middle ground imo…
and at 2 70s im not doing too well…
hope sum1 makes a mint on this because i just can never be bothered to spend even 1/2 an hour which might make me the pile of gold i want … still waiting to earn for my epic flyer
hey gavin have you worked inscrition yet ? hmm id really like to get a chance at it my self so i can try and make a decent guide. for our readers.
gavin? any new info?
Nothing more yet. The latest Beta patch on 8-22 did not expand Inscription past skill level 125 or so, so we are still waiting further information from inside the game itself.
I took herbing from 0-375 in today checked the auction and I roughly had about 2k gold in random herbs, how much will it be in wotlk? no one knows…but I’m going to keep stocking up and probably gold cap XD