As everyone knows by now, Inscription is the new World of Warcraft profession. There are several detailed inscription guides available out there, but the basics of the profession are simple enough to grasp and, unlike other crafting professions, Inscription is relatively cheap to level. Especially if you pick your own herbs.

The Herbalism skill provides the raw materials for Inscription and the herbs that you will need are easy to find, they the standard herbs you see all over Azeroth and the Outlands. One of the unique features of Inscription is that the herbs requried for any one ink (more on inks below) can come from any of a group of herbs, not just one herb in particular.

For example, the Lion’s Ink, required for glyphs such as Eviscerate, Judgement, and many others, uses Grave Moss or Kingsblood or Liferoot or Wild Steelbloom. It makes no difference which one you use, so use the herb that’s easiest for you to gather or cheapest to buy off the Auction House.

All other mats needed (currently) for Inscription can be found off the Inscription supply vendor. All you need are the Virtuoso Inking set and the various papers.

What You Can Make

• Major glyphs
• Minor glyphs
• Vellum (allows an enchanter to make a scroll with an enchant on it, only armor vellums are available so far.)
• Scrolls (Agility 1-6, etc. )
• Cards (such as the Darkmoon Cards)
• Tomes (held in off hand, they add stats and ratings.)

How to Use/Install Your Glyphs

Every character from level 15 up has at least one slot available to install glyphs. Click the Glyphs tab at the bottom of your spellbook and you will see which slots are open to take glyphs. At level 70 you will have two major and three minor slots available. Here’s the breakdown:

• Level 15: 1 Major, 1 Minor.
• Level 30: 1 Major (total 2 Major, 1 Minor).
• Level 50: 1 Minor (total 2 Major, 2 Minor).
• Level 70: 1 Minor (total 2 Major, 3 Minor).
• Level 80: 1 Major (total 3 Major, 3 Minor).

One you have obtained the glyphs that you’re interested in you need to find a Lexicon of Power. These can be found near the Inscription Trainer in the any of the Capital cities, except Shattrath. Ask a guard for directions.

One you are near a Lexicon all you have to do is right click the glyph, your Glyph book will open up, and you just point the glyph to an open slot, in the same way that you enchant an item.

The glyphs are permanent, like gems or enchants, until you decide to drop in a different one to replace it. If you find you made the wrong choice in glyphs, just get a new one and drop it in over the bad one. Most of the glyphs are pretty cheap right now, so glyph swapping is painless. You can even stock a few for different occasions, such as switching from raiding to PvP.

Which glyphs are available? Just have a scribe post her list, browse the Auction House, or hop over to Thottbot.com. Remember, that not all minor glyphs are in the game yet.

Prices are pretty good now, since there are so many scribes the market is flooded for certain glyphs and the only expensive ones are the minors. Even those are far less expensive than other crafted items, enchants, or many gems.

Majors and Minors

With one exception, the minor glyphs, all the recipes for glyphs, cards, scrolls, etc are available from the trainers. I assume that more glyphs will eventually be available from drops, just as are recipes for other crafting professions, and we’ll probably see a few as reputation rewards at some point.

So it’s likely that right now every high level scribe in the game has every recipe available from the trainers. They’re cheap enough to learn.

Minor Glyphs are only available through Minor Inscription Research and that research can only be done once per 20 hours. It’s cheap enough to do, but that cooldown means that the sharpest Scribe in the game only had access to five minor glyphs 100 hours after the 3.0 patch dropped.

Just which minor glyph they get after researching is random, inscribers don’t get to pick from a minor glyph list.  Check the AH every few days for new minor glyphs and be prepared to possibly spend 50-100 gold for each one.

Here’s How Glyphs (and scrolls, etc.) are Made

It’s all the same process, regardless of what’s being scribed.

• Take a stack of 5 of the appropriate herb
• Mill it down into a pigment. You will get 1 -3 pigments from any stack of 5 herbs and you may get some rare pigments as well.
• Create an ink from the pigments (you will have the skill from the trainer. ) Inks require 1 or 2 pigments, depending on the ink.
• Grab the appropriate paper from the supplier
• Make your glyphs(s)

All glyphs, cards, etc., are made in the same way.

If you spend 40 gold on a stack of 20 herbs each milling (requiring 5 herbs) will cost you 10 gold. (This cost is a reason for you to think about taking the herbalism profession)

• You get 1-3 pigments per mill
• Inks require 1 or 2 pigments
• Glyphs require 1 or 2 inks.

As an example, if you spend the 40 gold on an herb stack and you have to mill 10 herbs to get 2 inks to make one glyph (paper costs are low,) that glyph will cost you 20 gold to make. Most glyphs (on Bloodscalp, anyway) aren’t selling for that much, though minor glyphs are. Buy your herb stacks at 10 gold each and your glyphs cost 5 gold to make.

By the way… How many stacks of herbs can you gather in an hour if they’re selling at 30 to 40 gold a stack? If you can find a place without too much competition? This is why leveling your herbalism skill might be a good plan. Check the Auction House for herb prices, first.

Inscription does provide some fun buffs. My Rogue will enjoy sprinting on top if the water, rather than swimming throug it, for example. It also provides some that aren’t so interesting, which is why you’ll see some glyphs selling for pennies.

Hey, if this is your first time here, consider subscribing to my news feed or even subscribe to this blog by email. Thanks for visiting!

Where Have the Herbs Gone?

I spent some time today on a couple of servers looking for herb bargains, to use for Inscription or to resell. As you might already know, many of the herbs needed for Inscription are being snapped up as soon as they appear.

So you’ll log into the AH, search for (herb) and see… nothing. Or you’ll see something, at about 10 times the price you were paying not so long ago. Peacebloom at 20+ gold a stack? Wow.

Herbalism For the Win!

Herbalism is the new mining, but better. Start a new toon and gather stacks of the basic herbs and you’ll be able to sell them for far more than you’ll sell copper ore or light leather.

Given the way Inscription research works there will be an ongoing increased demand for the low level herbs which means more gold in your pocket.

Prices will stabilize as more people start farming all the necessary herbs, but I think prices are going to be permanently somewhat higher and much higher in the short term. So if you have an Herb Gatherer, now’s your time.

Mining and Skinning Are Still Good

I also think ores and skins will see some degree of price rise. Why? People will drop one or the other skill (I dropped mining and I’ll drop skinning tomorrow) to get Herbalism and/or Inscription. More herb gatherers means fewer ore and skin gatherers, leading to a somewhat lower supply of those items with little decrease in demand. Hence, higher prices.

I’m sure that the Chinese (and other) farmers will also see this opportunity, which will dampen prices somewhat. Still, it’s a good time to be a gatherer.

Getting Your Skills Up Fast

If you want to level your Herbalism skills to take advantage of these prices then take a quick look at my quick and dirty herbalism leveling guide.

If you’re interested in a deeper guide to leveling your Herbalism and/or Inscription skills, then take a look at my review of Penn’s Profession’s Guide.

The other day I posted a guide on getting your Herbalism skill leveled quickly in preparation for the upcoming Inscription skill (rumored to be happening this Tuesday, the 14th.)

While Herbalism is as easy to level as any other gathering profession, Inscription will be a little tricker. I will likely write up a quick guide to that profession once I get it maxed, but Penn’s Guide does it better:

Penn’s Profession Guide has this to say about Inscription:

This profession is a powerfull one. It will give you the ability to create Scrolls & Glyphs. Scrolls will allow you to increase certain stats on your char for a limited amount of time. Glyphs will allow you to change the way your abilities work, such as reducing cooldowns or improving the effect of other spells/skills. You can also create Vellum which is an item that is used by Enchanters to allow them to create and sell an item that will do an enchant.

Inscription is similar, in a way, to the scrolls which youi find in-game, enchanting, and jewel socketing.

Glyphs work like scrolls in that you “read” it and you get the effect. The difference is that you will have certain slots available for both minor and major glyphs. The number available increases as you level, with none to start with and 3 of each at level 80.

Another difference from scrolls is that the glyphs will remain in effect until you replace them with another. Much like the gem socketing idea. Inscription is similar to Jewelcrafting in that way.

Enchanting, of course, also provides permanent buffs which can be changed on the fly. Obviously inscribers will be in at least as much demand as Enchanters or anything else that provides permanent buffs or enhancements.

Now, if you want to get your Herbalism and/or Inscription (or any other profession) leveled as quickly and efficiently as possible, then check out Penn’s Guide, ASAP.

Penn’s on Herbalism

Not only do you get better detail than what I included, you get the names and locations of all the trainers, Horde and Ally, and you get detailed maps for each individual herb.

For example, if you need to farm Khadgar’s Whisker, you’ll get a map of the best zones for that herb and a marked path to follow.

It’s not a total Herbalism guide, with details on every herb (and usage) in game, but it is a killer Herbalism leveling guide. (And the same applies to all the other professions.)

Inscription

I’m browsing my copy of Penn’s Guide now, in the Inscription section. It starts out with a description (see above,) related professions, and trainer names and locations.

Clicking the Start Leveling link takes me to a new page, with all the recipes that I’ll need on the left side. Starting at the top, I hit mill and I’m presented with a page that shows the exact herbs I’ll need, the quantities, any other purchases I need to make (such as parchments,) and what inks I’ll get as a result.

Once of the cool things about inscription milling is that you don’t need any exact herb to mill, you need any herb out of a group. So pick your favorite out of Peacebloom, Silverleaf, or Earthroot and go to town. You don’t need X of one and Y of the other. 100% of one will do just fine. Very cool.

Grabbing a random Glyph here, Glyph of Arcane Missiles, which is used in the guide to train from 115 to 125, you’re presented with the mats needed for this item and an estimated quantity of items that you will need to make (in case some creations don’t give a skillup.)

The page also lists all the herbs needed for the entire 75 to 150 section.

And the others

All the detail above applies to all the other professions in Penn’s Guide. Want to level fishing? Pick Fishing on the left side, then click Start Leveling, then the level range that you’re interested in, then the exact fish. You’ll see a map (on the bottom of the page) which shows you where to go to catch these fish.

My fishing is stuck at 205 or so, so I’ll be using this (later) to max out my fishing. as I already have all the herbs I need I expect to have my inscription maxed by Tuesday evening, assuming the patch actually lands then.

Are you an Enchanter? Same thing, all the details of what to get and when to get it that you’ll need to level that very expensive profession as quickly as possible.

And the same is true for all the other professions in the game.

Quibbles?

- Very few. Penn’s is not a gold guide, so you won’t get much in the way of tips on making money with your favorite profession (Zuggy’s Gold Guide is much better for that.) What you do get is detailed profession leveling instructions for every profession in WoW.

- There are a few typos here and there, but I didn’t see any that make the reading confusing. People who are instant typo detectors (my wife) will notice them, but most will skip right over them.

- The entire guide is online. It’s not a PDF, either. This isn’t really a quibble, but it is something to be aware of. Of course, this makes it much easier for the author to constantly update and tweak the guide.You log in and see that Inscription was just added. Very cool.

In Conclusion:

If all you’re doing is gathering herbs, ores, and skins then you don’t really need this guide, though the maps are nice.

If you want to master Inscription (or any other WoW profession) as quickly and painlessly as possible then Penn’s is the way to go.

Highly recommended, get your copy here.