Inscription Guide – How Inscription Works

 Professions  Comments Off on Inscription Guide – How Inscription Works
Oct 192008
 

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.

Leveling Inscription and Herbalism, Fast

 Professions, Reviews  2 Responses »
Oct 122008
 

Update, June 2011: Obviously Inscription has been out for some time now. It was quite the money make for awhile, but has cooled a bit. If you’re interested, here’s an Inscription leveling guide, updated for Cataclysm. If you want to make gold with this skill then look at our review of the Tycoon Gold Addon, which will show you which items are in demand and are selling for good prices.

The old post:

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.

Leveling Herbalism from 1 to 375

 Professions  2 Responses »
Oct 102008
 

A Guide to Leveling the Herbalism Skill

Wrath of The Lich King is right around the corner and with it comes the new skill, Inscription. Much like Alchemy, Inscription will be a great profession for Herbalists, since the herbs you gather will be used in the creation of the inks needed for Inscription.

So, with that in mind, I dumped my mining skill (at 375, poof!) and decided to raise Herbalism from zero.

This guide isn’t a complete Herbalism guide, with details on all the herbs out there and what to do with them (besides sell them,) it’s an Herbalism Leveling guide, intended to get you from 1 to 375 quickly.

Just some quick notes, then the guide.

As I leveled the skill, even though I’m on a PvP server, I saw few other players and little competition. This is on the Bloodscalp server so your mileage may vary.

Naturally you’ll need to be at least level 58 to do this since you’ll need to be able to go to Outlands to get your training and higher level herbs. It’s more interesting if you’re 58 on a PvP server.

The epic ground mount will save you some time and the epic flying mount (if you are 70 and have the cash) is sweet.

A very cool addon to use is Gatherer. Download it for free (donate if you want to) and read the documentation. If you import the WoWhead database you’ll find on the site, this little widget will show you where the various herbs (and ores and boxes) have been found by others previously.

If you’re using the Cartographer Addon the Gatherer data can be displayed on the Cartographer maps once you import the WoWhead database. This will give you a clear idea of which paths to follow to maximize your flower picking.

Make sure you hit your Herbalism trainer as you hit the skill caps at 75, 150, 225, and 300, just like any other profession.

Getitng started

Talk to your Herbalism Trainer, dump a skill if you have to, and get your 1st level Herbalism skill. Then just go to to your favorite starting area and start gathering Peacebloom and Silverleaf. I went to Eversong woods, but it’s all over the place in all the Horde starting areas.

If you’re Alliance you will nead to head over to Durotar… Just kidding. All the Ally starting areas are also rich in herbs.

Once the herbs in your area become green and aren’t giving you any skill improvements, you’ll want to go to the next higher area. For example, from Eversong Woods go to Ghostlands, or from Durotar/Mulgore go to the Barrens. Westfall and Loch Modan are decent areas, too.

After the Ghostlands, I went to Silverpine Woods, Hillsbrad, Arathi Highlands, then the Hinterlands, and lastly to Eastern Plaguelands. That got me to 300 skill. Next, I was off to Thrallmar (Honor Hold if you’re Ally) to get the Master Herbalist skill. Then I did a couple of loops around Hellfire Penninsula to get to 350 or so, then the rest at Zangamarsh.

Note, unless your skill is 300+ you won’t be able to pick anything in the Outlands.

If you’re leveling this skill in order to make specific potions you may want to modify your path a bit to target your preferred herbs.

Your starting area will yield:

Peacebloom, Silverleaf, and Earthroot (requires skill 15.) You’ll need 150 of these herbs in any combination to level your basic inscription skills.

The 10-20 area herbs:
I was in the Ghostlands, but you can find these in Durotar, Silverpine, Westfall, and Redridge. You’ll find:

  • Peacebloom, Silverleaf, and Earthroot,
  • Mageroyal, requires skill 50
  • Briarthorn, skill 70
  • Stranglekelp, skill  85 (take a water breathing potion.)
  • Bruiseweed, skill 100

In the 18-30 areas (Duskwood, Hillsbrad, and the Wetlands) you’ll find:

  • Mageroyal 50
  • Briarthorn 70
  • Stranglekelp 85
  • Bruiseweed 100
  • Wild Steelbloom 115
  • Grave Moss 120
  • Kingsblood 125
  • Liferoot 150

Grave Moss can be found in and around, you guessed it, graveyards.

Next up are the 30-40 areas. I went to the Arathi Highlands, but you can also go to Alterac mountains or other areas. Here’s what you’ll find there:

  • Stranglekelp 85
  • Bruiseweed 100
  • Wild Steelbloom 115
  • Grave Moss 120
  • Kingsblood 125
  • Liferoot 150
  • Goldthorn 170
  • Khadgar’s whisker 185
  • Wintersbite 195 (Saw very little of this one.)

There’s a lot of overlap between the Arathi/Alterac zones and Stranglethorn Vale, The Badlands, and Swamp of Sorrows. In STV and the Badlands you’ll find Purple Lotus. The Badlands has Firebloom, and the Swamp has Blindweed. Grab whichever area works best for your needs, including avoiding crowds and gankers.

  • Firebloom 205
  • Purple Lotus 210
  • Blindweed 235

The 40 -50 zone: I went to The Hinterlands next, and then to the Eastern Plaguelands. In the Hinterlands you’ll find

  • Purple Lotus 210
  • Ghost Mushroom 245
  • Golden Sansam 260
  • Sungrass 270

Killing the local trolls will result in some Wildvine drops.

In the Eastern Plaguelands (50+) I found:

  • Arthas’ Tears 220
  • Sungrass 230
  • Golden Sansam 260
  • Dreamfoil 270
  • Mountain Silversage 280
  • Plaguebloom 285
  • Black Lotus 300 (I didn’t see any of this.)

Ok, now you have your 300 skill and you’re ready to hit the Outlands. Get Master Herbalist when you hit your side’s main town in Hellfire (Thrallmar or Honor Hold,) and then do a few loops around Hellfire Peninsula and Zangamarsh. Unless you’re hunting specific herbs, you won’t need to go beyond Zangamarsh to hit 375.

In Hellfire Peninsula:

  • Golden Sansam 260
  • Dreamfoil 270
  • Mountain Silversage 280
  • Felweed 300
  • Dreaming Glory 315 (Picking this sometimes gives a nice regeneration buff)

In Zangamarsh:

  • Blindweed 235
  • Ghost Mushroom 245 (in caves)
  • Golden Sansam 260
  • Dreamfoil 270
  • Felweed 300
  • Dreaming Glory 315
  • Ragveil 325

You’ll sometimes see various motes (life, shadow, etc.) that will come with your Outland Herb picking, particularly from the Felweed.

Fel Lotus, (which sells for a nice price,) also has a (very small) chance to drop from any of the Outland herbs; the only one I saw came off a Felweed. It’s most commonly seen off of the Felweed, Dreaming Glory, Ragveil, and Flame Caps, all of which can be found in the Outlands. Last I heard it was about a 3% chance to appear.

Note: Wash any flowers before using (you know about those Alliance types,) and bring gloves just in case you’re allergic.

Now go pick some flowers!

edit: Penn’s Professions Guide has a better Herbalism guide than the above and a killer Inscription guide. Here’s my Penn’s Guide review if you want to check it out and get your own copy.

Inscription and Herbalism and …

 Professions  Comments Off on Inscription and Herbalism and …
Oct 072008
 

So I dumped mining as a profession in favor of Herbalism (on my 70 Rogue.)  I’m going to max this skill out, hopefully before the next big (3.0) patch, in preparation for the new Inscription profession.

As most of you know, Inscription is part of the soon to be released Wrath of the Lich King expansion for Wow. As a professions, Inscription requires herbs which are then milled into the inks needed to write the scrolls and glyphs that Inscription creates. So I’m going to build a huge mass of these flowers and such and when the skill goes live I’m going to powerlevel it.

Most of these scroll and glyphs are not “Bind on Pickup,” so inscribers will be able to keep their guilds stocked with scrolls and glyphs.

Anyone out there interested in an Inscription guide? If so, if there anything in particular you’d like to see in it?

Leveling Inscription in Wrath

 Professions  4 Responses »
Sep 302008
 

Inscription is coming in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and with it is another opportunity to do something with that herbalism skill.

Too Many Annas has the story on what kind of herbs you’ll need to level Inscription, as well as a link to the Inscription 101 Guide.

Siha recently posted a fantastic and extensive guide to leveling inscription in the upcoming patch (3.0) – kind of as a head-start for the expansion.

Now, I’m not one to get too into this whole beta business, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but with a release date announced and patch 3.0 on the PTR, we’re going to see some changes to BC before we actually see the Lich King CDs on our desks. And, well, I’m all for being prepared – especially on an old server (Feathermoon has been around since release) with extremely high prices for EVERYTHING, even low level stuff. Right now stacks of low level herbs are selling for around 5g on a good day, and that’s well before anyone is going to actually use them to level inscription!

The rest: Stashing Herbs

edit: I’ve posted an herbalism leveling guide (to prepare for Inscription) and a review of Penn’s Professions Guide, which will help you to power level your Inscription skills.

Update 3/20:  Well, inscription has been around awhile, now. Any thoughts? A commenter says, “the info looks less..why don’t u provide on this..”  Parsing the mangled English, I think he’s asking for an inscription guide on this site? I wrote one, but it’s on GotWarcraft.com, here: leveling inscription.

You’ll find that Inscription is pretty easy to level and far less expensive to level than any of the other crafting professions. It has some cool items just for the scribe, too. Oh yeah, it’s also a major cash generator as far as I’m concerned.

Update on Wrath of the Lich King Release

 wrath of the lich king  1 Response »
Sep 162008
 

As I mentioned previously, the pre-order page for Wrath of the Lich King is up on Amazon.com.

The release date has been moved from Nov 3 to Nov 13 (darn close to my Birthday!) Given that Blizzard is willing to let release dates slide if things need more work I wouldn’t say the 13th is etched in stone, but it’s probably close.

edit: Since it’s on the front page of the official World of Warcraft site that date’s probably pretty well etched. Still, don’t be too surprised if it slides a bit.

Get yours here: World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Expansion Pack

So just off the top of my head, here’s a reminder of what’s coming in November:

  1. [tag-tec]Deathknights[/tag-tec] are coming, hide now.
  2. All classes will have new talents, changed talents, and the talent trees are being shifted around. Hopefully Bliz gives us all a free respec.
  3. Level 80. Who’s gonna get there first? The guys playing 24/7? The writers of the leveling guides? Nyhm?
  4. New cooking recipes (some of which will be in our cookbook.)
  5. The Inscription profession. Glyphs will be inscribed onto your naked flesh with Raptor Claw pens… Oh, waitaminute… wrong game.
  6. Modified professions
  7. New daily quests and badges from those quests, which will allow you to buy high end recipes for various professions.
  8. Northrend. ’nuff said.
  9. A new BG and Arena to slaughter alliance in.
  10. New dungeons, raids, and some changes to the raiding system.
  11. Various buffs, nerfs, and bugs. Hope they fix the “randomly fall off your mount and die, while flying way up high” one.
  12. And a partridge in a pear tree…

Word has it that Bliz is going to provide a free patch that will incorporate a lot of the Wrath changes. I expect this is to make sure that people who don’t buy Wrath are still on, more or less, the same page as those who do buy it.

This will be a huge download, but will be handled as a background process so it shouldn’t force long waits on people. Estimated time on a dial-up connection is 3 weeks, 2 days… (just kidding, I think.)

When does it happen? Real Soon Now.

Get your Wrath on Amazon, here.

By the way, you DO have to have Burning Crusade installed in order to play Wrath.

Edit: There is going to be a Wrath Collector’s Edition, but it’s going to be hard to find. Here’s the link to the Amazon page, but as I write this it’s only available from Amazon’s 3rd party sellers. For the low low price of just $300.00 (no, that’s not a typo.)
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector’s Edition

If you want it then check back to the Amazon page every now and then, to get the Amazon price just in case they get some in. Or camp your local game store.