Inscription: where is it going, what is it doing, and why is the rum gone

I write this on the eve of the 2nd phase of the pre-patch roll-out, presumably with more pre-patch events.

The profession of Inscription has taken a drastic turn, but I have to say that most of that turn has nothing to do with the pre-patch, but rather the AH merging of commodities several weeks ago now.

Let me be more precise.

First of all, let’s recall how money making in Inscription works.

• First, you determine how many inks you will need to produce your glyphs.
• Then, you determine the best herb to buy and mill for maximum yield of necessary pigments (umbral, in this case) to support the creation of glyphs.
• Then, you create said glyphs and sell them for a fixed percentage over cost of manufacture.  Basic economics, there, chief.

Since the introduction of the multi-realm commodity auction house, prices of herbs have crashed. Generally, what was hovering around 4g per, is now hovering around 1g per.

That’s a good thing, right?

Well, there’s a mirror to that, and that is that the cost of producing glyphs is likewise commoditized. Glyphs are also a commodity (stackable) across the same realms, so the sell price has in this case crashed.  Where we had a comfortable, sustainable market in glyphs (even though they were 100% cosmetic as opposed to functional), now it’s a market operating on razor-thin margins. And this is a problem.  Previously, Inscription was a very sustainable way to make gold with out really trying. Now, it’s starting to look a lot like work.

Now, I am not going to start freaking out just yet.

First of all, we are in the flux period between expansions. The Old is fading, the New has not begun. It is probable that there will be an increase in sale prices for glyphs once the new herb (and therefore the new inks, and therefore the new currency for ink traders) settles in.  That will not be a data point we can measure until 2022-11-28.

But let’s not forget the original source of this issue, that being the merging of commodity items into whatever realm “grouping” you might be in. That is the  existing cause of the market crash for glyphs, and I really don’t see it just going away for DF.  So, counter-point, the new market emerges with higher prices for glyphs, but also higher cost for mats and thus not much positive action for profits.

I had had hopes that Inscription would get a new coat of paint in this expansion. Sadly, I think the core crafting changes pretty much ruled out any fundamental changes to Inscription, which is unfortunate. While I feel we should move Inscription back from a cosmetic to a functional craft (similar to, but co-existing with enchanting), I understand that that will take a little bit of planning and such to implement. I just hoped it would be now. We already had our move from the broken tier system for talents, I figured, why not have glyphs re-enter the stage as enhancements on abilities, similar to how enchantments are enhancements on items.

At this points I run out of words, as even the PTR does not present me with options relevant to Dragonflight, but rather it is still anchored to Shadowlands and the old crafting system. I am not worthy of Beta, which, to be fair, I am not actively seeking, either. I have a moral code. But it is at moments like this that it all falls apart.

But currently, it appears that Inscription in Dragonflight will be identical to that in Shadowlands. Sure, the pigments and inks will be different, but it will still boil down to herbs –> inks –> ink trader –> glyph.  Now, for a couple of expansions the ink trader went AWOL without any forthcoming explanation, so it is not outside of possibility that the ink trader in Oribos will remain the MVP of Inscription for the next 18 months or however long it takes. I hope not. I hope many things in this regards, but, in all honesty, it really looks like we’re being sent to the back row for this expansion – possibly even worse.

Inscription in Shadowlands: some disappoint.

Investigating for YOU

I’ve foray’d into the PTR and, if it is accurate, there are zero changes regarding glyphs in the new expansion.

We’ve always previously seen some glyphs dropped, some added, in the pre-patch.  But in this expansion there are zero changes.

This is an incredibly disquieting development (or rather, lack of).  Kind of makes you wonder if we’re seeing the final days of Glyphs.

Okay, so, considering that there are zero changes regarding glyphs – all glyphs that existed before, are still there, and there are no new glyphs – then this is what is what Scribes can expect from the new expansion. Brace yourselves – it’s pretty disappointing.

Inks

We get, as best I can tell, three new inks.

• Tranquil Ink (green)
• Luminous Ink (normal)
• Umbral Ink  (normal)

Each requires a pigment of the same name, plus Aerated Water and Rune etched vial.  Pretty much like we had in BfA – RGB.

Vantus Runes

The same old crap is carried forward.  Rather than per-boss as Legion did, we’re per-Raid as with BfA.  Which is fine by me, but, I need to point out, in these BfA required more in mats than it sold for. So I expect these to be of minimal usefulness.

•  Vantus Rune: Castle Nathria

Equipment

We get a few bits and pieces here. Past experience indicates that this stuff will be quickly outpaced by raiding content.

• Fae Revel Masque (Cosmetic, so not likely to go “out of style”)
• Soul Keeper’s Column (staff)
• Soul Keeper’s Spire (staff)
• Newly Departed Codex (off-hand) (and might I add, sounds like a Beetlejuice callback)

Darkmoon Cards

The usual dealy here. Crank a card. Get a random.  The Death recipe is the usual deal, except occasionally it produces a blank card of one of the four suites.  That’s where the other four recipes come in.

• Death – Randomly one of the four suits
• Putrescence
• Repose
• The Indomitable
• Voracity

Optional Reagents

These items represent a new feature of crafting. Basically, depending on whether you have learned them, these can be applied as an optional reagent to gear you are crafting. I’m not sure if they are soulbound or not, but, if they are, they’re immediately worthless.  It looks like all professions have a version of this, which also means the market will be flooded if they ARE sellable.

• Novice Crafter’s Mark
• Crafter’s Mark I
• Crafter’s Mark II
• Crafter’s Mark III
• Crafter’s Mark IV

New item type, ensures an item has a specific spec.  This works similar to the Crafter’s Marks.  From the looks of it, only Scribes can make these, so it looks like this might be a source of income.

• Critical Strike
• Haste
• Mastery
• Versatility

Contracts

We know what these do. Past experience indicates that these quickly devalued and cost more to make than they sold for.

• Court of Harvesters
• The Ascended
• The Undying Army
• The Wild Hunt

Books and Scrolls

Not sure why we have to have a codex/tome per expansion for this. Seems pretty stupid TBH. (and thus, Grimmtooth is forbidden early access in the future. Suck it, Blizz).

• Codex of the Still Mind
• Tome of the Still Mind
• Writ of Grave Robbing – this is basically a lockpicking scroll.

Mass Milling

So these are the various herbs that we get to harvest?

These appear to follow the pattern of BfA, more or less, in that particular herbs are not bound to particular zones.

• Deathblossom
• Marrowroot
• Nightshade
• Rising Glory
• Vigil’s Torch
• Widowbloom

Inscription is Facked.

I’ve been long delayed in my report on BfA inscription.  A large part of that delay has been Blizzard’s delay in implementation of a reasonable system for Scribes to create Glyphs.

Lemme essplain.  No. Is too much. Lemme summarize.

Starting in the expansion following (3.0) the introduction of Glyphs (2.0), Blizz offered a mechanism for Scribes to create glyphs that were introduced in every expansion. In short, the Ink Trader.  The Ink Trader allowed you to exchange whatever the current expansion’s primary ink for inks from previous expansions.  So, for example, if you were in the Cataclysm expansion, you could exchange Blackfallow Ink for any ink required to create glyphs in Vanilla, BC, or WotLK. In MoP, then you could exchange inks from that expansion for older inks. And so forth. I hope you’re keeping up.

Which brings us to the most notable absence from the current expansion.  Normally, at the introduction of the x.0 patch for an expansion, the Ink Traders in all faction hubs (Stormwind, Shattrath, etc as an example) would provide an exchange of whatever that expansion’s most common ink was for any other ink in the game. For example, in Legion, we could exchange Roseate Pigment for inks from previous expansions.

But now we’re in weird territory.

When BfA rolled, we expected an Ink Trader in the faction cities to accept one of the inks from the current expansion (we figured it would be Ultramarine Ink) for inks from previous expansions. But we found nothing. At that point, the previous expansion (Legion) still held sway. So the only way to create inks for all expansions was: farm Legion inks (Roseate Pigment) or go gather herbs on the continents from the previous expansions, and mill them. This was less than optimal. In a world where we expected to exchange Ultramarine Ink  for other inks, we were met with disappointment, at a massive scale. And now we are in 8.1.0, and there is still no sign of an ink Trader in Boralas, much less Stormwind.

So what we are doing, here in the first content patch of BfA, is farming Legion herbs.  BfA herbs are almost useless – there are three Druid glyphs in this expansion, and that is it – so we are currently either selling them off – a poor financial investment – or banking them against an expected future where they are actually useful.   At this point, I am becoming cynical.

So what is actually going on?  Those that are willing to attribute an  actual plan to all of this are welcome to comfort themselves in the actual market, but those of us that are embedded in the current market are doubtful. Currently, Dreamleaf (https://www.wowhead.com/item=124102/dreamleaf#comments) is the king of the Inscription market due to its secondary conception of Roseate and Sallow (especially Sallow) pigments. BfA Inscription is pretty much dead. And the WoW customer service accounts are pretty much silent on the topic after multiple pokes.

That is: currently. Aside from Cards of *, it is currently impossible to turn BfA herbs into a profit. And Blizzard doesn’t seem to care even so much as to stroke your ego. Sorry.

BtW: in case you were thinking of switching to Alchemy:

Herb-related crafting in BfA is, to be quite brutally honest, a cluster-fuck.  You’re best served in just selling the herbs (especially Legion herbs) than trying to make a profit at Inscription or Alchemy.

Tidying up Ye Olde Glyph Shop

Five weeks from now, the new expansion will drop, and that means that somewhere in between now and then, we will be getting the “pre-patch”, which will introduce the new expansion and stuff. More importantly, it will introduce the new game systems to all and sundry, whether you buy the expansion or not.

During Legion, I’ve been keeping afloat partially on sales of glyphs, but also some other stuff.  This expansion hasn’t been great for Scribes, so I’ve supplemented with enchantments as well, but the upshot is that on the strength of glyphs alone I can play the game entirely on in-game currency.  With additions, I can buy other things in the Blizz shop such as time for my sweetie if she’s in the mood to play. But it hasn’t been raining cash.  You gotta hustle.

• Legion glyphs are the main money makers, to a limited extent.
• Older glyphs sell fine, but don’t bring in much cash compared to the cost to make them.
• Vantus runes and other sops that Blizz tossed to Scribes were worthless.  I fire-sale’d all but Antorus a while back and it looks like I’m going to eat them anyway.
• One herb was by far the best for this business model – Dreamleaf, which also generated Nightmare Pods, which yielded great quantities of Sallow pigment.  The Argus herb, on the other hand, was worthless for Scribes.

Overall, fairly lackluster.  I think that applies to most professions, though.

On to new things.

New expansion, new inks

• Crimson Pigment –> Crimson Ink
• Ultramarine Pigment –> Ultramarine Ink
• Viridescent Pigment –> Viridescent Ink – returning once again to a “rare” ink for certain items, such as Darkmoon cards, codices, Vantus runes, off-hands, etc.
• All inks now require the use of Distilled Water.  All BfA inks thus have an additional 2s 50c tax.
• Viridescent Ink also requires Acacia powder, an additional 2s 50c tax on that ink.

Yields, what herb gives what, and in what quantities, is not yet known.

New expansion, new herbs

• Akunda’s Bite (Vol’dun)
• Anchor Weed – appears to pop in all zones
• Riverbud (Drustvar, Zuldazar, Tiragarde Sound) – found along rivers
• Sea Stalk (Tiragarde Sound) – found along coastlines
• Siren’s Pollen – found in trees in swampy areas.  In a way similar to Foxflower, picking one can create a swarm of them to pick up.
• Star Blossom – found on the sides of buildings in Kul’Tiras and Zandalar.
• Winter’s Kiss – found in snowy areas (Drustvar)

It should be noted that the locational information is far from accurate at this time.  Also, there are three levels for each herb for gathering, so similar to Legion in how it works this time.

There will also be three tiers to milling, and mass milling will become available for all herbs.

New Glyphs

Very few new glyphs have been added. In many ways this seems a lot like Cataclysm where we got one whole new glyph to use the pigments on – essentially, any pigments you grind will probably be exchanged for older inks or pigments at the ink trader, so find out who that is and go there.

The exceptions are, of course, the ones listed here.  These are all Druid glyphs.

• The Dolphin – requires Revered with Tortollan Seekers
• The Humble Flyer  – appears to be a discovery from Grumpy Grimble in Tiragarde Sound.  That doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it’s what I got.
• The Tideskipper – drop from Corrupted Tideskipper in Stormsong Valley

There don’t appear to be any research-oriented tasks associated with this expansion.

Removed Glyphs

A few glyphs have also been dropped, no doubt due to class changes.  In total, we end up with fewer glyphs than we had in Legion.

• The Blood Wraith (DK)
• The Bullseye (Hunter)
• The Skullseye (Hunter)
• The Unholy Wraith (DK)
• The Wraith Walker (DK)

My advice on these is to hang on to them until after the pre-patch.

In my experience, dead glyphs are transformed into something like Charred Glyphs which are usually worth 50s.  Dump them now, and get 1s. It’s worth waiting to see.  Of course, if you can dump them for more than 50s now, go for it.

Vantus Runes

I’ve seen one – Uldir – and that’s it.  I’m not sure if we’re going to see more or not, but right now it looks like they’re attuned per-raid, not per-boss.  If the latter, I don’t think it’s worth the bother. If the former, it MIGHT be.  Start slow.

Other Wealth-Enhancing Features

Inscription has picked up a plethora of things that may or may not be of value in the days to come.  Test each carefully.

• Codices – As before, we can make a Codex of the Clear Mind kind of thing that will allow you to change your talents outside of rest areas. This does require the rare ink.
• Contracts – A contract is with a specific faction, and while it is in effect you gain reputation with that faction, similar to how tabards worked in Burning Crusade.  I do like this mechanic, and also suspect this will be a small but steady income stream. I assume only one can be in effect at a time.
• Scrolls – Scrolls are back as “War Scrolls” that can buff an individual or group. The odd thing is the wording of the description indicates that, say, an Intellect scroll affects all team members, not just the int-using ones. I suspect only one can be in effect. So this is very confusing.   They’re not too costly to make, but they may have a limiting factor that makes them unpopular.
• Ink Wells – This allows your champions to bring back ink from missions.  This isn’t really a money maker unless you sell it on the AH to other Scribes – which might be the case because the darned thing requires some mats that drop from mythic bosses only.  The mats are BoP, but the Ink Well is not.

Conclusions, such as they are

We may see 8.0.x this Tuesday, or three weeks from now (I can’t believe they’d cut it any closer). Now is the time to prepare, because once the patch drops, in my experience, you run out of options to keep things operating.  For example, the ink trader usually stops accepting the previous expansion’s inks or pigments (i.e. Roseate and Sallow) and instead requires the new expansion’s stuff (Crimson and Ultramarine Inks or Pigments). At which point you will have to go flower picking all over the place to keep making glyphs.

The good news is that glyphs that sell now will probably continue to sell.  The bad news is that the ones that aren’t selling will still probably not sell.

Hope you did well this time around, it looks like more of the same, alas.

Legion Alchemy makes me Sad

In general, Legion professions leave me with a simmering rage directed at the asshole that thinks that hiding even the most basic crafting recipes behind dungeon bosses is “fun”.

But the person that thought that hiding Alchemy basic progression behind an OPTIONAL boss should be punished by never being able to complete anything that isn’t locked behind LF* on the worst servers of all time.

I will settle for that person’s liver, in a jar.

I thought that WoW professions had hit a new low in Draenor.  Somebody at Blizzard must have noticed and said “Challenge accepted”, because this expansion has topped the previous in every way when it comes to making professions suck, with one minor exception – that being, you can wear more than three crafted items at once.

Nevertheless, even the most basic of Alchemy recipes beyond the Alchemy 101 spells you get as a result of setting foot in Dalaran are locked behind an optional boss, Grimoira. From my experience, the only way to down this  boss is to be an asshole and start the fight even if your LFD group has moved on. And  hope you don’t get kicked.

SRS … if anyone needs this boss and needs a DPS contributor, please LMK. I’ll group with Atilla the Hun at this point.

Six Weeks a Scribe

After six weeks, I’ve got a bit of a handle on Inscription as it stands.  It’s definitely not the old profession we used to have. But is it better, worse, or indeterminate?

 

In Summary

Here are the bullet points.

• Glyphs are no longer permanent. If someone wants to re-use a glyph after purging it out, they’ll have to buy it again.
• Glyphs no longer provide necessary improvements to your skills or talents – all they do is change appearances. That’s it. They have no real purpose, and anyone eschewing them will perform exactly the same as they would if they were fully loaded.
• Older glyphs cost all of three Roseate Pigments, the “common” pigment of Legion.
• New glyphs, or NuGlyphs as I like to call them, cost varying amount of Roseate and Sallow Pigments – Sallow being the “uncommon” pigment of Legion.
• Pigment drops vary vastly between different herbs.
• Roseate Pigment is the Palmetto Bug of Legion herbalism. You can’t get rid of it, and it’s everywhere.

Yield

So first I’ll address the yield rate of the different herbs. Observe:

Fig. 1: Pigment Yields by Herb

• The first thing I will point out is that Roseate and Sallow yields vary widely between different herbs, and an herb that yields a lot of Roseate may be crappy for Sallow.
• Sallow Pigment is the real limiting factor for NuGlyphs.
• Secondly, from a strictly Herbalist perspective, and with the previous in mind, Dreamleaf is the way to go for glyphing. At a .23 yield, it’s a couple of hundredths ahead of even Starlight Rose.
• Roseate pigment yield isn’t really much of a factor.
• Dreamleaf yield rates do not reflect the addition of Nightmare Pods. These pods can yield a lot of Sallow pigments, and are the after effects of Dreamleaf milling. So Dreamleaf may have a higher effective yield of Sallow than the chart reflects. I will be working on gathering more info on this statistic at some point, but off the cuff it seems like it’s almost a 50% boost.
• I have more data on some herbs than other. Which brings me to …
• I have zero data on Felwort. Do I look like I’m gonna spend that kind of money on something so expensive to get data that nobody in their right mind would use? No matter how good the yields you get from this bonny jewel, it’ll always be better to sell it on the AH.  Oh, all right, some day when I’m fat and buttery I’ll prolly blow a few Gs on a stack. But today is not that day.

Regardless, strictly for herbalists, Dreamleaf appears to be the clear winner.

Profession Switch

But for Scribes, maybe not.

Let’s be clear: most Scribes are going to burn a lot more herbage daily than they can gather in a day. So that means they’re going to have to buy herbs from someone – either the AH or private channels, it matters not at all. Coin is coin.  And that takes us to the more complex level of this equation.

Profit Matrix by Class and Herb

Here you see three data tables. On the upper right is a breakdown of the prices for all but one of the herbs.  To the left of the prices is a breakdown of the general price for each pigment as based on the yield rates of each herb.

The data are clear. Regardless of their inferior yield rate, Aethril’s much lower cost produces a much lower cost per pigment. Looking at the table to the left, you can see a calculation of price per glyph by class. As I said, mat requirements for each class varies. For example, Paladin and Priest only require 2 Sallow pigments, while Warlock requires 15.

The final table in this image is a little selector that changes the “Sallow” and “Roseate” values for the table on the left based on what herb you choose. Easy enough … right now, at this point in the game, on my connected realm, Aethril is the clear choice for purchasing off the AH.

Vantus Very Little

A word on Vantus Runes … I have no data.  These runes require you to have defeated a boss before you can get the recipe, and I have not raided even a bit. Given that Jas is hogging all the glory, I imagine I probably never will without running LFR – which I look forward to as much as my next tax audit.

For the Profit

So, what is happening in terms of profitability?  Before this expansion, Inscription was my cash cow. Slower at times than other, but still a steady source of income.

Now, it’s hard to say. I’ve suffered a massive loss of cash getting ramped up – at least 300,000 – but the treasury is starting to grow once again.  Having said that, the sell rate is starting to fall off. So I’m not sure I can draw any solid conclusions yet.

Finders Keepers

There are around 20-30 glyph techniques – recipes, basically – that are drops out there in the world, making your ability to perform somewhat random. If you get some good luck in drops, you’ll be able to produce product that few others can.  If you get bad luck, your stock will be limited.

Not saying we have a trend here, but from level 100 to 109, I’ve gotten exactly two – two – technique drops.

Side eye

Gonna throw a little shade, here.  Most other professions, you have “ranks” for items that you can produce.  The higher the rank, the fewer mats required to create the item. These ranks come from various sources, such as drops in the world, world quests, experience, and so forth.

Guess which profession doesn’t have this mechanic?

If you guessed Inscription, you get a no-prize. Our recipes cost the same no matter what. There is no potential for improvement no matter how many of the darned things you make. I am not exactly pleased about this.

In Closing

As I watch this profession for further trends, I have to wonder where we’re going with it. I see exactly zero motivation for people to buy my wares, and have to wonder which profession will be next to be hit by this sort of nerf. Enchanting? Alchemy? Hard to say.

I hope it swings the other way. That the person that thought that this was a great idea gets transferred to Diablo and never comes back. That we see a return of Inscription as a profession of great interest in the next expansion.

But I have a hard time thinking that Blizz is going to go back now that they’ve taken the first step on the voyage of “making professions fun again.” Which seems to be a euphemism for “make stuff for yourself, but not so much any one else.”

You know, “Fun.”

Glyphageddon

“Back in the day” there was an event that Scribes around Azeroth fondly remember as “Glyphmas”. During this time, it was impossible to make a glyph that didn’t sell. And the money for said glyphs was being trucked in by the wagon load.  It was a heady time, and Blizz killed it with their dirty “game mechanics”, but it happened just the same.

Now we’re quickly approaching an apocalyptic cusp in the history of Inscription.  Legion is changing glyphs in a big way, or I should say many big ways. But, as glyph mongers¹, only a few of these ways concern us at the moment.

By far the biggest changes that affect glyph mongers are thus:

1. All Major Glyphs are being discontinued. Period.
2. All minor glyphs that do anything are being discontinued. Period.

This leaves us with just (roughly) 45 out of 425 glyphs, plus 61 new ones for a total of 104 Glyphs to sell².  All of these glyphs are cosmetic only. Heck, some of the purely cosmetic glyphs from WoD didn’t make it – they were very selective!

Click here for the full spreadsheet

(Note: click on the little arrow in the header to open filter options. Filter out “Charred”, for example, to just see the glyphs we’re gonna have in Legion.  You can also filter based on class, which is useful if you’re only interested in your class’ glyphs, though I have to say, if that’s the case, this is not the blog post for you.)

Now, the good news is that these cosmetic glyphs will have a higher demand, because Glyphs are once again consumable.  Right now, in WoD, when you use a glyph, it adds it to your permanent Glyph book, as it were, so these cosmetic glyphs would  have a very low throughput. But now, they won’t be permanent. Once replaced, they go away, and the only way to get that effect back again is to use another glyph.  Hooray?

There are a couple of other items that are of interest.

• Tome of the Tranquil Mind allows players to change talents wherever they are, such as in an instance. This is new since one may only otherwise change spec / talents in a “safe” location, such as Stormwind or Dalaran.
• Codex of the Tranquil Mind does the same thing, but for entire groups, so will bring quite a bit more on the AH.

I feel these may be a bit of a sop to Scribes to make up for the decimation of our glyph inventory.

Recipe ranks

Not entirely related to commerce, but kinda is. If this makes final implementation, then we’ll be able to craft things more efficiently as we gain recipe ranks. Not clear on whether this is per recipe or per profession.

Unlearned Tab in Spellbook

One thing that always bugs me is that data mining just doesn’t cover it when it comes to telling if you know all the recipes you can … so this is a welcome addition to the trade skill panel.

Shoulder enchants

Aside from Boon of the Scavenger, rumors of the return of shoulder enchants seem to be somewhat rumor-ish.

Equipment

From what I can see, Artifact weapons have removed a few sources of income (staves, wands, off-hands), but we still have our Tarot card trinkets.  In WoD, those wore out fast because you were allowed max 3 items of crafted gear, and anyone with a calculator could figure out that head + chest + weapon (or pants) was the best bang for the slot.  Does Legion change that limitation? If so, these guys will regain some popularity, like they had in previous expansions.

Waiting with bated³ breath

There are a lot of unanswered questions before I know my comfort level. How difficult will our mats be to get? Will recipe ranks have any real effect? Will the consumable nature of glyphs compensate for the fact they’re only cosmetic? Will the Tranquil Mind items take up the slack? Will the three-crafted-item limit be lifted?

I watched in horror as Alchemy and Enchanting and Jewel crafting got gutted in the past expansion, with the offerings of each reduced to a sketch of previous expansions. Looks like it’s our turn now, and I’m kinda hating it.

Plan of action

Forewarned is for-aremed, they say. Whoever “they” is.

At any rate, be aware that 380 or so of your current glyphs will be junk by the end of August, and adjust appropriately. Getting 1 GP for a glyph now is better than getting 1 SP for a  Charred Glyph after the pre-release patch hits.

Armed with the knowledge I have, I’m going to start dumping glyphs around June 20 or so. I plan to have all of the “Charred” items sold off by the end of July.  Don’t forget, the expected launch of Legion is the end of August, and the typical pre-expansion patch usually occurs 4-5 weeks prior to the expansion.  So the actual drop dead date is when patch 7.0.x will occur.

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1. My own term: those of us that make and sell glyphs for profit, ignoring all other aspects of the practice that aren’t reflected in Auction House trending.  We don’t care about what glyphs are most potent or what mechanics are in place. All that matters is how much gold we can get for the least amount of gold expenditure.
2. The current count of new glyphs is incomplete, because there are many that are currently missing, or apparently so. So while most classes have 10 or so glyphs available, some, like Mages, only have 7. Gonna go out on a limb and say that’s not where Blizz wants to land.
3. If I see one more person with “baited” breath I might fireball them right in the face.

Legionary

Welp, Gamescon is a week gone and we have the name and quite a few details about the next expansion of WoW. Missing the most vital answer, of course – when’s it releasing? – but I sure didn’t expect to hear that quite yet.

The Legion

A lot of people are unhappy with the subject of this expansion, and I suppose they have some cause.  But from a lore perspective, the Legion IS IT.  I mean, that’s our Big Bad. Sargeras may be the final boss, but his army is The Burning Legion.  This entire franchise has been about The Burning Legion.  Even Wrath (The Lich King was a construct of The Legion).  Even Cataclysm (Deathwing was created as a byproduct of the Legion’s first invasion). The only part of this franchise that was not about The Legion was the parts about the Old Gods and Pandaria, and I’m not entirely sure we can’t pin at least a couple of those on Demons in some way.

Point being, the Legion is a loose end that hasn’t been tied off yet, and we’ll need to tie it off or we’ll keep coming back to it. Just like people are complaining about. Though in this case, we never finished it.

The (Iron) Horde

Part of the original storyline was how the Horde got sent our way thanks to the demonic influences of Mannaroth, who we’ve now seen killed three times canonically (and many more times on WoWLogs.com and their ilk). Warlords was a revisit of that, and, when it comes down to it, appeared more of a conspicuously gratuitous effort to placate the metalheads in the artists shop than a real story.  It had no place in he canon, and introduced more questions than it answered.  Legion, at least, connects that crazy train and the jumble of moments that pass for canon before and during Warlords. How we get to the third Legion invasion is now revealed.

Learning to Stop Worrying and Loving the Plot

(or at least put up with it, because ye cats, these guys are pretty ham-fisted and, as my company commander used to say, as obvious as a five-dollar hooker.)

Okay, so from within the framework of the appropriateness of the setting, how it connects with the past, how it connects with the present (we’re told that this is ‘present day’ Azeroth), harmony with the lore (Pandas didn’t), and so forth; I’m personally pretty good with this theme.

(By the way, I have one prediction, and it isn’t about this expansion: when, inevitably, we revisit the Scourge, I suspect that those complaining about retreaded content will be extremely welcoming to the concept. See if they don’t.)

Class Changes

It’s obvious from early information that Blizz is looking to shake up the classes to a great extent. The most amazing news so far is the change to the Hunter class.  We’re headed for:

• Beast Mastery – Ranged DPS with pet (Artifact = Gun)
• Marksman – Ranged DPS without pet (Artifact = Bow)
• Survival – Melee DPS with Pet (Artifact = Spear)

Did you catch that?  This is exciting! BM is basically becoming the One True Hunter Class by virtue of serving the original concept, but I have to say that Marks without a Pet is basically the fulfillment of many a Forum Poster wet dream.  And the return of the Melee Hunter is unexpected.  Unbelievably, I have been granted a win in the ultimate discussion of the destiny of the Hunter class, and I am for once not appalled at my victory. This is amazing!

Aside from the Demon Hunter specs (Two specs only! Wuuuuut?!), we’ve heard precious little about other class changes. Well, we’ve heard that they plan to make Warlock’s Demonology spec more Demoney and less Metaphorphos-ey. If it follows the same pattern as the Hunter class, I approve.  Well, actually, anything that diminishes the role of Meta is good in my book.

I’m not sure what I mean by that, but I promise to take full credit for whatever it ends up being. Unless it sucks. In which case, Ghostcrawler did it.  Ooo look, is that a baby wolf!?  /scurry

Artifacts

The other really big thing, for many, was the announcement that there will be no weapon drops in this expansion. Instead, each spec picks up a unique artifact weapon that they continuously upgrade during the expansion. For hunters it’s bow for MM, Gun for BM, and Spear for SV (which was our first clue about the melee spec).  I am constantly amused at my joke predictions for character weaponry in comparison. What I said in jest, is almost exactly what they’re doing for real.

There are many unanswered questions about this, most pointedly, what happens when switching specs? And where do current Survival Hunters get starter weapons to bridge the gap? This is gonna make the gear grind kinda weird.

Professions

They have said diddly about professions, but we can infer a few things from peripheral facts.

First peripheral fact: well, rumor, really. Word is that the professions team has swole hugely, with one source claiming more than 2x increase in seats. This implies that there are major changes inbound, but we’re not yet informed what they are.

Second peripheral fact: the Garrison concept is not coming forward with Legion.  Praise Mammon for that! I cannot go into how many ways that Garrisons failed us without violating some secret blogger’s creed restricting article size to one gigabyte per page, so I’ll just say it’s a pretty sad story and leave it at that. Most people I know will be happy to see it go.

But there’s a problem with that for professions, since professions got tied to garrisons so tightly. All professions are going to have to progress without Garrisons to support them. Some, such as the lumberyard, are probably not going to make it into Legion at all.  Well, at least, I hope not.

Ultimately we’re either headed back to pre-Warlord crafting (hardly something we need a huge Professions team for) or something new is coming down the pike.  Honestly, as far as professions go, going back to the Vanilla / BC style of crafting is just fine with me.

The only thing I will say that I like in WoD’s crafting is how crafted armor / weapons fit in.  You can basically meet or exceed the quality level of normal Hellfire Citadel with crafted items. This is, as far as I can remember, something we haven’t seen since Vanilla, and maybe not even then. Sure, Heroic and Mythic raiders  will get better stuff, and I’m extremely good with that. They’ve earned it.  But the fact that you can make crafted gear that is actually relevant is pretty unusual, and I’m hoping we keep that in some way in Legion.

Final peripheral fact: PvP is being totally revamped, which will shake up the talent trees for everyone, and this will likely revamp the spec tiers completely, as well as glyphing. As a result, expect to see Inscription getting a lot of changes, at the very least, to support these changes.

By the way … a week after Gamescon, and glyphs are flying off the shelf. The inscription market is extremly brisk at the moment.  The prices ain’t tremendous, but quantity is making up for it. Illume is burning through mats like there’s no tomorrow. 10,000 a day is the norm. Tell me the game is dying. Please. I need a laugh now that Jon Stewart is gone.

Milling About: Draenor Edition

The auto-counter for Herbs has been simplified and rejigged for Draenor herbs, and it reveals most interesting things about how Blizz in turn has rejigged herb yields.

But First, a Review

If you recall, up until now, there have been two kinds of pigment yielded from milling; uncommon and rare. The uncommon ones were the ones we used to make glyphs, and the rare ones were used to make things like Darkmoon cards and so forth. As such, the herb you wanted to buy on the AH depended as much on what you wanted it for as how much it cost.  An herb that had a high yield in rare pigments might have an inferior yield in uncommon pigments, and vice-versa.

MoP, but typical of all that came before.

The better you tuned your purchases, the bigger your profits.

That was Then, this is Now

The biggest change in WoD is that the rare pigment yields have been completely removed. You only get one kind of pigment out of milling now, and all other things come from that.  Whether you make glyphs, make tokens to make cards, or whatever, it comes from Cerulean Pigment.

So, right away, your purchasing decisions are vastly simplified.

But then there’s this.

WoD, fairly high confidence.

If you look at the difference between the best performer in MoP and the worst, and compare their analogs in WoD, you immediately see that Blizz has really leveled the playing field when it comes to pigment yields. We’re looking at typically a less than .05 per-mill variation between the best performer and the worst.  While there is some trading places one day to the next, for the most part they sort out in this order and yet that order is practically meaningless.

In Which a Conclusion is Drawn

From this I think it’s safe to say that the market can be the greatest factor in your purchasing decisions for purposes of glyph making or other Inscription-based manufacturing operations.

For example, Frostweed  appears to be by far the most popular herb out there due to its many applications. And, typically, it is also priced above the others, so I rarely purchase it for milling purposes ((I made an exception for purposes of preparing these stats, but now that I’m done with that I’m going back to letting the market be my guide.)).

It’s quite clear that Blizz have attempted to remove milling yield as a factor in which herbs get milled. They still have a bit work to do in other professions ((Sidebar: The almost random nature of professions requiring a little bit of this from that profession and a little bit of that from this profession is just stupid. Yes, I realize that with garrisons, you can have your own source of, say, ore. But that’s a stupid reason to implement professions that way, and vice-versa. It is as if they put those seemingly random requirements in in order to give you something to do with resources that you would normally have no use for, and that’s just pathetic.)) to even out the market, but it’s a good start – and the market might even flatten once certain commodity potions and the like are no longer being pumped out like Diet Coke ((I have portals. I see things.)).

The upshot is at this point, if you’re a Scribe, your job is likely very much simplified at this point.  And that’s a good thing.

Clearing up some confusion

This post on the Blizz forums has had a lot of glyphmongers very confused.

Due to an error, there were a few glyphs that were unable to be crafted via Inscription, which made them unobtainable. These glyphs are:

• Glyph of the Solstice (Druid)
• Glyph of Purification (Priest)
• Glyph of Purify Spirit (Shaman)
• Glyph of Flying Fists (Monk)

To make sure players have access to them, we’ve added them to the Inscription vendors in Stormshield and Warspear. Alliance players can purchase them from Joao Calhandro, and Horde players can purchase them from Maru’sa.

Update 1:10 PM PST: We’re also working on adding Glyph of Cleanse (Paladin) and Glyph of Frostbrand Weapon (Shaman). Glyph of Cleanse will be added to the Inscription vendors like the other glyphs. Glyph of Frostbrand Weapon’s item is missing from the game files, so we can’t add it to the vendors via hotfix. Instead, it will be automatically taught to all Shaman level 75 or higher.

Update 1:47 PM PST: Glyph of Cleanse should now be available on the vendors, and Glyph of Frostbrand Weapon should now be automatically learned by all Shaman (although you may need to relog to pick it up).

— Source

Later on in the thread a clarification pops up, but I’ll save you the trouble.

Note that it’s clearly stated that the glyph is what is for sale, not the glyph recipe.  Don’t bother going to the vendor if you want the recipe. There is none.

No new glyph recipes are being added at this time.e