A First Look at Mists of Pandaria Professions: Inscription

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I know there's some disagreement between myself and Basil over this, but inscription is hands down my favorite profession. That's not really because I like the process of finding or buying herbs, and I absolutely detest the whole milling procedure. It's because I like money. Inscription made me stupid rich.

So, it would only follow then that I have great interest in what scribes will be up to come Mists of Pandaria. After all, Cataclysm brought the advent of the ultra-profitable and high-demand Mysterious Fortune Cards, so Blizzard must have something cool up its sleeves for this next expansion, too, right?

Well ... sort of! I mean, let's face it, Mysterious Fortune Cards are a pretty big bar to set. That being said, there's some serious love coming scribes way in terms of new things to sell, new items to equip, and new, fun things to have fun with. But don't take my word for it. See for yourself.

Inscription: The very basics

For those familiar with the profession, not a heck of a lot will be changing. Again, there will be two different types of pigments obtained from milling MoP herbs: Shadow Pigment (two needed to make Ink of Dreams) is the common type; Misty Pigment (two needed to make Starlight Ink) is the more rare.

Scribes will also be able to combine three Ink of Dreams with a Rough Parchment to create a Scroll of Wisdom, a component material for higher-level inscription items.

Glyphs

If you're a frequent reader of class columns here at WoW Insider, you no doubt been noticing that a heck of a lot of glyphs are getting added, heavily edited, or straight-up removed from the game. Obviously, this all will have a major impact on scribes, the ones who actually have to put in the work to make and sell the glyphs everyone inevitably buys.

If a glyph is outright being removed from the game, then there are two possible things that may happen to it. Blizzard is reusing a number of old item IDs. What that means is that some glyphs will simply become new ones the day MoP (or the MoP prep patch) launches. The important note here is that you won't need to go on a glyph-learning frenzy when Mists launches -- you should know all the important stuff on day one, so long as you've taken your time to level the profession already.

Remember, though, prime glyphs (as a type) are being completely removed from the game. That means many glyphs that exist now won't in Mists, and they won't be replaced with something different, either. Glyphs that meet that description will be removed from your learned glyph list, and any of those glyphs you've crafted will become a gray-quality Faded Glyph. Pretty worthless, save for the 50 silver vendor value.

I won't bother listing the specific glyphs that have changed, since, well, pretty much all of them have in one way or another. On a very general level, this means that scribes' services will be in very high demand come the lead-up to and early days of MoP. Glyph profitability is far too heavily dependent on your unique realm's competition for me to say with confidence that you'll make money hand over fist selling them. Still, it's good to be ready for the deluge by having a decent stock of old inks on hand with a character that's already gone through the trouble of learning most of the glyphs.

Shoulder enchants: The new MoP money-making possibility

Let's face it, getting shoulder enchants was a pain in Wrath. No one liked having to grind through to get them in Cataclysm, either. Long reputation grinds on alts stink just as bad now as they always have, and thankfully, Blizzard is taking notice. That's why, come Mists of Pandaria, shoulder enchants are no longer sourced from reputation grinds -- they're sourced from scribes. As handed down from Mount Olympus:

Obviously, there are no complaints here. Having one fewer grind and one more way to make money is like winning the lottery and having Tyler hit by a car on the same day. Well, maybe not quite that good, but still good.

As far as reagents go, the Wowhead data base is showing that three Resilient Parchments are needed for both the minor enchants (+120 primary stat/+80 crit) and the major (+200 primary stat/+100 crit) enchants. This is likely just a placeholder. I'd expect Ink of Dreams to factor into the former and Starlight Ink to factor into the latter. It's hard to imagine these enchants not being as easy to make as glyphs, so it's hard to see scribes raking in any significant profits on these. Again, it's all about your realm's level of competition.

In addition to these, scribes will continue to be able to make stronger versions for their own personal use. You can choose between 520 points' worth of your favorite primary stat plus 100 crit, or 750 stamina plus 150 dodge, if your scribe is a tank.

Brand new scribe-only BoAs

If you're an altaholic -- and I know a lot of you auction mavens are -- then this news is sure to please: Scribes will be able to make brand new, epic-quality, bind-on-account weapons and off-hands. Yes, you can make them, use them, and then pass them down to another, lower-level character on your account.

Here are the basics on how the new BoAs work. First, your scribe will need to create one of these three blue-quality i424s: Inscribed Fan, Inscribed Rain Poppy Staff, or Inscribed Ghost Iron Staff (showing up as an epic in the database, but that's probably a bug). It'll take a good chunk of mats for each of the staves -- fewer for the Inscribed Fan, since that's just an off-hand.

Once you've created the blue-quality items, you'll need even more materials to convert them into i476 epics, so be prepared to spend a lot of gold during the whole crafting process. It appears Blizzard is offering more diversity when it comes to the epic -- you'll be able to choose between spirit and hit gear, at least for the epic fans. There appears to be another database glitch with regard to the staves, but I'd anticipate there being some itemization love there as well. As of now, it appears only spellcasters and druids will be able to benefit from the staves. But that's the beauty of the BoA: Even if your scribe isn't a caster, you can mail the staff to a character that is.

These BoAs won't make you rich, but they can help you plan your MoP leveling strategy. My suggestion: If you're itching to get all your characters to 90 and raid geared as fast as you can, then you should level your scribe first.

...and the rest?

If you're the type of player who likes the fun little origami pets that scribes get, you'll be glad to know that we're getting two new ones in Mists of Pandaria, the Origami Frog and the Origami Crane. They seem to work exactly the way current origami items do: Find the recipe, learn it, and then make these very temporary pets by chewing up three Resilient Parchements.

There will be four new Darkmoon decks -- Cranes, , each with eight component cards. The resulting turn-in trinkets aren't in the databases yet, but you can presume they'll be quite comparable to those in Cata, just with better stats. Given my past history with Darkmoon decks, there's a high potential for profit here -- you just gotta be willing to shell out a lot of gold first. High risk, high capital requirement, high reward.

If I know you guys, the one question you're likely all asking is this: No new Mysterious Fortune Card? It appears that way for now -- nothing has yet been datamined to the effect of an upgraded version. But that's OK. The existing version is still cool, and it's still marketable as a fun item.

Maximize your profits with advice from Gold Capped. Want to know the very best ways to earn 10,000 gold? Top gold making strategies for auctioneers? How about how to reach 1 million gold -- or how one player got there and then gave it all away? Fox and Basil are taking your questions at fox@wowinsider.com and basil@wowinsider.com.