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The state of Inscription
One thing I know is this: the 8962 beta patch which downloaded last night is not going to be the last beta patch we see. How do I know this? Because there are still no Warrior, Death Knight, or minor glyphs available to train yet. Yes, I know what some websites are reporting about Death Knight glyphs, but I assure that these glyphs are not at the trainers. The lack of clear information on the topic is making it interesting to be a scribe on the beta servers. (And by "interesting" I mean "lame.") While I'm standing in front of the trainer looking at the list of available glyphs, people on the Trade channel are calling me an idiot because I have no DK glyphs because they read about them. (Lolwut?) But my graphic for this post is my proof. They're not available yet, people!
The Light and How to Swing It: Gearing up your Retadin for Karazhan part IV
Alright. Let's call a spade a spade. I nubbed last week's installment by putting down Agility as a stat. Agility is good -- still not a Retadin's primary strength (pun intended), but definitely part of the equation. An informative article can be found on WoWWiki comparing Strength to Agility and determining the point where investing points in Agility gives better DPS returns than investing in Strength. Unlike Rogues or Hunters, who will never reach a point where Strength gives better returns, there is a certain point for Paladins (or Shamans and Warriors, for that matter) where it becomes better to invest in Agility. It's quite a bit of math, but suffice it to say that the equilibrium point is pretty high and not achievable by a fresh 70 gearing up for Karazhan. I also dismissed Expertise (pfft, why make one mistake when you can make two!), a new stat introduced in Patch 2.3, which reduces the chance a mob will Dodge or Parry your attacks. If you can manage it, you should always attack from behind, negating Parry to begin with, but barring that, Expertise is a good stat to pursue after you're Hit capped. In fact, as some readers pointed out, the Shard of Contempt is the best melee DPS trinket in the game right now as it prevents even yellow, or special, attacks from being Dodged or Parried. With all the technical stuff out of the way, let's move on to the last part of this series, where we'll take a look at all the permanent enchants, gems, and even consumables that you'll need to do a good job in Karazhan.
Hands-on with Inscription in the Wrath Beta
By now you've heard of inscription, the new trade skill coming with Wrath of the Lich King. We've already given you a few sneak peeks, looking at glyphs, enchantment scrolls, and other beta insights. This time, though we had a chance to fiddle with Inscription directly, on the Beta servers themselves. The trade skill is most obviously only in the very first stages of implementation, but there's still enough to play around with to get an idea of how it will all work once things go live. %Gallery-28616% To start off with, we needed to do a little running. There's no inscription trainers to be found in Dalaran or any of the capitals. We found one in Vengeance Landing, so it seems likely that Alliance could find one in Valgarde as well. However, there are no Inscription suppliers nearby, so you'll still have to run to Dalaran to get the Scribe Tools and parchment you need for most recipes. It's probably a given that that'll change for the better as we get closer to live, but for now it's a pain. You'll probably want to go buy the Scribe Tools and stock up on parchment before you go to train if you're doing it in Beta. Luckily, Light Parchments stack up to 20, so you can carry a lot -- be warned though, most of the scrolls you make out of them only stack to 5. Anyhow, to the meat.
Inscription to allow enchanters to sell on the AH
Blizzard has been saying for a while that they're working on letting Enchanters ply their trade via the Auction House. When the Wrath beta launched, we didn't immediately see any way that this feature has been implemented. However, Elisalia, a beta-tester, wrote in to let us know that she'd figured it out. The link between Enchanters and the AH is going to be Inscription, and it looks like it will work as follows: Inscriptors can create blank parchments, such as the Bleached Parchment seen in the picture. Each type of parchment works for one type of item to enchant -- armor, weapon, etc. Enchanters can cast enchantments on those parchments, to create, for instance, that Scroll of Enchant Cloak - Greater Defense. These scrolls can be listed on the AH, mailed, or traded like any other unbound item. The scrolls can be right-clicked by anyone to apply the enchantment to their own items. It's a good system, and I like it. In addition to using the AH, of course, this will also allow enchanters to give enchantments to their own alts -- about time. I wonder if Inscriptors will be able to use a similar system to vend their own spell enhancements. Also, hopefully the cost of the parchment will not be too high; if it's more than a few gold, people will likely circumvent this system entirely and keep doing enchants the way we do them now. Enchanters, does this look like a good system to you? Would you rather preserve the face-to-face, personalized nature of the enchantment transaction?
Inscription insights from the beta
While every class is getting new talents and spells in Wrath, there are three big, brand-new additions to the game: Death Knights, Northrend, and the new profession: Inscription. We've known for a little while that the general gist of Inscription would be to add effects to spells you already have, like a knockback to your fireball - basically enchantments for your skills. Now that the beta has gone up, we have a few actual examples of inscriptions and what they might need, though so far we still aren't seeing any inscriptions that add to spell effects. Inscriptions evidently require various kinds of ink, which will be made from herbs by a skill called Milling, which destroys five herbs to create ink (very like jewelcrafting's Prospecting). Parchment will also be required to create scrolls, although the items it's made from are not yet implemented. And what could this Mysterious Tarot be? Maybe just a high-level parchment, given that it requires the same reagents, only more of them? There's another skill called Decipher that "allows the deciphering of tomes, books, and scrolls," though what that might mean I"m not entirely sure.
Powerful "light scope" used to unearth ancient texts
According to the BBC, scientists at the University of Cardiff have developed a method of reading ancient, highly-sensitive texts (such as the Dead Sea Scrolls) by projecting beams of light ten-billion times brighter than the sun into the parchment. The new technique combines a powerful X-ray-like device called the Diamond Synchrotron (no, seriously), and a computer algorithm that pieces together layers of text to create a three dimensional, readable images of an iron-inked document. Professor Tim Wess, lead researcher on the projects says, "We've folded up a real piece of parchment and then done a process of X-ray tomography on it. We've been able to recover the structure where we can see the words that are written inside the document." The scientists now plan on using the process to explore ancient texts which have been heretofore unreadable due to fear of damage, including 18th century fire-damaged scrolls, and the previously mentioned Dead Sea Scrolls.
Attunement scrolls now granting free flasks
So first there were quests to get into Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep. Then Blizzard created "attunement scrolls," which dropped from the bosses of each and allowed guilds to attune other players or alts who'd missed out on the action so far. And then Blizz removed the attunements entirely. So what happened to the quests and the scrolls?All we know about the quests so far is that Blizzard has promised to add extra steps onto them to reward the people who actually did them (we don't know what the rewards will be quite yet). But Boubouille at MMO Champion has a good line on what's up with the scrolls-- they still drop, but now instead of granting attunements, they grant flasks, usable in all the higher level raid instances.The good news, as we heard at BlizzCon, is that Blizzard says they've learned their lesson from this fiasco, and attunements in upcoming patches and expansions will be a little less intensive (which is fine by me-- I'd rather difficulty keep people away from a dungeon rather than a super-long attunement questline). But if you've got any of these scrolls still around, feel free to use them for flasks. As a commenter says, it's a buy and use 25 flasks, get 5 free sale!
