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Saturday, August 21, 2010

Inscription is dead

The time has come to proclaim that inscription is finally dead in the water. At least for me. There was a time when I was making a lot of gold from inscription. In fact I made over 100K from it and those were good times. 5 months ago inscription was still going strong and I still made a few hundred gold a day easily. On weekends I made 1000G consistently.

These days, I'm pulling around 60G a day and if I'm really lucky, I can make up to 100G. The truth is I don't even bother with inscription the way I used to. I'm mostly trying to clear my stock.

The competition has become a bunch of vicious sharks. Glyph prices oscillate wildly from 60G to less than 1G in a few days. Some of these guys seem to be 24/7 online, undercutting instantly and continuously. There's no point in trying to beat them. Besides, it seems that demand for glyphs has dropped.

Cataclysm will sign the final demise of inscription. In Cataclysm you'll be able to add glyphs to your "spell-book" or some-such interface, meaning that once you've added that glyph you can swap it at any time you wish, i.e. it becomes permanent, much like spells that you only learn once.

Let's see those undercutters undercut the Cataclysm glyphs to oblivion. That will render inscription truly dead.

For now, I'm just concentrating on other things. I continue to craft a limited set of glyphs, only those that sell for at least 20G and only 2 at a time.

It was good while it lasted.

13 comments:

Redbeard said...

I think it depends on the server. On my main's server, Inscription is definitely dead. On a couple of other servers, Inscription --like just about everything else-- is much more costly. To me, that boggles the mind since a noob isn't going to have the gold to pick up the common low level glyphs until they're a lot farther along in leveling. After all, which do you spend your gold on first: bags/bank space or glyphs? Replacing that L10 pair of pants or glyphs?

Lugnut Daffodil said...

It probably just takes a few undercutters with that access the AH off your iphone service, or whatever, to totally ruin that market. They can stay on 24 hours a day while the rest of us are at work/school. And isn't the cost of making glyphs and posting glyphs super low to help them do that crap? That would do it then :(

Anonymous said...

Like everything, reality is a lagging indicator. IMO, the glyph marked "crashed" months ago. Now the question is "should I replace the skill?" It does provide the best shoulder enchant, and I have a substantial investment in the craft (books at 100g+ each - ouch). It's convenient to be able to make glyphs, and I certainly make my share of vellums. What's your thought? Keep inscription?

Darth Solo said...

Well how expensive can those glyphs get? The most I've sold a glyph for was 300G back when patch 3.2 (was it??) hit and they introduced new glyphs from that inscription book. Being the lucky SOB that I am, an inscription book dropped for me while I was questing (the only one since then) and I leaned Glyph of Haunt from it. For a few days I was the only bastard who had that glyph on my server so I sold a ton of them for 300G. I might have charged 1000G in retrospective.

Darth Solo said...

@Anon I'm definitely keeping inscription. Now if you only have a few profession slots available amongst your characters, that's a more tricky situation. Myself I have plenty of "slots" for professions and for that reason I've maxed all of them out.

I still wouldn't give up inscription now. Just wait until Cataclysm and see how it evolves. Maybe it won't be that bad. And the shoulder enchants aren't bad at all.

Unknown said...

I'm torn here... I have a toon I can level inscription on. BUT... Now just doesn't seem like the time to level that profession. I would love to build darkmoon sets, but is that really worth it? Ugh...

Darth Solo said...

Darkmoon sets are dying I believe. During the last fair I created a bunch of them and also bought some "cheap" decks to sell later. Out of 4 Greatness cards I managed to sell 2 for a nice profit but I'm still having trouble selling the other 2.

OK, maybe the cards are not completely dead but it's a risky venture. My biggest problem was obtaining cheap Eternal Life because I had a ton of Snowfall Inks.

If Inscription is your last and final profession then level it, by all means. Otherwise, pick something else.

In the end, no matter how crappy a profession is, I still recommend that you max all of them on your main server and if you have the resources.

Anonymous said...

Most glyphs on my server are around 1g, many people are dumping for like 10s just to get rid of them. At that price, why even bother?

Darth Solo said...

OK, I've been refining my method. For the past few days I've only crafted 1 of each glyph that goes over 20G and I'm canceling as often as I can. I made a few hundred gold using this method, much more than the average in the past month or two.

Unknown said...

I know this isn't on topic, but.... I leveled leatherworking and Alchemy on my Druid. Wish I would have made him an herbalist and alchy, the gathering abilities of Druids is amazing.

The continued benefits (next to none) in cata looking dismal. Ugh... what to do. Drop LW for Herb? Man what a pain.

Darth Solo said...

I wouldn't drop LW if I were you. Here's why I think you shouldn't:
- LW is hard and expensive to level
- druids benefit from LW more than other classes, like for example my paladin
- herbalism is very easy to level and you can always do it on another character

Speaking of which, is your druid your only character??

Oh and why do you say that druids have amazing gathering abilities? I would say paladins are the best at gathering because of Crusader Aura.

Unknown said...

I have 3 80s and the druid will be my 4th. I actually have LW up to 447 LOL...

Why are Druids the best gathering class. You can gather in Travel or Flight form. Not shifting. No mount time.

My pally is JC/Herb. My DK is BS/Mining. My Lock is Encant/Tailor. I made my pally and DK gathers for there travel speed boosts. No doubt they are nice, but they can't touch a druids gathering ability. I do not think this works for mining, but it does for herb.

Once you start collecting on a druid (ie quest objectives) it really spoils you.

I know I'm being really dense here... It doesn't make sense to switch our of LW for Herb on my druid.

Darth Solo said...

My first ever druid will be a worgen. The reason why I haven't played a druid yet (beside the fact that they seem very complicated) is that I absolutely hate night elves and I couldn't bring myself to start one. Yeah instant flight form is awesome but paladins still fly quicker by 20%.

My future druid will be a dual-gatherer: herb/mining. It looks like in Cataclysm we'll be able to track both nodes at once.