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[WoW] Workin' for the Weekend: The Profession Thread
Al Baron
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
WoW Wiki wrote:A profession is a large trade-oriented set of skills that player characters may incrementally learn in order to gather, make, or enhance items that can be used in World of Warcraft gameplay. Professions are learned from a trainer (or sometimes from a book at higher levels), for a cost. Professions can be learned regardless of their character faction, race, or class (although there are a few class skills that are just like a profession.)
Specific trade skills within a profession allow you to do specific things — craft a specific item or add a specific enhancement. These are learned from the profession trainers, from recipes, or occasionally directly from a quest trainer. Each profession starts out with a few specific trade skills.
Through practice, a character gains skill levels within the profession and becomes more capable within that profession. Note the distinction, professional skills are capabilities within a profession, whereas professional skill level is a progression metric which is used as a prerequisite for professional skills and as a prerequisite for the ability to gather specific items within a gathering profession.
Patch 3.1 changes (Quick link to low-level mat changes):
* Alchemy
o All flasks now last 1 hour. To compensate, all flask recipes will provide 2 flasks for the same material cost.
o Blackmouth Oil and Fire Oil no longer require a vial.
o Elixir of Greater Firepower now grants spell power to all schools of magic.
o Flasks now stack to 20, and their vendor sell prices have been reduced to lower the Auction House deposits.
o Increased the health granted by the Flask of Stoneblood.
o Northrend flasks will be converted to mixtures. This includes the Flask of Stoneblood, Flask of Pure Mojo, Flask of Endless Rage, and Flask of the Frost Wyrm. Mixtures can create 2 flasks of the corresponding type. This allows players who stockpiled Northrend flasks to convert them to the new system without any loss.
o The Crazy Alchemist Potion is now correctly increased by Alchemist Stones.
o The Mercurial Stone is no longer required as a tool for alchemists. It is instead an uncommon quality bind-on-equip trinket.
o You can now sometimes find Alchemist's Caches from bosses in Ulduar. Only players with an Alchemy skill of 425 or higher can loot these secret caches.
* Blacksmithing
o Added a new recipe for the Titansteel Spellblade, an epic one-handed caster dagger, available from trainers.
o Added new recipes for epic gear, found rarely on Ulduar bosses. These recipes are unbound and can be traded.
o Most of the recipes in the 1-300 skill range of blacksmithing have received major stat updates to make them more useful.
o Added a new recipe for the Titansteel Spellblade.
o The Titanium Plating shield enchantment now reduces the duration of disarm effects by 50% as well as increasing your block value.
* Cooking
o A new recipe has been added to cooking trainers for making Black Jelly, using several Borean Man 'O War as ingredients. While it looks disgusting, it restores more health and mana than the highest level food.
o Flint and Tinder is no longer necessary for creating a campfire. You're just that resourceful!
o Grub now sells the Dig Rat Stew recipe to players who completed the quest.
o Ingredients such as Spices, Apples, and the like have been removed from most cooking recipes.
o Players no longer need to complete the Clamlette Surprise quest to gain Artisan cooking. The quest now offers the unique recipe, Clamlette Magnifique. If you already completed the quest, you can visit Dirge Quickcleave in Gadgetzan to learn this recipe (for free).
o Prospector Khazgorm, found in Bael Modan in southern Barrens, now sells the recipe for Dig Rat Stew to the Alliance.
o Several Northrend recipes were given greater skill up ranges to make it easier to reach 450 cooking skill.
o You no longer need to learn cooking from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.
* Enchanting
o Added two new recipes for enchanting staves with spell power, available from Vanessa Sellers in Dalaran City.
o Greatly increased the drop rate of recipes found in pre-Lich King dungeons and raids.
o Several recipes in the 250-300 skill range have been rebalanced, and the reagent requirements have been reduced.
o Some enchants now have level restrictions. Note: the enchant is never removed from the item to which it's applied, however, players no longer receives its benefit until they reach the required level. Any enchants modified in this way have had their tooltips updated.
o The enchanting interface now correctly sorts grey recipes by skill difficulty.
* Engineering
o Added a new Reticulated Armor Webbing engineering enchant that increases the armor on plate gloves.
o Added a new Springy Arachnoweave engineering enchant that grants passive spell power in addition to turning your cloak into a parachute.
o Engineers can now obtain the schematics for Lil' Smoky and the Pet Bombling from certain creatures found in Gnomeregan. Specialized Gnomish or Goblin engineers can obtain both schematics equally. The repeatable quest that used to randomly grant these schematics has been disabled.
o Flexweave Underlay now grants passive agility in addition to its normal effect.
o Gnomish X-Ray Specs have a new model.
o Nitro Boosts now grant passive critical strike rating in addition to their speed boost.
o Nitro Boosts now make you drop PVP flags when used, as well as preventing you from picking them up while the effect is active.
* Fishing
o A new (and very rare) special mount can now be caught from Northrend fishing pools.
o New fishing dailies are now offered from Marcia Chase in Dalaran City!
o Players are no longer required to do the Nat Pagle, Angler Extreme quest to gain Artisan fishing. The quest now offers a special superior-quality fishing pole instead. If you already completed the quest, you can visit Nat Pagle in Dustwallow Marsh to receive this new fishing pole.
o The time needed to catch fish has been reduced.
o You can now fish anywhere, regardless of skill. Every catch has the potential for fishing skill gains, but you are likely to catch worthless junk in areas that are too difficult for your skill.
o You can now fish in Wintergrasp, and the fishin' is good!
o You no longer need to learn fishing from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.
* Gathering Skills
o Toughness, Master of Anatomy, and Lifeblood now have level requirements equal to the level required for the corresponding skill rank: Apprentice (1), Journeyman (1), Expert (10), Artisan (25), Master (40), Grand Master (55).
o You can no longer fail when Mining, Herbing, and Skinning.
* Herbalism
o Find Herbs no longer tracks Glowcaps.
o Northrend herbs now yield more herbs on average.
o The herbalism requirement for gathering Tiger Lily has been reduced to 375.
o The time it takes to gather herbs has been reduced.
* Inscription
o Added a recipe to trainers for creating a level 70 superior-quality off-hand item.
o Added a recipe for creating a different level 70 superior-quality off-hand item. Scribes will find the recipe is dropped from residents of Silverbrook.
o Added around 50 new glyph recipes. These new recipes can be obtained from Books of Glyph Mastery found as world drops on Northrend monsters. Reading a Book of Glyph Mastery randomly discovers one of the newly-added recipes.
o Glyph icons have been updated so it is easy to distinguish between classes.
o Players will now learn 3 recipes the very first time they perform Northrend Inscription Research. This does not apply to players who have already discovered recipes from Northrend Inscription Research (sorry).
* Jewelcrafting
o Added a new recipe to cut black diamonds.
o Added a recipe for Shifting Twilight Opal to the daily jewelcrafting vendor.
o Added recipes for superior-quality PVP rings and necklaces to Northrend jewelcrafting trainers.
* Leatherworking
o Added a recipe for combining Borean Leather Scraps into Borean Leather. You can still use Borean Scraps from your inventory to combine them.
o Added new recipes for epic gear, found rarely on Ulduar bosses. These recipes are unbound and can be traded.
o Several lower-level items crafted by leatherworkers have received major changes to make them more appealing.
o Shadowskin Gloves and Dusky Boots no longer require Shadowcat Hide to create, but instead require an equal quantity of Shadow Silk. Shadowcat Hides can no longer be obtained from skinning.
* Mining
o Northrend deposits now despawn 1 minute after mining them. This change was made to speed up respawning when nodes were partially looted.
* Tailoring
o Added new recipes for epic gear, found rarely on Ulduar bosses. These recipes are unbound and can be traded.
o Added recipes for superior-quality PVP cloaks to Northrend tailoring trainers.
o The Lightweave tailoring enchant now sometimes grants a temporary spell power bonus instead of dealing direct damage to your target.
o Several lower-level items crafted by tailors have received major changes to make them more appealing.
o All flasks now last 1 hour. To compensate, all flask recipes will provide 2 flasks for the same material cost.
o Blackmouth Oil and Fire Oil no longer require a vial.
o Elixir of Greater Firepower now grants spell power to all schools of magic.
o Flasks now stack to 20, and their vendor sell prices have been reduced to lower the Auction House deposits.
o Increased the health granted by the Flask of Stoneblood.
o Northrend flasks will be converted to mixtures. This includes the Flask of Stoneblood, Flask of Pure Mojo, Flask of Endless Rage, and Flask of the Frost Wyrm. Mixtures can create 2 flasks of the corresponding type. This allows players who stockpiled Northrend flasks to convert them to the new system without any loss.
o The Crazy Alchemist Potion is now correctly increased by Alchemist Stones.
o The Mercurial Stone is no longer required as a tool for alchemists. It is instead an uncommon quality bind-on-equip trinket.
o You can now sometimes find Alchemist's Caches from bosses in Ulduar. Only players with an Alchemy skill of 425 or higher can loot these secret caches.
* Blacksmithing
o Added a new recipe for the Titansteel Spellblade, an epic one-handed caster dagger, available from trainers.
o Added new recipes for epic gear, found rarely on Ulduar bosses. These recipes are unbound and can be traded.
o Most of the recipes in the 1-300 skill range of blacksmithing have received major stat updates to make them more useful.
o Added a new recipe for the Titansteel Spellblade.
o The Titanium Plating shield enchantment now reduces the duration of disarm effects by 50% as well as increasing your block value.
* Cooking
o A new recipe has been added to cooking trainers for making Black Jelly, using several Borean Man 'O War as ingredients. While it looks disgusting, it restores more health and mana than the highest level food.
o Flint and Tinder is no longer necessary for creating a campfire. You're just that resourceful!
o Grub now sells the Dig Rat Stew recipe to players who completed the quest.
o Ingredients such as Spices, Apples, and the like have been removed from most cooking recipes.
o Players no longer need to complete the Clamlette Surprise quest to gain Artisan cooking. The quest now offers the unique recipe, Clamlette Magnifique. If you already completed the quest, you can visit Dirge Quickcleave in Gadgetzan to learn this recipe (for free).
o Prospector Khazgorm, found in Bael Modan in southern Barrens, now sells the recipe for Dig Rat Stew to the Alliance.
o Several Northrend recipes were given greater skill up ranges to make it easier to reach 450 cooking skill.
o You no longer need to learn cooking from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.
* Enchanting
o Added two new recipes for enchanting staves with spell power, available from Vanessa Sellers in Dalaran City.
o Greatly increased the drop rate of recipes found in pre-Lich King dungeons and raids.
o Several recipes in the 250-300 skill range have been rebalanced, and the reagent requirements have been reduced.
o Some enchants now have level restrictions. Note: the enchant is never removed from the item to which it's applied, however, players no longer receives its benefit until they reach the required level. Any enchants modified in this way have had their tooltips updated.
o The enchanting interface now correctly sorts grey recipes by skill difficulty.
* Engineering
o Added a new Reticulated Armor Webbing engineering enchant that increases the armor on plate gloves.
o Added a new Springy Arachnoweave engineering enchant that grants passive spell power in addition to turning your cloak into a parachute.
o Engineers can now obtain the schematics for Lil' Smoky and the Pet Bombling from certain creatures found in Gnomeregan. Specialized Gnomish or Goblin engineers can obtain both schematics equally. The repeatable quest that used to randomly grant these schematics has been disabled.
o Flexweave Underlay now grants passive agility in addition to its normal effect.
o Gnomish X-Ray Specs have a new model.
o Nitro Boosts now grant passive critical strike rating in addition to their speed boost.
o Nitro Boosts now make you drop PVP flags when used, as well as preventing you from picking them up while the effect is active.
* Fishing
o A new (and very rare) special mount can now be caught from Northrend fishing pools.
o New fishing dailies are now offered from Marcia Chase in Dalaran City!
o Players are no longer required to do the Nat Pagle, Angler Extreme quest to gain Artisan fishing. The quest now offers a special superior-quality fishing pole instead. If you already completed the quest, you can visit Nat Pagle in Dustwallow Marsh to receive this new fishing pole.
o The time needed to catch fish has been reduced.
o You can now fish anywhere, regardless of skill. Every catch has the potential for fishing skill gains, but you are likely to catch worthless junk in areas that are too difficult for your skill.
o You can now fish in Wintergrasp, and the fishin' is good!
o You no longer need to learn fishing from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.
* Gathering Skills
o Toughness, Master of Anatomy, and Lifeblood now have level requirements equal to the level required for the corresponding skill rank: Apprentice (1), Journeyman (1), Expert (10), Artisan (25), Master (40), Grand Master (55).
o You can no longer fail when Mining, Herbing, and Skinning.
* Herbalism
o Find Herbs no longer tracks Glowcaps.
o Northrend herbs now yield more herbs on average.
o The herbalism requirement for gathering Tiger Lily has been reduced to 375.
o The time it takes to gather herbs has been reduced.
* Inscription
o Added a recipe to trainers for creating a level 70 superior-quality off-hand item.
o Added a recipe for creating a different level 70 superior-quality off-hand item. Scribes will find the recipe is dropped from residents of Silverbrook.
o Added around 50 new glyph recipes. These new recipes can be obtained from Books of Glyph Mastery found as world drops on Northrend monsters. Reading a Book of Glyph Mastery randomly discovers one of the newly-added recipes.
o Glyph icons have been updated so it is easy to distinguish between classes.
o Players will now learn 3 recipes the very first time they perform Northrend Inscription Research. This does not apply to players who have already discovered recipes from Northrend Inscription Research (sorry).
* Jewelcrafting
o Added a new recipe to cut black diamonds.
o Added a recipe for Shifting Twilight Opal to the daily jewelcrafting vendor.
o Added recipes for superior-quality PVP rings and necklaces to Northrend jewelcrafting trainers.
* Leatherworking
o Added a recipe for combining Borean Leather Scraps into Borean Leather. You can still use Borean Scraps from your inventory to combine them.
o Added new recipes for epic gear, found rarely on Ulduar bosses. These recipes are unbound and can be traded.
o Several lower-level items crafted by leatherworkers have received major changes to make them more appealing.
o Shadowskin Gloves and Dusky Boots no longer require Shadowcat Hide to create, but instead require an equal quantity of Shadow Silk. Shadowcat Hides can no longer be obtained from skinning.
* Mining
o Northrend deposits now despawn 1 minute after mining them. This change was made to speed up respawning when nodes were partially looted.
* Tailoring
o Added new recipes for epic gear, found rarely on Ulduar bosses. These recipes are unbound and can be traded.
o Added recipes for superior-quality PVP cloaks to Northrend tailoring trainers.
o The Lightweave tailoring enchant now sometimes grants a temporary spell power bonus instead of dealing direct damage to your target.
o Several lower-level items crafted by tailors have received major changes to make them more appealing.
WotLK general changes:
With the impending release of Wrath of the Lich King comes many changes to profession, including a new one:
Gathering
Herbalism: Besides becoming a very good money-maker due to Inscriptions, herbalism also receives Lifeblood (a free, instant cast HoT)
Mining: Toughness - a minor HP boost (300 at 375, 500 at 450)
Skinning: Master of Anatomy - a minor critical strike rating boost (15 at 375, 25 at 450)
Production
Alchemy: Good News, Bad News deal for this one. Good news is that you get Arena-usable pots and Mixology, a passive perk that increases the power and duration of Elixirs and Flasks substantially. Bad news is that your profits magins will be hurting due to the new '1 potion per fight' mechanic.
Blacksmithing: You get to make gem meta-sockets for your gloves and bracers and BoE belt sockets for everyone else.
Engineering: Blizzard has moved away from having most of your toys take up a equipment slot; now they just take up an enchant slot (which includes your belt.) You can also craft your goggles at an early level then you could in BC. Finally, a portable mailbox, a Swiss Army Knife, X-ray goggles, a +81 Stamina or +63 SP trinket, and a goddamn BoE motorcycle rounds out the goodies list.
Leatherworking: Cheap Fur Lining enchants for your bracers and Armor Kits for your legs.
Tailoring: Besides BoP enchants for your pants and cloak and Northern Cloth Scavenging (a passive perk that increases Northrend cloth drops,) you get to make a flying carpet mount.
Jewelcrafting: Besides BoP colorless gems and socketable trinkets, you also get Gem Perfection (a passive perk that gives you a chance to cut uncommon quality Northrend gems into perfect gems with slightly better stats.) Your profession is also the first Primary one to get daily quests.
Services
Enchanting: With the help of an inscriptor, you can make Scrolls of Enchantment to put up on the AH. Also, you now get upgradeable BoP wands.
Inscription:
In short, inscriptors can enchant your abilities and spells. For BoP crap, they can make Scrolls of Recall (an extra hearth on a separate cooldown) and Shoulder Enchants.
Secondary
Cooking: Besides eatables that allow for critter control and beast/humanoid tracking, you can now make Mage-style Feast for party-wide dining.
Fishing: Still a pain in the ass to level, unfortunately (Blizzard only boosted the skillup rate for testing in beta.) However, the Tuskarr faction has a new epic fishing pole to grind rep for. Also, Dalaran is a magical wonderland for fisherman.
First Aid: Wondering where to learn Heavy Frostweave Bandage? That book's now a BoP world drop item. :b
Gathering
Herbalism: Besides becoming a very good money-maker due to Inscriptions, herbalism also receives Lifeblood (a free, instant cast HoT)
Mining: Toughness - a minor HP boost (300 at 375, 500 at 450)
Skinning: Master of Anatomy - a minor critical strike rating boost (15 at 375, 25 at 450)
Production
Alchemy: Good News, Bad News deal for this one. Good news is that you get Arena-usable pots and Mixology, a passive perk that increases the power and duration of Elixirs and Flasks substantially. Bad news is that your profits magins will be hurting due to the new '1 potion per fight' mechanic.
Blacksmithing: You get to make gem meta-sockets for your gloves and bracers and BoE belt sockets for everyone else.
Engineering: Blizzard has moved away from having most of your toys take up a equipment slot; now they just take up an enchant slot (which includes your belt.) You can also craft your goggles at an early level then you could in BC. Finally, a portable mailbox, a Swiss Army Knife, X-ray goggles, a +81 Stamina or +63 SP trinket, and a goddamn BoE motorcycle rounds out the goodies list.
Leatherworking: Cheap Fur Lining enchants for your bracers and Armor Kits for your legs.
Tailoring: Besides BoP enchants for your pants and cloak and Northern Cloth Scavenging (a passive perk that increases Northrend cloth drops,) you get to make a flying carpet mount.
Jewelcrafting: Besides BoP colorless gems and socketable trinkets, you also get Gem Perfection (a passive perk that gives you a chance to cut uncommon quality Northrend gems into perfect gems with slightly better stats.) Your profession is also the first Primary one to get daily quests.
Services
Enchanting: With the help of an inscriptor, you can make Scrolls of Enchantment to put up on the AH. Also, you now get upgradeable BoP wands.
Inscription:
Someone from SA wrote:Inscription is the brand-new-to-3.0.2 profession. It doesn't focus on gear creation (though it has a number of BoP offhand items), which makes sense because Blacksmithing, Tailoring and Leatherworking pretty much have that covered. It functions instead on enhancing spells and talents. All players have access to Glyph slots, three major and three minor. You get your first major and minor at level 15, second major at 30, second minor at 50, third minor at 70 and third major at 80. To add a glyph to a slot, you must be near a Lexicon of Power; if you don't know where one is, ask a guard where the Inscription Trainer is. Inscription is functionally very similar to Enchanting and Jewelcrafting: much like enchants and gems can be replaced at any time at the cost of the loss of the original, glyphs can be replaced if you're willing to forfeit them. To create glyphs, Scribes must use ink and parchment; pigments are used to create ink, and are obtained by milling herbs in stacks of five.
In short, inscriptors can enchant your abilities and spells. For BoP crap, they can make Scrolls of Recall (an extra hearth on a separate cooldown) and Shoulder Enchants.
Secondary
Cooking: Besides eatables that allow for critter control and beast/humanoid tracking, you can now make Mage-style Feast for party-wide dining.
Fishing: Still a pain in the ass to level, unfortunately (Blizzard only boosted the skillup rate for testing in beta.) However, the Tuskarr faction has a new epic fishing pole to grind rep for. Also, Dalaran is a magical wonderland for fisherman.
First Aid: Wondering where to learn Heavy Frostweave Bandage? That book's now a BoP world drop item. :b
Now with sidecar action!
Al Baron on
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As of a couple of weeks ago, they know my intention of getting her engineering maxed in Wrath so she can make us all Motorcycles and my family and I can ride around like a Gang.
My minor was the rogue "walk on water while sprinting" one, which kinda sucks, but it's better than no minor at all. Made 4, tossed 'em on the AH for an absurd price, if they haven't sold by the time I get home I'll probably just hand them out to the rogues in my guild.
I'm really impressed and perhaps even excited for the new things they're adding to each profession in the expansion. Little perks and nods to benefit the crafter, especially the 'enchants' that will likely be useful all the way through, rather than T4-T6-Twhatever gear that, while damned awesome to make early on (I'm looking at you, Tailoring in TBC) is eventually replaced and forgotten.
btw, I saw that Scribes get Shoulder enchants in the expansion. Any perks for sub Northrend Script Kiddies?
WTS [Bloodthistle]x200
Not entirely unexpected, since only one side has realistic access to that herb. I was surprised it was millable to begin with...
My inscription is at all of 1. My server was one of those officially shut down last night, so all I've seen of patch 3.0 is about 5 minutes worth.
The gathering professions gained bonuses with this last patch.
Herbalism gives you a HoT that you can use. I think it's 1200 health over 6 seconds or so? Not sure if it's affected by AP/SP like actual spells are (god that would be nice), but at 70 it's nothing to write home about. A little something to use while farming/grinding/levelling, I guess.
Miners get a bonus to stamina, and skinners get a bonus to crit rating.
At 375 mining I get 300 more health. Not stamina.
Any specifics on this that I can look up? When I tried this on the beta, I didn't notice any increase in effectiveness.
The tooltips on the buffs won't reflect the added affects from alchemy. You'd have to look at your character's stats to see the differences. Yet another of the long running buff tooltip issues that blizzard has never been able to fix.
My other profession, not so much. Enchanting is at 353 and I've rather hit a roadblock. Most people seem to resort to shouting in trade to level their skill to help reduce/negate the massive cost of mats, but that's something I'd really rather not do. I've still got 2000 more gold to get for an epic flier before wrath, and not much time to play the game to begin with.
Getting a free skillup every 10 minutes isn't a viable option when it takes me 3 and a half hours to grind dailies for gold and i've sometimes got 6 hours of play time with fishing left to build up, an alt I'd like to level, and two sets of rl friends asking me to come raiding or to play on their server.
Hopefully the new inscription mechanics will help though. Being able to get even a little bit of a return on enchanting a piece of vellum would make everything much easier.
i thought it was a druid thing at first :P
Anyone have a simple workaround? I've finally gotten Advanced Tradeskill Window working again, but sadly it doesn't include that option either.
It'd be really nice if there were an icon by the name, or even a naming convention/notation by each as to whether it was Major or Minor.
Actually it seems to depend on the profession. My shaman, herb/alch, had max rank Lifeblood when I logged in on Tuesday, but I had to hit the alchemy trainer to get Mixology.
Septus, that may be why you didn't notice anything different. (1) You need to train Mixology. (2) Apparently it only affects flasks and elixirs that you can make. You don't have to have made the exact one you're drinking but you need the skill in your profession pane. My rogue friend had a four-hour flask of relentless assault last night.
Fortunately my shaman discovered flask of might restoration last night.
Edit @ Forar, yeah, I'm hoping for an addon that will learn how to sort minor from major too. Separating by class is nice but you really need an additional toggle. But on that note, how awesome is it being able to link your tradeskill when being asked fifty times what glyphs you can make for mages or whatever?
I agree with this, I was checking wifes Inscriber for minors and thought that making Minors seperate would be fairly obvious. (her two minors are for hunters, increasing happiness on your pet when you use Mend Pet, and increasing the damage your pet does when using Eyes of the Beast.)
Lifelike mechanical toad
Mechanical Squirrel
Tranquil Yeti
The high demand is due to the pet achievements. Not everyone knows about these pets so advertising in trade/getting guildies to spread the word may be a better bet then the AH.
Other then that, levelling up inscription is pretty easy, given sufficient herbs. ALthough, you never have quite enough. One of my guildies followed a levelling guide, and was still about 25% short on tier 3 and 4 herbs.
Well, whenever it is, Enchanting has followed a pretty clear progression. Unless someone with beta info cares to correct me, I feel pretty strongly that there will be a Northrend rod (or two, or more), and that you will need to have TBC's top rod at some point to craft it/them, so getting it made now doesn't hurt a lot either. Sure, it might take some time and materials, but there's nothing wrong with getting a little head start. I don't know about your realm, but enchanting materials have been pretty cheap on mine for ages. Arcane Dust is under a gold apiece, and shards have been in free fall for months, though they seem to be steadying again.
OK, yeah. There's a runed cobalt rod that requires the eternium rod, and a titanium rod that requires a cobalt rod. But the mats to make the eternium rod have been nerfed, no more primal might required. Haven't checked what the enchanting level needed to make it is, though. So go ahead and make it now, since the price of arcane dust and planar essence should fall (once people have finished enchanting their new 3.0 raid gear).
Yeah someone clever had put Ethereal Ink on the AH for 20g each on Tuesday night. I ended up blowing extra herbs on green glyphs to get from 295 to 300 just to avoid paying him. But then I did put my own Ethereal Ink up the next morning for 10g each and they all sold.
Also, surefooted mats got reduced and it's now awesome, I forgot that patch note. Glad it's the one useful Outland enchant my druid can do. And now he's 375 without having to waste mats on redoing my own ring enchants for skillups!
Nice to see everyone has already done so.
I do know that on the Borean Trainer both the Runed Cobalt and Runed Eternium rods can be learned at 375.
Of course, it's never made any sense to me why the enchanting rods have to cost so much to create. It's not like enchanters pay any less for training than the other professions, and it's not like, say, tailors have to blow a bunch of mats every 50 or so skill levels crafting a new set of needles required to sew new bags and pants.
In rod we trust.
I'm not sure exactly how much I've made back, nor how much I would've made had I sold the herbs rather than using them, but I've been making a killing on Inscription. Probably 1.5k+, with more sitting in the mail as we speak.
Probably the biggest perk was getting in 'on the ground floor', but I imagine that levelling it down the road when the herb prices have returned to something resembling normal will be significantly easier as well.
Probably about on par with Alchemy for levelling, at least for now. You won't make a killing on most of the stuff you level with, but you're more likely to get something for it on the AH than you are with, say, Blacksmithing or Leatherworking.
I'm not sure if this'll work to my advantage, but I stockpiled away what Deathknight glyphs I made, usually 2-3 apiece. I'll probably keep one of each on hand for my actual Deathknight (whether I use them immediately or not, having 'em around won't hurt) and will try to toss them up around WLK's release. On one hand, there'll be plenty of Scribes around, so getting them probably won't be that bad. On the other hand, the number of Deathknights is going to be absurd, so I'm hedging slightly on the demand far outstripping the supply, at least for the first few days.
Last night it turned out I didn't have enough of the Fadeleaf, Khadgar's Whisker, Goldthorn level herbs, so I ended up having to take my sole herbalist (my inscriber abandoned herbalism for inscription since I didn't want to give up the money factory that is a transmute mastery alchemist) out to Dustwallow Marsh. I wasted about an hour running around without Gatherer (I haven't had the chance to update any mods yet) competing against a few other 70s for herbs.
My inscriber is 250 now, so tonight I'm going to be hitting that wall of pain.
Some oddities I noticed leveling up inscription so far:
A couple of the scroll recipes (scroll of agility III, for sure, maybe strength III as well) create 5 scrolls at a time instead of the expected (and I assumed intended) 2.
After rank II, scrolls of strength and scrolls of agility give far fewer stat points than intellect, spirit, and stamina. Why do Scroll of Agility IV and Scroll of Strength IV give 10 Agi/Str while Scroll if Intellect IV and Scroll of Spirit IV give something like 17 or 18 Int/Spirit? It doesn't make sense since all those stats are supposed to be budgeted the same.
Get to 295.
Take a stack or two of Felweed, get 10+ Nether Pigement from it.
Find a 300+ inscriptionist. Give them 10 Nether Pigment and some gold, have them make you 5 ink.
Use ink to get to 300 far more easily than dicking around with green con recipes.
Make a ton of glyphs using Outland herbs (which are much easier to collect as well, in my opinion/experience, especially if you have a druid as your gatherer) and get to 360-365ish, wherever it dies off or you can't be bothered going any higher.
Ta da, you're now set until WLK comes out next month!
Also, Hellscream seems to be mad packed with retards and assholes, so step 3 might be difficult. We shall see!
is trying to figure out the mats to give to a guildie to make me something
i was like hey man, what herbs to make this or that
he was like aw shit, gimme a minute i better write this down
"If you're going to play tiddly winks, play it with man hole covers."
- John McCallum
You'll probably need 1 or 2 ink, which is made from 2 (I think always) pigment. So you'll need 2 or 4 pigment. Which comes from a variety of herbs, and are milled in groups of 5 for 1-4 pigment per shot. Moral of the story, you'll probably need 10-15 or so of a given herb, whichever is cheapest in that range.
Now, someone correct me if I'm wrong; you can be ANY level of Inscription to mill ANY herb, correct?
Welcome to the new Enchanting Alt. Inscription Alts? Don't want to jump through hoops? Everyone should go make a level 5 ANYTHING, make them a Scribe, and then just keep a stash of milled pigments on hand. It's like Enchanting, but with plant parts.
Right now it looks like the money is in selling the herbs to people that didn't stock up (insert "Ant & Grasshopper" joke here) and in the minor glyphs. At least on my server, people really are paying 100-200 gold for them. Both are going to trail off quickly, IMO.