Wrath: Inscription coming sooner than expected
Aug 26, 2008 Auction House, Gathering, Investing, Patches, Professions, Wrath of the Lich King
I was a bit surprised when I heard that the new profession, Inscription, is coming well before the Wrath launch. Eyonix stated that the pre-Wrath content will be patched “in the coming weeks” and according to some of my own insider info, Wrath isn’t scheduled to launch until early November. I can only assume the patch will land somewhere in the middle. I’m hoping for sooner than later.
Iktomi hinted in a comment in our last post that we might have some success selling “tradeskill power leveling packs” of herbs to new inscribers. Perhaps even a step-by-step guide to go with the raw materials. That will likely fetch more profit than the soon-to-be-inflated market price of herbs. Did anyone try this with Jewelcrafting in the Burning Crusade?
Whether you plan to sell your herbs individually on the auction house or in packs directly to new inscribers to quickly boost their skill, I’d highly recommend investing gold into herbs as soon as possible. Once the patch hits the test realms, I’m guessing prices will slowly rise on the live realms, then sky rocket when the patch goes live. It’s also worth noting that Cenarion Herb Bags aren’t that expensive to craft and hold 25% more herbs than Netherweave Bags. I was recently invited into the Wrath beta so I’ll be working on an Inscription power leveling guide as soon as I get a stock pile of herbs to transfer over.
August 26th, 2008 at 1:49 am
I think the important issue is just how prepared is everyone? Most people who have been playing for years have lots of gold so buying herbs is not a big issue. Then again anyone planning on leveling inscription on a current character has probably saved lots of herbs already. I also suspect lots of people have been hording herbs just to sell at a profit.
My main is currently 375 Enchant/Tailor and with the large amount of work it took to get that I am not thinking about dropping one for inscription. In my guild the people wanting to level inscription are all going to do it on their Death Knight. With no Death Knights till WotLK, i’m not sure just how high the inscription demand will be.
On my server, when season 4 started some enchanting materials went up a lot while others actually dropped in price when *lots* of people started offloading their stock in the AH. Inscription herbs are going to be a lottery. I doubt anyone will lose money, but not every server is going to see massive demand.
August 26th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Inscription guide will be VERY appreciated. Thank you!
August 26th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
ZOMG! A new post!
Here’s to hoping the next post isn’t another 5 weeks away…
/me heads out to pick flowers.
August 26th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Do you think the high level herbs will also go up in price a lot?
August 26th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Posted this in the wrong thread first. Thanks again for the mention :).
[...]
Regarding methods of carrying the goods, I’ve also heard of players creating a Guild Bank, and storing all the product for the power levelling pack in there.
They invite bidders to the guild and let them see the materials within the bank. Once the funds are transferred (or a hefty deposit, depending upon how you choose to arrange it), they promote the purchaser to a rank which allows them to withdraw, and let them clean it out.
It certainly makes it easier for players to store materials, and may give purchasers slightly more comfort around getting shortchanged, etc.
August 28th, 2008 at 6:42 am
I found this power-leveling guide (http://www.omgrpg.com/article/101493/the-how-to-guide-for-powerleveling-inscription-part-1/) for Inscription that seems to say that only Peacebloom (x100) and Earthroot (x400) are needed for getting Inscription to 125.
Do we have any clue on what is needed to get to 450 ?
September 1st, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I am personally using information from:
http://www.elsprofessions.com/inscription/milling.html
-And purchasing large quantities of the cheapest herb among each ink type. For my server, this means lots of:
Bruiseweed (Dusky Pigment)
Kingsblood (Golden Pigment)
Fadeleaf & Khadgar’s Whisker (Emerald Pigment) (running about the same price on my server)
Blindweed (Violet Pigment)
Golden Sansam (Silvery Pigment)
Felweed (Nether Pigment)
Does anyone know if this is a bad idea, or am I on my way to a virtual fortune?
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:09 am
Great advice, thanks!
September 7th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
It better not be a bad idea, because I have been doing the same thing.
Actually, I have been stocking up on a few more types of herbs. I especially like anything that is always in short supply, like mountain silversage. I hope I can corner the market with the short supply herbs. Watch me get stuck with multiple supply alts worth of herbs lol.
September 9th, 2008 at 7:49 am
If it’s true that Earthroot x 400 and Peacebloom x 100 are only needed to level Inscription to 125, these herbs will be the ones that inflate the most.
Buying up all of these herbs last night on the AH, and I mean all, yielded maybe 120 PB and maybe 200 ER. The supply seems short as it is so on the surface it seems like a massive demand will push these to 20g/stack levels.
However, what I really think is happening is that the shortage on my server is due to a lot of hording. Hard to say without trending for very long, but this could very well be the case. If this is true then there will be a large influx of the low level herbs from day 1. And by large influx, I mean proliferation. That means the price will be driven down very far and very fast.
There are a few ways to handle this:
1) Be online the minute the content patch hits, buy up everything instantly and resell as high as you can in a short a period as you can. Scan the AH constantly and buy up anything that undercuts you by a large margin.
2) Hold on to your horde for a few weeks until supply dries up - people will still want inscription a few weeks after and will still need the supplies. The initial bump will eat anything and price should be 3x after the dust settles.
3) Easiest and probably most profitable and fastest is to, as previously mentioned, sell “starter packs” direct to new inscribers. It will save a lot of time for both party and the power levellers will have gold to burn as it is. Prepare 100x PB 400x ER packs and sell em straight up for 250g-400g depending.
My 2 cents.
September 10th, 2008 at 8:04 am
I actually believe that, while there’s some hoarding going on, a lot of the lack of goods on the auction house is more a symptom of pre-release apathy than anything. I think people are a little bored with the lack of new content, and don’t feel like leveling a new character (and thus, don’t collect Peacebloom while leveling) since Death Knights are right around the corner.
I don’t think that too many people are hoarding this stuff, but I am skeptical that people will pay prices that are super high for Peacebloom and Earthroot on principle. But then, once upon a time I never figured I’d sell bronze at more than 50s a stack. I expect huge price jumps to come to the cheaper mid-level herbs like Liferoot, Kingsblood, and Goldthorn. Stuff that’s not in demand right now that’s also not easy to farm on a level 20 alt.
Incidentally, according to inscription guides, eathroot mills into the same thing as peacebloom, silverleaf, mageroyal, and bloodthistle. Is there a specific reason earthroot is recommended for skillups aside from potentially lower AH prices?
September 11th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Earthroot is now going for 10g/stack minimum on my server going as high as 25g. This is before the content patch even goes to test.
What the hell.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
I have 1200 STACKS of different herbs, preparing for the inscription. I’m focusing on the “Golden Sansam, Dreamfoil, Mountain Silversage, Plaguebloom, Icecap” bunch since I’m expecting to be them the greatest seller.
BTW great post on this topic, I also wrote an analysis on this at my moneymaking blog: http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2008/09/flower-power.html
September 12th, 2008 at 1:57 am
Clearly, the only mat needed to level up Inscription is herb. Other mats can be bought straight from vendors.
Actually, I’m doing about the same as Gith: I buy all low price herbs for each pigment. I have more than 300 stacks of different herbs in bank.
I’ve set up a quick&dirty excel file that parses AAdv prices for all herbs just to follow the prices. Since the launcher has updated, I suspect people will start to realize pretty soon the patch is coming in.
Things I’m worried about :
1. People doing same as me and buying herbs might trigger the prices up : seems not to be happening for the moment on my realm.
2. People wanting to Inscribe will start to stock right now (but this should trigger 1 and I’d see it)
3. I have *no idea* how many herbs are need to get to 375 … are we talking hundreds, thousands, tens of thousand?
September 26th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Okay, looking at the most recent patch (8982), the materials required for leveling up inscription has changed since the last time I looked at it. I’m not prepared to make an inscription guide at the moment, but my current estimates for leveling to 350 (the point at which you can start working on Northrend herbs) require:
7 stacks of Alabaster class herbs
2 stacks of Dusky class herbs
8 stacks of Golden class herbs
8 stacks of Emerald class herbs
8 stacks of Violet class herbs
8 stacks of Silvery class herbs
8 stacks of Nether class herbs
This assumes you get about 10 pigment from each stack, which is a low estimate. This is a little different from other, probably out of date guides I’ve seen in that more Alabaster, Emerald, and Violet herbs required and fewer Silvery and Nether herbs are required. I do not currently know the materials required to blow the rest of the way to 375, presumably more Nether herbs and various exotic materials.
Bear in mind this can easily change in a later patch.
A friend of mine in a high level raiding guild says the people on my server are extremely lazy, and I should charge 1000g per hour spent acquiring the materials. I’m not sure how true that is; how much do you think a full leveling kit should be?
September 29th, 2008 at 6:58 am
I’d like to mention that my previous estimates are extremely incorrect after further testing. In the current patch, the run from 240-250 requires the rare proc from milling Violet Herbs, plan for 16 stacks of those. And currently, the stretch from 295-300 is damn near impossible. Every recipe that’s not grey is green, and the cheapest recipe is the Darkmoon card, which requires 6 of the rare proc from Silvery herbs.
If 3.0.2 goes live without any further changes or added recipes, it will be impossible to make a reliable leveling kit. I recommend hoarding all the Violet and Silvery herbs you can, because there won’t be enough to go around.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:07 am
It seems 3.0.2 will be out on Oct. 14th (http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/10/01/patch-3-0-2-release-date-revealed-probably/).
My question now is the following : how much are you going to relist the herbs ? 2x, 3x, 10x ?
I have no idea ^^’
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Where have you guys been? Over a month since last post… I miss this blog!
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Harmun,
I’ve had some computer troubles lately. I was without a computer for about two weeks after my video card fried. I’ve been unsuccessfully working on a post for leveling Inscription. I’ll probably be writing a separate post to tie you guys over until the Inscription guide is complete.
I miss the blog too
Any ideas for posts and such, send em my way! I can only brainstorm so much on my own!
October 6th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Kevin,
What do you think the prices of uncut gems are going to do with Lich King? Seems to me there’s going to be a lot of people with new armor to gem. That’s my idea, maybe you can run with that.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
From my initial numbers, Sesq’s updated post on 29th Sept is more accurate. The high 200s will be fairly resource intensive (be it financially driven or materials driven). I have been stocking up on Golden Sansam, Dreamfoil, Mountain Silversage and Plaguebloom.
Also, I have been consistently searching the AH for the most commonly found, lowest price materials in each inscripting bracket (as these will vary depending on which zones players level in, and your faction). I’ve found the following to be the cheapest per unit price, in general terms (Format is Common Ink type: Cheapest herb/stack):
Ivory: Peacebloom (all three herbs are very inexpensive)
Dusky: Mageroyal/Bruiseweed
Golden: Kingsblood
Emerald: Fadeleaf
Violet: Firebloom
Silvery: Golden Sansam
Nether: Felweed
I am focusing on these herbs for my own levelling, and am also keeping additional stockpiles for the first few weeks after. For those interested in purchasing herbs purely for resale post-patch, I would continue to focus on the lower per-unit price ones, as there is no benefit to securing rarer herbs over the commonly available varities.
Good luck all
October 7th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Actually, there does appear to be a difference between some herbs and the amount of pigment they give you. Peacebloom gives 2-3 alabaster, but Earthroot gives 2-4. However, the difference in price still makes Peacebloom more cost effecting, and I don’t think the market would notice the difference, anyway. Liferoot, Khadgar’s Whisker, and Blindweed are some of the higher yielding herbs in their classes, and are all plentiful in the Swamp of Sorrows. Good place to farm.
I think my estimates are still on the low side, considering it takes two pigments to make one ink, but I’m going to wait until the weekend to see if there are any last minute changes before saying anything definitively.
I’m still trying to figure out the prices I should offer and my marketing strategy. With the amount of work I’ve been putting into it, along with the projected value of the herbs, I’d really prefer to charge five figures for a full 1-~360 kit (Currently, you can’t actually get all the way to 375 before Lich King). At prices like that, I don’t think trade chat is an option. I guess I need to use what few connections I have to contact some of the more “serious business” guilds.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Five figures seems like a lot. Not sure how many herbs I’ll
need for a full leveling pack, but with the amounts on wotlkwiki
I came up with a costprice of about 300/400 gold:P
October 7th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Herbank, unless you intend to farm about 75% of the herbs yourself, I think your 300-400G target extremely undershoots the mark. On my server, the Silvery class herbs are going for over 1G/unit (probably closer to 1.5G, or 30G/stack). Initial estimates have it at 16+ stacks of the Silvery type herbs, which would come to around 400G on its own.
I’d be budgeting to spend well in excess of 1500G if you chose to purchase all of it (this figure is purely speculative). If you farm, I would focus on the 50-60 levelling areas, as these are where the bulk of your materials will come from, and are also likely to be that which have more bargaining power when looking to on-sell.
October 15th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Since the patch I have seen all the herb prices jump. The most dramatic changes were in the price of basic herbs (i.e, silverleaf, peacebloom, and earthroot.) Prices that were once at most about 45 silver for 20 are now ranging from 7 to 10 gold per 5. However, plant materials on my server have always been a bit pricey, especially when you are an entry level character looking to level up alchemy as I was when I started on my current server.
Now that another profession is available I see the herb market leveling out in terms of price. This, however, could take a little while to happen based on the number of people that will be crossing over into the new profession.