Inscription 1-350 Guide

By the time you're reading this you've probably already got Inscription maxed. But perhaps not, and there's always alts. Pictures are coming, as are itemlinks, but I didn't want to withhold this post from you much longer than needed. So enjoy what's here so far. Both my mage and druid had 375 mining skill, and since scribes can create some nice bind on pickup offhands I figured it'd be a good idea to make my mage a scribe as well. So, he dropped mining and got to work. There's a whee whole bunch of inscription guides out there already, but most of them seem to be copying each other. Then again, the skill remains the same and levels rather predictably no matter how you look at it, it's just a matter of putting the wording differently. I'll list some you can read at the bottom of the page. The first thing you'll learn when you take on Inscription is: * Milling. This is used much in the same way as jewelcrafters use prospecting. It destroys 5 herbs and gives you some common and rare pigments in return. * Ivory Ink. The basis for your low level skills. * Scroll of Spirit * Scroll of Intellect * Scroll of Stamina Need herbs? Scroll down to the bottom for the herb routes. Trainers Orgrimmar, Undercity, Thunderbluff, Stormwind, Ironforge, etc etc. All the mrjor cities have a trainer. Not shattrath though. Just go to UC or SW and ask a guard for the exact location. The outland trainer can be found in Honor Hold or Thrallmar. Skill 1-75 Rank-1 Herbs : Peacebloom, Silverleaf, Earthroot Herbs milled : 360. You only "need" about 120-130, but read on. Pigments received : 156 Alabaster Pigment Skill level 1-35 An average of 2 pigments per herb. Cheap as hell though. Create 18 Ivory ink, this should put you to ~17-18 skill. Next, use those 18 Ivory ink in combination with 18 Light parchment and create Scroll of stamina, intellect or spirit. This should put you straight to 35-36 skill. Skill level 35-75 If you accidently made some extra Ivory ink, just make some more scrolls as they shouldn't turn green until 40. Next, make all the moonglow ink you can. Since at 75 you'll get the skill called "Minor Inscription Research". You'll be using that skill once every ~20 hours to learn new minor glyphs. I converted all the pigments I milled into Moonglow ink. If you're in a hurry to raise your skill to 75, you can make armor vellum up to 75 easily. This will require an estimate of 20-22 of your precious moonglow ink however. (I had 60 to spare) Once you've converted all the Alabaster pigments into moonglow ink you'll be sitting at around 72-73 skill. Just make 2-3 armor vellum to get to 75. Skill level 75-100 Rank-2 Herbs : Briarthorn, Bruiseweed, Mageroyal, Stranglekelp, Swiftthistle Herbs milled : 80 Pigments received : 40 Dusky pigment, 9 Verdant pigment Skill level 75-80 Once you hit 75, start off the first point to 76 by diong "Minor Inscription Research". Next, you can still make armor vellum which should be good up to 87, but you don't want to waste any Moonglow ink if you can help it. The research doesn't turn yellow until 125, but due to the long cooldown you'd be testing your own patience quite a bit. If you're a brother or sister of ebenezer scrooge though, don't let me stop you. Current skill: 76 Make 20 Midnight ink. If you're lucky you get to 80 skill now, otherwise just create an extra 1-2 armor vellum, they're cheap. 80-85 Grab 5 more Light parchment, talk to the trainer, and you'll receive your first few glyphs to make. The best thing to do here is to make 1-2 of each of them so you have more chance to sell some of these. Don't worry too much about making a profit, it all depends on your market. 85-90 Under the assumtion that you managed to score some verdant pigment earlier, be sure to make as many of the Hunter's Ink as you can. It turns green at 90, so it probably won't carry you much further than that. If you didn't then don't worry, just make some more of the same glyphs. 90-100 Now that you're at 90, learn some new glyphs (again), and you'll notice the materials are still the same. Blizzard didn't really bother to make these glyphs too varied it seems. But that's not our current concern. Grab another 10 Light parchment and make a mix of 10 of the glyphs you just learned. You should be 100 without any trouble. Skill level 100-150 Rank-3 Herbs : Grave Moss, Kingsblood, Liferoot, Wild Steelbloom. Herbs milled : 180 Pigments received : 102 Golden Pigment, 17 Burnt Pigment Now things will start picking up a bit faster. In cost that is. 100-105 Make Lion's Ink out of the Golden Pigments since you'll need these later. I made only 15 here initially as I ran out of herbs to do more, but farmed some more later and created the rest. 105-115 Maul, Hammer of Justice, and Ice armor are still yellow and only cost one midnight ink and one light parchment. I still had a load of rank-2 herbs (mageroyal etc) so went ahead and grinded those into another : 15 Dusky pigment, 4 verdant pigment. I converted the verdant pigment into hunter's ink for later use. And made another 6 glyphs of the ones just mentioned. This should save some higher end herbs later. Funny enough, I had "yet more" herbs able to produce dusky pigment. No point in wasting good materials right? The Mysterious Tarot, which requires one Hunter's Ink and a Midnight Ink each will get you from 110 to 125. It really depends how many Verdant pigment you managed to convert earlier. Let's assume you have enough materials for 10. Alternatively it would take about 9 of the following glyphs : Psychic scream and Lightning shield to get those 5 skill points to 115. And for another alternative, you could make glyphs of Eviscerate, Fade, Fire Nova Totem, Health Funnel, Holy Light and Rending to go from 105-115 instead. This would cost you 10 Lion's ink and some Common Parchment. Which equares to a few silver in paper and 20 Golden Pigment. (About 40 milled herbs) But, as you'll find when raising Inscription, more than one road leads from Rome. 115-120 I farmed herbs this week and used "Minor Inscription Research" meanwhile to get from 115-120. Saves me some lion's ink. You probably are eager to continue however, and thus will be spending 5 Lion's ink to make one of the following Glyphs: * Glyph of Arcane Missiles * Glyph of Aspect of the Monkey * Glyph of Healing Touch Each should cost you no more than one ink and a common parchment. Els Professions has a pretty nice list in that regard. Alternatively, you should still have those "Hunter's Ink" that was mentioned before. These, in combination with a Midnight ink will get you from 110-125 with ease before turning yellow and won't turn green until 137. Be sure to use these before then as they really haven't got much other purpose. For the sake of this guide we'll assume you got 5 ready. 120-125 Mysterious Tarot. These will produce the cards : Ace / Two / Three of Rogues. These can be turned in later for junk greens of little concern. I had enough ink (20) to easily get to 137 from here on, but we'll assume you don't. 125-140 Dawnstar ink. Not amazingly useful for anything other than more tarot cards, but if you have "Burnt Pigments" (and I know you do) then making these should be able to provide you with another 5 skill points. If you don't get to 130 on these, just make a few "Glyph of Fear". 130-135 : Glyph of Blink x5 135-140 : Glyph of Lay on Hands x5 140-150 Strange Tarot. Assuming you've been able to get at least 20 dawnstar ink, these are the best way to level. Keep in mind you'll also need 1 Lion's ink per card. So 10 in total. After that the skill will turn yellow and though it'll probably still provide you with skill after, it's probably easier to switch to the next type of herb. These are useable until they turn green at 162. If you don't have that many, you can always make one of these glyphs to get from 140-145 first. * Glyph of Imp * Glyph of Lightning Bolt * Glyph of Sunder Armor Skill 150-200 Rank-4 Herbs : Goldthorn, Fadeleaf, khadgar's whisper, wintersbite. Herbs milled : 200 Pigments received : 113 Emerald Pigment, 16 Indigo Pigment Things should be looking pretty much the same from this point on. Make 5 glyphs, visit the trainer, make 5 glyphs, visit the trainer, make inks as soon as you can, finish up with some rare inks before they no longer give skill. As such, I'm going to start compressing the self explanatory bits a little. 150-175 Making Jadefire Ink should be able to get you to 154-155. You'll need about 55 in total. You can finish off with a "Glyph of Multi-Shot" if it didn't. 155-160 : Glyph of Evocation x5 160-165 : Glyph of Renew x5 165-170 : Glyph of Shadow Bolt x5 170-175 : Glyph of Overpower x5, or Scroll of Strength III 175-190 Royal ink. It's always a bit tricky to get skill with green recipes, but you should be able to get at least 2-3 skill points this way. Afterwards, "make Scroll of Agility III" until 183 skill. It'll turn yellow at 180 but should provide you with a few more skill points midway. And, followed by two "Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain" to reach skill 185. 185-190 : Glyph of Frost Shock x5 190-200 Arcane Tarots depending how many Royal Ink you got. If you got enough to make 8, then make 2x Glyph of Revenge first, so the 8 tarots should put you on 200. If you got 7, then make 3 glyphs first. Skill 200-250 Rank-5 Herbs : Arthas' Tears, Blindweed, Firebloom, Ghost Mushroom, Gromsblood, Purple Lotus, Sungrass Herbs milled : 200 Pigments received : 102 Violet Pigment, 16 Ruby Pigment 200-225 Start by converting your Violet pigments into Celestial Ink. This should get you to 205 without too much effort. If for whatever reason you didn't just make some extra "Armor Vellum II". 205-210 : Armor Vellum II x5 210-215 : Glyph of Sinister Strike x5. These will sell like hot-cakes so if you have plenty of materials feel free to make some extra of these while they're yellow. 215-220 : Glyph of Healing Stream Totem x5 220-225 : Glyph of Barbaric Insults x5 225-230 Fiery Ink. I had 16 Pigments, so ended up with 16 inks. You're quite likely to reach 230 with just making these inks, but if for whatever reason you can't, just create some "Scroll of Agility IV" until you do. 230-235 : Glyph of Dispel Magic x5 235-23x : Depending how many Fiery Ink you got make a few : Glyph of Slice and Dice. They sell easily and are good profit. 235-250 Time to make use of those Fiery ink. "Weapon Vellum II" 14-15x depending how many inks you managed to get. The weapon vellum recipe will turn green at 255 skill, so even if you got more than 15 you "could" in theory still make a few extra. Heck, if you still have 20+ Celestial ink and don't feel like saving them you could simply start off with making some Glyphs of slice and dice before making the armor vellum. Good profit in those. However, you will get free skill points from the next ink, so don't go above 250 skill just yet. Skill 250-300 Rank-6 Herbs : Dreamfoil, Golden Sansam, Icecap, Mountain Silversage, Plaguebloom. Herbs milled : 150 Pigments received : 73 Silvery Pigment, 6 Sapphire Pigment 250-275 Start off with the obvious. Make Shimmering Ink from the Silvery Pigments and you should be at 255 skill. If not, you can make a "Scroll of Stamina V" to get there. I started off with 36 inks. 255-260 : Scroll of Spirit V x5 260-265 : Glyph of Shred x5 265-270 : Glyph of Bone Shield x5 270-275 : Glyph of Frost Strike x5 275-285 Ink of the Sky, make all you can, for some reason this one starts at orange and continues to do so for a while. I only had 6, so 6 skill points. 281-285 : Glyph of mana gem x4 285-288 : Glyph of Execution x3 288-290 : Glyph of Sprint x2 (Or just 2 more Execution) That's all you'll be using the Pre-TBC herbs for. You can thank your kind trainer from Undercity or wherever and it's time to head to Outland. Head for a trip to the nearest bank and grab some herbs along. Skill 290-350 Rank-7 Herbs (Outland) : Ancient Lichen, Dreaming Glory, Felweed, Mana Thistle, Netherbloom, Nightmare Vine, Ragveil, Terocone. Herbs milled : 290 Pigments received : 145 Nether Pigment, 18 Ebon Pigment. A bit more than needed, but you'll be using these to get to 375 eventually. 290-300 Give a friendly Scribe about 50 herbs and ask him to make you 10 Ethereal ink then return the remaining pigments. (I've included these into milled herbs total) I doubt it's intended by blizzard but You'll find the Master Inscription trainer in either the Tower above Thrallmar right next to the enchanting trainer, or if you're Alliance you can find one at the mage tower in Honor Hold. 290-295 : Scroll of Stamina VI x5 295-300 : Scroll of Spirit VI x5 300-325 Ethereal ink, you'll be making a good lot so should have no problem reaching 305. 305-310 : Glyph of Feint x5 310-315 : Glyph of Rune Tap x5 315-320 : Glyph of Rapid Fire x5 320-325 : Glyph of Sweeping Strikes x5 325-350 Darkflame Ink. I made 16 here, and managed to get to 329. You might not have as much Ebon pigment. Create 1-2x Glyph of Mage armor to get to 330. 330-335 : Glyph of Windfury Weapon x5 335-340 : Glyph of Arcane Power x5 340-345 : Glyph of Death Strike x5 345-350 : Glyph of Whirlwind x5 Skill 350 OK, you're 350, now what? Well, you can make all the known patterns in the game as of 3.0.2. More will be added by blizzard at a later time, and though you can get your skill up to 360 or theoretically even 375, there's just not any point in doing so until WotLK is actually released and you can visit the new trainers in Northrend. Herb routes Lets assume you have a 375+ herbalist already, preferably a druid (flight form rocks for farming herbs). Be sure to install the following addons: * Routes. This will draw a route on your map with the shortest path to all the herbs in the zone. Can be filtered and customized fully. * Gathermate. This is your basic gathering database. * Mapster. This will allow you to customize the routes more easily, get it. Rank-1 herbs : Inscription 1-75 Peacebloom, Silverleaf, and Earthroot Durotar, or just about any other level 5-10 zone. Rank-2 herbs : Inscription 75-100 Briarthorn, Bruiseweed, Mageroyal, Stranglekelp, Swiftthistle The barrens. You really don't want to be anywhere else for collecting these. Rank-3 herbs : Inscription 100-150 Grave Moss, Kingsblood, Liferoot, Wild Steelbloom. Stranglethorn Vale contains Kingsblood, Liferoot, Wild Steelbloom and an abundance of Rank-4 herbs which you'll also need later. Rank-4 herbs : Inscription 150-200 Goldthorn, Fadeleaf, khadgar's whisper, wintersbite. Stranglethorn Vale, you really wouldn't want to be anywhere else. You'll not receive any Wintersbite there but the other herbs are available in abundance. Rank-5 herbs : Inscription 200-250 Arthas' Tears, Blindweed, Firebloom, Ghost Mushroom, Gromsblood, Purple Lotus, Sungrass Firebloom and purple lotus spawn in good numbers in Tanaris, which is right next to Un'goro where you'll find Rank 6 herbs. Gromsblood could be farmed in the blasted lands and Felwood is also a good alternative as you'll find severa; Rank-6 Herbs there. Rank-6 herbs : Inscription 250-300 Dreamfoil, Golden Sansam, Icecap, Mountain Silversage, Plaguebloom. You'll receive a good number of Dreamfoil and Golden Sansam while farming Rank-7 herbs in Hellfire peninsula, however if you want to speed things up a bit then un'goro is a pretty good place to be. Rank-7 herbs : Inscription 300-350+ Ancient Lichen, Dreaming Glory, Felweed, Mana Thistle, Netherbloom, Nightmare Vine, Ragveil, Terocone. More Guides Inscription: * Wowwiki - Inscription * Els Professions * Inscription guide * Wow professions