Archive for the “Crafting” Category
Posted by Illume in Crafting
In which Actual Numbers are used to derive Actual Conclusions. Accept no substitutes.
I mentioned a while back that I didn’t trust WoWHead’s numbers on pigment yields from herbs, based on a few things.
- Uploads from the collection tool don’t seem to be applied in real time.
- There is no indication as to how often stale data is purged,
- … or how old is considered stale
- No indication as to how much of that data is from Beta, and thus no confidence in whether the data was from artificially inflated yield rates
I also mentioned at the time that I had created an addon that would grab milling data automatically in order to obtain an alternative set of numbers that would be – to me - unimpeachable.
The downside to this is that I could not trust the numbers I saw until I had more samples. I think I have enough – for MoP herbs – to provide some more or less accurate commentary, which I present forthwith.
As you probably know, there are two types of pigments yielded – common (for Ink of Dreams), and rare (for Starlight Ink). The former is for the mundane stuff such as glyphs, the latter for the rare and epic items, quite often cards for Darkmoon decks. So there are two thing to consider when obtaining inks to mill – what are you looking for, and what are you going to do with it?
For the average glyph monger, high yield of common inks and low cost (if buying) are key factors. For Darkmoon Card makers, high yield of rare inks will be the overriding concern.
As you can see, common inks are largely clustered around the 2.5 per mill mark. Fool’s Cap far outstrips that at 2.84 per mill. So if other factors are the same, Fool’s Cap is the way to go. Otherwise any of the other herbs except for Desecrated Herbs are equally good. Desecrated Herbs are probably going to be overpriced, but if they aren’t, they’re marginally better than others.
Rare pigments have a similar story, with most clustered around one pigment per four mills, or 0.25. Fool’s Cap again is crazy large at more than one per every other grind, but the price may make it unfeasible. However, given it’s close to 3-to-1 superiority to the others, a bit of flexibility on the price is warranted. Even at double the price of the others, its yields make it more profitable.
Again, Desecrated Herbs have a marginally higher yield rate than the others, but not high enough to justify a premium price.
The clear winner here is Fool’s Cap, with its tremendous yields of both pigment types. You can justify quite a lot of time farming or money on the AH in order to obtain stacks of this herb. This is especially true if you are after rare inks – the other herbs don’t hold a candle to it.
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The planned new training recipes for Blacksmithing in patch 5.2 make me sad.
Lemme splain.
In a nutshell, these new recipes can be used to get you from skill level 1 to 500 by using Ghost Iron – I’m going to assume that in the next expansion, it will be the ore of the new lands, perpetually from 5.2 on out.
The good news of this is that you don’t have to go farming for copper, tin, iron, and so forth to get you through the lower levels.
But here’s the thing; can I see a show of hands of anyone that felt that farming or buying copper ore was any more difficult than farming or buying ghost iron? It’s not difficult. It’s not a problem. The greatest challenge it poses is for you to figure out what zone has what ores, which is just the sort of brain-dead activity that separates us from lower primates.
In short, this solves a problem that doesn’t exist.
It is strangely similar to how Blizzard solved “the leveling problem”. Instead of making it interesting, they made it trivial.
And GhostCrawler has the nerve to be surprised that his playerbase “optimizes for efficiency.”
The simplified leveling model solved a problem that didn’t exist. The new blacksmithing scheme does as well. And both are a monumental waste of time.
If they decide to trivialize the leveling or blacksmithing experience so that it’s just stupid simple to do, why not do something a lot less complicated? Just let people buy level 85 characters for fifty bucks (and kill the illicit market for said toons). Just let people pay a huge sum of gold for BS skill level 500 and stop clogging our zones with farmers.
They have a moral and philosophical objection to this sort of thing, but because of those peccadillos, they’ve wasted countless man-hours on something that nobody wants, instead of, oh, I don’t know, new content maybe?. Maybe finish up dance studio? Maybe get those updated models out there?
No, what they’ve decided to do is to give us ways to skip parts of the game without actually and factually doing the deed.
And that, my friends, is disappoint.
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In the “goblin” world, there are goblins, and there are those that write about goblins, and there are those of us that more or less peer in from the edges, bemused at how far one person will go to make a few gold pieces. I fancy myself in the latter, no illusions there, but I wonder where WpW Insider’s resident goblin journo places himself?
His topic of the day was something near to my heart, inscription as a money maker. As usual, he almost gets it right, or almost gets it wrong, but doesn’t really nail either.
Buy the Numbers
The first thing I want to tackle isn’t provably wrong – not yet, or at least not provable by me – but I want to shed some light on the statement that possibly was edited down for brevity.
Assuming you can make a full deck for every 12 cards you produce (which is the ratio you see if you trade really well and/or produce a lot of cards), it’ll cost you 120 stacks of any herb but Fool’s Cap, or 75 stacks of Fool’s Cap. At 40g per stack of, for example, Green Tea Leaf, that’s 4800g per deck. Some decks can sell for over 20,000g.
What’s he talking about, Fool’s Cap requiring fewer stacks? Well, basically, what he’s saying here is that Fool’s Cap yields up more Misty Pigment than other herbs do. If he got his numbers from WoWHead, I do question them – WoWHead does not appear to purge old data that often, so the numbers up there could possibly include Beta data. Hard to say, since they’ve become less transparent by the day.
However, I wrote a little addon that has been tracking all milling I do in real time. So far, the yields look like this.
So, everything hovers around the .25-pigments-per-mill level, except for Fool’s Cap, which has yielded around .60. Yes, that’s more than double, which is in excess of WoWHead’s numbers. I have no idea whether this will hold, but I’ll be monitoring it. Right now, I don’t have enough samples from all herb types to make me comfortable publishing a link to the database, but before too long I will.
The upshot is, yeah, right now it’s worth it to buy Fool’s Cap for purposes of making Darkmoon cards. But now that Euripides has let the cat out of the bag, I expect there to be at least a window in which it will be priced beyond reason. Keep your eyes on the prices.
Don’t Believe it
Glyphs are a whole other beast. I’ve said a few times that this market isn’t worth pursuing, and to some extent, this still holds true. The main reason I’d advise against trying your hand at the glyph market is that everyone else disagrees with me, and that the profit per hour in this market is purely driven by competitors’ willingness to spend more time cancelling and relisting.
This shows some old-fashioned thinking on Euripides’ part. The “work harder not smarter” attitude works, if you have no other interest in this game than to sell things and make gold. I’ve other things to do. This is and has been a side-project, in which I attempted to determine if one could make money on the AH in an intelligent way. I’ve succeeded – if you disagree, it can only be on the matter as to what degree I’ve succeeded. However, since I started this exercise in Wrath, I’ve accumulated over 1,000,000 gold, so I think I’m on solid ground here.
I published my methods here, so I won’t go into great detail now, but essentially these principles held, and still hold.
- Treat the enterprise as you would a retail outlet.
- Maintain a working inventory of glyphs.
- Cultivate a reliable, inexpensive source of materials.
- Rotate stuff out when its price drops too far (as opposed to a forced reset, which is too labor-intensive) and shelve stuff that doesn’t sell at all.
- Don’t worry about Euripides and the goblins.
#5 is the part that flies in the face of what Euripides said. He maintains that you have to undercut like a fiend. I don’t. I sold 5000 GP worth of glyphs last night. Does that sound like a good turnaround for an hour’s work? It does to me. I post ONCE per day. I still sell stuff. There are a variety of reasons, but the biggest reason is that the stuff that sells, will sell. Some “goblin” may undercut me, but if the glyph is a seller, then his glyphs WILL be bought, then mine are right there for the next buyer.
Don’t take the advice of trolls
I like angry letters, so when I have time to troll my esteemed competitors, I’ll go and post a "glyph wall" of 3 of each glyph for triple the materials cost. This is just expensive enough that it’s not worth them buying me out, and cuts the high end of the market (the 300g glyphs that cost 15g to make) out from under them. This can be fun, not unlike popping bubble wrap. I still get undercut within an hour, but since this doesn’t really drive demand up that much, I don’t end up selling anything more than I would have at the high prices. That’s generally when they’ll mail me letting me know this.
In the end, though, I can’t spend all day trolling — they just wait for me to have better things to do and then go back to their old ways.
I encounter a number of idiots like this on my server and I always get the last laugh, because while they’re all wrapped up in this little game of theirs, I just keep posting and selling. They were thick as fleas on a camel when the expansion posted, but they’re gone now, and I an still making bank. Laugh-a while you can, monkey-boy.
If you’re going to disregard my advice and try to get into the glyph market, the best advice I have for you is to make sure you have the most efficient possible setup, and undercut really frequently.
If you want to make money making glyphs, and you don’t want it to be your life, then disregard this advice and reflect on the article I linked above. Exercise patience and intelligence and you’ll not want for gold in days to come.
Moving on
I’ve a couple more tweaks to make to see how far I can push this thing, but now that I’ve gotten my Million, it’s all become rather pointless. I’m not one of those one-percenters that digs the money just for being the money. My goal has been to provide a comfortable nest egg for ten toons on this server, and I’ve more than accomplished my goal. Anything else is just gravy.
Everybody loves gravy.
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As treasurer for the clan on the Alleria server, it is my job to disburse and otherwise account for all gold made by the team. Our goal early on was to ensure a comfortable living wage for all alts in the clan, ensure nobody ever wanted for an enchant, mount, or training session when needed, and to someday reach the lofty goal of one million gold sovereigns.
So, yeah, that’s a thing.
The addon that shows all the alts’ monies for us is, by the way, Broker_Currency, an LDB addon that manages a few things about currencies, such as showing them on the LDB display bar (ChocolateBar in this case), making a drop-down showing all of a particular currency type for all alts on the server, showing certain currencies when you have bags open, and so forth. This isn’t just money, it’s also things like cooking awards, faction tokens, and so forth. Basically, if Blizz calls it a currency, you can display it in a number of ways for convenience.
We’re all very sad that the original Grimmtooth can’t be here to appreciate the moment. He started the project in WotLK, and would have appreciated its completion. He’d also appreciate having access to a million gold since there is a sweeeeet gun that pops up on the BMAH, and he could really use it right now. Unfortunately, no way to transfer money between here and Azuremyst, so he’s going to have to work his dwarven butt off to get it.
There are many ways to 1000000 gold. Our approach was to run a glyph shop. I did the gathering, when needed. Illume did the crafting. Jasra handled sales of glyphs and all other items that we found, made, or otherwise acquired. We went for slow and steady, and it has worked quite well. Nobody in the group wants for anything. And we still exceeded the goal, though not as quickly as expected.
I’m not sure what we’ll do now. The Glyph Store thing has become its own little mini-game. Illume’s number-crunching on prices, availability, and sales patterns are absolutely fascinating. Things like, WHO IS KILLING THE MARKET? Answer: look who wasn’t here when prices improved. That sort of thing. Nothing that will help in a raid, but when somebody in guild chat says GEE MY LUCK ON MISTY PIGMENT SUCKS, it’s nice to be able to say, “Well, based on a sample of thousands of mills, all herbs except XXX have a less than 1-per-stack for that pigment. So focus on milling XXX.”
We’ve been looking at the Enchanting market. It’s a lot more volatile than glyphs. But some of the enchants appear to bring some sweet rewards on the AH.
Tedious and boring details will be published when appropriate. Fairly warned be ye, say I.
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Posted by Illume in Crafting
Heads up, everybody!
It’s the other shoe that didn’t drop when 5.0.4 came out. Blackfallow Ink has gotten its pink slip:
Beginning after the maintenance on Tuesday, October 9, ink traders will be converting from accepting Blackfallow Ink to accepting Ink of Dreams and Starlight Ink will become available for purchase. If you’re still holding on to your Blackfallow Ink, your time to trade it in is running short.
– Nethaera
You’ve got until you log out tonight (ish) to resolve your Blackfallow Ink issues. Actually, this is an unexpected courtesy. Ink of the Sea got ditched without warning when 4.0.3 went live, so I was expecting much the same this time around.
The good news is this: if you have leftover herbs or Blackfallow inks, you an cash those in for Ink of the Sea now, and still blow through them in no time if your server’s like mine. Ink of the Sea is still the highest-demand ink out there, so you really can’t have too much of it.
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Let’s start this off on the right foot.
I was wrong.
Not catastrophically, pitchforks-and-flaming-torches wrong, but not 100% right.
Most, if not all, of the “dead” glyphs did not go away, turn into dust, evaporate, or otherwise become worthless. They were changed into whatever MoP now currently has the same ID that they had in Cata. So the correct action should have been to just stash those in the bank, at worse, and break them back out when the patch dropped.
So, apologies, if you didn’t make out like a bandit on that particular aspect.
Well, moving on.
Otherwise Glyphmas 2012 has been cracking good. I’m sure I’m not making out as well as others, but my goal is to get some sleep and keep some of my soul, so that’s the way it shall be. Two days, around 17000, and not really trying as hard as the server’s resident glyph bandit who seems hellbent on running me off the server. He’s even gone so far as to roll two level 1 bank alts in Darnassus and he alternates between them. I’m pretty sure glyph prices on Alleria would be a lot higher if not for his efforts. Well, everyone wins; I sell in bulk, you get cheaper glyphs.
Even after stockpiling inks before the patch dropped, I went through every one of them before the end of the first day. I’m now out farming for herbs. I HAVE heard that the ink trader still accepts Blackfallow ink, but that’s clearly not intended behavior, and is sure to go away at some point, and hopefully nobody gets punished for exploiting the bug, if bug it be.
The current bonanza is just a preview of day 1 of MoP. We’ll get access to Ink of Dreams, and have a use for Monk glyphs. My suggestion – if you’re willing to take it – is to have your Monk glyphs made already, if possible.
Oh – and visit your trainer! Learn those new glyphs!
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It’s probable that there will be some changes between now and the 28th, but we’re close enough that we can consider the numbers we have now to be fairly stable. So let’s consider the stats and what they mean for you.
Note: I am not linking to any of the items on WoWHead because after a very short time, those links will be invalid when the MoP database becomes the real database. Obviously I can’t link to the real database for items are going to change. Sorry.
First and foremost: Blackfallow Ink is not your friend. On the 28th, it will not be usable to buy other inks. It will only be good to make glyphs. And there is only one glyph that you can make with it. So, before the turn of 5.0.4, you need to convert Blackfallow Ink into anything that’s useful.
Topic the First: what’s useful.
First of all, at the end of this article will be a chart showing all glyphs that are active in MoP. In case you want to skip the brilliant analysis.
So what inks are useful? This chart shows the distribution of ink utilization in MoP. Obviously, you can’t buy Ink of Dreams, but everything else is fair game.
As you can see, Ink of the Sea is by far the most useful. Basically, 30% of your ink-exchanging should be for this glyph, followed by Ethereal at roughly half that. Blackfallow is that little sliver.
This chart confirms Blackfallow as officially the most useless ink in the game. You can make one glyph with it, the market is going to be flooded by people skilling up, and you can’t buy anything else with it. Useless. Unless you directly need to use Blackfallow ink for some sort of skilling up activity, don’t bother grinding Cata herbs. Sell them to alkys.
One thing to take into account: all this chart does is show the utilization of inks. It does not show how well the glyphs that are made will sell. We won’t know that until we start rolling those glyphs out on the 28th.
Surprisingly, utilization of Ink of the Sea increases in MoP. This is despite moving several glyphs to different inks from what they used in Cata. It bewilders me that they didn’t bring Blackfallow up even with at least Ink of Dreams. This has always been a thing that confuses me. It seems that a glyph’s ink should be on par with the glyph’s level, and the glyph’s level should be on par with the level of the skill that it is modifying. But none of the glyphs learned between 80 and 85 use Blackfallow Ink except for Colossus Smash.
Within a few percentage points, glyph distribution in MoP is pretty even. DK seems to be hurting the most. Compared to Cataclysm’s distro, it looks like this:
First of all, note that there were close to fifty (50) glyphs added between Cata and MoP. Of those, Monk accounts for around 35.
Big winners were Warrior, Priest, and Paladin. Hunter did well, while everyone else held even or lost one or two spots. Which is bad news for mages, as roughly 1/2 of their glyphs are now variations on Polymorph.
Following is a full list (as of today, 8/17/2012) those glyphs that will be supported as of 8/28/2012. Enjoy!
Note: this table defaults to 25 entries, but has over 400. Please use the drop-down at the top of the table for navigation. There are little pagination buttons at the bottom, too.
| Glyph | Ink | Type | Comment |
| Adrenaline Rush | Celestial | Changed | Former Prime, New Ink |
| Afterlife | Jadefire | New | |
| Ambush | Etheral | | |
| Animal Bond | Etheral | New | |
| Anti-magic Shell | Sea | | |
| Aquatic Form | Lion's | | |
| Arcane Explosion | Etheral | New | |
| Arcane Language | Midnight | New | |
| Arcane Power | Etheral | | |
| Armors | Sea | Changed | Former Prime, New Ink |
| Army of the Dead | Sea | New | |
| Aspect of the Beast | Sea | new | |
| Aspect of the Cheetah | Sea | new | |
| Aspect of the Pack | Celestial | | |
| Aspects | Jadefire | new | |
| Astral Recall | Jadefire | | |
| Avenging Wrath | Celestial | new | |
| Barkskin | Celestial | | |
| Beacon of Light | Etheral | | |
| Black Ice | Dreams | new | |
| Blackout Kick | Sea | New | |
| Blade Flurry | Sea | | |
| Bladed Judgement | Dreams | new | |
| Blessed Life | Sea | new | |
| Blind | Jadefire | | |
| Blinding Light | Shimmering | new | |
| Blink | Lion's | | |
| Blitz | Sea | New | |
| Bloodcurdling Shout | Midnight | New | |
| Bloodthirst | Shimmering | | Former Prime |
| Bloody Healing | Sea | | |
| Blooming | Lion's | New | |
| Blurred Speed | Midnight | | |
| Borrowed Time | Midnight | New | |
| Breath of Fire | Dreams | New | |
| Bull Rush | Shimmering | New | |
| Burning Anger | Dreams | New | |
| Burning Embers | Etheral | New | |
| Camoflage | Lion's | new | |
| Capacitor Totem | Sea | new | |
| Carrion Swarm | Etheral | New | |
| Cat Form | Lion's | New | |
| Certificate of Ownership | Celestial | | |
| Chain Lightning | Sea | | |
| Chains of Ice | Sea | | |
| Charm Woodland Creatures | Lion's | New | |
| Cheap Shot | Sea | New | Former Prime |
| Chimera Shot | Etheral | | |
| Circle of Healing | Sea | | |
| Clash | Dreams | New | |
| Cleansing Waters | Etheral | new | |
| Cloak of Shadows | Etheral | | |
| Colossus Smash | Blackfallow | | |
| Combustion | Sea | new | Forner Prime, New Ink |
| Cone of Cold | Jadefire | | |
| Confession | Dreams | New | Former Prime |
| Conflagrate | Sea | | |
| Conjure Familiar | Midnight | new | |
| Consecration | Celestial | | |
| Contemplation | Lion's | new | |
| Corpse Explosion | Etheral | new | |
| Counterspell | Shimmering | new | |
| Crackling Jade Lightning | Celestial | New | |
| Crackling Tiger Lightning | Sea | New | |
| Crimson Banish | Lion's | New | |
| Crippling Poison | Sea | | |
| Crittermorph | Sea | new | |
| Crow Feast | Dreams | new | |
| Curse of Exhaustion | Jadefire | | |
| Cyclone | Shimmering | new | |
| Dancing Rune Weapon | Etheral | | |
| Dark Archangel | Sea | New | |
| Dark Binding | Sea | New | |
| Dark Simulacrum | Etheral | new | |
| Dark Soul | Sea | New | |
| Dark Succor | Shimmering | | New Ink |
| Dash | Jadefire | | |
| Dazing Shield | Sea | | |
| Deadly Momentum | Sea | New | |
| Death and Decay | Sea | | Former Prime |
| Death Coil | Shimmering | | Former Prime |
| Death from Above | Etheral | new | |
| Death Gate | Etheral | | |
| Death Grip | Shimmering | | |
| Death's Embrace | Etheral | | |
| Debilitation | Lion's | New | |
| Decoy | Midnight | New | |
| Deep Freeze | Celestial | | Former Prime, New Ink |
| Deluge | Shimmering | new | |
| Demon Hunting | Etheral | New | |
| Demon Training | Sea | New | |
| Demonic Circle | Sea | | |
| Denounce | Sea | New | |
| Desperation | Shimmering | | |
| Detection | Sea | New | |
| Deterrence | Celestial | | |
| Direction | Dreams | New | |
| Disengage | Celestial | | |
| Disguise | Shimmering | New | |
| Dispel Magic | Jadefire | | New Ink |
| Dispersion | Etheral | | Former Prime |
| Distract | Lion's | | |
| Distracting Shot | Sea | New | |
| Divine Plea | Sea | | |
| Divine Protection | Midnight | | |
| Divine Storm | Etheral | New | |
| Divinity | Lion's | | |
| Double Jeopardy | Lion's | New | |
| Drain Soul | Midnight | New | |
| Endless Wrath | Sea | New | |
| Enduring Healing Sphere | Dreams | New | |
| Enduring Infection | Sea | new | |
| Enraged Speed | Midnight | new | |
| Enslave Demon | Jadefire | | |
| Entangling Roots | Lion's | | |
| Evasion | Midnight | | |
| Everlasting Affliction | Sea | New | |
| Evocation | Jadefire | | |
| Expel Harm | Dreams | New | |
| Explosive Trap | Lion's | New | |
| Expose Armor | Lion's | | |
| Eye of Kilrogg | Lion's | | |
| Fade | Lion's | | |
| Fae Silence | Etheral | New | |
| Faerie Fire | Lion's | | |
| Falling Meteor | Jadefire | New | |
| Far Sight | Jadefire | New | |
| Fear | Lion's | | |
| Fear Ward | Shimmering | | |
| Feint | Etheral | | |
| Felguard | Sea | | Former Prime |
| Feral Spirit | Etheral | | Former Prime |
| Ferocious Bite | Midnight | | |
| Fetch | Lion's | New | |
| Fighting Pose | Sea | New | |
| Final Wrath | Lion's | New | |
| Fire Blast | Sea | new | |
| Fire Elemental Totem | Sea | | Former Prime |
| Fire from the Heavens | Jadefire | New | |
| Fire Nova | Lion's | | |
| Fireworks | Jadefire | New | |
| Fists of Fury | Sea | New | |
| Flame Shock | Midnight | | Former Prime |
| Flash of Light | Midnight | New | |
| Flying Serpent Kick | Sea | New | |
| Focused Shield | Sea | | |
| Fortifying Brew | Sea | New | |
| Foul Menagerie | Sea | new | |
| Freezing Trap | Shimmering | | |
| Frenzied Regeneration | Etheral | | |
| Frost Nova | Midnight | | |
| Frost Shock | Jadefire | | |
| Frostfire Bolt | Sea | | Former Prime, Renamed |
| Furious Sundering | Sea | | New Ink |
| Gag Order | Midnight | new | |
| Garrote | Lion's | | |
| Ghost Wolf | Lion's | | |
| Gouge | Jadefire | | |
| Grace | Midnight | New | |
| Grounding Totem | Sea | | |
| Guard | Dreams | New | |
| Gushing Wound | Lion's | new | |
| Hammer of the Righteous | Etheral | | Former Prime |
| Hamstring | Lion's | new | |
| Hand of Gul'dan | Etheral | New | |
| Healing Storm | Lion's | New | |
| Healing Stream Totem | Celestial | | |
| Healing Touch | Lion's | | |
| Healing Wave | Sea | | |
| Health Funnel | Lion's | | |
| Healthstone | Midnight | | |
| Heavy Repercussions | Sea | new | |
| Hemorrhage | Sea | | Former Prime |
| Hex | Sea | | |
| Hindering Strikes | Celestial | new | |
| Hoarse Voice | Lion's | new | |
| Hold the Line | Jadefire | new | |
| Holy Fire | Etheral | New | |
| Holy Nova | Etheral | | |
| Holy Resurrection | Dreams | New | |
| Holy Shock | Celestial | | Former Prime |
| Holy Wrath | Midnight | | New Ink |
| Honor | Dreams | New | |
| Horn of Winter | Etheral | | |
| Hurricane | Sea | | |
| Ice Block | Celestial | | |
| Ice Lance | Sea | | Former Prime |
| Ice Trap | Etheral | | |
| Icebound Fortitude | Shimmering | new | |
| Icy Solace | Sea | New | |
| Icy Touch | Shimmering | | Former Prime |
| Icy Veins | Sea | | |
| Illumination | Lion's | New | |
| Illusion | Etheral | new | |
| Immediate Truth | Sea | New | |
| Imp Swarm | Lion's | New | |
| Incite | Dreams | new | |
| Inner Fire | Lion's | | |
| Inner Focus | Sea | New | |
| Inner Sanctum | Lion's | New | |
| Innervate | Sea | | |
| Inquisition | Lion's | New | |
| Intimidating Shout | Sea | | |
| Invisibility | Sea | | |
| Jab | Dreams | New | |
| Kick | Sea | | |
| Killing Spree | Etheral | | Former Prime |
| Lava Lash | Jadefire | | Former Prime |
| Leap of Faith | Etheral | New | |
| Leer of the Ox | Etheral | New | |
| Lesser Proportion | Midnight | | |
| Levitate | Jadefire | | |
| Life Cocoon | Etheral | New | |
| Life Tap | Midnight | | |
| Lifebloom | Sea | | Former Prime |
| Light of Dawn | Sea | | |
| Lightspring | Shimmering | New | Former Prime |
| Lightwell | Sea | | Former Prime |
| Long Charge | Midnight | | |
| Loose Mana | Lion's | new | |
| Mana Gem | Etheral | new | |
| Mana Tea | Dreams | New | |
| Marked for Death | Sea | New | |
| Marking | Dreams | New | |
| Mass Dispel | Sea | | |
| Mass Exorcism | Dreams | New | |
| Master's Call | Jadefire | | |
| Maul | Midnight | | |
| Mend Pet | Sea | New | |
| Mending | Lion's | | |
| Might of Ursoc | Sea | New | |
| Mighty Victory | Etheral | new | |
| Mind Blast | Sea | New | |
| Mind Flay | Celestial | | Former Prime |
| Mind Freeze | Etheral | new | |
| Mind Spike | Etheral | New | |
| Mirror Image | Sea | | |
| Mirrored Blades | Midnight | New | |
| Misdirection | Midnight | | |
| Momentum | Midnight | new | |
| Mortal Strike | Sea | | Former Prime |
| Mystic Shout | Midnight | new | |
| Nature's Grasp | Midnight | New | |
| Nightmares | Sea | New | |
| No Escape | Jadefire | New | |
| Outbreak | Etheral | new | |
| Overpower | Jadefire | | Former Prime |
| Path of Blossoms | Sea | New | |
| Path of Frost | Etheral | | |
| Pathfinding | Etheral | New | |
| Penance | Etheral | | Former Prime |
| Pestilence | Etheral | | |
| Pick Lock | Lion's | | |
| Pick Pocket | Midnight | | |
| Pillar of Frost | Etheral | | |
| Poisons | Lion's | | |
| Polymorph | Sea | | |
| Pounce | Etheral | | |
| Power Word: Shield | Midnight | | Former Prime |
| Prayer of Mending | Sea | | |
| Protector of the Innocent | Sea | New | |
| Prowl | Celestial | New | |
| Psychic Horror | Sea | | |
| Psychic Scream | Midnight | | |
| Purge | Etheral | New | |
| Purify | Celestial | New | |
| Raging Wind | Etheral | new | |
| Rapid Teleportiation | Jadefire | new | |
| Rebirth | Jadefire | | |
| Rebuke | Etheral | | |
| Recklessness | Jadefire | new | |
| Regrowth | Sea | | Former Prime |
| Rejuvenation | Midnight | | Former Prime |
| Remove Curse | Sea | new | |
| Renew | Jadefire | | Former Prime |
| Renewing Mists | Sea | New | |
| Resilient Grip | Etheral | | |
| Resonating Power | Sea | | |
| Retreat | Sea | New | |
| Revive Pet | Midnight | | |
| Righteous Retreat | Dreams | New | |
| Riptide | Etheral | | Former Prime |
| Rising Tiger Kick | Dreams | New | |
| Rude Interruption | Lion's | new | |
| Safe Fall | Celestial | | |
| Sap | Jadefire | | |
| Savagery | lion's | New | |
| Scatter Shot | Lion's | | |
| Scattering | Sea | New | |
| Scourge Imprisonment | Sea | | |
| Seal of Blood | Lion's | New | |
| Shackle Undead | Lion's | | |
| Shadow | Lion's | | |
| Shadow Bolt | Jadefire | | |
| Shadow Ravens | Midnight | New | |
| Shadow Walk | Sea | New | |
| Shadow Word: Death | Dreams | | Former Prime, New Ink |
| Shadowflame | Sea | | |
| Shadowy Friends | Dreams | New | |
| Shamanistic Rage | Shimmering | | |
| Shield Slam | Sea | | Former Prime |
| Shield Wall | Lion's | | Former Prime |
| Shifting Presences | Shimmering | new | |
| Shiv | Celestial | New | |
| Shred | Shimmering | New | |
| Siphon Life | Midnight | New | |
| Skull Bash | Sea | New | |
| Slow | Etheral | | |
| Smite | Celestial | | |
| Smoke Bomb | Sea | New | |
| Snake Trap | Sea | | |
| Solar Beam | Sea | | |
| Soul Shards | Etheral | New | |
| Soul Swap | Celestial | | |
| Soulstone | Celestial | | |
| Soulwell | Sea | | Former Ritual of Souls |
| Sparring | Sea | New | |
| Spell Reflection | Etheral | | |
| Spellsteal | Sea | new | |
| Spinning Crane Kick | Sea | New | |
| Spinning Fire Blossom | Dreams | New | |
| Spirit of Redemption | Sea | New | |
| Spirit Roll | Dreams | New | |
| Spirit Walk | Sea | New | |
| Spiritwalker's Grace | Sea | New | |
| Sprint | Shimmering | | |
| Stampede | Midnight | New | |
| Stampede | Sea | New | |
| Stampeding Roar | Sea | New | |
| Stars | Sea | New | |
| Stealth | Etheral | New | |
| Stoneskin | Sea | New | |
| Strangulate | Sea | | |
| Subtlety | Sea | New | |
| Surging Mist | Sea | New | |
| Survival Instincts | Etheral | New | |
| Sweeping Strikes | Etheral | | |
| Tame Beast | Midnight | New | |
| Telluric Currents | Lion's | New | |
| Templar's Verdict | Sea | | Former Prime, New Ink |
| the Alabaster Sheild | Sea | New | |
| the Battle Healer | Dreams | New | |
| the Bear Cub | Midnight | | |
| the Blazing Trail | Dreams | new | |
| the Chameleon | Jadefire | New | |
| the Cheetah | Jadefire | New | |
| the Falling Avenger | Dreams | New | |
| the Geist | Etheral | new | |
| the Harsh Word | Sea | New | |
| the Heavens | Dreams | New | |
| the Lakestrider | Midnight | New | |
| the Luminous Charger | Jadefire | New | |
| the Master Shapeshifter | Sea | New | |
| the Monkey | Lion's | | |
| The Moonbeast | Celestial | New | |
| the Mounted King | Midnight | New | |
| the Orca | Jadefire | New | |
| the Penguin | Midnight | | |
| the Porcupine | Midnight | | |
| the Predator | Jadefire | New | |
| the Spectral Wolf | Lion's | New | |
| the Stag | Sea | New | |
| the Treant | Jadefire | | |
| the Val'kyr | Dreams | New | |
| Thunder | Etheral | | |
| Thunder Strike | Sea | new | |
| Thunderstorm | Sea | | |
| Totemic Encirclement | Jadefire | New | |
| Totemic Recall | Celestial | | |
| Totemic Vigor | Midnight | New | |
| Touch of Death | Sea | New | |
| Touch of Karma | Sea | New | |
| Tranquil Grip | Etheral | new | |
| Tranquilizing Shot | Etheral | New | |
| Transcendence | Dreams | New | |
| Tricks of the Trade | Sea | | |
| Turn Evil | Sea | | |
| Unending Breath | Lion's | | |
| Unending Rage | Midnight | new | |
| Unholy Command | Etheral | new | Former Prime |
| Unholy Frenzy | Sea | new | Former Prime |
| Unleashed Lightning | Sea | | |
| Unstable Affliction | Sea | | |
| Unstable Earth | Sea | New | |
| Uplift | Sea | New | |
| Vampiric Blood | Etheral | | |
| Vampiric Embrace | Dreams | New | Former Prime |
| Vanish | Etheral | | |
| Vendetta | Etheral | | |
| Verdant Spheres | Sea | New | |
| Victory Rush | Sea | | |
| Water Elemental | Etheral | new | Former Prime |
| Water Roll | Dreams | New | |
| Water Shield | Shimmering | | |
| Whirlwind | Etheral | new | |
| Wild Growth | Etheral | | |
| Wind Shear | Lion's | New | Former Prime |
| Winged Vengance | Midnight | New | |
| Word of Glory | Etheral | | |
| Zen Flight | Dreams | New | |
| Zen Meditation | Sea | New | |
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Since I posted my Dead Glyphs post, I’ve been busy selling off the soon to be dead. And that in itself should convey everything that’s wrong with this picture.
Namely, that I’m able to actually sell them.
With less than eight weeks before the expansion hits, people are still buying glyphs that have no future! I can’t chalk this up to people putting in a last push on raiding, because those people are typically way past the point of needing to stock up on glyphs (they already have, to say).
In many cases, it’s taken deep discounting – but hey, I’ll take nine gold over five silver any day of the week.
But in others, I’ve seen obsolete glyphs go for several hundred gold. I’m not complaining. I’m glad for the cash. But I am extremely puzzled.
It is very, very tempting to keep the well-selling glyphs in stock. But I’m so far not giving in, and retiring any glyphs which I have managed to sell out of (soon to be discontinued ones that is).
The one thing that helps me keep my resolve is the knowledge that, when the market crashed into its pre-Panda slump, there was virtually no warning. One day, things were fine. The next – buyers woke up, and most everything ceased selling, or required deep discounts to move.
Knowing that, I figure that there will be a similar crash for expiring glyphs. And I intend to have as little in the bag I’m left holding as possible.
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Note: due to the somewhat volatile nature of the subject matter, it is entirely possible that I will update the info therein after it posts to the RSS feed. If you are reading via RSS (and who isn’t?) then for once I suggest that you go to the actual article on the blog, because the RSS feed will not update content once FeedBurner caches it. I promise, I won’t try to sell you gold services if you do.
Although the overall Inscription series was a bust, there is still a real need for one bit of information that was coming from it. Namely, what glyphs are sticking around? Or, more to the point, which ones are going away?
 In typical Blizzard fashion, I imagine that a bank full of Prime glyphs will become a bank full of gray items. Blizz may also, in typical fashion, grant them a sell-off value that far above what you can get for it on the live servers, but don’t count on it. Unfortunately, they’re playing that one cagey, and I have no good data on what the “complementary” value of a grayed-out Prime may be. The upshot is that they may only offer vendor pricing, which, as you probably know, is pretty miserable.
The “smart” money, therefore, is on getting rid of what you have that will NOT be viable when the pre-expansion hits. This consists of, for example and not surprisingly, almost every Prime – though some are being “demoted” and retained in the constellation of available glyphs. Another group of glyphs that are going away are those that removed a material cost for some skill or another, such as the one that removed the Light Feather material component from Slow Fall.
There are also a ton of glyphs that defy classification – but the ability or the need for the glyph is going away, so, therefore, is the glyph.
With no hard and fast rules, then, a brute-force approach has been required to sort it all out. But I think I have a handle on it.
When to Dump
 A huge chunk of this list consists of glyphs that never sold very well – or for a decent price. Therefore, getting them onto the market and sold for whatever you can get for them is the priority. I wouldn’t fuss over mat costs or anything at this point. If you can get a whole GP for each glyph, take it. I doubt that you’ll get that much for a grayed one in the 5.0.4 world.
Others, however, continue to sell well, despite the fact that they’re going to be useless when the patch drops. If you’re making 150-300 gp per glyph, when do you give up the gravy train and stop sinking ink into them? “Smart money” says right until they stop selling, but that will leave you with a pocket full of grayed glyphs if you don’t time it exactly right.
“Safe money” says, don’t take chances. Once you start dumping, dump it all. Use that ink on glyphs that will be available after the patch drops.
It’s been said before, and I am still thinking that the time of release for the pre-expansion patch (5.0.4) will probably be around mid-September, and probably two or so weeks later, the expansion. With that in mind, my sell-off is going to start at the end of July. This gives approximately six weeks to unload everything and get the house in order.
 If 3.0.2 and 4.0.3 were any indication, we will lose the ability to use Blackfallow Ink to purchase lower level inks when the patch drops, and we won’t have the ability to make the new ink until we get to explore the new zones. If that’s the case, conversion of your Blackfallow into lesser inks (especially of the Sea) might be wise – either to sell off for a handsome profit, or to continue making glyphs – especially new ones, if we’re permitted to do so.
What to Dump
Following is the list that I have managed to extract. If a glyph isn’t on this list, it is either being retained, or I mistaked.
You should be aware that mistakes are probably common, considering, and also the list may be changed by Blizz. The change lists from them or WoWHead are rarely accurate or complete, WoWHead offers no API for independent data mining, and brute-forcing it would mean the list never got published. I choose to publish now rather than hold out for perfection and not be timely. For the record, that makes this list current as of July 19, 2012, and no later.
As before, I am not providing WoWHead links to everything in this list, because, like, that’s actual work.
| Aimed Shot | Elemental Mastery | Lash of Pain | Shadow |
| Arcane Barrage | Enduring Victory | Lava Burst | Shadow Dance |
| Arcane Blast | Eviscerate | Lay on Hands | Shadow Protection |
| Arcane Brilliance | Exorcism | Lightning Bolt | Shadow Word: Pain |
| Arcane Missiles | Explosive Shot | Lightning Shield | Shadowburn |
| Arcane Shot | Fade | Living Bomb | Shadowfiend |
| Backstab | Fading | Mage Armor | Shield of the Righteous |
| Bane of Agony | Fan of Knives | Mana Shield | Shocking |
| Battle | Feign Death | Mangle | Shockwave |
| Berserk | Felhunter | Mark of the Wild | Silencing Shot |
| Berserker Rage | Feral Charge | Metamorphosis | Sinister Strike |
| Bestial Wrath | Fireball | Molten Armor | Slam |
| Bladestorm | Flametongue Weapon | Monsoon | Slice and Dice |
| Blast Wave | Flash Heal | Moonfire | Slow Fall |
| Blessing of Kings | Focus | Mutilate | Soul Link |
| Blessing of Might | Fortitude | Obliterate | Spirit Tap |
| Blood Boil | Frost Armor | Piercing Howl | Starfall |
| Blood Tap | Frost Strike | Power Word: Barrier | Starfire |
| Bloodletting | Frostbolt | Prayer of Healing | Starsurge |
| Bone Shield | Guardian Spirit | Preparation | Steady Shot |
| Chain Heal | Hammer of Justice | Pyroblast | Stoneclaw Totem |
| Challenging Roar | Hammer of Wrath | Raging Blow | Stormstrike |
| Chaos Bolt | Haunt | Raise Dead | Sunder Armor |
| Cleansing | Heart Strike | Rapid Charge | Swiftmend |
| Cleaving | Heroic Throw | Rapid Fire | the Arctic Wolf |
| Command | Howl of Terror | Raptor Strike | the Ascetic Crusader |
| Concussive Shot | Howling Blast | Renewed Life | the Dazzled Prey |
| Conjuring | Hungering Cold | Revealing Strike | the Long Word |
| Corruption | Ice Barrier | Revenge | Thorns |
| Crusader Strike | Immolate | Righteousness | Thunder Clap |
| Deadly Throw | Immolation Trap | Rip | Tiger's Fury |
| Death Coil | Imp | Rune Strike | Trap Launcher |
| Death Strike | Incinerate | Rune Tap | Truth |
| Death Wish | Insect Swarm | Rupture | Typhoon |
| Demoralizing Shout | Insight | Salvation | Unburdened Rebirth |
| Devastate | Intercept | Savage Roar | Voidwalker |
| Divine Accuracy | Intervene | Scare Beast | Water Breathing |
| Divine Favor | Judgement | Scourge Strike | Water Walking |
| Dragon's Breath | Justice | Seal of Insight | Windfury Weapon |
| Drain Soul | Kill Command | Seal of Truth | Wrath |
| Earth Shield | Kill Shot | Seduction | Wyvern Sting |
| Earthliving Weapon | Lacerate | Serpent Sting | |
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Anyone even vaguely interested has probably noticed that the MoP Inscription series has kind of ground to a halt.
The problem is that I only did part of my research at first, and as I went on I realized that the game was woefully unprepared for this level of analysis. Glyphs were changing on a daily basis, new ones added, old ones removed, and so forth. Many of the glyphs mentioned in the first article were already altered by the time of the most recent one.
After watching that go in a million different directions, I kind of froze up (iknorite?) I began to formulate a recovery plan. So here it is.
I’m going to drop the by-the-class glyph analysis, and, once the changes appear to be stable, I’ll put together one big list of glyphs that won’t be making it past the patch. That was the long-term main reason for doing this, was to try to suss out what glyphs that we should get rid of before they became gray items in the bank.
That leaves open the question of when that date will be. Right now, our little collective is reckoning that September or early October is a likely release window for MoP, based on the fact that new MoP-level loot has been implemented for the Hallow’s Eve holiday. If they weren’t planning for release until after that, they wouldn’t bother with a holiday that was almost a year away, not right now. On the other hand, late October isn’t a good candidate, either, because releasing software in the middle of a holiday event sounds remarkably fraught with danger.
We’re therefore looking at a possible early September rollout for the pre-expansion patch, and early to mid September for the expansion.
We want to drop our junk well before then.
With all that in mind, this is the plan.
- Last week of July, I’ll gather all the data I have at that point and create a list of items that won’t be making the cut.
- First week of August, I’ll publish.
And that’ll be it for this series.
I’m not really happy with the direction this all took, and I hope nobody was really disappointed.
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