Inscription Tips on Making Darkmoon Cards

[rboa]

Before we get started if you are still leveling your inscription, the Forged Documents are a fantastic (though slow) leveling mechanism. Planning around this can save you a lot of gold. Also you do not need to be level 84 to reach 525 inscription.

Here are tips on making those painful and wonderful Darkmoon cards. Note that these tips are for players making several dozen cards for multiple decks. If you are trying to make a particular card my suggestion would be prayer.

0) Heartblossom Update: If you have any Heartblossom, I strongly suggest you look into selling them rather than milling. The price on my servers has changed from below 5g/herb to about 20g/each. Keep in mind that Heartblossom ink yields the same as Azshara's Veil, Cinderbloom, and Stormvine. Those other herbs are typically much cheaper than 20g.

1) Herbs: It will take between 24-40 millings of herbs to make a single card. That is 6-8 stacks of herbs to make a card. Which herbs you want to use is based on the AH cost. I milled 1000 of each herb to see the yielded pigments. It turns out that there are only two tiers. The lower tier contains Azshara's Veil, Cinderbloom, Heartblossom, and Stormvine. The upper tier contains Whiptail and Twilight Jasmine.

Each lower tier millings (1000) yielded approximately 50 inferno inks.

Each upper tier millings (1000) yielded approximately 83.35 inferno inks. This means the upper tier is 1.62 times the value of the lower tier.

If lower tier herbs are 100g/stack then cost threshold is 162g/stack for upper tier herbs. Let the cost make the herb decision for you.

The only other consideration is how long the milling will take you. So if you are milling then you are not off questing, etc. and milling the lower tier herbs will take longer.

2) Card Trading: Even though all four decks are very good, it is doubtful they have the same value. There has not been enough data to say which decks are worth more. But we do know that the two of stones is just as likely to be created as the eight of stones. So trading cards within a deck should not be a concern. I personally view all four decks as having comparable values and have been trading cards based only on what I need. As prices have stabilized a bit, it is very clear that ALL DECKS ARE NOT OF EQUAL VALUE. In particular the stones deck appears to be the least in demand. I have had trouble selling them despite a very low cost.

3) Put an alt in Dalaran to make Blackfallow to Inferno trading easier.

4) Milling Macro: This macro is essential.
/cast milling
/use Azshara's Veil
/use Whiptail
/use Stormvine
/use Twilight Jasmine
/use Heartblossom
/use Cinderbloom

5) My Data: You may want to note that my numbers are different than those presented on WoWhead. They present you with a range of pigments from the milling. However the distribution within that range is not uniform. Based on WoWhead data the tier yields are 73 and 128 which is well above what I was able to produce.

I will try to clean this up with better formatting and I am sure there are several items I am missing.

[wowplayer]

awesome and depressing...24-40 stacks. got some work to do...

[Deleted]

A tactic I'm using at the moment is to farm upper-tier herbs, sell those on the AH, and then use some of the profits to buy lower-tier herbs for milling. Whiptail and Cinderbloom, respectively, are my flowers of choice for this; Whiptail sells for a steady amount on my server, and is incredibly easy to farm on the Uldum riverbanks, while Cinderbloom is nice and cheap.

I can farm about 10-20 stacks of Whiptail an hour in Uldum - druid flight form FTW.

[Bigshotz]

Thanks for the macro and the tips. Looks like I will be working on my cards soon.

[Kagdar]

24-40 stacks per card? you smoking? i just farmed 30 stacks of Whiptail and i made 5 cards (34 inferno and 183 blackfallow)

I takes between 50 and 70 herbs (whiptail and twilight jasmise) per card.

On my server (smolderthorn) horse side (alliance side is non existant) stone and embers sell for 15k to 19k, wind and waves for 25k to 35k. Expecting a raise in worth next week (darkmoon faire soon)

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

Going by milling rates more accurate than anything in this thread, you will, on average, produce 1 Inferno Ink and 6 Blackfallow Ink per stack of Twilight Jasmine or Whiptail. This means it takes 25 stacks per 4 cards, or approximately 6.25 stacks per card, assuming you're converting your Blackfallow into Inferno.

[rboa]

24-40 stacks per card? you smoking? i just farmed 30 stacks of Whiptail and i made 5 cards (34 inferno and 183 blackfallow)

I takes between 50 and 70 herbs (whiptail and twilight jasmise) per card.

On my server (smolderthorn) horse side (alliance side is non existant) stone and embers sell for 15k to 19k, wind and waves for 25k to 35k. Expecting a raise in worth next week (darkmoon faire soon)

You are correct. I made a mistake in saying "24-40 stacks of herbs to make a single card". I should have said "24-40 milling of herbs to make a single card". I will edit the OP to fix this.

I tried to convey there are two separate classes (or tiers) of herbs. Whiptail and Twilight Jasmine are in the upper tier. In the OP I specified that I had gotten 83.35 inferno inks from 1000 herbs. This corresponds to 8.335 cards from 50 stacks or 6 stacks/card.

You milled 30 stacks and got 52.3 inferno inks or 5.23 cards. This is a rate of 5.74 stacks/card. You had some lucky millings. congrats.

After some additional millings, I am getting 80.88 inferno ink from 1000 herbs (Whiptail or Twilight Jasmine).
So that means you need 123.64 herbs to get a card (or 6.18 stacks/card).

You state that "I takes between 50 and 70 herbs (whiptail and twilight jasmise) per card." However in your posted data, you use 30 stacks (600 herbs) to create 5.23 cards. A rate of 114.72 herbs per card. Maybe you were the one smoking a few of the herbs.

Also, I am talking purely in terms of inferno inks since all blackfallow are converted to inferno for card creation.

---------- Post added 2010-12-27 at 06:33 PM ----------

Going by milling rates more accurate than anything in this thread, you will, on average, produce 1 Inferno Ink and 6 Blackfallow Ink per stack of Twilight Jasmine or Whiptail. This means it takes 25 stacks per 4 cards, or approximately 6.25 stacks per card, assuming you're converting your Blackfallow into Inferno.

For Twilight Jasmine or Whiptail this is very close to what I am seeing. I am getting 1 inferno ink and 6.14 blackfallow ink per stack.

Not sure by what you are referring to about "Going by milling rates more accurate than anything in this thread". We are talking milling rates, what are you talking about?

[bucko]

Where do you trade in the Blackfallow Ink for Inferno Ink? I've looked but haven't found it. What is the conversion rate? Woot! Now I have a use for the 900 Blackfallow Inks!! I'm at work so I can't check ingame, but if it's in dal im gonna /wrists.... I was told it wasn't there....

[rboa]

The ink trader in dalaran. It is on the second page of the vendor.

[bucko]

...sigh Thanks rboa.

[Yseraboy]

...sigh Thanks rboa.

I hear ya.

Looking like I'll need to keep one of my 80s in Dal for awhile - watching for the last book my main needs for Higher Learning, and visiting the ink trader.

[Mojomagic]

Before we get started if you are still leveling your inscription, the Forged Documents are a fantastic (though slow) leveling mechanism. Planning around this can save you a lot of gold. Also you do not need to be level 84 to reach 525 inscription.

Here are tips on making those painful and wonderful Darkmoon cards. Note that these tips are for players making several dozen cards for multiple decks. If you are trying to make a particular card my suggestion would be prayer.

1) Herbs: It will take between 24-40 millings of herbs to make a single card. That is 6-8 stacks of herbs to make a card. Which herbs you want to use is based on the AH cost. I milled 1000 of each herb to see the yielded pigments. It turns out that there are only two tiers. The lower tier contains Azshara's Veil, Cinderbloom, Heartblossom, and Stormvine. The upper tier contains Whiptail and Twilight Jasmine.

Each lower tier millings (1000) yielded approximately 50 inferno inks.

Each upper tier millings (1000) yielded approximately 83.35 inferno inks. This means the upper tier is 1.62 times the value of the lower tier.

If lower tier herbs are 100g/stack then cost threshold is 162g/stack for upper tier herbs. Let the cost make the herb decision for you.

The only other consideration is how long the milling will take you. So if you are milling then you are not off questing, etc. and milling the lower tier herbs will take longer.

2) Card Trading: Even though all four decks are very good, it is doubtful they have the same value. There has not been enough data to say which decks are worth more. But we do know that the two of stones is just as likely to be created as the eight of stones. So trading cards within a deck should not be a concern. I personally view all four decks as having comparable values and have been trading cards based only on what I need. As prices have stabilized a bit, it is very clear that ALL DECKS ARE NOT OF EQUAL VALUE. In particular the stones deck appears to be the least in demand. I have had trouble selling them despite a very low cost.

3) Put an alt in Dalaran to make Blackfallow to Inferno trading easier.

4) Milling Macro: This macro is essential.
/cast milling
/use Azshara's Veil
/use Whiptail
/use Stormvine
/use Twilight Jasmine
/use Heartblossom
/use Cinderbloom

5) My Data: You may want to note that my numbers are different than those presented on WoWhead. They present you with a range of pigments from the milling. However the distribution within that range is not uniform. Based on WoWhead data the tier yields are 73 and 128 which is well above what I was able to produce.

I will try to clean this up with better formatting and I am sure there are several items I am missing.

thanx, ill try this. looks like it is alot faster, lol

[Jondalar]

Thank you for this post.

The Earthquake Deck blows. Tanks do not like it and it is almost worthless and a real hassal to sale. Why Blizzard did this is beyond me, but they did it on purpose. They knew it would not be in demand because it does not contain Stamina. It will be worth less than 1k in about month.

The Vocano Deck poses another problem. Blizzard nerfed this from +321 haste to +321 mastery, making it a loss less valuable to a lot of casters. Yes, it can be reforged but a lot of people don't seem to want to shell out the cash for a trinket, when they know Blizzard nerfed this trinket for a raid drop. People are pisssed. And, of course, the Volcano Deck and the Earthquake Decks are the most abundant decks on my server.

Plus, trading seems is a hassal, since it seems that the people you are trying to trade are missing the same cards.

The Hurricane deck seems to be the most in demand trinket, but it seems that people are waiting for the Darkmoon Fairy to arrive or for prices to drop. They are not shelling out big bucks for these trinkets, yet. However, I have gotten plenty whispers about this trinket. (By big, I mean above 40k on my server.)

If you are going to purchase herbs from ah, then you are really out of luck. A single card can cost you 1500g to make. Making one single card basically takes 10 stacks of herbs (yeah, Whiptail included). A single stack of herbs in the ah on my server ranges from 100k to 300k, still. You will have to buy Volatile Life too and those are expensive. Prices have not went down, yet. It took me 64 or 65 cards and I spent 30k and 6 days farming.

The bottom line is these cards are not worth making for the time and money invested in them. When the prices of herbs do go down, the sale prices of these items will be abyssmal. If you do find someone to trade with that has different cards, then you are very lucky.

I would sale anything you can now while prices are decent and then move on to something else, or you are in a world full of hurt. These trinkets were not really meant to stay valuable more than a month or two.

[Deleted]

I hear ya.

Looking like I'll need to keep one of my 80s in Dal for awhile - watching for the last book my main needs for Higher Learning, and visiting the ink trader.

I just moved my level 1 (well, 2 since the journey) bank character to Dalaran instead. Did you know the auctioneer at the Engineering trainer in Dala doesn't require Engineering to use anymore? I didn't realise this until a few days ago, so now my banker can just stay in Dala and get everything he needs!

[Tangster]

4) Milling Macro: This macro is essential.
/cast milling
/use Azshara's Veil
/use Whiptail
/use Stormvine
/use Twilight Jasmine
/use Heartblossom
/use Cinderbloom

A note about that macro, the way it works is it will try to mill herbs in the order you make the macro. So to use rboa's example it will try to mill Azshara's Veil then Whiptail and so on. What this means is, if you have 3 Azshara's Veil in your backpack, its going to try to mill those instead of the whiptail. So you'll get a warning message that says "requires 5 of <herb>". So make sure you have even stacks, or are by a bank to dump your uneven stacks

TL;DR keep your stacks in multiples of 5 or the macro wont work

[zmyth]

A good way to break even on darkmoon cards is to make the Blackfallow ink into fortune cards, these should break you even with the inital cost of the herbs, then use the inferno inks to make the cards, this is how ive been mass producing darkmoon cards.

More details on my blog : http://harvest-the-feather.blogspot.com/