Books of Glyph Mastery Absent From Cata?!

[Penguirrel]

You made me realize again that it's impossible to have an argument on the internet. Thank you.

explanation: Flavor item =/= Profession recipe.

Profession recipe =/= guaranteed easiness

[Puri]

FYI these have started dropping from mobs outside of Northrend. You get them in Uldum mobs among others.

Proof? Wowhead doesn't agree

[Penguirrel]

I have a feeling he may have looked at Wowhead and saw the 1 Ulduar mob and quickly read Uldum.

[Ineras]

I will go and grind my JCs the last ones I may not have and be fine with it even though this seems odd to add new things to older world stuff. New stuff is added to new mobs/reps/dungeons usually though. These glyph books aren't new though. The system to acquire these books is currently in place and is attainable. Adding new stuff to old mobs just seems clunky to me.

The "adding new stuff to old mobs" make me think more and I think it would have been better for Blizzard to not have old content have stuff that is BiS for current raid content. So Blizzard should have added glyph books that drop from cata mobs that don't teach the same as the Northrend ones, but instead teach better ones to make the Northrend book glyphs no longer BiS. For example say there was a +10% damage to Incinerate glyph with the Northrend books, so now there would be a cata book that gave a glyph that was +15% damage to Incinerate. This would have required a bit more balancing but would have helped to solve this issue I think.

[Sparky_b]

There are certainly other profession oversights, but I agree, this particular problem is indeed a problem. I'm not sure Blizzard knows how to appease both the current glyph holders and those wanting to acquire them. It wouldn't be so bad if these glyphs are truly old content glyphs and you didn't necessarily need them for things like raiding, but that certainly isn't the case. I tried to find a blue post or two about this subject, as another poster tried, I thought this problem was at least admitted to be an actual problem by Blizzard, but I couldn't manage to find a post.

To those that somehow have a problem with these books dropping in current content or somehow made available without having to farm old content: Why u so mad bros? What difference does it make if they were available in Cataclysm? Most of you listed professions that have newer things that quickly replaced the older versions, or simply were changed. Mongoose for example was a great tanking enchant, useless now. Jeeves isn't necessary for raiding, glyphs are. Mongoose isn't necessary for raiding, matter fact it's useless to the people who used it most in Wrath, glyphs are. I can go on but I'd rather not, I feel you get the point with those two examples.

Thanks to the min/max of professions during Wrath, (happened in BC as well, but to a lesser degree) many people dropped a fully maxed profession to get JC, people having to go back and get the profession they actually liked now in Cataclysm find themselves having an easy time, thanks to most of the stuff they went everywhere to get is old hat and isn't necessary. Every profession except for Inscription. In my guild (I'm not the actual GM, but been an officer for years) we have several people who dropped JC this expansion, some of them were going back to Inscription. Only 2 of them actually kept leveling Inscription for the same reasons listed by most of the other posters, it simply has a much higher time sink/money sink involved to actually help the guild with glyphs. I don't like listing my guild's progress, simply because some people would brag about their (probably made up) progression or think we somehow cheated to get as high as we did, but currently we're almost set to kill Sindragosa. There have been many times during our raiding experiences in Cataclysm that some random fight mechanic would be a bit easier if some classes went and got a random glyph they would probably never use, but since we can now change glyphs on the fly (out of combat), this becomes much easier to deal with. Those two people with Inscription made our raiding much easier, and we would have an even easier time if the profession didn't have so much time and money you needed to invest before you could actually make glyphs needed for raiding, because we wold have more than just two of them.

[Penguirrel]

Sparky-b, I really hope you're not just now getting to Sindragosa and actually meant you are getting to Sinestra.

But once again, having these glyphs is not about progression in raiding. You can buy the glyph on the AH once and pay the one time premium. These glyphs aren't inaccessible to people as many scribes know them. Any serious raider comes prepared for any fight in an instance with consumables, proper gear, and proper spec which includes having learned all your useful glyphs. Those same people that min/maxed their characters already have learned their glyphs that they need and so they don't really matter to the case. With respect to time/money sinks I do believe engineers would like to have a word with you.

I have to say I would be upset that they added these books to Cataclysm mobs because then Blizzard is satisfying one profession's supposed woes and pays no attention to any other profession's woes. The people arguing to add them to new mobs only do so because they want an easy way to make a profit from them and they just aren't entitled to it. Spend the gold to buy the books or go farming dungeons.

[Sparky_b]

Yes that was my mistake, wrong name, Sinestra it is. Sorry about that. The glyphs we used (I'll have to ask when I log on, I don't really remember what glyphs were changed out) are not your normal raiding glyphs, were very situational for whatever reason, and were quickly replaced once the fight was done. My point was we didn't have to take a half hour to switch out those glyphs thanks to my 2 people, and it would have been even easier if we had more than just those two. I'm not certain how many were actually taking Inscription but it was at least double the amount that stuck with it and bought/acquired the books, this also forced them to have a good deal of down-time and we had to compensate for that by providing for them. If this were any normal profession, nobody would be forced to do that, and nobody would be taking days to get the necessary glyphs we wanted.

This guild works as a team, those two people with Inscription also help with the sets, and are given freely among us. Same with our Alchemists, Blacksmiths, etc. We do not pay for much of anything besides the random items nobody can just make or give freely. You can say the correct min/max was to already have the glyphs you need, and I would reply with there's no such thing as min/maxing a random glyph not normally used in a raiding environment.

[Penguirrel]

Well inscription is not a normal profession I agree. It has it's quirks just like all other professions. Tailors get their mats from any humanoid mob and anybody can farm it. Herbalists gather their herbs and sell directly to end of market. Miners gather ore but then decide to smelt it or not and sell it. Enchanting is both a gathering and "normal" profession. Inscription has many recipes that everyone must learn to be effective in playing the game (on a side note I just lost The Game). Those recipes in inscription are learned mostly through trainers with a handful coming from vendors and even less coming from drops of certain mobs and finally the books.

The books I'd say are the quirk to this particular profession. Other professions had barriers to entry such as providing harder to acquire material such as primordial saronite in the case of ICC, getting drops as in TOC and Ulduar, or gaining enough reputation with certain factions as in Northrend factions recipes or many vanilla and BC ones. Inscription doesn't have faction recipes that I know of.

Taking half an hour to switch out glyphs isn't that long really and although it is convenient to have a scribe handy it isn't necessary. If you had the forethought about the encounters coming up you could have gotten the glyphs beforehand and also wouldn't have needed to worry. From now on your random glyphs are now already learned for future weeks and so again it goes back to being a moot point. If I were a casual gamer I'd get my basic glyphs I need for my spec and maybe a few other useful ones just in case. If I were a hardcore raider then I'd get all my glyphs just in case. If glyphs aren't used in a raid environment though then there's probably a reason why and it most likely can be done with out them.

[NickFtw]

Eh well I have every glyph so screw everyone else. More profit for me.

[Mageshadow]

Eh well I have every glyph so screw everyone else. More profit for me.

Lol.
Flip the books then

[Deleted]

I'd wager blizzard really just doesn't care. If you need "glyphs for current content" then just buy them from someone else. They'll cost you less than the books will right? You'll never have to buy a second one. If you want to do it for profit...then power to you, but you have to put the time in. That barrier to entry...is a good thing. It will keep your prices a bit higher than say enchanting scrolls that are basically at vendor price (with a few exceptions like Mighty Stats).

I must agree with this post. If you need to glyph to actually use, cough up the money and buy the glyph already. If you want to join the glyph money-making game and you absolutely need all glyphs, invest to learn all the glyphs and pay up.

On my server, I am one of the players who control the glyph market. Back in WotLK, there were only 2 of us, now roughly 5-6. Needless to say, I have all glyphs, and I make 2000g per day on a bad day (minimal effort, report stock), and 4000-6000g on a good day (maximal effort, buying herbs, milling, new glyphs making, ...).

At the start of Cata, Cata herbs were too expensive to be viable as a source for pigments, so you were forced to buy old world herbs. Especially the Outland herbs were expensive, but still not as expensive as the Cata herbs. As a result, glyphs were quite expensive, with several going for 300-400g! I'd say the average price was around 100g.

Now we've reached a point (before patch 4.1) where the Cataclysm herbs (notably Cinderbloom and Whiptail) have dropped dramatically in price (stacks went for 20-25g, it's crazy), so you only need Cata herbs to make every glyph possibly (because of the ink trader). I forgot the details, but I calculated it costs me about 12g to make a single glyph. My selling treshold lies at 29g per glyph, so I will make a guaranteed 17g per Glyph sold. In reality, I make much, much more. A glyph costing 399g nets me 387g, for the same material cost!

Recently (since patch 4.1) herb prices have increased dramatically. Whiptail and Cinderbloom are back to their old values of about 50-60g/stack, which minimizes my profit. Luckily, I still have a stock of about 1200 Blackfallow Inks that I can turn into any ink I want (=400 Glyphs), so I can easily hold out untill the herb price crashes again. Anyone can explain the sudden rise in price? I can't think of something, except for people coming back after being bored of 4.0, and being excited about 4.1. increasing demand and as a result price?

Glyphs are what made me rich. I recently bought a Sandstone drake for 42k and gave it to one of raidleaders for his great efforts. Having over 300k gold, 42k is not too much. It takes me about two weeks to get back that 42k. I could get one million if I really wanted to. But then again, it's a game with virtual gold.

[Mammoth]

They should change it to be a chance on drop for a scribe of sufficient skill from any mob that grants experience. This will prevent farming of older easier kills and give scribes that weren't around during Wrath a chance to get a complete set of glyphs.

The only people who can be opposed to this are those that got the glyphs already and want to maintain their monopoly on the market. A monopoly that is only going to improve as more and more Wrath players quit the game and are replaced by new Cata players.

Just because there is a problem with Profession X, doesn't mean they shouldn't try to fix the problem with Profession Y.