The world is ending! Warlords of Draenor will officially be removing all glyphs from the game, and inscription is going to be completely useless! ...That's if you believe what everyone is saying in guild chat. What is actually happening is a little more realistic. Blizzard announced a week or so ago in the Alpha Patch Notes that 86 glyphs would be removed from inscription crafting, and will be learned automatically when you reach a certain level. This will speed up the ease of learning WoW professions like inscription, give scribes fewer recipes to manage, and make it easier for new players to get up and going without requiring them to shell out 900 gold just after they bought their first mount. I have two main problems with this new system though: 1) Blizzard is removing even more glyphs than the list of those learned automatically, and 2) It's a massive decrease to demand.
First, if you search through WoWHead, you'll see 444 Mist of Pandaria glyphs currently available to craft whereas if you head over to the WoD.WoWHead, there are 311 active Warlords of Draenor glyphs in the list. Luckily, Blizz gave us exactly what items they were changing so you can go through, compare the two with the announcement, and find the ones that they took out. Of the 86 announced autolearned glyphs, 3 are still craftable in the Alpha: Glyph of the Harsh Word, Glyph of Totemic Recall, and Glyph of Demon Training. An additional 47 have been removed (or will also be automatically learned) and are listed below
Glyph of Festering Blood
Glyph of Loud Horn
Glyph of Outbreak
Glyph of Unholy Frenzy
Glyph of the Long Winter
Glyph of Efflorescence
Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration
Glyph of Innervate
Glyph of Prowl
Glyph of Shred
Glyph of Aimed Shot
Glyph of Animal Bond
(replaced with Glyph of Burden of Guilt)
Glyph of Distracting Shot
Glyph of Scatter Shot
Glyph of Snake Trap
Glyph of Direction
Glyph of Marking
Glyph of Armors
Glyph of Evocation
Glyph of Mana Gem
Glyph of Loose Mana
Glyph of Mirror Image
Glyph of Divine Plea
Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous
Glyph of Holy Shock
Glyph of Inquisition
Glyph of Turn Evil
Glyph of Holy Nova
Glyph of Inner Fire
Glyph of Shifted Appearances
Glyph of Clash
Glyph of Expose Armor
Glyph of Redirect
Glyph of Sharp Knives
Glyph of Tricks of the Trade
Glyph of Hex
Glyph of Telluric Currents
Glyph of Curse of the Elements
Glyph of Soul Consumption
Glyph of Carrion Swarm
Glyph of Hamstring
Glyph of Heavy Repercussions
Glyph of Hoarse Voice
Glyph of Hold the Line
Glyph of Impaling Throws
Glyph of Incite
This is just Alpha though and everything is subject to change. For instance, there are two Lightwell Glyphs, rather than having Lightwell (385) and Lightspring (255)...not gonna work. On the other hand, rather than having two glyph of Stampedes like we currently have (1 hunter and 1 druid) along with 1 Stampeding Roar, they're consolidating the Hunter one into a single better named Glyph of Stampeding Roar. While SERVERLIST101 of consolidation is user friendly, it does mean fewer glyph sales for scribes.
But really, take this list with a grain of salt because it could be further removals or just that WoWHead couldn't grab everything from the official database. It's Alpha. Everything is just a preview. What I'm really curious about though was their choice of glyphs for removal.
It seems like Blizzard was going with the idea of removing the least essential glyphs, but it was worth checking to see if this was actually the case, so I did a test. I went through Icy-Veins and compiled a list of what glyphs each class requires and then cross-referenced that with the Alpha patch note announcement list to see what kind of an impact this would have on sales. Of the 86 announced, 31 were considered recommended or required for progression raiding; these are the ones people search for and buy. After the additional 47 listed above were added in, 28% of the glyphs recommended by top-tier raiders are either free or removed from the game. If any developers are reading, one problem that might need some immediate attention is Druid glyphs, as all four specs are currently only left with Grace, Stampeding Roar and Survival Instincts as viable choices for raiding.
...well, that and Glyph of the Orca.
So, we'll probably see a 30% initial drop in prices. Kathroman said it best on the Consortium Forums
Stage 1: DOOM! Scribes abandon the glyph market because it is sufficiently "ruined".
Stage 2: Plunder! Remaining scribes reap the rewards of an abandoned, but not "ruined" market.
Stage 3: Scramble! Scribes come flocking back to inscription when they see prices aren't in the toilet.
Stage 4: DOOM! Market is saturated with supply and prices DO fall. Fairweather scribes, believing their worst fears have been confirmed, leave the market again.
Stage 5: Normalization - Supply and demand stabilize, and the glyph market once again proves to be a reliable source of regular income.
Whether you go with the flow or maintain your market is up to you, your competition, and your realm size. Although I'd like to point out that while supply and demand will stabilize, goldmakers will still leave the market whenever the opportunity cost is too high, so with so many fewer glyphs, and a set amount of gold per hour that we're expecting to make, we'll either be selling glyphs more rapidly in WoD or selling them at a much higher price. Otherwise, everyone would be a miner.
Conclusion
So that's my gloom, doom, and rebound. With fewer glyphs, we will spend less time posting on the Auction House. Also, remember that in Warlords of Draenor every account on your server gets to level any of their lowbie alts to 90 and that those alts need a full set of glyphs. Additionally, think of all the scrub players who would have never opened their glyph tab before who will now have the pleasant reminder of "new glyph earned" and the joy/practice of switching out glyphs, so that they are now primed to buy where they otherwise would have just had blank glyph tabs. Yes, Blizzard is removing almost 50 more glyphs than they said they were and it will severely impact your raiding and goldmaking. However, as "dead" as inscription may be according to your guildmates, it might also be one of the most profitiable professions come WoD.
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