World of Warcraft Guide to the Secrets of Glyphs

World of Warcraft Guide to the Secrets of Glyphs

With the Wrath of the Lich King now firmly established in Azeroth, I and my fellow brothers of the Argent Dawn, vowed to meet the growing threat of the Scourge head on and take up the battle in the frozen continent of Northrend.

To assist me in this battle, I took up the primary profession of Inscription. I have written much on this topic in my journal, but on this particular subject I’d like to discuss the many advantages that Inscription can afford to you and your guild.

The Inscription profession was launched just prior to WOTLK with patch 3.01, so you could begin training even without the expansion. You’ll find trainers in all major cities of Azeroth with our very own Caterina Stanford in Stormwind, and I have heard of a trainer called Jo’mah in Orgrimmar. Ask guards for directions when you next visit a major city if you still can’t find one.

Once trained as a Scribe you possess the ability through successive training to scribe various parchments into Glyphs, Cards, Vellums and Tomes; but first, you must also purchase for a small sum a virtuoso inking set and acquire some ink.

Inks are the basic material for Inscription and are obtained from the milling of various herbs. There are a wide variety of Inks and pigments required for inscription, hence, there is now a great demand for all manner of herbs. I thus suggest you partner Inscription with Herbalism as your second Primary Profession, or at least get friendly with a herbalist!

Glyphs are a great addition to the game and basically allow you to boost skills and abilities by binding the Glyph in question to areas of your new spell book. They can be freely changed by overwriting, much like enchants. There are two basic types of Glyph: Major and Minor.

Major Glyphs have the biggest effect on the modification of a skill or ability, while Minor Glyphs have a lesser effect. There are Major and Minor Glyphs for all classes of character – from Warrior to Mage. While Major Glyphs can be learnt with success training, Minor Glyphs can only be acquired through ‘Research. Research is restricted to once a day and the Glyph obtain a random event.

Glyphs are now very popular and fortunately, for those of us who scribe, freely tradable. Search the Auction House and you’ll now find a Glyph for your class and ability. To bind a Glyph to your spell book, you must be standing close to a ‘Lexicon of Power’ which are only located with the Inscription trainer.

For those of heading for the frozen Northrend, Glyphs are a great way to boost our stats in preparation for the dangers that lurk there. But while Glyphs are great addition to your armaments and protection, they can also be fun.

Take for example the Minor Glyph of the Penguin. This Glyph transforms the polymorph spell of a Mage to that of a Penguin instead of a sheep! Being a minor Glyph, it can only be obtain by ‘Research’ – so there is no guarantee that you’ll learn how to scribe one. So popular is this Glyph that they sell for much gold on the Auction House. Keep your eye out for this one.