Inscription Power Leveling Guide (1-350)

This is a materials list and suggested progression chart for power-leveling Inscription. While I do present some alternative recipes at certain levels, I do not suggest using the more component intensive recipes. You’re always welcome to take a detour for those items if you’re more interested in the profit potential of a particular item rather than component cost. You might also want to review my inscription guide if you want to learn about the basics of Inscription.

List of Herbs

The following chart shows the amount of pigment needed to make the Inks on the Progression chart at the end of this guide. Next to each pigment is a list of the herbs that can be milled to produce it, and the number of stacks you should collect of those herbs. The quantities in this chart represent a worst case scenario, hopefully the maximum number of herbs you’ll need to progress. This chart assumes a minimum of 2 pigments per milling action, you will often get 3-4 pigments. Stop milling when you hit the target number of pigments.

Type of Pigment Herbs to Use
75 Alabaster Pigment
(25 Ivory Ink &
25 Moonglow Ink)
9.75 stacks of Peacebloom, Silverleaf or Earthroot
50 Dusky Pigment
(25 Midnight Ink)
6.25 stacks of Mageroyal, Briarthorn, Swiftthistle, Bruiseweed or Stranglekelp
120 Golden Pigment
(60 Lion’s Ink)
15 stacks of Wild Steelbloom, Grave Moss, Kingsblood or Liferoot
140 Emerald Pigment
(70 Jadefire Ink)
17.5 stacks of Fadeleaf, Goldthorn, Khadgar’s Whisker or Wintersbite
140 Violet Pigment
(70 Celestial Ink)
17.5 stacks of Firebloom, Purple Lotus, Arthas’ Tears, Sungrass, Blindweed, Ghost Mushroom or Gromsblood
150 Silvery Pigment
(75 Shimmering Ink)
18.75 stacks of Golden Sansam, Dreamfoil, Mountain Silversage, Plaguebloom or Icecap
140 Nether Pigment
(70 Ethereal Ink)
17.50 stacks of Felweed, Ragveil, Terocone, Dreaming Glory, Ancient Lichen, Netherbloom, Nightmare Vine, Mana Thistle

The Recipe column lists alternates you can use interchangeably within the same skill range. In other words, there are two recipes that can gain the same skill points, you select which column has the materials that are easier for you. In some cases the alternate columns has somewhat “higher” ingredient requirements. I’ve included them because they might allow you to conserve your regular inks, which use up more herbs than the ‘rare’ inks. When milling your herbs for pigment, rare pigments are a bonus item. There are some areas where you can make items with one regular ink and one rare ink vs. two regular ink, so I advise using the rare ink recipe since you’re unlikely to use rare inks for anything else in a power leveling scenario.

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Preliminary Instructions

There are some recurring issues in the leveling process, instead of reiterating it every time it comes up I’m going to cover it here. Glyph recipes tend to turn yellow after five skill points, when making glyphs to level up you need to switch recipes every five points. Make five, then learn the next batch, then make five more. On the chart this will simply be noted as “change recipes every 5 points”.

Inks are usually not good grinding recipes, they often start green and change to gray very quickly. Since you’ll need much more ink than skill points allow, there’s some play in how many points you actually end up milking from them. Most of the time I indicate this with a range “20-25” for the ink and the recipe immediately following it. I assume you will adjust your numbers depending on how many points you ended up getting from ink. In other words, if you end up getting an extra five points on the ink, deduct five from the next item. Rare inks have a similar problem, since the rare pigments are a random drop I really can’t dictate how many you should make. On the other hand, they are a bonus item and don’t require additional milling (ie: destroying) of herbs. Since the recipes can occasionally give skill points, in a sense they are free points. I’m including them in as alternates, use them when you can.

Progression Chart

Skill Range Recipe
1-15 20-25 Ivory Ink (can get you to 25 if you make enough)
15-35 10-20 Scrolls (depending on how far you got with Ivory Ink)
35-50 20-25 Moonglow Ink
50-75 20-25 Armor Vellum or Scroll of Recall (use first)
75-80 25 Midnight Ink
80-100 20 Class Glyphs (change recipes every 5 points)
100-105 Make 25 Lion’s Ink
105-125 20 Class Glyphs (change recipes every 5 points)
125-135 30-40 Lion’s Ink or Dawnstar Ink
Subtract the number of points gained with Dawnstar Ink from the Lion’s Ink tally
130-150 15-20 Class Glyphs (change recipes every 5 points) or Strange Tarot (if you have Dawnstar Ink)
Tarot cards turn yellow at 150, so use them toward the end.
150-155 70 Jadefire Ink
155-175 20 Class Glyphs (change recipes every 5 points)
175-180 Royal Ink (if you have pigment for it) or Class Glyphs
180-200 20 Class Glyphs (change recipes every 5 points) or Arcane Tarot (if you have Royal Ink)
Tarot cards turn yellow at 195, so use them toward the end. There are only yellow recipes from 195-200.
200-205 70 Celestial Ink
205-210 5 Class Glyphs or 5 Armor Vellum II
210-225 15 Class Glyphs (change recipes every 5 points)
225-230 Fiery Ink or 5 Class Glyphs or Shadowy Tarot (if you have Fiery Ink)
230-235 5 Class Glyphs or Shadowy Tarot (if you have Fiery Ink)
235-250 15 Class Glyphs (change recipes every 5 points) or Weapon Vellum II or Shadowy Tarot
Weapon Vellum turns yellow at 250, so use them toward the end.
250-255 75 Shimmering Ink
255-260 5 Scroll of Spirit V (the only option for this range, boo)
260-275 15 Class Glyphs (change recipes every 5 points)
275-290 15 Class Glyphs (change recipes every 5 points) or Ink of the Sky (if you have Sapphire Pigment)
290-300 The remaining recipes are all yellow at 290 and green at 295. just keep rolling on the previous recipes as best you can and hopefully this will get fixed before release.
300-305 70 Ethereal Ink
305-325 20 Class Glyphs (change recipes every 5 points)
325-330 5 Class Glyphs or Darkflame Ink (if you have Ebon Pigment)
330-350 20 Class Glyphs (change recipes every 5 points)
350+ Level 350 Glyphs turn yellow at 355 and green at 360
You can continue if you like… or wait until WotLK when new recipes come out 🙂

Enjoy!
Kaliope of Llane

PLEASE NOTE: This chart was compiled in early October on the Test Realm and revised with Patch 3.0.2. If you notice any errors, please drop us an email!

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