Who are my competitors’ secret alts?

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide


Most expert crafters have an alt that has nothing to do with their Auction House businesses.  This alt may be raiding or levelling but its other task is specifically to watch the Friends List and see when my competitors come online so that i can wait and then repost my glyphs when they leave.

However, i know my competitors are doing the same.  If i can find out the names of their secret alts then i truly know when my competitors are online or not.  And so i need strategies to flush them out.

One such strategy i employ is to try and make their secret alts buy crafting materials off the Auction House from me.  And then watch to see if they log on and off at the same time as my known competitor alts.

To do this i create an alt to post cheap herbs – and so this alt is new and hence can not be linked to me.  I don’t post too many stacks, say 5 stacks of 20 of whiptail at 20 gold a stack should do the trick.

When they are sold i look at the data on Auctioneer Beancounter to see who has bought them.  Over time it becomes apparent that certain names that i don’t see posting glyphs are appearing with regularity on the list.  I add these names to my Friends List and sooner or later i start to notice that when they log off my competitor posting alts log on.  I therefore determine that this alt is part of my competitor alts.

Periodically i disband my herb posting alt and start a new one.

Over the course of time i now know who most of my secret competitor alts are.

Of course, as a directly related observation, make sure your secret alt does not buy items on the Auction House that are used in your crafting businesses.  No point in falling for the same strategy!

All counter strategies lower profits for a while

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

It is important that one is reconciled to this fact.

If a competitor undertakes a course of action to increase their share of the market then, whether or not you undertake a counter strategy, you will be getting less profits from this market during this time.  If you undertake a counter strategy, which i strongly advise you do, then the profits coming to you will further fall during this time.

Therefore, when i am participating in a market i do so in the knowledge that at various points in time the profits will fall away and my time devoted to that market will rise to counter competitor actions.

I also operate in the knowledge that during calmer periods, time spent researching my competitors will pay off down the road.  They will be researching you.

As will time sent ensuring all end markets in a profession are researched and, if appropriate, entered.  For Inscription that means entering the off hand, certificate and scrolls markets for me.

As will time spent developing a new market.  For me, that is enchanting.

Time spent exploring all options will enhance the avenues for profits and narrow the avenues to make losses.

Start posting as soon as your competitors leave

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

Start posting as soon as your competitors leave. . . . .

 . . . . . . it demoralises them!
Quite often i will be questing with an alt that has nothing to do with my Auction House alts and therefore i don’t believe any of my competitors know who it is.  I will note a competitor come online and cycle through their alts and then leave.

Clearly they are cancelling and reposting.

As soon as they leave i wait for 2 minutes to make sure they are not going to log back on and recycle, and then i log on my posting alts to immediately undercut them.  And then i leave.

This has two benefits.

Firstly, it reposts my glyphs to be the best price and so maximise my profits.

Secondly, when the competitor next comes on they will have low sales and see that they have been undercut.  Better still, if they come in within, for example, the next 10 minutes they will see that they have been undercut without ever seeing me online whilst they were posting.  They will therefore know that i am watching my market.  That will demoralise them.

I don’t wait and complete any part of a quest, or get more xp – i immediately log off and log on my alts.  Takes 10 minutes.  But it is time well spent.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

I have a backup market which i turn to if Inscription becomes too competitive and i want to let it settle down and reset.  My backup market is enchanting.

Everyone should have a backup market – it opens up a whole new range of options that can be deployed as counter competitive actions.  The most obvious being that you can temporarily leave your main market if it all gets too much.

In fact, i often operate in the Enchanting market at the same time as the Inscription market.  I am not aggressive and i don’t seek to own it.  Merely i seek to make 1000 – 2000 gold per day from it whilst i operate in the Inscription market.

But right now one of the more aggressive competitors in the Inscription market has moved over to the Enchanting market.

By leaving the Inscription market the time i need to devote to cancelling and reposting my glyphs has gone down materially and my weekly income has risen.  Indeed, it has risen by more than i make in Enchanting and what’s more, i have more time on my hands to level alt characters.

Thus, i prefer this prior competitor of mine to stay in Enchanting and out of Inscription.

Hence, i am not competing in the Enchanting market.  I don’t want to take part is dissuading the new entrant from the Enchanting market.  In a sense, i am letting the other market participants have my 1000 – 2000 gold per day.  And given the competitive nature of this new entrant, i suspect much of it will go to him/her.

The competitive landscape has changed for the better and i don’t want to disturb this.

Let sleeping dogs lie.

Milling - is there an easier way?

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

I often get an email asking me if there is an automatic way to mill my herbs rather than the current method of one click per milling of 5 herbs.


The bad news is that there is not, at least not that i am aware, another way that is allowable.


My current stragegy is to fill a 36 slot Hyjal Expedition Bag full of herbs from my Guild Bank (i have been buying cheap herbs from the Auction House and storing them in my Guild Bank) and to mill them using the Addon TradeSkillMaster, specifically the Destroying addon for TradeSkillMaster.  I do this when i have spare time but for sure on a Saturday morning to clear out my herbs in my Guild Bank.


It still requires me to be at my computer and press the button once for each mill.  And i admit this is the most tedious part of Inscription.


there are other Addons which can be found at the curse.com website


Or you can create your own milling macro


/cast milling
/use (herb 1)
/use (herb 2)
/use (herb 3)

. . . . . . substituting herb 1, herb 2 for the different herb names.  given the macro limit of 255 characters you will likely need 4 or 5 buttons.  And what is more, if herb 1 gets down to 3 herbs in your bags then the macro will not go onto herb 2 and onwards until you have either increased the number of herb 1 to at least 5 or removed herb 1 from your bag.


Its a slow process - but on the bright side all market participants need to endure this!

Ink prices for Scribes

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

Similarly to Herb prices and as was the case in Wrath of the Lich King, the lowest price ink is normally the new common ink introduced by the new expansion and Cataclysm is no exception.  Hence, for us Scribes the lowest price ink today is normally the Blackfallow ink.

That should be no surprise and follows from the lowest price herbs being Whiptail, Stormvine and Cinderbloom, see my post Herb Prices for Scribes.

However, there are two things to note here.

Firstly, it is almost always cheaper to buy the herbs to mill/craft the Blackfallow inks.  That makes sense – the only people that can craft inks are Scribes and the only people that can use Inks are Scribes.  Therefore, any Scribe posting inks to sell is clearly looking to make a profit.

The likely buyers of Blackfallow inks are:

1. new Scribes levelling up
2.  exisiting Scribes that are heavily into the Fortune Card business and so need  a high supply of Blackfallow ink that can not be met by the supply of herbs on the Auction House
3. where the Scribe does not have the time to mill the herbs – milling herbs is time consuming and can not be done automatically and afk unlike crafting inks from pigments.

On my server, the Blackfallow inks typically sell for 5.5gold each but never falls below 5gold and often rises to nearer 10gold.  See my post Herb Prices for Scribes which explains how buying Whiptail at 1 to 1.5gold each and Stormvine/Cinderbloom at 1gold each means that my crafting cost of each Blackfallow ink is 3.33 to 5.0gold each.

Secondly, there are often times when the pre-Cataclysm inks come onto the market at below the crafting price of 5gold.  At these times i buy all those inks out and store them for future crafting.

Again, it is worth having all the inks on your snatch list and just going through them once per day.

Herb Prices for Scribes

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

As was the case in the Wrath of the Lich King, the lowest price herb is normally a new herb introduced by the new expansion and Cataclysm is no exception.  For us Scribes that means we are buying Whiptail, Stormvine and Cinderbloom.

The primary reason for this is that Whiptail, Stormvine and Cinderbloom are relatively easy to gather and there is demand from Scribes and Alchemists for these herbs making them a good source of income for farmers.  But the demand is more than matched by supply therefore keeping the price low.

Looking at my Reference Guide at the back of Croda's Inscription Gold Guide or the post on Herb to Gyph Conversions it can be seen that Whiptail gives more ink per stack than Stormvine and Cinderbloom and hence why Whiptail is normally found at a slightly higher price.

I am willing to pay up to 1gold 50silver per Whiptail though i normally pay about 1gold and only up to 1gold per Stormvine and Cinderbloom given Whiptail converts into more Inks and procs more Burning Embers to make Inferno Inks.

For Whiptail that means that my crafting cost per glyph is 10 to 15 gold each and for Stormine / Cinderbloom the maximum crafting cost per glyph is 15 gold each.  Or, putting it another way, the cost of each Blackfallow ink is 3.33 to 5.0 gold each, and therefore the cost of any common ink to me is 3.33gold to 5.0gold each.

Indeed, when i look at herbs on the Undermine Journal only Peacebloom, Mageroyal, Liferoot, Silverleaf are cheaper in any reasonable quantity.

Worth noting these – often Lions Ink and Midnight Ink can be crafted cheaper by buying their associated herbs Liferoot and Mageroyal respectively rather than buying the Cataclysm herbs to craft Blackfallow ink to convert to Lions / Midnight ink.  And indeed, that is why Lions Ink and Midnight Ink can typically be found for less than 5 gold on my server and often approaching 3gold each.

But, having all the herbs on your snatch list is a good idea.  Once per week i often come across someone dumping their herbs for a low price.

Lord Rottington's Pressed Wisp Book

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

This off hand gives the user +127 Intellect and +191 Stamina, +91 Spirit, and a small increase to Mastery when equipped.  But more importantly the player needs to be level 81 to equip it, not level 85.

The crafting cost on my server is 140 gold (20 volatile life + 10 resilient parchment).

I sell very few of these, if any at all – and that is because of my high sales price of 1500 gold fallback, 1000 gold minimum . . . . . . . whereas i sell the quite similar Book of Blood for 200 – 250 gold to use up my surplus Inferno Inks.

In many ways this is a better off-hand than the Book ofBlood with gives +127 Intellect and +191 Stamina, and a small increase to Haste and Critical Strike when equipped, and is also equipped at level 81.  And therefore, like the Book of Blood, would commonly used by casters that are levelling to 85 before they buy the “Divine Companion” off hand when they reach level 85.

I am the only person on my server posting this off-hand – and with good reason, the sales are few and far between, and there are two of us selling the Book of Blood.

I post at a fall back price of 1500 gold and a minimum price of 1000 gold.

Still, much like the Glyph market i seek to own this market and therefore posting a complete range of product offerings is key to this aim.

Twilight Tome

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

The Twilight Tome is an offhand that gives +25 Stamina, +35 Intellect and increases Haste by a small amount.  The player needs to be level 70 to equip it and is normally the first thing a caster will equip when reaching level 70.

It is likely to be replaced by a better item within 1 or 2 levels before the caster then equips an Iron-Bound Tome or a Faces of Doom at level 77.

The crafting cost is c50 gold on my server (5 Ink of the Sea + 2 Eternal Life + 10 resilient parchment) and i sell them for 200 to 250 gold.

I sell at best one a week – reflecting the low usage time by casters.  But I am the only person selling these on my server.

As with all pre-cataclysm of-hands I post at a fall back price of 250 gold and a minimum price of 200 gold.  And as with the other off-hands in the past, when i increased the fall back price to 400 gold i merely attracted new competitors.  Hence i now keep the price between 200 and 250 gold.

As an aside, it is loosely related to the Rituals of the New Moon, the connection is the Twilight series.  I have heard this suggested but never tried it myself – but selling in trade chat the full Rituals of the New Moon collection and the Twilight Tome is an idea.

Rituals of the New Moon

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

The acquirer of this off-hand is able to transform into a giant wolf for 2 minutes  with a 10 minute cool down.  The colour of the wolf is determined by which book they buy: red; white; black; or grey.  When transformed the user is pacified and silenced though they are able to do things like using or creating items.  If the user un-equips it then the effect is dispelled.

Hence it serves no useful purpose other than cosmetic.  It is the only item in the game that allows the user to do this.  Much like Certificates of Ownership, there is demand out there for these.

A scribe can produce the Rituals of the New Moon with 5 Ink of Sea + 3 Eternal Shadow + 10 Resilient Parchment.  The book created is either red, white, black or grey – that is random.

On my server the cost of materials is 135 gold – used to be 85 gold but the cost of Eternal Shadows has gone up.  But, as with Certificates of Ownership, the sales price a buyer is willing to pay has little to do with the cost.

I should be more sophisticated, but it sell each book for 500 gold (despite the grey one being the most common) and i post for 48 hours.

I sell one every one to two weeks and i am the only person posting.  For 1500 gold per month, i suspect my competitors don’t bother.  But that is the point of these off-hands markets, pick up a 1000 gold here and a 1000 gold there and quite soon it is something meaningful on a weekly basis.

Operating under the radar of my competitors is the aim here, not ramping up the volumes.