One of the interesting thing about the glyph system is that the ones we've seen so far are more or less outside of the standard itemization scaling system. In that sense they're closer to talent points, than they are to the item or item improvements crafted by other professions, and so are a poor match for a major output of a crafting profession. Is the new swipe glyph in the next expansion going to hit an additional 1.5 targets? Furthermore many of the listed feral glyphs are only useful in a subset of druid roles, so as a feral druid I could desire to switch glyphs even if I don't respec. If they were going to be permanent then perhaps it would make sense to make the glyphs as a bind on use consumable stack, or with a certain expiry time.

In any case I think Blizzard still have a lot of work left to do to make the Inscription profession work well with the glyph system.

I wish they would stop worrying so much about keeping crafting professions "viable." The old alchemy was certainly better for alchemists wishing to make money than the new alchemy, but the new alchemy is unquestionably better for everyone else. Does it matter if there's no reason to buy a given glyph more than once? They can make them expensive and there's always alts to provide a bit of continuous demand, plus inscription can make the enchanting scroll things... and if all of that ends up as a poor return, just don't level inscription for money-making purposes. Give it some competitive BoP perk so that some people will want to have it and let those with more pecuniary interests choose something else.

The inscription trade needs to have a layer of `consensual` interface between the caster and the customer in order to avoid griefing. This will also need to be considered with the new enchants-on-a-scroll mechanic.

The last thing anything wants is for someone to be able to walk around a city with a scroll of weak enchant/glyph, spamming it on random level 80s and hoping they click the yes button while distracted.

At the moment, enchantment has the trade interface as the additional layer. I suppose that making scrolls cast only on yourself would work. A solution for inscription would be to have a `glyphstone` or book that also needs to be presented via the trade interface. In principle, then, the glyph-object could have a maximum number of spaces on it (say twice the number you can use at any one time), which the player could use to reselect the active ones on a long-ish cooldown. This would retain a market for additional glyphs in the longer term while giving the player flexibility.

Presumably there are horrible downsides to this idea, which I am sure have already been considered at length and will be related shortly

On a not entirely related note - it is logical that parchments will be made from skins, as they were in non-fantasy land. Which would be a nice thing for skinners. At the moment, the other gathering trades have multiple main markets (herbalism feeds alchemy and inscripting, mining feeds smithing and jewelcrafting).

I definately agree here.

There are some obvious lines of equipment that are just not craftable at the moment.

Of those above the only one I know of that seems to have had some attention is the shields, there are 2 new blacksmith craftable shields pre lvl75 in WotLK and probably more later on.
Apart from that, I'm sure there are enough uncrafted item types to justify something like a woodworking profession and a logging profession to do the gathering for it. Staves, Bows, X-bows, Fishing Poles, shields, arrows, x-bow bolts and some relics would all fit into this proffession, but I'm sure this has been suggested plenty of times before.

The other thing that occurs to me is that the one pot per fight limit would be slightly less rigid if it was one pot per type per fight, with a mechanism smlilar to the trinket mechanism.
i.e. Pop a health pot, pot timer is on 2 minutes, health pot is locked till ooc,
Pop a mana pot, pot timer is on for 2 minutes, Mana pots are now also locked till ooc, etc etc.
It would stop the chain chugging of pots but would allow us a bit more freedom.

Given enchants must target an item, not a player, I don't see how this would be possible. Presumably glyphs would be the same, since they would have to target a specific glyph slot as you can have 6 of them.

I would assume that glyphs would be cast onto parchment, and that was then sold/given to the player who would cast it on themselves, or on a specific glyph slot. I don't see why they'd require the inscriptor to be present when they're finally removing that requirment from enchanting.

Alchemical Blood effect on WoWheads WotlK section says flasks

It's worth noting that the phrase "that you can make" is important. If you can't actually make the relevant flask, you ain't getting no blood bonus for using it.

On this specific one: I have for a long time thought there should be an engineering recipe for the "pocket fisherman", a fishing pole that perhaps has no bonuses or even a penalty, but that you can equip one-handed. I'd use one, on my characters that use a 1h weapon and off-hand.

Then you could equip an Ornate Drinking Stein in your offhand and truly complete the fishing while drinking image. The best part would be if it was a set of items that gave you a huge buff to fishing to start, but slowly reduce the buff and increase your level of intoxication over time.

Interesting idea Tavik, the only problem I see with this is the amount of gold an player with inscription would make. The charges just mean money, though if they didn't have charges and just disappeared if you changed them it would mean less money.

So there seems to be a couple ways to go with this. Either have inscriptions like a spell book and you can swap them at your will; perhaps put in a different inscription to tailor your abilities for a certain boss. Or to have them lost whenever you change them.

Also, a question asked by a guildmate of mine was can you put minor/lesser glyphs into the higher glyph slots until you find a greater glyph worth using? Any confirmation/information on this?

I wonder if this means the end of the flask discovery system.

Each role has particular flasks that it values. And some raiding specs simply must use a particular flask.

This means that your professional 'perk' and related raid performance bonus will be totally dependent on whether or not your have discovered a useful flask for your class.

At this time, my priest's only discovered flask is Relentless Assault. Although this is a fantastic money maker, it does little for me as a healer.

Since I will only get my "Alchemical Blood" bonus on flasks that I create myself, I really won't get the flasking benefit from this ability.

Unless they are set to revamp the discovery system and give equal access to all flasks....

Pleasedon'thurtme if I'm wrong, but I believe it's been explicitly stated that WotlK discoveries will only be of decorative nature, along the lines of Deviate Delight and Noggenfogger. Everything useful will be aquired by other means. Couldn't for the life of me find a source though.

edit: I found where I picked up that tidbit, and it was from a generally trustable fellow on the WoW-EU profession forum who cited Blizzcon as is source. That was quite some time ago though.

Actually, the current build has recipes up to 50, then two "odd recipes" that go gray around 130. And that's all. Basically, they've almost finished tier 1 (there's one or two intermediate recipes missing, but personally, I'd rather see Midnight Ink lowered to, say, 80 in skill, and tier 2 starting there)

This makes the topic of free flasks from trash drops interesting, as alchemists won't receive the bonus from them. Unless being able to hand in a [Mark of the Illidari] is the same as being able to make an item (very unlikely). Perhaps the free ones won't be "Shattrah flask of ...." anymore and just be the normal flask, but this means they will work everywhere and not just in raid instances.

The free flasks were a big win for raiding in TBC, even though as a long-term herbalist/alchemist I am bitter that it removed a massive slice of the market for flasks. I would imagine they will be implemented again in WotLK.

delete - redundant

I'm assuming Blizz are smart enough to code things so that if you can make a Flask of Pure Death, you get the blood bonus from a Shattrath Flask of Pure Death too.

And you know this how? As someone has suggested before, hopefully blizzard will just make Shattrath flasks count as their non-shattrath equivalents for the purpose of Alc Blood (and same for Dalaran flasks or whatever the WotLK ones end up being).

Alchemical Blood has been renamed Mixology.

That's both awesome and horrific at the same time.

I am most interested to see what the new Melee enchant will be. There's been no hint of a mongoose/executioner -esque enchant thus far. However, it would appear that the greater savagery isn't specific to one hand or two hand.
I'd bet on that or 26 Agility.

I'm sure they'll get around to something more interesting. They haven't even opened up any of the instances where max-level enchants would drop.

... and unless I'm entirely mistaken, has been nerfed as potions are no longer included in the effect?

Which pretty much means the effect is stats only, and thus comparable straight up to, say, Ring Enchants. Except Ring enchants would function in PvP as well. Meh. It's definitely an improvement to what we have now, but... Well... Enough of one to warrant alchemy on a main instead of an alt? That will depend on how hard it is to get the "good" recipes.