TWW Inscription Specialization Guide and Builds

This guide is here to help you navigate the different Inscription specializations in War Within, so you can make the most out of your Inscription experience.

I'll break down each specialization, show you the best ways to spend your points, and highlight which paths might not be worth your time. By the end, you'll have a solid foundation to start crafting your own build.

Table of contents

Inscription Specializations

War Within introduces four new Inscription specializations, unlocked at levels 25, 50, 60 and 75. Each one offers unique perks that can significantly impact how you approach Inscription.

Here's a quick look at the four main Inscription specializations. Each one hones in on a specific aspect of Inscription

Pursuit of Knowledge

This specialization focuses on boosting your Ingenuity, Resourcefulness, or Multicraft. It also enhances your Ingenuity to refund more Concentration, up to a maximum of 100%.

Basically, this is the specialization you'd start investing in after you've already built a solid foundation in the other specializations. It allows you to optimize your build even further. I'd recommend putting points here only after you've spent some points in the other specialization.

While you shouldn't invest point into this one early, Be sure to learn Pursuit of Knowledge as your first specialization! This will teach you the Algari Treatise on Inscription recipe that you will use for leveling later.

Pursuit of Perfection

This tree boosts your skill when milling, crafting inks, and making reagents. If you plan to mass-produce reagents, maxing out this specialization is essential.

Careful Carvings

This specialization focuses on crafting Profession Tools, Staves, and Off-hand Weapons. By investing points into this specialization, you can learn to craft three epic weapons.

These weapons are:

Archival Additions

This tree focuses on Darkmoon Cards, Darkmoon Sigils, Vantus Runes, Missives, and Contracts.

Darkmoon Sigils are optional reagents that let you use a weaker version of a Darkmoon Card's proc on a piece of gear.

Max Quality and Concentration

Before diving into how to spend your knowledge points, it's important to understand the role of Concentration, so you understand why I believe it's important to specialize in one recipe and prioritize boosting your Inscription skill first.

Concentration lets you craft an item at a quality one tier higher than your base skill would normally allow. The amount of Concentration needed depends on how much skill you're missing, but there's always a minimum amount of Concentration required.

For instance, even if you're only short by 1 skill point, you'd still need around 150-300 Concentration to craft max rank item (depends on if it's gear or consumable). Since Concentration regenerates at about 240 points daily, you're limited to crafting 1-2 item per day at max quality until you max out your build. (unless you get lucky with Ingenuity procs).

Dedicated Crafters

If crafting is your main focus, aim to master at least one recipe to the point where you don't need to use Concentration. This will allow you to craft more efficiently and handle larger orders without waiting for cooldowns.

Casual Crafters

If crafting is more of a leisurely activity for you and you're not planning to produce large quantities, it's okay to diversify and learn a variety of recipes. However, even for casual crafters, starting with a strong foundation in one area is generally more effective before expanding into others.

Choosing a Specialization Build

Here are a few sample builds that focus on different aspects of Inscription. Choose the one that's best suited for your playstyle, and feel free to adjust it to better fit your preferences.

The numbers listed aren't rankings; they're just meant to help you find your way through the guide more easily.

1. Crafting Weapons and Profession Equipment

This build is all about making Weapons or Profession Equipment, whether it's for your own use or fulfilling crafting orders for others.

2. Selling Inks, and Reagents

This build is best if you want to sell large amounts of inks and reagents on the Auction House.

3. Selling Contracts, Missives, and Vantus Runes

This build is perfect if your focus is on selling Contracts, Missives, and Vantus Runes at the Auction House.

4. Darkmoon Sigils

This build focuses on transcribing Darkmoon cards and and selling Darkmon Sigil Optional Reagents

Build 1: Crafting Weapons and Profession Equipment

First, decide whether you want to focus on crafting weapons or profession equipment.

If you're not planning on crafting for others through the crafting order system, focusing on weapons first is likely the smarter choice. Weapons provide a much bigger upgrade than max-quality profession tools. Plus, you can still craft profession tools at a lower quality and recraft them later for higher quality as you gain more skill.

If you plan to focus on fulfilling crafting orders, both profession tools and weapons are good options, though weapons usually have higher demand. If you decide to go with profession tools, I'd recommend starting with the Alchemy Tool, followed by the Cooking or Inscription tools.

Example Builds

If you want to craft an Off-hand first, your build would look like this:

Adjust the sub-specializations according to the item you choose. This is just an example.

  1. Careful Carvings - No need to put any point here yet.
  2. Combative Curiosities - No need to spend points here either; you'll automatically unlock a sub-specialization.
  3. Torches (30 points) - Pick this sub-specialization and max it out. It gives the highest skill point gain for 30 points, so it's better to max this out first.
  4. Combative Curiosities (30 Points) - Max out this sub-spec to learn a second recipe.
  5. Careful Carvings (30 points) - Finally, finish the build by maxing out the center node.

Now you can craft guaranteed max-quality Off-hands using Q3 materials without needing Concentration. If you want to craft a Staff or Profession Tools instead, just follow these steps in those sub-specializations.

Build 2: Milling, Inks, and Reagents

This specializations is very straightforward:

You can't really mess this up—just pick any sub-specialization, invest 30 points into it, then 30 points into Pursuit of Perfection, and you're basically done for that category. You'll be able to craft at max quality without needing Concentration.

From there, you can either max out the rest of the sub-specializations or start focusing on Multicraft by investing points in the Pursuit of Knowledge specialization and then finally get some Resourcefulness.

You can focus on Ingenuity if you want to craft Q3 reagents with Q2 materials using Concentration. Otherwise, you can skip Ingenuity since it becomes unnecessary once you can guarantee max quality crafts without it.

Build 3: Selling Contracts, Missives, and Vantus Runes

All three sub-specializations work exactly the same way here, making this a very straightforward specialization, much like Pursuit of Perfection.

It's hard to say which will be the best money maker, but keep in mind that Vantus Runes won't be in demand until the raids open, so they won't sell for weeks after release. Contracts last for a week and only require one per account since they affect your entire warband. Missives will probably be the item you can sell the most of.

Example Builds

If you want to craft an Missives, your build would look like this:

Adjust the sub-specializations according to the item you choose. This is just an example.

  1. Runic Research (10 points) - To unlock a sub-specializations.
  2. Missives (30) - This one gives you the most +skill so max out this one first.
  3. Runic Research (30) and Archival Additions (30) - Max both these out, the order doesn't really matter.

From there, you can either max out the rest of the sub-specializations or start focusing on Multicraft by investing points in the Pursuit of Knowledge specialization and then finally get some Resourcefulness.

You can focus on Ingenuity if you want to craft Q3 reagents with Q2 materials using Concentration. Otherwise, you can skip Ingenuity since it becomes unnecessary once you can guarantee max quality crafts without it.

Build 4: Darkmoon Sigils

Until we know more about Darkmoon Sigils, it's risky to invest in this route. We'll need to wait for class guides to determine if they're recommended. If better Embellishments are available, these might not sell well. I suggest holding off on investing points here until we have more information. However, if one of them ends up being the BiS optional reagent, they could potentially become a great gold-making opportunity.

There's a major change to Darkmoon Cards in The War Within. You won't craft the cards anymore; instead, they drop from mobs, but only for Scribes. The drop rate was very high on the beta—sometimes 2-3 cards in just 10 minutes of questing. You don't need this specialization for the cards to drop; just having Inscription is enough.

Transcribing

In the new system, you get card drops from mobs, and if you specialize in one of the four Darkmoon Cards specializations, you can transcribe any two cards from other decks into the card corresponding to your subspecialization.

For example, if you choose Darkmoon Sigil: Vivacity and invest 30 points into it, you'll learn the spell Transcribe: Vivacity allowing you to transcribe two cards from other decks into a Vivacity card.

Example Build:

Here's what a build would look like if you wanted to focus on Darkmoon Sigil crafting.

Darkmoon Sigil: Vivacity seems like a strong contender for being BiS, so I'll use that as an example.

Adjust the sub-specializations according to the item you choose. This is just an example.

  1. Cryptic Collection - Pick this subs-specialization. If you already picked another one, you have to first Invest 30 points into Archival Additions.
  2. Darkmoon Sigil: Vivacity (30 points) - This will unlock Transcribe: Vivacity, let's you craft Darkmoon Sigil: Vivacity and you will get 50% more card drops from mobs.
  3. Cryptic Collection (30 Points) - Invest here to gain additional skill.
  4. Archival Additions (30 points) - Finish the build by maxing out the center node.