Hunter Glyphs found in Wrath Beta build 8820

With the newest Beta build that hit live servers last night, MMO Champion found yet another round of inscription glyphs in the build. In particular, I'd like to talk about the Hunter glyphs. They still seem half-finished, with some values that are most definitely placeholder, and a good portion of them are firmly in the PvP camp.

Still, most of them are complete enough that they're worth analyzing, if only to know how to advise Blizzard to change them in future Beta builds. Not to say there aren't some good ones, but there's also some that no sane Hunter will use. Let's check them all out after the break.

Glyph of Aimed Shot - Decreases the cooldown of Aimed Shot by 1 sec.

This glyph might be usable in PvP if you don't think you'll have a chance to reapply Aimed Shot to a target for a while, but overall, that 1 second doesn't feel like it will be long enough to make much of a difference in a PvP fight. Really, I don't see this one being widely used.

Glyph of Arcane Shot - Your Arcane Shot refunds 20% of its mana cost if the target has one of your Stings active on it.

This glyph might not be as widely used as it first appears. Right now, many Beastmastery Hunters still doubt that Serpent Sting does enough damage to justify casting it instead of another Steady Shot. In addition, It's been heavily implied by the Blizzard devs that Chimera Shot and Explosive Shot are supposed to replace Arcane Shot in their respective trees. Given all that, this glyph isn't very desirable as it now stands because there are very few reasons to use the needed abilities in PvE.

However, if Serpent Sting and Arcane Shot are adjusted enough that using them in a rotation over Steady Shot becomes becomes useful, you might still this in vogue. The less one has to switch to Aspect of the Viper while PvEing, the better!

Glyph of Aspect of the Beast - Increases the attack power bonus of Aspect of the Beast for you and your pet by an additional 2%

This glyph really isn't good at all. I can't really see any reasonable Hunter switching to Aspect of the Beast to melee when they could be trying to get out of melee range, especially with the new Disengage and Frost Trap functionalities making it easier than ever to escape. I do like the pet synergy though, even if it's a bit low, and would like to see the concept on other glyphs.

Glyph of Aspect of the Monkey - While Aspect of the Monkey is active, each time you dodge you gain 30% increased movement speed for 6 sec. This speed does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.

I don't want to say that this will be mandatory for PvP, since it'll still make the Hunter susceptible to Overpower, but having yet another powerful escape tool for when you're caught in melee range is never a bad thing in PvP. I expect t see a lot of PvP Hunters taking this. Just stack a couple charges of movement speed, Disengage, and be ready to run out to max range and pepper your target with bullets or lure it into a trap.

Glyph of Aspect of the Viper - You regenerate mana from Aspect of the Viper as if you had 15% less mana in your current mana pool.

With all the new mana regeneration abilities going in, it remains to be seen if this will be worth it. Any Hunter who finds themselves constantly switching between Aspect of the Viper and Aspect of the Hawk might consider this, though.

Glyph of Bestial Wrath - Decreases the cooldown of Bestial Wrath by 20 sec.

If it stacks with Longevity and keeps that 20 second cooldown, I expect this to be all but required for any Beastmastery Hunter. A shorter Bestial Wrath cooldown means more DPS in PvE and more chances to break out of crowd control in PvP.

Glyph of Deterrence - Decreases the cooldown of Deterrence by 20 sec.

This should be a nice PvP glyph for a Hunter who has trouble with being focus fired. If you're able to hide behind your group members a lot, it might be less desirable. Still, I expect to see a lot of PvP Hunters take this.

Glyph of Disengage - Decreases the cooldown of Disengage by 5 sec.

Here's a PvP Glyph that will probably be mandatory for any Hunter who expects to be going up against melee classes, for obvious reasons.

Glyph of Freezing Trap - When your Freezing Trap breaks, the victim is afflicted with a 40% snare, recovering 10% per sec. for 4 sec.

Yet another good PvP Glyph, giving you some extra breathing room once your trap is broken, be it on accident or on purpose. It might even be useful in PvE for a Hunter that finds themselves on crowd control duty often, depending on how easy it is to switch out Glyphs.

Glyph of Frost Trap - Increases the radius of the effect from your Frost Trap by 1 to 0 yards.

1 to 0 yards is a placeholder, I presume. If the final number is somewhere around 5-6 yards, I could see this very useful for kiting meleers in PvP. Whether it will win out over other PvP oriented glyphs is probably slightly more questionable, but this should be a nice glyph to help prevent meleers from closing distance or ranged attacks from ducking out of LOS in the hands of a good Hunter.

Glyph of Hunter's Mark - Increases the attack power bonus of your Hunter's Mark by 20%.

The Hunter in the raid who takes Improved Hunter's Mark will find this glyph mandatory, most likely. Some Hunters might like it for soloing or grinding as well if they're in the habit of marking targets.

Glyph of Immolation Trap - Decreases the duration of the effect from your Immolation Trap by -6000 sec., but damage while active is increased by 100%.

We can, of course, assume that -6000 seconds is a place holder. Still, I don't expect Immolation trap to see much use as long as it's connected to the cooldowns of other, more useful traps. I suppose you might see a Hunter or two crazy enough to try to use this glyph in conjunction with the new T.N.T talent, but I don't see it being used much.

Glyph of Improved Aspect of the Hawk - Increases the effect of Improved Aspect of the Hawk by an additional 6.

I'm unclear what the 6 stands for here. 6 seconds? 6% haste? 6 haste rating? Assuming that 6 is anything good, though, this should be a very popular PVE DPS glyph, since almost every good DPS build will probably take the talent.

Glyph of Multi-Shot - Decreases the cooldown of Multi-Shot by 1 sec.

Multi-shot is rapidly falling out of favor for most practical uses, since Steady Shot is better in almost every respect against a single target. I don't see this glyph being used much unless the Hunter presumes to be doing a lot of AE DPS.

Glyph of Rapid Fire - Increases the haste from Rapid Fire by an additional 8%.

More Haste? now that there's no more Auto Shot clipping, that's a good thing. This will definitely be a nice DPS increase in PvE, but it remains to be seen if it's a better glyph than other DPS increasing glyphs.

Glyph of Serpent Sting - Increases the duration of your Serpent Sting by 3 sec.

Once again, I wonder if this glyph is worth taking. It's pretty much worthless for Marksmanship Hunters now that Chimera Shot refreshes stings. Will it push Serpent Sting over the top into usefulness for other Hunters? That remains to be seen.

Glyph of Snake Trap - Your Snake Trap creates 2 additional snakes.

I honest do not think this will see much use. Snakes are too easy to kill with a quick burst of area damage, and the 2 extra snakes would hardly add much in the way of DPS or utility in the end, at least not enough to be worth the glyph slot. There will always be better glyphs to use.

Glyph of Steady Shot - Increases the damage dealt by Steady Shot by 10% when your target is afflicted with Serpent Sting.

If Serpent Sting is adjusted to be damaging and mana efficient enough to be worth casting, this will probably be mandatory for most Hunters. As it is, it will probably find itself attached to many a Marksmanship Hunter using a Serpent Sting/Chimera Shot damage rotation.

Glyph of Trueshot Aura - Increases the attack power bonus of Trueshot Aura by an additional 2%.

As long as Trueshot Aura does not scale in some way, this glyph will be underpowered. 2% of 225 AP is not much at all. If Trueshot Aura is revamped to scale in some way, then this may see some use.

Glyph of Volley - Decreases the mana cost of Volley by -20%.

Volley is actually a lot of fun right now, I have to admit. I had a chance to use it with an AEing Death Knight tank in Nexus, and it was a blast. But whether it does enough DPS to justify using a glyph slot for it, I doubt.

Glyph of Wyvern Sting - Decreases the cooldown of your Wyvern Sting by 0 sec., but decreases the damage it deals by 1 to 0%.

It'll be difficult to say how worthwhile this glyph is until we know the real values it gives, but given that the crowd control of the sting is by far more useful than the DoT afterward, this will probably see a lot of use among Survival PvP Hunters.