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The Light and How to Swing It: Paladin Protection glyphs
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Please send screenshots as well as any comments to my email at gregg@wow.com. We've recently looked at builds for protection and retribution, so let's continue that trend and take a look at glyphs. I'm going to review all of them, as we're getting pretty close to Cataclysm, and I'm going to also review them in a more global context instead of talking about what is going to help you on hard-mode Lich King. The way I've set it up is that everything that you're likely going to want without question has an asterisk next to it; those are pretty much things you'll want to take. If you look through the major and minor glyphs, you'll notice that there aren't very many marked as such. There's a reason for that. We just don't have that many spectacular glyphs that are useful in all situations for those types. That's not to say the other glyphs are bad (well, some are, but we'll get to that), but they're more situational and require some choice on your part.
Arcane Brilliance: Getting your mage up and running in 4.0.1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. Except for last week, when Arcane Brilliance was unable to sit upright, formulate a complete thought, or control the vast majority of its bodily functions. Some of you speculated that the reason I didn't write an Arcane Brilliance last week was that I was busy slaying warlocks. I regret to report that this was not the case, though the desire was certainly there. The sad fact of the matter is that I was out last week with what I believe was a case of what 14th-century Europeans called "The Plague." I woke up on Tuesday morning with a headache, which soon progressed to waves of nausea, racking coughs and severe congestion, and by Thursday, I was shambling through the streets at night in search of brains. Thankfully, I seem to have made a full recovery, though I still crave brains. I'll let you know how that goes. While I was indisposed, it seems a patch of some significance has dropped. Then we got nerfed or something? All I know is that I logged in on Tuesday night and my fire mage was doing a buttload of DPS, and then I logged in again two days later and he was doing maybe one-and-a-half cheeks' worth of a buttload. It was super fun. So, massive buffs followed by massive nerfs aside, we should probably talk a little bit about this whole patch thing. By now, I assume most of you have already respecced your mages, for better or for worse. Even still, I feel like a 4.0.1 primer is in order. Click the link below and you'll find a basic starter guide for getting your mage back on his feet after all this craziness. This week we'll cover specs, general rotations and glyphs.
The Art of War(craft): Must-have PvP talents for death knights in 4.0.1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Art of War(craft), covering battlegrounds and world PvP, and Blood Sport for arena enthusiasts. Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Battlemaster Zach Yonzon, old-world PvP grinder and casual battleground habitué, rambles on about anything and everything PvP. So the bomb finally dropped. As expected, Patch 4.0.1 finally made it to live realms and players are scrambling to get used to everything new. For most players, that first free respec is used for PvE to enable them to join the latest PUG looking to down the week's raid boss. This is when reality bites -- that spec you've been fiddling around with over at Wowhead or wowtal.com isn't delivering the way you thought it would. That's OK. If you're doing some PvP, understand that there are a number of bugs out there, so things aren't behaving exactly as they should. Add to that the fact that the game is balanced around being level 85, that stamina is low, and resilience has taken a hit ... things are going to be somewhat wonky. So don't write off that spec you've theorycrafting on for weeks just yet. Since specs are pretty complex and fluid at this point, we'll take a look at vital PvP talents instead. The fun thing is that at this point in the game, all specs are good to go for PvP -- although your mileage may vary. There isn't much room for variation, unlike before, when players could reach deep into two trees, especially for PvP. But inevitably, there are talents that are extremely useful in a PvP environment. Today we'll take a look at core PvP talents for each spec for death knights, just in case you were wondering what to do with those last few talent points. For this exercise, we won't bother discussing any 31-point talents because, well, you're supposed to pick those up, anyway.
Encrypted Text: Rogue glyphs in the Cataclysm beta
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we discuss the new glyph system and talk about which glyphs look good so far. Back in the day, before Wrath was even released, I had incorrectly speculated that there would be three tiers of glyphs in the expansion. It was my very first post on WoW.com, and my mistake was clearly pointed out to me by some of the helpful commenters. It turns out that I was actually right -- it just took Blizzard a few years to get around to adding the extra tier of glyphs. There are now three types of glyph: prime, major and minor. Prime glyphs aren't necessarily fun; they just buff us. Major glyphs are sort of the utility glyphs that give us a measurable benefit, but they're not necessarily mandatory. Minor glyphs are just for fun things that make our lives easier. Luckily for us, many of the new Cataclysm glyphs are available on the beta, complete with the shiny new glyph interface. While scribes may be complaining about their business models going out the window, I'm busy drooling over some of the new glyph options we have available.
Cataclysm Beta: The new glyph UI
The latest patch to the Cataclysm beta has finally added in the revamped glyph UI, sporting the newly implemented Prime Glyphs, a selection window and awesome new convenience features. The new interface has a search box for quickly finding glyphs, expanding categories of prime, major and minor glyphs, and it even shows you what glyphs you have not yet learned. Personally, I think that the new glyph interface is one of the coolest Cataclysm revamps. The old system of glyphs was an awesome first step, but it has been refined and polished in ways we never could have expected. Check out the gallery of shots below to see what the glyph UI looks like while empty, sporting some glyphs and using the search feature. %Gallery-101308%
