WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Druid glyphs and undocumented changes, part 2
NEW AND ALTERED GLYPHS
GLYPH OF REBIRTH
: Players resurrected by Rebirth are returned to life with 100% health. (Old: Increases the amount of health on a character brought back to life via Rebirth by 100%.)
This is a substantial improvement on the current glyph, but whether or not you'll find it useful is going to depend on your individual circumstances. A Druid of any spec in a competitive raiding guild may find themselves called upon to Rebirth as much as possible in order to keep attempts at progression content going. Of course, we don't know what the fights in Ulduar are going to be like, but if we see predictable raid damage on the level of, say, Sapphiron or Kel'Thuzad, the glyph will make it substantially safer to battle-rez someone without losing them to AoE a moment after.
GLYPH OF STARFALL: Reduces the cooldown of Starfall by 90 sec. (Old: Increases the duration of Starfall by 2 sec).
Eh. Starfall right now is... not that great, and one of the most routinely ignored talents in a PvE Balance build. Now that it no longer has a chance to proc stuns, it's also not quite as useful (and by useful, I mean overpowered) in PvP. However, it is extremely useful as a damage ability that's essentially fire-and-forget while you've got melee on you. How useful is the reduced cooldown? How long do your arena matches typically last? Probably worth picking up if you're Balance for arena.
GLYPH OF BERSERK (NEW): Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 seconds.
Hrm. That's pretty nice for both Bear and Cat, especially because one of the Bear's weaknesses as a tank is a lack of burst AoE threat outside of Berserk. It should also provide a nice DPS boost for kitties.
GLYPH OF WILD GROWTH (NEW): Wild Growth now affects up to 6 targets.
This is similar to existing glyphs for Shamans and Priests increasing the number of targets healed by Chain Heal and Circle of Healing respectively. It's a welcome addition to a Resto Druid's arsenal, especially if you're typically on raid healing duty. If you do mostly 5-man content, you can safely consider this glyph superfluous, as Wild Growth already hits up to 5 people.
GLYPH OF NOURISH (NEW): Your Nourish heals an additional 6% for each of your heal over time effects present on the target.
Between this, recent buffs, and the change to Improved Regrowth, they are really pushing Nourish as more of a main-line healing spell. I'm going to have to dig out my calculator soon and try to see how much closer this gets Nourish to a glyphed Regrowth assuming HoT's already present on the target. At the moment, I'm not sure whether this stacks with the Tier 7 4-piece set bonus.
GLYPH OF SAVAGE ROAR (NEW): Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 6% bonus damage done.
Interesting. This, Glyph of Rip, and Glyph of Berserk are going to be the three required Cat glyphs for maximum DPS builds, particularly if you've got an Arms Warrior in your raid applying Trauma (removing the need to Mangle), but it is a sign that Bear and Cat builds and damage are moving farther and farther apart.
GLYPH OF TYPHOON (NEW): Reduces the cooldown of your Typhoon spell by 3 seconds.
Another glyph that seems intended for Balance PvP, but probably a bit more useful than Glyph of Starfall.
GLYPH OF BARKSKIN (NEW): Reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks by 1 to 0% while Barkskin is active.
This and the new Improved Barkskin talent in the Restoration tree seem aimed at shoring up Resto's abysmal performance so far in Wrath arena (saw that coming!), although the glyph can obviously be put to good use for anyone's PvP sec. 1% crit reduction is worth an extra 75 resilience at 80. This might be helpful until you get resilience-capped (if that's going to be possible without horribly gimping yourself in Season 6 gear, of course).
Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
