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WoW Archivist: A Glyphmas story
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Professions in Warlords of Draenor feel completely different than at any other era in WoW. Creating powerful items is no longer a matter of farming, luck, or gold. Instead, we have to produce their key ingredients via garrison work orders. Leveling crafting professions is no longer about creating a bunch of useless items that we instantly vendor or disenchant, and reaching max level is now a slow burn instead of a quick grind. This is the first expansion where I haven't hit max level on all my professions within the first week or two. The profession that has changed the most is the most recent: Wrath of the Lich King's inscription, added in 2008. Even the interface changed: the glyph window was originally part of the spellbook UI, not the talent pane. Because of those changes, for a few very special weeks, inscription transformed the financial futures of countless WoW players. I was one of them. We called it Glyphmas, and it was magical.
WoW Archivist: Patch 3.0 -- Echoes of Doom
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Patch 6.0 is finally upon us. Like all pre-expansion patches, it has been both invigorating and chaotic. Almost exactly six years ago, a similar patch went live to begin a new era in WoW. Blizzard called Wrath of the Lich King's pre-expansion patch "Echoes of Doom." On October 14, 2008, this third version of the game gave us the brand-new achievement system, inscription and glyphs, 51-point talent trees, the zombie plague event, and TO THE GROUND, BABY. Read on to see what WoW was like for those turbulent few weeks before Wrath of the Lich King's launch. Dalaran, where art thou? Through all of classic and The Burning Crusade, Dalaran sat in northern Hillsbrad, but players couldn't see it. An opaque purple dome walled off the Kirin Tor from the world at large. At the time, the enormous structure was one of the most striking landmarks in Azeroth. Although a few quests hinted at what lay beneath it, players new to the WoW universe had no idea what was there. And then it was gone. All that remained was a city-sized crater. I remember making a pilgrimage to this site during the 3.0 prepatch just to see it for myself. We couldn't go to Northrend yet to see the city first-hand. We had to wait for the launch of Wrath to do that. But looking at that crater certainly fired the imagination. I couldn't wait to find out what had been lurking under that dome for the first four years of the game. I have to say, the city lived up to my high expectations.
WoW Archivist: Talents have come full circle
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? The Warlords of Draenor patch 6.0 notes have revealed the latest changes to WoW's ever-evolving talent system. Talents have remained a core system in WoW since its earliest days, the primary method that allows players to make their characters distinct. In the beta for WoW and throughout vanilla, talent trees were a bit of a mess, as Archivist covered. Today, we'll examine how those early trees came to be expanded, refined, and then scrapped for a very different system. We'll also look at how Warlords is bringing back the earliest version of talent trees in a brand new way. The golden age of hybrids Talent possibilities exploded during The Burning Crusade. Ten more levels granted players ten more points to assign. Players could now combine abilities in ways that vanilla's trees had never allowed, opening up exciting new gameplay paths. Players didn't choose a specialization like they do today. Instead, they assigned points to three different "trees." Each tree represented a spec, but each also had talents that helped the other two specs as well. So players could pick and choose just how far down they wanted to go in a given tree, and thus how much to commit their character to one spec. "Hybrid" builds were not ideal from a min/max perspective, but they were popular. And TBC was the golden age of such builds.
Warlords of Draenor: New glyphs
The Warlords of Draenor alpha patch notes revealed that some glyphs will be learned automatically, the recipe for those glyphs to be removed from the game. Many scribes were thrown into a panic, questioning to value of their profession -- not a surprise, really. So early in an expansion's reveal, it's normal to be concerned. However, the dataminers have been hard at work digging into the Warlords client and have found an array of brand new glyphs to be learned. Some of the more interesting glyphs: Glyph of Cleave to eliminate the warrior's baseline Cleave ability Glyph of Energy Flows turns an Evading rogue into a deadly blender Glyph of Play Dead gives all hunter pets possum training Glyph of the Floating Butterfly changes the dynamic of a monk's Fists of Fury altogether Follow along below for all of the new glyphs.
Warlords of Draenor: Automatically learned glyphs
The first release of the Warlords of Draenor patch notes revealed that certain glyphs will be learned automatically during the leveling process. These glyphs, as stated by developer Celeston, are chosen largely based on their usefulness during the leveling process. They will also serve as a reminder that you even have the ability to use another glyph -- often, leveling characters aren't aware when they're able to use a glyph, or what a glyph is at all. Currently, as mentioned in the patch notes, glyphs are usually acquired on the auction house. Since every player needs these glyphs, the glyph market is a cutthroat place where a player leveling fresh can run themselves broke even if they only buy the ones they need. This change isn't one that's friendly to scribes making a killing on the auction house, but it certainly is friendly to new characters. Keep in mind that not all glyphs will be learned automatically -- only the leveling essentials. You can refer to the patch notes to see which ones will be learned and when or follow along below.
Wowhead introduces class guides
Wowhead has just launched a new feature for players new to the game, and players new to a different class as well -- class guides written for virtually every class and spec in the game. The guides act as a brief overview of what you'll need for the class you play, covering spells, talents, glyphs, enchanting, gemming, reforging, and even topics like tackling the Proving Grounds and Challenge Modes. Some guides also include basic DPS rotations for each spec as well. Written by familiar faces from around the WoW community, the guides themselves are fairly basic -- you won't see any number crunching or theorycrafting. Instead, they act as a quick reference for players wondering what they should be doing with the character they play. That said, it's a wealth of quick-reference information that I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep bookmarked. Check out the class guides for yourself over on Wowhead.
What are glyphs, how can I get them, and why do I want them?
When I came back to World of Warcraft during Mists of Pandaria after a lengthy WoW break, a lot of things had changed. But the biggest mental shift, on my part, was taking in the way the former talent trees had turned into a system of specializations, talents, and glyphs. While the first two were simple enough -- you only have three (or four) specializations and a choice of three talents at each tier -- glyphs presented a dizzying array of options to modify my gameplay. And while the in-game UI nagged me about initially picking a specialization or selecting a talent when I had the option, the fact that it didn't nag me about glyphs meant I could very easily ignore them while happily leveling -- and I suspect plenty of players, new and returning, have been in the same boat. So today we're going to talk glyphs: just what they are, what they can do for you, and whether you even need to bother them while you're leveling. Oh, let's just skip to the end, shall we? The answer to whether you need them is only if you want to bother with them. For all the details, read on!
WTB generic glyphs
Glyphs have undergone some interesting evolutions since they were introduced in Wrath of the Lich King. From major and minor, to major, minor, and prime, and now back to minor and major, glyphs are, in my opinion, a good way to add both some functionality to your toons as well as give them some flavor. Minor glyphs can do a lot to make your character feel like its yours. And while minor glyphs are rarely necessary for performance, they can sometimes help in certain situations, at least a little bit. One thing that's always been true of glyphs, no matter what their incarnation, is the fact that they're class-specific. I think it would be interesting to see that change, if not for major glyphs, then at least for minor ones. There are certain aspects of the game I would love to have the option to modify, just a little, for quality-of-life reasons. There are also abilities that were once available that no longer are, which could be reintroduced via classless glyphs, useable by all. Here are some generic glyphs I would love to see.
Blood Pact: What's going on with 'locks in patch 5.4
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill thinks Rygarius rocks at patch-note writing, but we'd still like to summarize it further. There's a lot of changes besides the usual number tweaking to warlocks in patch 5.4. We'll wrap up the say before patch with a loot list, but here's a prose version of what the patch notes mean before we get into the shiny gear drops. Overall, there's probably a small nerf in damage since heavy movement fights will affect us once again. Our damage is shifting to our DoTs primarily with some support either from fillers on the move or a twist on our Dark Soul cooldown, depending on the level 90 talent we choose. Since the RPPM system has been tweaked a little to account for haste affecting not only proc bonus but proc chance, we also may see a shift from haste gearing to more solid mastery gearing, also since mastery for all three warlocks boosts damage done in our top damage spells. But check after the break for more specific changes.
I just play the game
It's human to get upset about things. And sometimes, it's human to get upset about the most trivial things, because they're the safest things to get upset about. I often view World of Warcraft through this lens. Indeed, I view it through a great many lenses, because it's impossible to not apply my life and my experiences to everything I encounter in this world from events of great personal significance or global importance down to the video games I play. And it would be fair to say that World of Warcraft has more than a passing importance in my life, considering where you're reading this. The recent change on the patch 5.4 PTR changing the Glyph of the Weaponmaster was, in real terms, completely insignificant. A cosmetic glyph in the first place, the idea that it worked with legendaries was nice, but hardly significant. I mean, I play the game now and I can't use my legendaries, so what changes? Realistically, nothing changes. And yet, I wasn't merely disappointed by the change. I was outright enraged by it, far more so than I have been by direct nerfs to my class of choice. Part of it is due to attachment -- we invest time and effort into these avatars of ourselves, after all. But in the end, much of my anger was rooted in the fact that this was something small (in relative terms, since all of WoW can be considered small compared to many of the shocks and calamities of our actual lives) and harmless, that gave our characters nothing in terms of power or ability, that imbalanced absolutely nothing in terms of gameplay, and yet it was still taken from us. Sometimes, the smallest cuts hurt more entirely because they are small.
Totem Talk: The little things of resto in patch 5.4
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. The changes on the horizon for patch 5.4 just keep coming and coming. We've talked about some of the big ones, but truth is that generally the little things that change wind up being the most fun. Today, while we're going to discuss two big changes on the horizon, we're going to look at all the little things that are being updated that make it fun and awesome to be a shaman. Class spells and specializations are always an important thing, but talents and glyphs allow us to customize our characters, or at least that's what they were supposed to do from the very beginning. We're starting to see that now though, especially with glyphs, and it's only getting better in patch 5.4.
The Light and How to Swing It: How will protection glyph come 5.4?
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 9 other people, obsessing over his hair, and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense. One of the most monumental changes that protection paladins will be facing in the upcoming patch will be a simple nerf to one of our favorite glyphs. Since just about the beginning of Mists, protection paladins have uniformly equipped the Glyph of the Battle Healer to great effect and, alas, the devs have finally decided to step in and put a stop to our shenanigans. You can't really blame them, Battle Healer was brokenly good -- free heals that were augmented by Vengeance, and while they weren't a gamechanger by any means (thanks to overheals), it was still an advantage that paladins had over any other tanking class. It was a needed change. Regardless, the change to Battle Healer has a ripple effect for protection paladins as it makes Battle Healer a purely situational glyph for fights where the raid needs your Seal of Insight procs more than you need them for yourself. Which means, for probably the first time in many, many months, we will have an open glyph slot. Let's take a look at what could possibly fill that empty space, both in our hearts and our glyphs tab.
Patch 5.4 PTR: Glyph of the Weaponmaster
Some of the coolest stuff on the PTR are the new glyphs. And one of the coolest purely cosmetic glyphs I've run into is the Glyph of the Weaponmaster. In the header image above, you can see me dual-wielding Uroe, Harbinger of Terror and Bo-Ris, Horror in the Night. And yes, they happen to look like the Warglaives of Azzinoth. That's because I have the glaives in my backpack, and so, every time I use Battle or Commanding Shout, I get a ten minute buff called Weaponmaster that picks randomly from every weapon I have in my original backpack, and places that weapon appearance over my currently equipped items. The buff doesn't care about weapon categories as far as I can tell - two handed weapon models can go over 1h weapons and vice versa. Polearms can become swords or maces or fist weapons. (In fact, it can even put the wrong fist weapon model on a hand, so that it's clearly backwards.) If you switch the weapons out, the effect fades but the buff remains and it can bug out so that you have to clear the buff in order to use the effect again. But it does allow you to basically switch between a variety of weapons in your main bag if you like variety, or it allows you to effectively use legendary weapons in your current transmog look, if you're a warrior.
Allods Online upgrades gear with glyphs
Allods Online's Lords of Destiny expansion is already shaping up to be one of the bigger additions to the game. Now the team has announced a major new system called glyphs that will be included as well. Glyphs are a new type of loot that can upgrade gear to add more stats and special properties. The gear in question has to be level 51 or higher and match the type of stats that the glyph is offering. Each piece of gear can be expanded to include three types of glyph: offensive, defensive, and special. Glyphs themselves can be improved with a component that drops only in the new Dominion battleground. There looks to be several different ways to get your grubby mitts on glyphs. They can drop, you can do a quest to buy a glyph box, you can buy them from an NPC if your reputation is high enough, and some crafters are able to make them.
Seven things every newbie needs to know
While plenty of old hats might say the WoW newbie experience is easy mode now, I'd call it streamlined: rolling a new character or leveling an existing one has never been more straightforward. Gone are the days when you had to pull up Wowhead (or download an addon) to figure out every other quest, the days when you kill dozens of monsters for a single quest drop, the days when you had to run through high level zones to collect flight paths. If you don't remember having to run from across the Wetlands to pick up the Menethil Harbor flight path -- dying more than once along the way -- count yourself lucky, because those corpse runs were decidedly un-fun. However, even in this golden age of newbiedom, there are some aspects of the game that just aren't explained very well. So, whether you're brand new to the game or, like me, returning after an absence, here are a few things every newbie needs to know.
Gold Capped: Inscription gold-making guide
"Every" week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Basil's re-reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! Have a scribe? Need gold? Look no farther. Inscription is one of the best gold-making professions in the game. You can make glyphs, Darkmoon cards, and all kinds of other odds and ends. Each of these markets has a characteristic time investment requirement and potential profit. Each realm is going to be different, but in general: Darkmoon cards: Scalable time investment, massive profits Glyphs: Massive time investment, low profit Odds and ends: Minimal time investment, medium profit Darkmoon cards start off simply enough: if you do your daily research, you can make a card a day. Different cards have different values, but on average, you'll make back way more than the value of the inks. You can trade cards, and the more cards you make, the better efficiency you'll have making decks. Assuming you can make a full deck for every 12 cards you produce (which is the ratio you see if you trade really well and/or produce a lot of cards), it'll cost you 120 stacks of any herb but Fool's Cap, or 75 stacks of Fool's Cap. At 40g per stack of, for example, Green Tea Leaf, that's 4800g per deck. Some decks can sell for over 20,000g.
The Light and How to Swing It: Talents and glyphs for tanking Mogu'shan Vaults
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 9 other people, obsessing over his hair, and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense. My brawny colleague Dan Desmond covered this topic for his two-handed cohort earlier this week, but I think it's also worth exploring for all the tankadins out there. Namely, what talents and glyphs can be utilized to make tanking the first raid of tier 14 a little easier? Sure the new hotness is Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring (and I'll get to those!), but I expect that the vast majority of players are still actively working on clearing Mogu'shan Vaults, or are slogging through it weekly in LFR for precious, precious VP. Even if you've been doing this place ad nauseam for the last few weeks, there are always little tweaks that can be made to get the job done faster with less damage taken! For reference, these are the base talents and glyphs I go with. So any suggestions I make will be what deviates from those. Especially with regards to Glyph of the Battle Healer, you should make sure to have that up at all times and should be actively tanking with Seal of Insight. It can make a noticeable difference in your survivability, and can pay some dividends for the survivability of your melee colleagues.
Chaos Theory: Understanding The Secret World's crafting, part two
So last week we tested the waters of The Secret World's crafting system, and we learned the basics of material acquisition, how material quality level works, and how to assemble and disassemble basic items. This week we'll go into more detail on the assembly process. Whereas last time we stopped after creating a simple weapon, today we'll look at crafting talismans (TSW's answer to traditional MMO armor) and glyphs (which are basically talisman upgrades and the primary way to customize your gear).
Death knight glyph changes in patch 5.0.4
When the new 5.0 patch flips over on Aug. 28, will you be ready with glyphs? Blizzard is recycling old glyphs instead of making new spell IDs and charring old ones. Some glyphs are staying the same, some are new, but some share IDs with old Cataclysm glyphs. Below is our list of new or changing glyphs for death knights. This is not a list of changing tooltips, just which glyphs you ought to have if you want to automatically have the new glyphs when the patch flips over. There are no brand new death knight glyphs. Glyphs that are changing into new majors: Hungering Cold becomes Dark Simulacrum Obliterate becomes Enduring Infection Bone Shield becomes Icebound Fortitude Raise Dead becomes Mind Freeze Blood Boil becomes Outbreak Frost Strike becomes Shifting Presences Rune Tap becomes Unholy Command Heart Strike becomes Unholy Frenzy Glyphs that are changing into new minors: Rune Strike becomes Army of the Dead Death Strike becomes Corpse Explosion Scourge Strike becomes Foul Menagerie Blood Tap becomes the Geist Howling Blast becomes Tranquil Grip It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Shaman glyph changes in patch 5.0.4
When the new 5.0 patch flips over on Aug. 28, will you be ready with glyphs? Blizzard is recycling old glyphs instead of making new spell IDs and charring old ones. Some glyphs are staying the same, some are new, but some share IDs with old Cataclysm glyphs. Below is our list of new or changing glyphs for shaman. This is not a list of changing tooltips, just which glyphs you ought to have if you want to automatically have the new glyphs when the patch flips over. Shaman gain no brand new glyphs but recycle some of the boring glyphs into cool cosmetic minors. Glyphs that are changing into new majors: Shocking becomes Capacitor Totem Elemental Mastery becomes Chaining Windfury Weapon becomes Cleansing Waters Water Breathing becomes Healing Storm Earthliving Weapon becomes Purge Lava Burst becomes Spirit Walk Stormstrike becomes Spiritwalker's Grace Lightning Bolt becomes Telluric Currents Stoneclaw Totem becomes Totemic Vigor Chain Heal becomes Unstable Earth Flametongue Weapon becomes Wind Shear Glyphs that are changing into new minors: Earth Shield becomes Deluge Renewed Life becomes Far Sight Lightning Shield becomes the Lakestrider the Arctic Wolf becomes the Spectral Wolf Water Walking becomes Totemic Encirclement It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
