Glyph
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Paladin glyphs in Beta build 8885
A few new glyphs have popped up in the latest Beta build, and basing it on MMO Champion's list, it looks like some old ones have changed. A quick glance at the glyphs show them to be rather underwhelming, however, and I'm not so sure Blizzard is taking the right direction with them. Let's take a closer look.Glyph of Blessing of KingsReduce the mana cost of your Blessing of Kings and Greater Blessing of Kings spells by 50%.This seems to be either a changed Glyph or another one for the same spell, I'm not too sure. The other one, which I discussed in a previous post, also increases attack power by 3%. Not very useful for casters, sure, but certainly better than this one. This Glyph downright blows. Why? Because Blessing of Kings and specially Greater Blessing of Kings are preparatory spells! The mana cost reduction is irrelevant because Paladins cast this spell during downtime, the buffing up stage. Paladins will have the opportunity to drink before the encounter so mana saved from this spell is utterly worthless. In PvP, where Blessings are routinely dispelled, this Glyph is slightly more useful. However, it's probably best to save that Glyph slot -- even a minor one -- for something better.
Arcane Brilliance: Glyph-hanger
Each week, Arcane Brilliance inscribes a glyph into the greater glyph slot of your Saturday afternoon. It's called the Glyph of Mageosity, and it Mageifies the entire rest of your day. A few words of warning, once your day has been Mageified: you may find fire bursting from your fingers at inopportune times. You might discover that certain nearby people who were formerly human may now be sheep. Also, for the rest of the day, you may want to avoid any contact with Rogues or Warlocks.As you may have noticed, build 8820 has touched down in beta land, and with it we Mages finally have our first real taste of how Inscription will affect us as a class. There are still a great many things we don't know about these glyphs, but just having a list and knowing that Glyph of the Penguin won't be our only reason to track down an Inscriber in the expansion is newsworthy. I mean, I'm as excited to turn a Warlock into a penguin as the next Mage, but I'm glad to finally have some idea what our other glyph options will be.Now, I'm still not one of the fortunate few who've gotten into the beta, so sadly I have no first-hand information to pass on to you. I'm sure that a goodly number of Mages more blessed than I are logged into the beta, busy testing out damage numbers as we speak, and I look forward to reading their euphoric and/or rage-filled forum posts later on...reading and dreaming and plotting to kill them and steal their beta keys. For now, though, you'll have to make do with my own uninformed and hastily formulated analysis of these forthcoming glyphs. Frankly, I wouldn't offer you anything less.Join me after the break for the full list of Mage glyphs, and as much hyperbole and bias as you can shake a Chilly Slobberknocker at.
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.
A Holy Disc Priest's thoughts on the new Priest glyphs
A list of tentative Priest Glyphs have been released into the recent beta for Wrath of the Lich King. Since I am no expert in Shadow, I'll defer an examination of those Glyphs to the resident WI guru. All I can say for the most part is that these Glyphs show promise. I'll go over the Glyphs that affect the healing Priest (Discipline or Holy) and discuss their application raid environments, PvP environments and otherwise. Alex Ziebart published his initial review of the Shadow Glyphs earlier today so be sure to give that a read after this one. Glyph of Lightwell - Increases the amount healed by your Lightwell by 1 to 6% So here is Lightwell as it is currently in the Wrath beta. As you can see, a level 80 max rank unbuffed Lightwell offers 4620 health over 6 seconds. Let's assume that lady luck is with you today and you managed to hit a 6% increase. Your Lightwell now heals for a whopping, jaw dropping, fear inducing 4900 healing (give or take). Now is that really worth a Glyph? I don't think it's worth a Glyph slot. But before we judge too quickly, lets move on down the list.
Druids get polar bear form in Wrath with new Glyph list
The fine folks at MMO Champion have a small preview of the new talent calculators and, even more interesting, how the Inscription ability will work to change our abilities with glyphs. The majority of the new glyphs previewed so far seem to be for druids as of this posting (but who knows what the future may bring) but the one for mages, Glyph of the Penguin, seems extra awesome to me.Empowers a Minor Glyph to cause your Polymorph: Sheep spell to turn the target into a baby penguin.Not only does this suggest that the days of learning separate poly spells for turtles, pigs and so on are gone, it's a cool way to help bring variety to a standard ability. Of course, since the vast majority of glyphs are for druids, we're seeing a lot more straigtforwardly useful ones, like Glyph of Frenzed Regeneration and Glyph of Shred, but Glyph of the White Bear looks pretty cool as a possible harbinger of what's to come: imagine a whole host of such glyphs for each and every druid form? Glyph of the Black Lion, anyone?This suggests a lot of potential for personalization in the new Inscription profession. Anything you're looking forward to? I hope the ones for warriors are as cool, myself.
