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Encrypted Text: Rogue Glyphs
Every Wednesday, Encrypted Text explores issues affecting Rogues and those who group with them. This week Jason Harper, the Rogue feature blogger, discusses a new feature in Wrath, Glyphs and the opportunities for Rogues. Inscriptions, a new profession in Wrath of the Lich King, allows for the creation of tradable Glyphs that can enhance your spells and abilities. Recently a number of these glyphs were released into a beta build and Inscription was announced to be apart of the new pre-Wrath patch. As you'll see in the list below, Rogues get a wide variety of both lesser and greater glyph options, and in a lot of cases can greatly effect your talent choices in a way that gemming or enchanting never did.
New Warlock glyphs found in Wrath Beta build 8820
As Inscription is slowly built into a viable trade skill, Blizzard sneaks more and more glyph data onto the Beta server, even if none of it is directly available thus far. This build, MMO Champion discovered a nice selection of Warlock glyphs, and I have to say that most of them look pretty sweet. Of course, it's hard to say for sure on how good some of them are until we know for sure if PvE damage rotations besides Shadow Bolt spam will be viable in Wrath's endgame, but I'll assume they will be, for the most part. Let's check them out after the break.
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.
Select Priest glyphs changed in latest beta push
Do you remember when the Shadow Priest glyphs made their rounds, and then we all complained a lot and made suggestions as to how they should be fixed? Guess what, guys. They aren't terrible anymore! I know, it's a shock! The updated Shadow Priest glyphs are all pretty much straight buffs, while some of the Holy ones are buffs, and some are fixed balancing issues. Let's take a look, shall we?Glyph of Lightwell - Increases the amount healed by your Lightwell by 20%.I've played around with Lightwell on the beta quite a bit, actually, and its current incarnation is fantastic. The HoT rarely breaks, and my guildies are generally intelligent enough to know when to use it. At level 77 in full level 70 gear, each tick of LIghtwell currently heals for around 2,200. Each tick healing for 2600-2700 with this glyph is pretty amazing, considering it's a "set it and forget it" heal.Glyph of Renew - Reduces the duration of your Renew by 3 sec. but increases the amount healed per tick by 40%.Sounds good to me. It will be a little more mana intensive to keep the HoT on a tank, but strong HoTs are priceless.
Blizzcast Episode 4 reveals Warcraft information and insights
Blizzcast episode 4 is now live and available for listening, and with it, of course, has come a wealth of new World of Warcraft Information. Some of it is stuff we've gotten wind for before, but there's some interesting insights into the whole game. You can listen to it here and read the transcript here, or join us after the break for a breakdown of the juiciest information from the Interviews
Paladin glyphs and Blizzard's direction for the class
Inscription is shaping up to be one heck of a profession. After seeing the interesting Druid and Mage glyphs in an earlier build of Beta, this latest build pushed yesterday revealed some Paladin glyphs and gives us an inkling of where Blizzard wants to take the class. Unlike the Mage and Druid glyphs, there are no cosmetic ones just yet -- what spells could be cosmetically upgraded, anyway? Avenging Wrath, perhaps? Here are the functional ones:Glyph of Seal of CommandIncreases the chance of dealing Seal of Command damage by 20%.From how I read this, it seems like the glyph increases the proc rate of Seal of Command by 20%. Since Seal of Command currently works through a PPM or Proc Per Minute, mileage may vary depending on your weapon. With an optimal 3.8 speed weapon, Seal of Command can proc around a whopping 64% of the time. Note that PPM calculations for SoC are done after haste is factored in. It's a definite increase in DPS and provides a slightly more consistent burst. Glyph of Hammer of JusticeIncreases your Hammer of Justice duration by 1 sec.This glyph extends the stun duration to 7 seconds -- still not enough to deal dual Judgements. Pure PvE Paladins might want to skip on this glyph, but it's a particularly powerful glyph for PvP especially when specced and geared for the 20 second cooldown (3/3 Improved Hammer of Justice + PvP set bonus). Taking advantage of the stun even without the glyph every 20 seconds subjects it to diminishing returns, so longer stuns won't necessarily go the full duration against a single target. However, this works extremely well with the Glyph of Crusader Strike, slimly allowing 2 Crusader Strikes against a stunned target.
The Wrath of the Shaman Part 4: New Talent Build and Inscription, too
The fine folks at MMO Champion have found a heaping helping of, among other things, shaman glyphs for the new inscription profession in the latest beta build. As juicy as that is, there's far more of interest: deep elemental got heavily worked over, with enhancement and restoration seeing some changes too. A whole lot of Wrath of the Lich King content after the jump.
A Shadow Priest's take on the new Priest glyphs
My Priest buddy Matt Low is going to cover the new Holy and Discipline glyphs later today, and I'm going to look at what us Shadow Fiends get so far. Let's leap right into the Shadow stuff, eh?Glyph of Psychic Scream - Increases the duration of your Psychic Scream by 3 seconds.Not bad, not amazing. You can argue that those 3 seconds will never, ever come into play in PvP, and you would be mostly correct. PvE, I've never said "Oh man I wish my silly fear lasted THREE MORE SECONDS" but oh well. Not all glyphs need to be drool-worthy. A Psychic Scream glyph might be something I would use while leveling. Reducing the cooldown by another 1-3 seconds would be far superior, though.Glyph of Shadow Word: Death - Targets below 35% health take an additional 5% damage from your Shadow Word: Death spell. Kinda counter-intuitive to the new talent Pain and Suffering, but more damage is more damage. I don't see anything really very wrong with this glyph. Should be good for PvP, good for leveling. Works against Pain and Suffering for raiding, but like I said, yay damage. EDIT: What I mean by counter-intuitive is that Pain and Suffering reduces how much damage we take, but now we're buffing that damage back up. It isn't a huge deal, more damage is awesome, but I would rather see that damage placed on a different spell for a raiding setting. It's quality everywhere else.
Breakfast Topic: What glyphs would you like to see for your class?
We don't know a ton about the specifics of Inscription and the Glyphs it supplies since the Wrath beta doesn't have very many of them yet, but we at least know what they are. If you don't know what they are, glyphs are almost like enchantments, but for your spells instead of your armor and weapons. Their effects are usually a little more substantial, even if they don't change combat very much. You're allowed up to six glyphs, split amongst the varying strengths of glyphs in a configuration that may or may not be the same come retail.We got a litlte preview of glyphs via some Druid glyphs that were posted on MMO Champion a few days ago, and they do some pretty neat things. Things like "your Swipe ability now hits 1 additional target" and "changes the appearance of your bear and dire bear forms to that of a polar bear" are both pretty big effects! That's only really the beginning of them, too.Pulling a little inspiration from our friend Matticus, why don't we take a minute and make a few guesses at what types of glyphs our classes will get? Heck, even if it's unlikely we'll get it, what type of glyph would you like to get? Personally, I'm holding out for "Glyph of It's About Time - Increases the range on Mind Flay to 30 yards" for my Shadow Priest. A guy can hope, eh?
Hands-on with Inscription in the Wrath Beta
By now you've heard of inscription, the new trade skill coming with Wrath of the Lich King. We've already given you a few sneak peeks, looking at glyphs, enchantment scrolls, and other beta insights. This time, though we had a chance to fiddle with Inscription directly, on the Beta servers themselves. The trade skill is most obviously only in the very first stages of implementation, but there's still enough to play around with to get an idea of how it will all work once things go live. %Gallery-28616% To start off with, we needed to do a little running. There's no inscription trainers to be found in Dalaran or any of the capitals. We found one in Vengeance Landing, so it seems likely that Alliance could find one in Valgarde as well. However, there are no Inscription suppliers nearby, so you'll still have to run to Dalaran to get the Scribe Tools and parchment you need for most recipes. It's probably a given that that'll change for the better as we get closer to live, but for now it's a pain. You'll probably want to go buy the Scribe Tools and stock up on parchment before you go to train if you're doing it in Beta. Luckily, Light Parchments stack up to 20, so you can carry a lot -- be warned though, most of the scrolls you make out of them only stack to 5. Anyhow, to the meat.
Inscription details: Glyphs, runewords, and more
We found out a little bit about inscription and what materials it might need when the Wrath of the Lich King beta debuted last week, and yesterday we learned that they will be helping Enchanters use the auction house, but we were still left wondering about what was originally promoted as the central purpose of the new profession: enhancing spells. Thanks to the WotLK Wiki, we now have some information on that very intriguing functionality. Spells will be enhanced by Glyphs, which will be created by inscribers and will be tradable (though there may be some inscriber-only Glyphs). Glyphs come in three sizes: Minor, Lesser, and Greater. Minor Glyphs have small effects or cosmetic changes, Lesser Glyphs give moderate upgrades to spells, and Greater Glyphs give major upgrades to spells. Each character has six Glyph slots: two Minor, two Lesser, and two Greater. The screenshot shown here is the Glyph interface, available to every character. The slots at top and bottom are for Greater Glyphs, those at top-right and top-left are for Lesser, and the sad-looking ones at bottom-left and bottom-right are for Minor glyphs. There is an ability called Glyph Mastery that's categorized under Inscription which gives access to an additional Glyph slot for the inscriber, but it is unknown how this ability is attained. Maybe it's a specialization, like other professions have.
DoCoMo bringing BlackBerry to Japan
Having already conquered the US and much of Europe, Canada's most famous contribution to consumer electronics is poised to take over yet another Asian market, when the ubiquitous BlackBerry hits phone-mad Japan this fall. Coming hot on the heels of KT Powertel's introduction of the 7100i in South Korea, wireless giant NTT DoCoMo has announced that it is partnering with BlackBerry-maker RIM to offer customers GSM / WCMDA "worldphone" versions of the addictive handhelds -- which is yet another step towards the carrier's commitment of having an all-GSM-enabled lineup within the next two years. Besides the traditional push email functionality that we've come to know and love, nothing much is known about the specifics of these upcoming foreign models, like how the pocket-sized BlackBerries will manage to pack in the thousands of keys necessary to represent all those Japanese glyphs.[Thanks, Gina]
