Glyphs

[teddabear]

Any news on glyphs lately. It seems rather obvious that Cat form and Nine Lives should be baseline according to Blizzards own definition of glyphs. Since Druid raid utility is now reduced to Stampeding Roar are we really going to have to glyph it for it not to be useless?

[gestapo]

I thought someone mentioned those two glyphs aren't usable in tandem - is that incorrect? In any case it seems that we're stuck with the SR & Nine lives glyphs being mandatory for pvp - plus Cat form if it is usable with Nine lives. I'd like to be able to swap in the Ursol's Def glyph vs melee cleaves and perhaps the SI one for caster comps.

[Juvencus]

Yeah, glyphs that affect the same thing will be mutually exclusive.

That way it's not required to make Cat Form and Nine Lives Glyphs baseline because you always have to choose which one you want. On the other hand if they baked one of them in Feral, then the other one would truly be mandatory.

[tein]

Can't really understand why glyph of Travel and glyph of the Cheetah are exclusive... I don't like the stag, but it's nice to travel without mounts.

[Permatree]

Can't really understand why glyph of Travel and glyph of the Cheetah are exclusive... I don't like the stag, but it's nice to travel without mounts.

Agreed. Why can't I be a cheetah that travels at mount speed with a separate flight form?

Personally I feel like flight form should be left how it is on live; do I really need my hand held on which travel form I use? (hint: NO). Cheetah should be the default travel form, and there should be two non-exclusive glyphs: one that makes you run at mount speed when out of combat, and one that turns you into the stag and makes you mountable. There shouldn't bee a need for exclusive minor glyphs since they are supposed to be cosmetic/out of combat convenience.

As for the Cat Form glyph and the Ninth Life glyph, they should have just baked Cat Form into the spec and let us choose from the utility glyphs, since they want druids to act more like their hybridy selves.

[timmytompadderham]

As for the Cat Form glyph and the Ninth Life glyph, they should have just baked Cat Form into the spec and let us choose from the utility glyphs, since they want druids to act more like their hybridy selves.

No they shouldn't have. Cat form and ninth life in WoD are the perfect examples of good glyph design. You make a choice based on the situation of which one you want. Unlike the stampeding roar glyph(s) where there's never a situation you don't want stampeding roar to function that way, this is poor glyph design.

Other good examples of glyphs are warlocks getting rid of their shield wall for passive 10% DR, or increasing the CD of the shield wall to get a higher DR or glyphs that reduce the CD and duration of spells. These glyphs work because imo there's a "real" choice there.

On minor glyphs - This is just a complete mess for druids right now. For example I've always considered two minor glyphs to be "mandatory". Increased swim speed in aquatic form and reduced falling speed outside of cat form. Now the rest are just cosmetic and even though you rarely take advantage of those 2 minor glyphs you wouldn't want to have to remember mid-drop to swap to cat form or the glyph, and when you feel like you're going too slow in water to swap to the aquatic form glyph.

Orca should be baseline imo idk if that thing is a manatee or some sort of bloated whale. They could also offer about 5 glyph slots for minors.

[gestapo]

They could also offer about 5 glyph slots for minors.

I prefer that.

[Permatree]

No they shouldn't have. Cat form and ninth life in WoD are the perfect examples of good glyph design. You make a choice based on the situation of which one you want. Unlike the stampeding roar glyph(s) where there's never a situation you don't want stampeding roar to function that way, this is poor glyph design.

I can't really see anyone ever taking increased healing over a permanent 10% damage reduction, so that's not really a choice to me. Either way one of those two glyphs will reverse/negate more damage than the other, and will be the go to glyph.

with a glyph like stampeding roar, you can decide "The raid doesn't need that movement speed in this encounter, or we're all stacked so the range doesn't matter e.g. Rag (I think, its been a while) where everyone stacks and runs back and forth, so I'll take Rebirth instead to help with Brezing because there will be a lot of damage going out and I don't want them to die again. That's kind of a bad example since in most cases SR glyph would be better anyways, but that's the kind of thought process I feel like major glyph selection should be: how do I want to change the functionality of my abilities to best help the raid, and which abilities should I prioritize changing for this encounter?

Lack of competition in glyphs is something the devs need to address, but having two glyphs that do the same thing (passively increase survivability) isn't a very interesting choice. That's why I would rather see them bake in the [subjectively] more interesting one, and then give us better utility options.

I was also taking into account pvp in that I don't like passive forms of damage reduction (for example I like the fact that warrior's second wind in WoD will require you to be on a target now to actually benefit from it as opposed to running to a corner to heal up), but I don't pvp that much so I don't know if that concept is nonsense or not.

I completely agree with you on minors, especially the crazy and basically required utility of the Grace and Aquatic Form glyphs.

[timmytompadderham]

I can't really see anyone ever taking increased healing over a permanent 10% damage reduction, so that's not really a choice to me. Either way one of those two glyphs will reverse/negate more damage than the other, and will be the go to glyph.

What? Default glyph will be usually 20% healing increase, but if you need to soak a big hit and SI isn't enough you'd also want to try with ninth life. 20% really needs to be nerfed to 10 and DR to like 5% but anyway.. It's a situational choice. I think maybe for soloing/questing maybe ninth life could be better but that's 20% less PS heals so I think ninth life would be for soaking big hits.

[gestapo]

I can't really see anyone ever taking increased healing over a permanent 10% damage reduction, so that's not really a choice to me. Either way one of those two glyphs will reverse/negate more damage than the other, and will be the go to glyph.

with a glyph like stampeding roar, you can decide "The raid doesn't need that movement speed in this encounter, or we're all stacked so the range doesn't matter e.g. Rag (I think, its been a while) where everyone stacks and runs back and forth, so I'll take Rebirth instead to help with Brezing because there will be a lot of damage going out and I don't want them to die again. That's kind of a bad example since in most cases SR glyph would be better anyways, but that's the kind of thought process I feel like major glyph selection should be: how do I want to change the functionality of my abilities to best help the raid, and which abilities should I prioritize changing for this encounter?

At least in pvp there is a choice, though. People might prefer the Cat form glyph vs big burst melee cleaves so that you can get topped up easier, but a flat 10% DR might be better vs a rot comp with constant dot pressure.

Lack of competition in glyphs is something the devs need to address, but having two glyphs that do the same thing (passively increase survivability) isn't a very interesting choice. That's why I would rather see them bake in the [subjectively] more interesting one, and then give us better utility options.

Agreed. I'd rather have some stuff made baseline, but the question is what? Blizz seems to be very reluctant to make changes to a class where they gain abilities/effects baseline, but that might be a good thing for balance overall.

I was also taking into account pvp in that I don't like passive forms of damage reduction (for example I like the fact that warrior's second wind in WoD will require you to be on a target now to actually benefit from it as opposed to running to a corner to heal up), but I don't pvp that much so I don't know if that concept is nonsense or not.
I completely agree with you on minors, especially the crazy and basically required utility of the Grace and Aquatic Form glyphs.

Where have you seen this about second wind? How does it work?

- - - Updated - - -

What? Default glyph will be usually 20% healing increase, but if you need to soak a big hit and SI isn't enough you'd also want to try with ninth life. 20% really needs to be nerfed to 10 and DR to like 5% but anyway.. It's a situational choice. I think maybe for soloing/questing maybe ninth life could be better but that's 20% less PS heals so I think ninth life would be for soaking big hits.

Seems like Cat form + DoC + Bloodtalons could be a strong spec in WoD. We might be spending all our time waiting for energy to pool effectively in this expansion with tossing out rejuvs & HTs.

[Permatree]

Where have you seen this about second wind? How does it work?

don't know how to post tooltips but it reads: "Whenever you are below 35% health you gain 10% leach, healing yourself for a percentage of damage you deal."

As I said I don't pvp a lot but facing different types of comps does sound like it would provide some game play with choosing between those glyphs.

[gestapo]

don't know how to post tooltips but it reads: "Whenever you are below 35% health you gain 10% leach, healing yourself for a percentage of damage you deal."

As I said I don't pvp a lot but facing different types of comps does sound like it would provide some game play with choosing between those glyphs.

That's actually pretty cool instead of the older boring version. It really hits home with the notion that warriors are bloodthirsty warmongering beasts that want to always stick on their target even under fire. None of this bullshit turtling. I'd actually level up my warrior and play it for it's gameplay being more focused on it's primary in your face damage dealing role.

I'm hoping that the devs can come up with similar ability changes for other classes to make things interesting.

[Gemini Soul]

They could also offer about 5 glyph slots for minors.

Have to agree, there are way to many "needed" minor glyphs especially for druids, that we run out of space even more so now with the whole travel form change that NO ONE wants. The lack of flying leading them to add in a ground mount speed glyph for our ground travel form which is more or less "mandatory".

[Raugnaut]

I can't really see anyone ever taking increased healing over a permanent 10% damage reduction, so that's not really a choice to me. Either way one of those two glyphs will reverse/negate more damage than the other, and will be the go to glyph.

PvP is a good instance in which you may want to swap between the 2. If you are against a sustained pressure comp, you go with the 20% extra healing, and if you are up against a burst comp, you go with the 10% damage reduction. Similar thing in raiding- 10% damage reduction would be more useful on Malk due to the absorb shields, whereas 20% extra healing would be more useful on Iron Juggernaut due to the constant steady incoming damage.