warrior Warrior Glyphs in Mists of Pandaria

[Vlad 411]

Continuing our previews of Mists of Pandaria, today we show you an overview of the Warrior glyphs, new and old. We are not going to review all the glyphs - we are only sticking to those that seem particularly interesting or relevant to gameplay. Note that Prime Glyphs have been removed from the game, and also that glyphs now play a much smaller role in regards to performance than they did in Cataclysm and before.

Feel free to comment on any of the glyphs (even on those we didn't mention) or on our take on their importance.

Major Glyphs

Single target DPS glyphs:

[*]Glyph of Unending Rage - this glyph increases your maximum Rage by 20. This glyph seems very valuable for all the specs. Protection Warriors appear to be more encouraged than before to pool rage (since Shield Barrier and Shield Block are now both quite costly). For Arms and Fury it just means that it's easier to manage your rage (especially with various special attacks now generating rage instead of costing rage).[*]Glyph of Recklessness - this glyph reduces the critical chance bonus of Recklessness to 30% (down from 50%), but increases its duration to 18 seconds. It appears to be a slight DPS loss in normal situations. However, it may prove to be a useful choice if you need the increased boost of damage over a longer period of time (such as continually spawning adds over 18 seconds). If your critical strike chance is over 50% (from gear or fight mechanics), then this glyph will undoubtedly be a DPS increase.[*]Glyph of Rude Interruption - this glyph replaces the old Rude Interruption talent, providing a 5% increase to damage done for 30 seconds after successfully interrupting a spell with Pummel. Clearly, if you can interrupt spells in the fight, this glyph will be a nice DPS increase. Otherwise, it is useless.

Multiple target DPS glyphs:

[*]Glyph of Cleaving - this glyph is unchanged from its old incarnation, increasing the number of targets Cleave hits by 1.[*]Glyph of Overpower (Arms only) - this glyph is a single target DPS increasing glyph that will only really benefit you in multiple target fights. Each time you deal damage with Cleave, your next Overpower deals an additional 10% damage.[*]Glyph of Sweeping Strikes (Arms only) - damaging a target with Sweeping Strikes provides you with 2 rage. This glyphs is very good if you are able to make use of Sweeping Strikes, since it effectively negates its rage cost and grants you some extra rage to boot![*]Glyph of Raging Wind (Fury only) - dealing damage with Raging Blow increases the damage of your next Whirlwind by 10%. Fairly straightforward.

Tanking glyphs:

[*]Glyph of Heavy Repercussions - causes your Shield Slam to deal an additional 50% damage while Shield Block is active. Since Shield Block now has much higher uptime than before, this glyph will probably end up being near-mandatory for threat generation.[*]Glyph of Hold the Line - increase the damage of the first Revenge after you successfully parry an attack (within 5 seconds of the parry). Another seemingly important threat glyph.[*]Glyph of Incite - this glyph offers a rage cost reduction to Heroic Strike and Cleave, during Deadly Calm. The way it works is that, while Deadly Calm is active, each time you use Devastate, the rage cost of the next Heroic Strike or Cleave is reduced by 20. Considering that Deadly Calm itself reduces their rage costs by 10, it means you get free Heroic Strikes or Cleaves.[*]Glyph of Shield Slam - causes Shield Slam to also remove one magic buff from the target. This effect was built into Shield Slam by default before Mists of Pandaria.[*]Glyph of Shield Wall - increases the damage reduction granted by Shield Wall (from 40% to 60%), but also increases the cooldown to 4 minutes. The value of this glyph will depend on how many times you need to use Shield Wall during a fight, and for what reason.

Other major glyphs:

[*]Glyph of Colossus Smash - this glyph (unchanged from Cataclysm) causes your Colossus Smash to apply (and refresh) Sunder Armor. Useful if no one else is providing the debuff.[*]Glyph of Resonating Power - increases the cooldown and damage of Thunder Clap by 50%. This glyph seems like it's going to be useful in every situation where you don't need to use something else, since Thunder Clap isn't used on cooldown, so the net result will be a damage gain.[*]Glyph of Victory Rush - increases the healing of Victory Rush and Impending Victory (only after you get a kill, for Impending Victory) by 50%. It's certainly a useful self-healing glyph, but since you need to get a killing blow for it to work, its use on boss fights is limited.

Minor Glyphs

There are two minor glyphs that may have some non-cosmetic uses. We will present them first, followed by some of the more interesting "for fun" minor glyphs.

[*]Glyph of Intimidating Shout - causes the targets of Intimidating Shout to stand still while feared, instead of running around. This is useful if you are using Intimidating Shout in dungeons to help crowd-control and you don't want the mobs to run around and pull other packs.[*]Glyph of Bloody Healing - this glyph increases the healing you receive from bandages by 20% while Deep Wounds is active. Deep Wounds should have a high uptime, but considering that bandages are under-used (and the channel is interrupted by any damage), its usefulness is limited.

Fun, cosmetic glyphs:

[*]Glyph of the Blazing Trail - causes your Charge to leave behind a fiery trail for a few seconds.[*]Glyph of Burning Anger - causes your character to catch fire while enraged.[*]Glyph of Mystic Shout - causes you to jump up in the air (like a short levitation) when using Battle or Commanding Shout.[*]Glyph of Thunder Strike - adds a lightning effect to your Thunder Clap.

You can see how these 4 minor glyphs affect your character's animation in game, in the images below:

[Peelyon 416]

Is this the end for inscription?

[MadMonk 154]

Personally I think inscription was already a bit dead. You only had to buy a glyph once to learn it, there is no good gear you can make and the other bonuses are quite small. Making money is not easy and learning new glyphs after the trainers requires a Book of Glyph Masterywhich goes for over 1000 gold on my realm.

Blizzard promised more use for inscription, being able to make wands or staves or something like that, I really hope they make the profession more fun because right now there's not much to it.

I also want to ask why you think inscription will be dead now? for as far as I can see there aren't many mayor changes yet and inscription stays pretty much the same.

[Vlad 411]

I think the reason Peelyon thinks Inscription is dead is because glyphs no longer offer such valuable benefits in Mists of Pandaria.

Personally, I share his concern (although, it's nothing to concerned about, really :P).

If you look at Warrior glyphs in Cataclysm, you have some like:

• Glyph of Bloodthirst - +10% damage to Bloodthirst
• Glyph of Devastate - +5% critical strike chance to Devastate
• Glyph of Mortal Strike - +10% damage to Mortal Strike
• Glyph of Overpower - +10% damage to Overpower
• Glyph of Raging Blow - +5% critical strike chance to Raging Blow
• Glyph of Slam - +5 critical strike chance to Slam

And there are some more like that too, for tanking. Getting these glyphs truly is mandatory. I mean, there's no way you're going to have competitive DPS in 3 of your main abilities are doing 10% less damage than they should be. And this means that every character, every alt, in theory, needs these glyphs now.

For Mists of Pandaria, it looks like you can run with no glyphs and it won't make a difference to your performance (granted, the tanking glyphs seem a bit more important and the AoE DPS glyphs also make a difference, but for single target Arms/Fury, they are largely irrelevant).

[Peelyon 416]

I think the reason Peelyon thinks Inscription is dead is because glyphs no longer offer such valuable benefits in Mists of Pandaria.

For Mists of Pandaria, it looks like you can run with no glyphs and it won't make a difference to your performance (granted, the tanking glyphs seem a bit more important and the AoE DPS glyphs also make a difference, but for single target Arms/Fury, they are largely irrelevant).

i never said it was dead, it was an honest question from myself rather than me making a point

But surely if you can run with no glyphs (or they arent as important) it just devalues the profession as a whole.

I only have inscription on an alt, and personally I've made more money from it than any other profession and I've never sold a glyph, ever. But if they are going to make the glyphs less meaningful then surely they need to help the profession by allowing the crafting of different items, or at least ones you may want to use in the first tier of raiding.

The DMF trinkets were pretty good but the RNG involved in obtaining a complete deck made it tough for some inscriptors to create them (personally the RNG made me a lot of cash). However they really should have added in an epic off hand or relic etc. I agree with Madmonk about the ability to craft a wand or something similar.

Have to wait and see!