Arentios

This is for discussion and analysis of the various glyphs available for Balance Druids through the Inscription profession. This initial post will contain a list of all Balance glyphs (and any non-balance glyphs that may be of signicant interest to Balance druids), what they do, and any special notes about game mechanics that may be unclear from the wording of the glyph. Due to their nature, all minor glyphs are included regardless of what spec they technically fall under.

At level 80 all characters have 6 glyph slots, 3 major, 3 minor. There is no extra glyph slot for being Inscription.

Also note that any ability that increases the duration of a DoT/HoT does not alter the damage per tick of the ability unless specifically noted.

Major

[Glyph of Starfall]- (Live)- 'Increases the duration of Starfall by 2 seconds.' Note that as of my last testing (October 2008) this only increases the duration of the buff, it does not increase the limit of 20 stars. (Data Mined PTR)- 'Decreases the cooldown of Starfall by 90 seconds'

[Glyph of Hurricane]- 'Your Hurricane ability now also slows the movement speed of its victims by 20%' This effect does not linger once the spell ends or if the target leaves the area of effect.

[Glyph of Innervate]- 'Your Innervate spell now grants you full mana regeneration while casting for 20 sec, in addition to the effect on the primary target. Innervate's effect is instead increased by 20% if you are the primary target.' The 20% when used on self is multiplicative, making the bonus 500%.

[Glyph of Insect Swarm]- 'Increases the damage dealt by your Insect Swarm by 30% but no longer affects the victim's chance to hit.'

[Glyph of Starfire]- 'Your Starfire ability increases the duration of your Moonfire effect on the target by 3 sec, up to maximum of 9 additional seconds.' This means that any given Moonfire can only have its duration increased 3 times and that further Starfires will have no effect, regardless of the remaining duration on Moonfire.

[Glyph of Moonfire]- 'Increases the periodic damage of your Moonfire ability by 75%, but initial damage is decreased by 90%.' This is a net damage increase if the DoT is allowed to run its course.

[Glyph of Entangling Roots]- 'Increases the damage your Entangling Roots victims can take before the Entangling Roots automatically breaks by 20%.'

[Glyph of Wrath]- 'Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting your Wrath spell by 50%.' This stacks with Nature's Focus to remove any pushback from damage while casting Wrath.

Glyph of Typhoon- Decreases cooldown of Typhoon by 3 seconds.

Minor

[Glyph of Challenging Roar]- 'Decreases the cooldown of Challenging Roar by 30 seconds.'

[Glyph of Aquatic Form]- 'Increases your swim speed by 50% while in Aquatic Form.' This additive, making the swim speed bonus 100%.

[Glyph of Dash]- 'Decreaes the cooldown of Dash by 20%'

[Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth]- 'Your Rebirth spell no longer requires a reagent.'

[Glyph of the Wild]- 'Decreases the mana cost of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 50%'

[Glyph of Thorns]- 'Increases the duration of your Thorns ability by 50 min when cast on yourself.'

 

thedopefishlives

I've heard several Moonkin question whether Glyph of Moonfire is worth it. They see 75% increase and 90% decrease and think, "Doesn't that mean I'm losing more damage than I'm gaining?" The thing with Moonfire is, the DoT is _more damage_ than the initial blast. Overall, it is a net increase in Moonfire damage, even when not boosted by the Starfire glyph.

 

Khalanis

I've found that using this glyph you only need 2/3 Nature's focus to provide enough pushback protection to be "un-interruptable"(0.06s knockback with 0 haste). I realistically don't notice any pushback, although it is funny to see +0.0 on my cast bar when I get hit =P

 

lissanna

For raiding, the best major glyphs are the moonfire & starfire ones. Together, when you increase the DOT of moonfire and then cast starfire three times to refresh moonfire, you end up with the biggest DPS increase over skipping these glyphs.

If you work insect swarm into your rotation, then the insect swarm glyph is worth picking up. If you don't, that glyph slot is probably better used for the innervate glyph if you need the extra regen in long fights.

 

Kuruk

Deleting the post as I misread the Glyph of Innervate's effect description. *embarassed*

 

Narninian

Since the Innervate Glyph provides extra regen for you regardless of who the innervate is used on, its still beneficial for your mana whether you use it on yourself, or on a healer.

 

Faerdael

Its worth noting the overall raid impact that the Glyph of Insect Swarm causes. Being that I consider my hunter my main, I'll bring up the flip side of this. Insect Swarm and Scorpid Sting have been normalized to -3% chance to hit on target, and do not stack, so its easy to just say "let a hunter put up scorpid" and take the +30% bugs. I can appreciate this.

In TBC, asking the hunter to put up scorpid sting for the hit debuff was not a big deal, in fact it was pretty much essential in any meaningful raid encounter. No hunter rotation used serpent sting in raiding, so scorpid was a loss of a GCD every 20 seconds and nothing else. No problem. I had Scorpid bitch duty on many nights .

However, this is changing significantly in WotLK. It is absolutely huge to a hunter. Asking a hunter to forego Serpent Sting in lieu of Scorpid Sting will now be a rather large hit.

When you take into account [Glyph of Steady Shot], it means a 10% damage loss to steady shot, the hunter's primary cast. For an MM specced hunter, it eliminates damage caused by consuming serpent sting via Chimera Shot, which is the cornerstone of MM dps now. For Survival, it means an additional 3% damage loss on top of the Glyph loss due to Noxious Stings talent. And for a BM hunter, well . . . you all know we just spam steady shot. Also, we should bear in mind that no Insect Swarm glyph means losing the +30% damage, where Scorpid Sting means losing 100% of the Serpent Sting damage.

Now I'm not saying people shouldn't Glyph Insect Swarm, but I would say you should have a chat about it with your friendly neighborhood hunters and tanks.

 

Ashaera

Faerdael -> Have u tested if the Steady Shot Glyph requires it to be your own Serpent Sting?
If not then you just need 1 hunter to keep it up & in 25mans you will most likely have atleast 2 hunters.

Figuring out who has the biggest damage loss if harder.
Hunter = Looses damage from Serpent Sting.
Moonkin not casting IS = Has to put up a dot thats not worth the global cd in terms of damage output, but atleast it still does some damage.
Moonkin casting IS = Has to give up the glyph, which makes an allready questionable dot quite a lackluster in terms of damage output.

--------------
On main topic:
Starfire + Moonfire glyphs seems like a no brainer.
I went for Insect Swarm over Innervate as mana doesnt appear to be an issue for me thus far -- Only using insect swarm on the move when the following demands are meet though:
a) Moonfire is still ticking
b) Starfall is on cd
c) I dont wanna use the mana for hurricane (or its on cd, or there is a targeting issue)
d) I dont want to pop trees (or if they are on cd).

In some fights, for example Malygos, then this is quite often - In Patchwerk style fights this is never, so the actual gain can be argued.

 

• Adoriele

It's not quite accurate to say that IS is a waste of a GCD. Even without the glyph it doesn't scale so poorly, and will be usable well into Ulduar, if not Icecrown.

 

Kuruk

And correct me if I'm wrong but from the informantion I've seen in the locked thread, it appeared that with 2P7 and the Glyph, IS deals considerable DPS and is worth using in your rotations.

 

thedopefishlives

Even without those bonuses, IS is still not nearly as bad as it was in TBC. In fact, my math in Rawr shows it nearly always worth casting, except under Bloodlust-like haste conditions (when Starfire starts approaching the GCD, it becomes pretty much our highest DPET spell).

 

khel

I am using the Starfire, Moonfire, and Innervate glyphs, and I think that these are the best choices for a 25man raid considering the limited debuff slots that we have. IS is not worth a debuff slot imo unless it is applying the -3% hit debuff.

 

Kuruk

I am thinking of using the Glyph of Innervate instead of Glyph of Insect Swarm, so that I can apply the -3% hit debuff on the mobs. Also I hope that with the glyph, I could possibly get away with dropping some points in mana regen talents to up my DPS.

So would you consider IS worth casting DPS-wise, even without the Glyph? Or would it be worth it only because of the debuff?

 

Ripuanewhole

my plan is to go with the following glyphs

Major
Innervate
Starfire
Moonfire

Minor
Unburdened Rebirth
Thorns
Wild

 

Unknownchamp

I haven't decided on my third minor yet... I'm currently using Thorns and the Seal form glyph. How could you not avoid the speed bonus for seal form!

 

Eilt

I am trying outthe following glyphs:
Major
1. Insect Swarm
2. Moonfire
3, Starfire

If IS glyph does not work out I will replace it with the innervate glyph

Minor
1. Undurdened Rebirth
2. Reduced mana on GotW (sometimes we don't have a tree)
3. Reduced CD on dash, I actually use dash a lot if we have to run back some place or to catch up to the raid after skinning

 

◊ Kaubel

If all you guys are going to do is post what glyphs you plan on taking without any sort of explanation or discussion, I'm going to close the thread.

 

Believe

Considering that most of our gear now favours spirit over intellect , I believe that Innervate glyph > IS glyph in terms of raid support.On my current level of gear which is mainly 25man I still have mana issues on some fights with 3/3intensity 0 in dreamstate.I have around 1200 mp5 while not casting raidbuffed so I pretty much get around ~14k mana everytime i Innervate a healer.This is enough reason for me to choose the Innervate glyph over IS.
I also find the hit reduce from IS useful on some fights (for example Patchwerk soft enrage;4HM tanking,Malygos spark etc) when combined with Hurricane(50% slower attack speed from hurricane and 3% miss from Insect Swarm).

 

skeldi

As of currently, mana is not a big issue (with a stacked raid), and I really find the -5% hit from IS to be valuable, what other glyph would provide the most useful raid benefit along with moonfire and starfire glyph?

 

Alerian

I would use the Innervate glyph. You'll then feel more comfortable with throwing Innervate on someone that was recently Rebirthed or a Mage/Priest that is low on mana. If you're already not having mana issues and you're already casting Innervate on someone else on most boss fights, you can drop some points out of mana talents (first out of Moonglow, then Dreamstate, followed by Intensity and Omen of Clarity - Armory not functional right now, so don't know what you have).

 

skeldi

Perhaps if mana isn't an issue, I should stack more haste then grab the innervate glyph?

 

Covale

Is there any opinion on the use of [Glyph of Lifebloom]? Personally, I am a LB whore, and this glyph gave me a wood! However, I'd like to know if anyone has run some numbers using this.

I also don't see a downside from using [Glyph of Innervate] whether soloing or while grouping. Glyphs in general seem to mostly benefit the player. This one has the versatility of being both self and group friendly. Being that glyphs are destroyed when removed, its not likely that we will be swapping them out between PVP, soloing, and raiding.

 

Ashaera

You are gonna spend 99% of your time in moonkin form, a huge part of your raid viability comes from your buffs & debuffs - In most fights switching out to heal is a matter of poor strategy & / or bad execution by your healers.
Should you feel the need to shift out, then it's going to be for badly needed emergency healing - Not really a situation lifebloom is fantastic for.

If for some strange reason you dont want [Glyph of Innervate] or [Glyph of Insect Swarm] then theres 3 other semi-decent options :
[Glyph of Wrath] - Lets you take 2/2 imp. Gift of the Wild.
[Glyph of Starfall] - Very low impact on single target dps.
[Glyph of Rebirth] - Very situational.

 

tarrek

Does anyone know if glyph of insect swarm stacks additively or multiplicatively (sp?) with the two-piece T7 bonus?

 

Spink

Sorta busy atm but some quick numbers, 2pc (wearing no gloves) 612 per tick, 1 pc (wearing no pants/gloves) 547 per tick. Pants are T7.10 with equivalent of 126.42 spellpower via 65 int(=6.42 spellpower), 85 spellpower and 35 spellpower enchant (casts done in caster form so spirit irrelevant)

Comparitively, taking off wrists which have equivalent of 129.2 spellpower takes per tick to 589.

547*1.1 = 601.7

you do the rest.

edit: oh and I'm using glyph.

edit2:
2pc + glyph tooltip = 2107 nature damage over 14 seconds.
glyph and no 2pc tooltip = 1953-1960 nature damage over 14 seconds.