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.'

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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).

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.

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?

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!