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.

Glyph of Dispel Magic - Your Dispel Magic also heals your target for 6% of maximum health if it removes a damaging effect.

The 3% it used to be was pretty small compared to what those debuffs were probably doing to you/your friends, and while that was heavily pointed out by players, a lot of people shrugged and said, "At least it's something." Good to see they went the high road and buffed this one.

Glyph of Flash Heal - Reduces the mana cost of your Flash Heal by 10%.

Hooray mana efficiency! This will help offset the downranking nerfs a little bit. A lot of downranking was done simply because you don't always need a tremendously huge heal to top someone off, and the faster heals aren't very efficient. This will help. I don't think it should come in glyph form, it should be baseline if they're nerfing downranking, but eh.

Glyph of Prayer of Healing - Your Prayer of Healing spell also heals an additional 20% of its initial heal over 6 sec.

Considering how awesome Circle of Healing has become over time, Prayer of Healing really did need to find another use. A partial AOE HoT will really add something to this spell, I think, though perhaps it is tuned a little too low right now to use it as a reliable HoT.

Glyph of Mind Flay - Increases the range of your Mind Flay spell by 10 yards, but it no longer reduces the target's movement speed.

Yes yes yes, a thousand times yes! While I remain slightly bitter that it takes a glyph, two talent points, and the loss of the snare to put Mind Flay at 36 yards, I just don't care anymore. Shadow Priests have range. Thank the Light!

Glyph of Holy Nova - Your Holy Nova spell heals for an additional 40%, but deals 40% less damage.

...Yay! Right? Man, did anybody even use that for its heal? I thought it only existed for killing snakes from Snake Traps.

Glyph of Fade - Increases the effect of your Fade spell by 100%.

If you don't remember from the last round of glyphs, this glyphs was originally completely useless. Usless not in that it was ineffective but usless in that is actually did nothing. This one here will be much, much nicer. It will definitely help tanks out, and give us a little more wiggle room in threat sensitive boss fights.

Glyph of Spirit of Redemption - All heals cast while Spirit of Redemption is active have a 20% chance to increase the remaining duration of Spirit of Redemption by 20 sec.

This one may seem overpowered at face value, but keep in mind that you could spam Circle of Healing on your raid and never, ever need to stop healing for the rest of time in the last version. A sad change since that would have been awesome, but definitely a needed one.

Glyph of Inner Fire - Increases the duration of Inner Fire by 100%.

This isn't going to help the spell in PvP, but in PvE it'll be nice to make babysitting that little Spell Power buff less work.

Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain - Reduces the mana cost of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by 20%.

Much better than the old one, in my opinion. There were some that argued the merit of its previous version, that it will help you roll Shadow Word: Pain on multiple targets, but this talent may actually let you do that and have enough mana leftover to Mind Sear everything you just DoTed, which would be a much better option.

Glyph of Mind Soothe - Increases the duration of your Mind Soothe spell by 5 sec. and reduces the range at which the victim will attack by an additional 100%.

As someone who actually uses Mind Soothe to dodge mobs and prevent patrols from adding in dungeons, I might take this if it's a minor glyph while leveling or doing 5-man dungeons to gear up. I wouldn't take it for content beyond that.

All in all, I say this round of glyphs is pretty strong. My bitterness isn't completely gone yet, but this has calmed it a bit. For now.

[ via World of Raids - Thanks Max! ]

Tags: dispel, fade, flash-heal, glyphs, holy, holy-nova, inner-fire, lightwell, mind-flay, mind-soothe, prayer-of-healing, priest-glyphs, renew, shadow, shadow-word-pain, spirit-of-redemption

Filed under: Priest, Analysis / Opinion, Expansions, Wrath of the Lich King