Ask a Beta Tester: Glyphs and gorlocs

Is Hunger For Blood, the 51 point Assassination talent, at all useful for solo leveling?
I asked a friend of mine about this since I don't personally play a Rogue, and he says popular opinion is that Hunger for Blood is mostly going to be a PvP talent. Keeping the damage buff up constantly while questing isn't worthwhile, and the debuff clearing it provides will be highly situational while soloing through Northrend. You can take it if you're gung ho about Assassination, but you'd be better served picking up something else until you start PvPing often.
Drewcast asked...
Are there or will there be any Aldor vs. Scryer type factions?
Yes, though it doesn't play as large of a role as far as the main story goes. Within the Sholazar Basin you encounter two factions: The Oracles, a group sentient gorlocs, and the Frenzyheart Tribe, a group of sentient wolvar. Wolvar being overgrown badgers or puppies or something. No, I'm kidding, they're supposed to be wolverine people (not worgen/werewolves as some had said). There's a very real conflict between the two factions, but it's very lighthearted. Both factions talk a bit like lolcats so it's hard to take them too seriously, despite the fact that they're in a horrible bloody territory war in which you summon their various gods and deities to slaughter the other side en masse... but I digress.
These two factions is another massive example of how much better Blizzard has done with storytelling via quests in Wrath of the Lich King compared to Classic and BC. These two factions are far more whimsical than the Aldor and the Scryers, but the quests set up the conflict pretty well. The conflict remains a bit silly, but the story is at least set up for you from the beginning, rather than you being shoved into Shattrath and told "Pick one, go go go hurry go go!"
Dalaran has two opposing factions within it as well, but one is Horde and one is Aliance, so you won't get to choose or switch or any of that.
Hesed asked...
Will any other cities besides Undercity, Orgrimmar, Stormwind and Ironforge be getting any love? Or are they just as worthless as they were in BC?
As far as I know, the other capital cities aren't getting any major changes, though I would disagree that Silvermoon City didn't get any love during The Burning Crusade's lifetime. That city probably went through more story-related changes than any other capital until Stormwind Harbor. Back to the point though, as far as I've seen, the other capitals remain static. However, you will indirectly learn more about Teldrassil, which isn't a change to the city of Darnassus itself but opens up possibilities for the future. Awesome ones.
Jaisin asked...
Maybe this has been brought up before, but I can't help but wonder, do all players receieve an inscription page to use inscriptions or is it Inscriber only?
All players receive a page in their spellbook in which they can use glyphs. Everyone is able to use 3 major glyphs and 3 minor glyphs. Scribes (inscriptioneritors) get an extra Major glyph as their tradeskill bonus, sort of how Enchanters get ring enchants and Smiths get to add sockets to certain slots.

That's what it looks like for someone without Inscription. The bigger circles are Major slots, the smaller ones are Minor. Currently, I only have two Major glyphs and there doesn't seem to be any Minor ones implemented at all. If you're wondering what I'm using, I'll tell you! My Priest is currently specced Holy, so I'm using the following:
Glyph of Renew - Reduces the duration of your Renew by 3 sec. but increases the amount healed each tick by 40%.
Glyph of Flash Heal - Reduces the mana cost of your Flash Heal by 10%.
And that's all for today, everyone. If you have additional questions, please ask them in the comments section below to be answered in a future edition!
Glyph of Renew - Reduces the duration of your Renew by 3 sec. but increases the amount healed each tick by 40%.
Glyph of Flash Heal - Reduces the mana cost of your Flash Heal by 10%.
And that's all for today, everyone. If you have additional questions, please ask them in the comments section below to be answered in a future edition!
Filed under: Wrath of the Lich King, Inscription






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Aquen Aug 31st 2008 11:07AM
Is honor going to be reset or just Arena points?
Arrel Aug 31st 2008 3:22PM
I would like to know this one aswell
and might aswell give some info, if there is any, about the marks, will we still be able to use the same marks or do we get an entire new type of mark for the 70-79 and 80 bracket
ironblade Aug 31st 2008 11:27AM
do you know how good the honor gains are in lake wintergrasp. and what are the costs for the 2H 1H and ranged blue pvp weapons (and maby epics if theyve been implimented yet)
Gary Aug 31st 2008 11:36AM
Any new storylines for the Draenei?
Hesed Aug 31st 2008 2:41PM
Yes, Yes!
I want more Draenei Info. Is there any new Story to why we are going to Northerend? or are we just bored and it gives the race something to do?
Linkage Aug 31st 2008 3:06PM
Well, that scourge invasion thing might be an incentive.
Of course, there's also the fact that half of the Lich King is Ner'Zhul, the orc that started the whole Draenei slaughter on Draenor
kabshiel Aug 31st 2008 6:18PM
Or the fact that you're now a resident of Azeroth (whether you like it or not), and that Arthas is a threat to the entire planet.
Algathar Aug 31st 2008 1:00PM
I have been looking at some of the instance drops for casters, and I'm still confused as to the stats I should be aiming for. I play a Warlock, and long story short, what attributes will I need to prioritise from equipment? I've heard mention of Spirit being more important, but am still not 100% sure, so any clarification would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Nick S Aug 31st 2008 1:05PM
Expanding on that, could any Mages in the beta talk a little bit about how Spirit is working with the new Arcane tree?
Roxton Sep 1st 2008 7:58AM
@ Nick S:
The original plan for the arcane tree was to have awesome DPS at the expense of mana efficiency, and to combat this by having mana batteries in the raid and lots of spirit (with things like mage armour and arcane meditation to allow regeneration while casting). There were also arcane talents to convert spirit into spell damage. Thus arcane would be a weaker tree in starting raids, as you couldn't fit enough spirit, int AND damage and hit.crit ect on to your gear, but in larger raids where you might have two shadow priests ect, and better gear, it would suddenly become extremely strong. This was the idea, as far as we know, for TBC too, but they buggered that over with the removal of damage tax for fire and frost (which was a good thing ofc, it just had a bad side effect because they didn't re-level arcane). Now, it looks as though we're going to get some spirit on gear anyway, but we no longer have the talents to convert it into damage. So it's all a bit confused.
Sorry, that was a very long way of saying: "No-one knows".
dotorion Aug 31st 2008 11:54AM
God those things are so UGLY.
onetrueping Aug 31st 2008 11:57AM
I can haz rep?
Demizeus Aug 31st 2008 11:58AM
Just wanted to know if any beta testers could link the quest items in the beginning areas or talk about the giant dinosaur i heard was in the new ice or jungle troll raid area.
AngelForm Aug 31st 2008 12:00PM
How are the paladin shields working? Specifically:
How “invulnerable” dose DS make you in PvP now?
And how dose DP work with dispelling?
Would also like to know if individual spells have more than one glyph, one major and one minor, multiple of each or just one for most spells.
Culhag Aug 31st 2008 12:03PM
How easily can you change your glyphs ? Does putting a new one erase the one you had ?
imno Aug 31st 2008 12:54PM
Ditto on this question.
Jewbanks Aug 31st 2008 2:09PM
Yea you can replace freely but it destroys the old one.. Just like gems
G Aug 31st 2008 2:34PM
I asked a similar question in a different topic, but should have saved it for AaBT I suppose. Essentially the same as Culhag: Are glyphs like gems, where they become permanent after insertion?
Can they be swapped out (i.e. by a wardrobe addon)? Can they be changed while in combat?
Nick S Aug 31st 2008 12:08PM
...Lolcats?
If I get a quest that reads "i can haz 10 kitteh heartz?" I may quit.
Hanako Aug 31st 2008 2:15PM
I dunno, I may become a lifetime member.