Cataclysm beta: New glyphs for rogues and shaman
by Michael Sacco 
Sep 3rd 2010 at 9:00PM
Ghostcrawler recently had this to say about the new glyph system:
GhostcrawlerPrime glyphs aren't going to be exciting in a "change up your rotation" style. We want primes to be unambiguous dps (etc.) increases so we figured they might as well be easy to understand rather than something so convoluted that everyone would just go to a fansite to see which 3 to pick.
The majors are more interesting, because they are either not dps increases at all, or dps increases in ways that are tricky to math out. We think players will debate and geek out more about which majors to use, and with the new glyph design, swapping them out once in awhile isn't very painful.
Minors are basically convenience or fun.
The majors are more interesting, because they are either not dps increases at all, or dps increases in ways that are tricky to math out. We think players will debate and geek out more about which majors to use, and with the new glyph design, swapping them out once in awhile isn't very painful.
Minors are basically convenience or fun.
Several classes have had their glyphs worked on and updated as of this beta patch, but only rogues and shaman glyph passes appear to be "done," so we've listed glyphs for those two after the break.
Rogue
Prime
- Adrenaline Rush - Increases duration by 5s
- Backstab - Crits grant 5 energy
- Eviscerate - +10% crit chance
- Hemorrhage - Hemo hits cause the target to bleed for 40% of the damage over 24s
- Killing Spree - Increases damage bonus by 10%
- Mutilate - Reduces energy cost by 5
- Revealing Strike - Increases bonus to finishers by 10%
- Rupture - Increases duration by 4s
- Shadow Dance - Increases duration by 2s
- Sinister Strike - 20% chance for an additional combo point
- Slice and Dice - Increases duration by 3s
- Vendetta - Increases duration by 20%
Major
- Ambush - Increases range by 5 yards
- Blade Flurry - Reduces the energy regen penalty by 50%
- Cloak of Shadows - 40% reduced physical damage while active
- Crippling Poison - Increases apply chance by 20%
- Deadly Throw - Increases slowing effect by 20%
- Evasion - Increases duration by 5s
- Expose Armor - Increases duration by 12s
- Fan of Knives - Increases radius by 50%
- Feint - Reduces energy cost by 20
- Garrote - Increases duration of Silence effect by 2s
- Gouge - No longer requires target be facing you
- Preparation - Also resets cooldown on Kick, Dismantle, and Smoke Bomb
- Sap - Increases NPC duration by 80s
- Sprint - Increases movement speed bonus by 30%
- Tricks of the Trade - Removes energy cost
- Vanish - Increases duration by 2s
Minor
- Blurred Speed - Sprint lets you run on water
- Distract - Range increased by 5 yards
- Pick Lock - Cast time reduced 100%
- Pick Pocket - Range increased by 5 yards
- Poisoning - You apply poisons 50% faster
- Safe Fall - Increases the distance you can fall without damage
Shaman Glyphs
Prime
- Earth Shield - Increases amount healed by 20%
- Earthliving Weapon - Increases periodic heal effect by 20%
- Feral Spirit - Gains an additional 30% of attack power
- Fire Elemental - Reduces cooldown by 5m
- Flame Shock - Increases duration by 50%
- Flametongue Weapon - Increases spell crit chance by 2%
- Lava Burst - 10% more damage
- Lava Lash - 20% more damage
- Lightning Bolt - 4% more damage
- Riptide - Increases duration by 40%
- Stormstrike - Increases bonus Nature damage by 8%
- Water Shield - Increases passive mana regen by 50%
- Windfury Weapon - Increases proc chance per swing by 2%
Major
- Chain Heal - Increases healing on secondary targets by 15%, reduces healing on main target by 10%
- Chain Lightning - Strikes 2 additional targets, deals 10% less initial damage
- Elemental Mastery - While active, take 20% less damage
- Fire Nova - Increases radius by 5 yards
- Frost Shock - Increases duration by 2s
- Ghost Wolf - Additional 10% movement speed
- Grounding Totem - Reflects instead of absorbs spells, but cooldown increased by 45s
- Healing Stream Totem - Increases Fire, Frost, Nature resistance
- Healing Wave - When healing someone else, you also receive 20% of the healing done
- Hex - Reduces cooldown by 15s
- Lightning Shield - Can no longer lose charges to attackers when at 3 or less
- Shamanistic Rage - Activating cleanses you of all Magic debuffs
- Shocking - GCD of Shock spells reduced to 1s
- Stoneclaw Totem - Grants an absorb shield equal to 4x the totem shield
- Thunder - Reduces Thunderstorm cooldown by 10s
- Totemic Recall - Refunds an additional 50% of the mana cost of recalled totems (Totemic Recall baseline refunds 25% of the cost)
Minor
- Arctic Wolf - Your Ghost Wolf form looks like an arctic wolf
- Astral Recall - Reduces cooldown by 7.5m
- Renewed Life - Reincarnation no longer needs a reagent
- Thunderstorm - Additional 2% mana gained, no knockback
- Water Breathing - No longer requires a reagent
- Water Walking - No longer requires a reagent
Special thanks to Nibble for the full list of changes and new glyphs!
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Khirsah Sep 3rd 2010 9:10PM
I'm really excited about the new TotT, Gouge, and FoK glyphs. All of them are boing to be great. And the poisoning is interesting. How 'bout additionally, you can apply poisons while on the move? May make for interesting poison swaps "on the fly"
Olania Sep 3rd 2010 9:16PM
So I figure that the elemental primes will be Flame Shock, Lava Burst, and Lightning Bolt. The majors really had me scratching my head and going "Hmm... maybe... this one?" Eventually I settled on Lightning Shield being a definite (due to the new talents) with the other two being some combo of Chain Lightning, Fire Nova, and Shocking. Although depending on how movement based Cata boss fights are - Totemic Recall might squeeze in there.
thebitterfig Sep 4th 2010 11:23AM
the funny thing: I was talking to this shaman in my guild who does PvP, and basically all the glyphs he wants are majors and not primes.
zdave Sep 3rd 2010 9:17PM
I see they're sticking with that ranged Ambush glyph.
"Nobody can stop my knife on a stick!"
Olania Sep 3rd 2010 9:19PM
Reminds me of the episode of Friends where they chained a bunch of sticks together so they could poke Ugly Naked Guy when they thought he died next to the window.
zdave Sep 3rd 2010 9:31PM
haha Yes! "Now, remember. Something this big and long can be very difficult to maneuver. Fortunately I have a lot of experience in that area."
Docseuzz Sep 3rd 2010 9:54PM
wow.. some of these, combined with swapping between encounters should make things quite interesting...
brian Sep 4th 2010 1:20AM
Now, just to make sure. We're actually going to be able to switch our glyphs any time we're out of combat? That's... almost almost beyond comprehension.
Such... flexibility.
Hih Sep 4th 2010 3:45AM
Earlier on in the beta the idea was you would learn the glyphs permanently like now, and to switch you would buy an Inscription made eraser item which would remove the glyph spot and let you put another one on as long as you knew that other glyph.
I don't know if they kept that eraser item around or not.
Docseuzz Sep 4th 2010 8:32AM
I shudder to think of the theorycrafting that will happen for each raid boss....
Xabidar Sep 3rd 2010 10:09PM
>Ghost Wolf - Additional 10% movement speed
A must for PvP
>Lightning Shield - Can no longer lose charges to attackers when at 3 or less
So... I only need to recharge when the buff times out?
>Shamanistic Rage - Activating cleanses you of all Magic debuffs
Wow, that's awesome!
I dunno if this should be a glyph or a talent, but I always figured that shaman should look like a ghost wolf when they are... well, a ghost. Kind of like a class equivalent of the Night Elf racial...
Xabidar Sep 3rd 2010 10:16PM
Hate to double-post, but I forgot to mention: now that Ghost Wolf will be usable indoors, that Glyph will be even more useful!
Davio Sep 4th 2010 6:17AM
Lightning shield charges can also be used when you hit an opponent in melee (via a talent).
Elmo Sep 4th 2010 7:45AM
Yes, but last I checked Static Shock didn't consume charges either.
tython34 Sep 3rd 2010 10:26PM
So Elemental Shaman have no real choices for majors it seems...
Fingal Sep 3rd 2010 11:12PM
We'll choose between these:
Chain Lightning - Strikes 2 additional targets, deals 10% less initial damage
- PvE
Elemental Mastery - While active, take 20% less damage
- PvP
Fire Nova - Increases radius by 5 yards
- Both
Hex - Reduces cooldown by 15s
- PvP
Lightning Shield - Can no longer lose charges to attackers when at 3 or less
- Awesome for leveling (due to the new talents), not for raiding.
Shocking - GCD of Shock spells reduced to 1s
- Both
So seems like there's some choices to be made.
Squeek Sep 4th 2010 1:03AM
Are you kidding? I had a hard time narrowing it down to 3! And I'm talking PVE here, too!
* Chain Lightning - Strikes 2 additional targets, deals 10% less initial damage. Potentially useful, though probably not practical.
* Elemental Mastery - While active, take 20% less damage - Your healers will love you, first of all. Not to mention, a dead DPS does 0 DPS. This gives us a PVE defensive cooldown. We sorely needed it. Think Festergut if you miss a spore. Almost every other class has a trick they can use during it to save them. Now we do too. Sure, you don't get to use it at the time you wanted, but it will save you more than a few times. Of that I can be sure.
* Ghost Wolf - Additional 10% movement speed. Ghost Wolf is indoors now, so this is 50% movement speed. Perfect for "I have the big explody debuff and I need to get out of the raid" situations.
* Healing Stream Totem - Increases Fire, Frost, Nature resistance - This will be pretty sweet unless it doesn't stack with Mark of the Wild. Almost all buffs were consolidated in Cataclysm, so I wouldn't be surprised if this one was too. But it is nice to have a 4-in-1 totem.
* Hex - Reduces cooldown by 15s. CC is supposed to be a bigger factor in Cataclysm, and making the cooldown on Hex 30s instead of 45 could mean the difference between waiting between pulls and actually killing some more stuff.
* Lightning Shield - Can no longer lose charges to attackers when at 3 or less. I think this one is a quality-of-life thing. If some boss mechanic triggers our shield (which a lot of boss mechanics currently do) and it falls off, we lose DPS refreshing it all the time. This solves that problem.
* Shocking - GCD of Shock spells reduced to 1s. Speculation said that this would be useful even in WotLK. It just makes it so there's one second between Shocking and doing something else, rather than 1.5 (without haste, of course). Considering that Shocks are going to be a larger part of our rotation, this could be a huge time-saver. 0.5 seconds adds up when you think about using one shock every ~9 seconds in PVE. On a 5-minute fight, this saves you about 16 seconds, which is at least 8 more lightning bolts you could be tossing out. That's actually pretty significant in the long run.
* Thunder - Reduces Thunderstorm cooldown by 10s. This is obviously a much better PVP skill than PVE, but honestly, we all use thunderstorm more often than we think to regen mana. Especially in a 5-man run when you don't have Replenishment and you're using Chain Lightning much more often. Time will tell whether our mana actually becomes an issue, but for now, this isn't half-bad.
I'd go with Elemental Mastery to have a defensive cooldown, Lightning Shield (though I'm skeptical of its potential uses), and either Ghost Wolf or Thunder. I'll let the math nerds calculate whether Shocking is a bigger DPS increase than refreshing Lightning Shield things or if mana will be an issue or not. It may end up being EM, LS, and Shocking.
Bvannas Sep 4th 2010 5:56AM
Lightning sheild glyph might be useful especially when combined with Fulmination Talent. Not losing charges once at 3 or fewer would mean you can acheive fulmination faster.
Etreya Sep 4th 2010 12:00PM
Quoting Squeek:
"* Shocking - GCD of Shock spells reduced to 1s. Speculation said that this would be useful even in WotLK. It just makes it so there's one second between Shocking and doing something else, rather than 1.5 (without haste, of course). Considering that Shocks are going to be a larger part of our rotation, this could be a huge time-saver. 0.5 seconds adds up when you think about using one shock every ~9 seconds in PVE. On a 5-minute fight, this saves you about 16 seconds, which is at least 8 more lightning bolts you could be tossing out. That's actually pretty significant in the long run."
While this is true initially or whilst leveling, once you're at the right haste levels, you GCD for all spells will naturally drop to the 1s minimum, completely devaluing this glyph.
The new glyphs and glyph system on the whole looks really good so far though :D
Nawaf Sep 3rd 2010 10:53PM
Minor glyphs are pretty cool. They aren't the type of stuff you need. I hope we see a shorter death gate casting time for us death knights and maybe a different undead minion. I would love to have a giest as my minion over the ghoul.