Totem Talk: Glyphing your leveling enhancement shaman
by Josh Myers 
Apr 23rd 2011 at 6:00PM
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shoot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and roll a hunter for the third!
For any person who is new to World of Warcraft or starting a new character on another server, glyphs are one of the worst part of the leveling experience. Why? Because they're expensive. With the redesign of inscription that came with Cataclysm, glyphs take more money make and cost way more to buy. This leaves low-level alts and new players boggled as to how they're going to afford that Glyph of Totemic Recall that just went up for 200 gold.
To that end, I'm avoiding making a list of glyphs that you should have by specific levels. Me telling you that your first prime glyph at level 25 should be Glyph of Stormstrike isn't helpful if you don't have the gold to buy it at level 25, and it doesn't take into account the fact that more utility-focused major glyphs might be more useful at that level. To that end, I've come with a list of glyphs based on usefulness, separated them into two categories: top priority and low priority. Any glyphs not in this list aren't really worth getting while leveling. That doesn't make them bad glyphs -- glyphs like Glyph of Water Walking can be very useful, just not mandatory for leveling on a budget.
Top-priority glyphs
Prime glyphs don't make it to the top priority for glyph choices. While damage increases are certainly nice, doing 20% more damage on your Lava Lash doesn't necessarily make leveling any easier. The mob that you would have three-shot with Glyph of Lava Lash might end up lasting one more global cooldown ... or that glyph might have added 20% overkill, making it pretty useless in that specific situation.
DPS glyphs primarily exist for sustained DPS purposes. While in the previous example, Glyph of Lava Lash's contribution was minimal, in a 10-minute fight where you use Lava Lash 60 times, 20% more Lava Lash damage is huge. That's why they're so useful at high levels. They're even worthwhile at low levels if you focus on running dungeons, but more damage just isn't that vital for leveling.
So what is vital for leveling? First and foremost, Glyph of Lightning Shield should be your #1 glyph choice. If you buy one glyph from levels 25-85, you want Glyph of Lightning Shield. Before this glyph, any time you get hit by any attack, you lose a Lightning Shield orb. Orbs have slight internal cooldowns between procs, with current estimation being somewhere between 3 to 4 seconds. If you don't have this glyph and you are chain pulling mobs, you'll be refreshing Lightning Shield every 9 to 12 seconds. This becomes especially problematic if you don't have a mod like Power Auras that reminds you when Lightning Shield falls off, as you're losing out on tons of free damage. With this glyph, you refresh your shield once every 10 minutes, while still enjoying the benefits of Lightning Shield damage. This glyph will save you from one of the biggest headaches of leveling a shaman.
Other good major glyphs are Glyph of Healing Stream Totem and Glyph of Ghost Wolf. I was going to put these under low-priority glyphs, but your third major glyph slot doesn't open up until level 75, and by that point, you're moving out of the money is an issue mindset. Glyph of Healing Stream takes a totem you should already have down and makes it even better, reducing all non-holy spell damage that is coming your way. Glyph of Ghost Wolf slightly speeds up chain pulling, which in turn speeds up the leveling process.
Finally, the last top-priority glyph is actually a minor: Glyph of Renewed Life. After all, you will die. When you die post level 30, you will want to Reincarnate yourself. At that time, you'll realize that you totally forgot to buy Ankhs and ragelog rather than ghost walking back to your corpse. We've all done it. Glyph of Renewed Life makes dying less painful.
Low-priority glyphs
Your low-priority glyphs are prime glyphs. While leveling, the best prime glyph you can get is actually Glyph of Feral Spirit. Spirit Hunt, the spirit wolves' passive healing ability, heals them and you for 150% of their damage done. Glyph of Feral Spirit increases their attack power by 30%; 30% more attack power means more damage done, which translates into more healing. For soloing elites and group quests while leveling, this glyph will be one of the most potent in your arsenal. The downside? You get Feral Spirit at level 69, so you'll really only be using it for Northrend and Cataclysm leveling.
Glyph of Windfury Weapon is also a contender, as Windfury is excellent burst DPS if you have a level-appropriate weapon. As was also mentioned in last week's post, Lava Lash has pretty poor damage at low levels. As a result, Glyph of Lava Lash is not something you want to look at until your Lava Lash has fully talented support.
Show your totemic mastery by reading Totem Talk: Enhancement every week. We've got enhancement-specific advice on rep gear, heroic gear, and raiding gear, plus tips on maximizing your utility skills and tactics for raiding Blackwing Descent.
Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Furyofevil Apr 23rd 2011 6:14PM
Can you Totem Talk writers start talking about 4.1 changes. I'm getting annoyed with random articles like this one. We're experiencing tons of changes in 4.1, we're even getting a mega nerf to PvP for no reason (grounding totem 15s>25s), and all of you tend to avoid the topic. Worthless TT columnists need to get replaced
Saeadame Apr 23rd 2011 6:26PM
Um...? I'm sure there are about a million Shaman blogs talking about the 4.1 changes. This column is talking about levelling an enh Shaman, which may not be valuable for you but is valuable for a lot of people who are thinking about/are levelling one. I'm certain the columnists take requests into account, but not when the comment is phrased like that. There's no reason to be a jerk - if you want them to discuss 4.1 changes you can say that, but there's no need to be insulting.
Amrytale Apr 23rd 2011 6:31PM
U mad, bro?
Josh Myers Apr 23rd 2011 11:00PM
We're not avoiding the topic. All of our posts need to be submitted at least a day and a half to two days prior to the date they actually go up, and at the time this post was being written there was no confirmation that patch 4.1 was being released this Tuesday. Rather than write a post about 4.1 weeks before the patch is actually released, we'll be writing about 4.1 changes next week when they're actually relevant.
Merch Apr 24th 2011 2:40AM
Well it would appear you are already informed on 4.1 changes, so why do you need the columnists to cover it?
Amaxe Apr 23rd 2011 7:47PM
I really don't have much use for the glyph to replace the Ankh. My 3 minors let me:
1) Waterwalk without a reagent
2) Waterbreathe without a reagent
3) Hearth every 7.5 minutes.
I just use Steal Your Carbon to automatically keep my ankhs at 10 when I stop by a vendor. I find I use the above far more often than I need to do a self rez.
Titusx Apr 23rd 2011 7:58PM
Faster hearth is really useful while leveling imo and if you got an addon to keep a stock of anhks at hand then go for it. At end game its more useful to be done with reagents all together though... at least in my case.
alpha5099 Apr 23rd 2011 8:32PM
Obvious it's up to each shaman, but personally I glyph for Reincarnation instead of Water Breathing. Personally, I get very little use out of Water Breathing; if I need to be under a long time, the game frequently provides a Water Breathing buff, or I can slap on my Kalu'ak fishing pole, or just use change one of my other minors to Water Breathing for a short time.
I realize short cooldowns on Astral Recall is a bit devalued, now that we can have 15-minute hearths and all, but man, it's a god damn life-saver if you're gonna do Archaelogy. Only thing better would be to be a Mage.
Rollo Apr 23rd 2011 11:05PM
Good article. With two gathering professions you should be able to get what glyphs you need even at low level though.
For minor glyphs, I always get the ones to remove reagents. I use them a lot; I have water walking macroed to my mount and water breathing to my ghost wolf (as a castsequence when swimming.)
As for astral recall, if you keep your hearthstone instead you have two separate cooldowns going which means you will almost always have one of them available. A hearthstone is also cheap to throw away if you suddenly need bag space for a quest item.
Angus Apr 24th 2011 8:35AM
So you have a glyph to make the shaman version of a spell as good as the warlock spell is baseline. (They get swim speed out of their minor)
A glyph to make the shaman version of a Death Knight spell still much worse.
And arguably the best minor for utility there is.
I really don't get why Shaman are saddled with these crappy versions of spells that require reagents which you can't even buy. Go look at a reagent vendor, they have like 4 things on them now. Paladins don't need any, druids lost a bunch and except for mages moving around it is pretty much a non-issue for almost every class.
I really think they should just delete minor glyphs that aren't cosmetic or add something to the spell that isn't more than just "it's marginally less expensive."
Amaxe Apr 24th 2011 10:06AM
I agree they should delete the regents in general for waterwalk and waterbreathing. I think the reason I liked the glyphs when the whole system first came out was I was sick of storing those fish oils and fish scales.
I really don't get Blizz and their refusal to change things which put us at a disadvantage compared to other classes.
Bapo Apr 24th 2011 11:34AM
Atleast you guys get useful minor glyphs. All of the paladin minors are boring. Reduced mana cost on a spell you use once an hour.... ooooo so exciting : /
Anti Apr 24th 2011 12:42AM
Josh, this is a fantastic guide. I greatly appreciate something not specifically tailored to max level toons since my altitis puts me in this boat frequently. I hope some of the other class columnists take note and do the same.
Lohkie Apr 24th 2011 4:56AM
I agree. Only I would have preferred it be on ele shammy leveling. But I suppose some the glyphs could work just as well.
Flint Apr 24th 2011 6:17AM
Thanks for this. As primarily a soloing player, it's great to see some leveling-oriented content every now and then. I've been thinking about my enh shammy's glyph choices for a while now and this has helped me solve the few dilemmas I've had between choosing two candidates.
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Eldoron Apr 28th 2011 7:42PM
Could you write an article about stuff important in PVP as enhancement or should I expect that from Blood Sport?
iain May 15th 2011 1:04AM
What about Glyph of Shocking as a first prime?