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The latest patch 5.4 newsSpiritual Guidance: Minor glyphs for discipline and holy priests, plus some pre-BlizzCon silliness
by Dawn Moore 
Oct 17th 2011 at 9:00PM
Whenever I'm scoping out priests on the Armory or even in my own raid team, I always like to see what glyphs they pick. Mind you, there doesn't actually tend to be much variety from priest to priest. The best glyphs usually stand leaps and bounds ahead of the competition, especially with major and minor glyphs, so there isn't usually much difference between one priest or another. So why do I check? Because I'm looking to see if the priest has Glyph of Shadowfiend equipped.
Glyph of Shadowfiend
WoW is a game where every little bit counts, and even the most seemingly insignificant variables can make a difference over the long run. Minor glyphs are no exception to this, which is why it frustrates me to no end when I see a raiding priest with the Glyph of Shadowfiend equipped. Why? Because the Glyph of Shadowfiend is terrible for raids and most group PVE. Let me explain why.
The effect of the glyph is quite simple: If your Shadowfiend somehow dies in combat, you will immediately gain 5% of your maximum mana as a consolation for losing out on the mana your Shadowfiend would have provided you. Not a bad trade-off, right? That is, until you realize there are few ways for your little Shadowfiend to die in a raid.
You see, at the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King, all pets were given Avoidance, a passive ability that allows pets to avoid 90% of all AOE damage from enemy NPCs. Enemy player AOE in PVP will still damage pets for the full effect, but not AOE from bosses. Since we're talking about Wrath anyway, think back to your final fight against the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel. Do you remember when the Lich King used Remorseless Winter and everyone in your raid would need to run to the edge of the Frozen Throne to avoid being killed by the damage in a few mere seconds? Remember how all the hunter pets wouldn't retreat with the group and actually stayed in melee range of the boss while he channeled Remoreless Winter? That's Avoidance at work, and Shadowfiends have it just like every other pet. (You learn these things from hanging out with uncommonly good-looking hunters, by the way.)
If a Shadowfiend isn't gong to die from boss AOE, the only way it can be killed is by taking direct damage from the boss or mob. But since a Shadowfiend's damage will never generate more threat than a tank or a damage class, it's unlikely that it will ever wind up with enough threat to be targeted with direct damage. The exception to this, of course, is if you start pulling bosses with your Shadowfiend. If you do this, mana is probably going to be your last concern, since you will almost certainly be the next dead person in the room after your Shadowfiend kicks the bucket.
So if you think about it, the only way for you to utilize the Glyph of Shadowfiend is if you act like an idiot in raids and carelessly send your beloved pet after a freshly spawned mob. Otherwise, it should never die, and you will never benefit from the effects of the glyph. In PVP and solo play, the glyph makes perfect sense, but in raids and dungeons, it's a waste.
What to get instead? Well, I personally pick up the Glyph of Fading, since I use Fade quite frequently in raiding, especially during phase transitions when boss threat resets or new mobs spawn. When healing as a holy priest, especially, I'll almost always have more threat than other healers, so the ability is a great tool for avoiding death if your tank needs a moment to pick up the baddie monster that wants to eat my face.
Other minor glyphs
Now that I've made a big fuss about a tiny little glyph, I figured it would be at least somewhat appropriate to point out that the other two recommended minor glyphs for a healing priest are the Glyph of Fortitude and the Glyph of Levitate. Sometimes I might even recommend Glyph of Shackle Undead, but it's very situational. As I said earlier, the best glyphs usually stand out, so I suspect most of you already have these glyphs equipped. If you don't though, let me explain their benefits.
- Glyph of Levitate doesn't tend to have a whole lot of actual utility in everyday raiding, but it's extremely useful in every other part of the game, so it just makes sense to use this glyph. Finding reagents is a big pain, and running out of Light Feathers when you're trying to cast Levitate is sometimes lethal if you were using the spell to cushion a fall.
- Glyph of Fortitude makes buffing in combat a lot more cost-effective. As you know, group buffs are extremely taxing on mana, and if you have to rebuff the group because a player died during an encounter, casting Power Word: Fortitude can be devastating on your mana. Taking this glyph sands the pointy edge of the mana cost off and makes the burden of buffing a bit more manageable. (I still try to make the shadow priests do the buffing if I can, though.)
- Glyph of Shackle Undead is the last minor glyph I'd recommend, and even then, I think it's overrated. If you find yourself in a dungeon of undead baddies, it's great; the rest of the time, it's useless and you shouldn't bother with it. I rarely used Shackle Undead in Icecrown Citadel, and when I did, it was usually on trash. I use it a lot more in PVP when dealing with death knights, and in that situation I do recommend this glyph over Glyph of Shadowfiend.
A pre-BlizzCon questionaire
Hopefully, most of you will know that BlizzCon 2011 is right around the corner, and that means next weekend I'll be compromised in Anaheim having too much fun with my fellow nerds. I suspect plenty of WoW Insider readers will be in the same boat, so I like to write a fun post to follow up the weekend instead of something technical.
Last year, I asked a few priests I met about their experiences as a priest, and this year I want to do it again but with more preparation. Thus, I've written up a set of questions I'd like to ask the priests I come across. Take a look.
- Tell us about your first priest. When did you start playing him? What race was she? Do you have any memorable stories about your early adventures as a priest?
- What spec do you play most and why?
- What's your favorite part about playing a priest?
- What new ability do you want for priests in the next expansion?
- What needs to be fixed about priests?
- Have you ever cosplayed as a priest? If you haven't, tell us what armor you would wear.
- Is there anything else you can think of about being a priest that you want to tell me?
Readers, if you can think of other good questions to ask, leave them in the comments and I'll add them to the list. After that, if you'd like to participate yourself, come find me at BlizzCon. I'll obviously be at the WoW Insider party, so I should be easy to find then. During the rest of the weekend, I'll just be wandering around taking pictures and looking for priests (the ones in cosplay are the easiest to find, so make it easy on me by finding me). If you aren't going to be at BlizzCon, send me your answers in an email to dawn@wowinsider.com before BlizzCon ends on Saturday night.
See you soon!
Spiritual Guidance has the inside line on pre-raid, valor point and raid gear for patch 4.2, as well as priest healing guides for the early and final bosses of The Firelands. Newcomer to the priest class? Look into leveling a healing priest, plus our guides to Discipline Priest 101 and Holy Priest 101.
Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
razion Oct 17th 2011 11:09PM
I made my first priest in mid to late vanilla Wow. He was a human male, and I remember choosing to level it explicitly because a few guildies of mine said that they were terrible to level with, and I wanted to prove them wrong. At the time, I believe we had the old LFG system in place, where you would talk in the chat openly around the world for recruiting for group members. You could alternatively open a window to browze dungeons, where you would see a list of possible recruits. You would then invite yourself, likely after sending a whisper, and then make your way to the summoning stone before summoning.
I did a lot of runs in Scarlet Monastery, and I remember some time afterwards leveling up through north-western Stranglethorn, killing a tribe of trolls on the beach where I came to the conclusion I only really liked casting Smite and Holy Fire, and that I didn't really like the idea of healing very much.
And, because holy dps wasn't an accepted model in any group at the time, I decided I wanted to give Shadow a try. I liked the idea of damage over time spells (Holy Fire good! Holy Fire burn zombies in Duskwood! Holy Fire awesome!), but I didn't really want to be a Warlock, because I didn't like the idea of pet classes (due to 25/50/75% of my damage coming from my pet mindlessly).
I switched to Shadow after Hearthing and a quick flight and spent the only, single gold I had on my respec. I entered a battleground after getting my bars and such sorted out and quickly discovered that Shadow priests were not PvP heroes. I was completely devasted and disheartened, and worst of all I couldn't even switch back if I wanted to. I did a dungeon or two, and was appalled at how my mana would just obliterate itself. I concluded I really wasn't having too good a time. I spent the next three hours herbing, trying to get the gold together for a respec. I never got enough herbs for that respec. I deleted my priest and went on to the greener (and at the time, "greener" meant "slightly less brown") fire Mage pastures of which I was accustomed, and to this day I have not touched healing. Not since that priest oh so long ago. Although I will occasionally touch Shadow, in hopes of perhaps getting some sort of different result.
However... there is one thing that priests do not have, that prevents me from sticking with it. They have literally no "GET ME OUT OF HERE NOW" spells. There are no Blinks in the world of a Priest.
If there is one gripe I have about being a shadowy clothie, is that I feel even more tied down than the heaviest melee classes out there. I don't feel safe in the face of danger, that I can evade it with my wits and clever ingenuity. I have to stand there, hiding behind my shield (and previously, without even that), cowering, while I try in futility to cast spells to kill this enemy that is in my face, interrupting what powerful spells I have. If I manage to fear the bugger away for a few seconds, only then do I get the respite to use the spells I should have been able to throw out regularly. At that point, I can prolong the inevitable (MIIIIND FLAAAAAY), or I can choose to run. And oh I can run, but I can't hide, and he will chance me down, and then it's just a game of who's going to run into a dead end--and guess who's leading the way? I'm used to the idea of the Glass Cannon--the Fire Mage path is one I walked the longest, after all, and if there's one thing I'm used to, it's being vulnerable to death in an instant. But I'm not used to not being able to do anything about it before it happens. As a caster, I like to feel like I have some control over the course of a fight. And as a shadow priest... It just doesn't have the control I feel it needs to make it attractive to me.
Of course, that's just my limited opinion. And if anything, I've gotten it off my chest, and I think I'll be leaving it at that.
Luke Oct 18th 2011 12:51AM
Obviously your first mistake was making a human. The second was deleting your Priest, but not re-rolling a different race.
Shadow is not vulnerable by any means. I have a couple Mages too, and yes they have awesome control but where Priests may lack sheep and frost nova, they also have one of the best forms of crowd control in the game, Mind Control. Not to mention the ability to heal, disperse, drain life (Vampiric Embrace), fear... I mean really a priest's survivability even as Shadow is only limited by their mana.
You should give it another try.
George Oct 18th 2011 8:40AM
Firstly, I should point out that you're posting this in the wrong place. Fox does shadow priests, Dawn does healing priests.
Now that that's out of the way, it sounds like you either haven't played shadow PvP for a long time or don't know how to play it.
For example, you can use dispersion heavily. Not only does it give 90% damage reduction, it also makes you immune to snares. There's also a talented fade that breaks snares on you now, with a 15s cooldown glyphed, your shadowform has a damage reduction, you now have inner will for a movement buff to get away or inner fire for some armour against physical damage, and the healer 4set bonus is used even by shadow priests so that when they shield themselves, they can't be snared. Psychic Horror is not just a normal fear which can be broken with things like berserker rage, it's a terror effect. On top of that, it has a built in undispellable disarm, which will also stop a warrior's bladestorm in its tracks.
I would say though that shadow self heals aren't nearly as useful as they used to be. You're better just taking less damage by killing them faster.
You should also be stacking resilience heavily. Gear makes a big difference in PvP.
Shadow priests, played correctly, are certainly not a "glass cannon" ... "with no gtfo button" in PvP.
I'm personally not such a fan of Disc in PvP, even though it's my raiding spec, but that's just my preference. Penance is just a giant "nuke me now" flag if you use it on anyone but yourself. In RBG they seem to nuke the disc priest first, and the most use I have is as a meat shield for the flag carrier. Pain sup myself, throw shields out where I can, other healers help keep me alive because they try to nuke me before the tank or any other healers that are there.
friggest Oct 18th 2011 3:55AM
Priest was my 4th toon. I went disc because I love to PVP. I did raids for gear and just owned in PVP as I leveled. I loved healing and could beat almost anyone 1 on 1. Its just so much fun to be such a strong support who is almost impossible to take down. I loved the micro management that a disc priest takes to succeed.
Best moment was holding flag room with me and my friend (hunter) against 5 ally and taking them all down. I even saved his pet.
Any other class that requires the micro-management of a disc healer?
Philster043 Oct 18th 2011 12:41AM
Wow! Now THIS is why I read your articles, Dawn. Thank you.
I had actually been wondering for some time if my Shadowfiend glyph was ever going to be of any help - honestly I just added it because nobody ever really recommended a stand-in glyph for it. Glyph of Fading DOES sound like a much better glyph right now.
* Is there anything else you can think of about being a priest that you want to tell me?
Do you prefer questing or dungeons in order to level up?
How positive have your raiding experiences as a healer been so far and why?
Do you switch specs often and for what reasons?
5p00b4r Oct 18th 2011 6:23AM
Pets do still die to AOE damage and you'll have very little control to stop it happening if it's going to, on the other hand if you have to fade that often chances are someone is Doing It Wrong, which can be fixed without giving up a glyph slot. I'll be sticking with the Shadowfiend glyph.
George Oct 18th 2011 8:07AM
I raid with glyph of shadowfiend. Here are some reasons why.
1) I do some PvP too.
2) I only use shadowfiend for mana, and even with the incredibly small chance that it dies, if it does die, I still want my mana.
3) Minor glyphs are pretty useless anyway. There certainly aren't 3 better than shadowfiend.
There's basically nothing to shackle in cataclysm and if something does need CC, you shouldn't be the one doing it. The mana cost of pw:fortitude only matters if you're casting it mid fight. If someone needs a rebuff mid fight because of a combat res, get a shadowpriest to do it.
Levitate is useful basically because without the glyph, it's a broken spell. They should honestly just remove the reagent cost from it in the first place. Nobody carries feathers, they either glyph it or don't use it at all.
While glyph of shadowfiend is pretty bad for PvE, if your shadowfiend actually did ever die to some bizarre mechanic, the glyph means it doesn't matter, which is just slightly less useless than the other crap minor glyphs, like 5y extra range on a spell I haven't cast once in raiding the entire expansion.
serrif Oct 18th 2011 2:08PM
Let's say you cast fade once per fight on average. That's 927 mana saved with Glyph of Fading per fight. Let's say you cast 1.5 fiends per fight (it'll depend on the fight). Each fiend which dies early will net you 6k mana, so if you lose more than 1 fiend in 10, grab the shadowfiend glyph, otherwise grab the fade glyph. Adjust those depending on how frequently you cast fiend, your fiends die early, or you cast fade.
TJW28 Oct 18th 2011 3:53PM
Fix Hymn of Hope, please. Gah.