Note: Post requires update to address Glyph of Maul debate. Article was written before raiding started in WotLK, and before trash was known to be a mindless AOE-spam fest.
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Flyv has already covered the current state of feral Druid glyphs, so I won't go there, but I would like to take a quick look at what I have settled on myself, and what I plan on switching to for level 80 raiding.
Major Glyphs
At the moment my major glyphs are the Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration and the Glyph of Maul. The Frenzied Regeneration glyph is a great enhancement to a skill that has already been buffed with the latest patch - an extra 20% bonus to incoming heals is worth it if you've already burnt the cooldown. Maul, on the other hand, is not really all that special - sure, it could help AOE tanking, but Maul is not top priority in those situations anyways, and one extra target is not going to make or break a rotation. I could see it being useful when you are tanking exactly two mobs I suppose - something like the Attumen encounter when you are the only tank.
Once I hit level 80 I will be sticking with the Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration, dropping Maul, and adding the Glyph of Mangle and Glyph of Rip. Both of the new glyphs are selected for their DPS utility. When in kitty form you want to Mangle as infrequently as possible, and a glyphed mangle is a great way to get there. Glyphing Rip is an attempt to simplify some of the timing issues that are sure to crop up when trying to juggle our finishers - Savage Roar will be especially important for Druids to maintain, and we want it to cut into our Rip uptime as little as possible. (The T7 set bonus apparently extends Rip's tick-time as well - the combination of that and the Glyph could make Ferocious Bite a raid-worthy skill!)
One obvious explanation is needed here: why am I not taking the Glyph of Growl? Simply put, it is because I can count on one paw the number of times that my taunt has failed for me in an average raid. Also, since feral Druids share gear with rogues in WotLK, +hit is likely to be a much more common feral tanking stat than it is now, which will only serve to reduce the chances of a missed Growl further. If any of this changes, however, then the Glyph of Growl will be back on my radar.
Minor Glyphs
Currently I only have a pair of minor glyphs equipped: the Glyph of Aquatic Form and the Glyph of Challenging Roar. Flyv has sent me both - I'm a lazy bear. While I'd love a Glyph of Thorns, I'm too cheap to drop the 100 gold that it was going for last night (down from 200 on the weekend), and am content to wait for further devaluation.
When I reach level 80 and start raiding, I will be aiming to have the Glyph of Challenging Roar, the Glyph of Thorns, and the Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth.
Final Note
Of course, all of this could change in an instant - Blizzard has stated that the current glyphs are not the final set, and that we should expect to see more phased in over time. Skills that are currently glyphed may even eventually have multiple glyphs that augment them in different ways, which is a very exciting prospect. In the end, Inscription and glyphs add in an excellent customizability point and allow players to further personalize their characters.
20 comments:
The glyph of maul is awesome - I would suggest you take another look. In most of the raids I'm doing (t6) I have infinite rage. I've macroed maul into all my bear attacks and we're AOE tanking pretty much the whole of BT (and we're still being a bit cautious but tbh we needn't be). In these situations, maul is accounting for over 50% of my total damage.
In heroics, I did find myself rage starved, so I'm going to improve my macros so I can switch the auto-maul on/off with a single click. But, if you have infinite rage, the glyph is wonderful.
Warriors are doing similar things with heroic strike - one guildy also has it macroed, and it is also his number 1 damage ability.
I'm not sure the frenzied regen glyph is as great as you think. You only receive the benefit of it while the regen is ticking, not while it is on cooldown. I may have misunderstood what you meant, but that is how I read it.
To me the aquatic glyph seems completely useless. I would have prefered an extension to the length of the dash time.
@kiulia:
While I don't doubt your stats, when AOE tanking our job is to hold aggro on a more mobs than just two, right? If this is the case then Maul isn't really helping your raid much at all - it's just making pretty numbers and padding your stats.
@doug:
Yes - +20% to incoming healing when you have the FR buff. I think you misread, or I wasn't clear, or both. =)
In any case, unless the healers stop healing me for 10 seconds, that's 20% bonus healing to a whole whack of heals, which could really add up. I only pop FR when I'm in real trouble, so this seems to make me even more survivable.
re: Aquatic form glyph - I'm cheap, I got it for free. =) And to be honest, I'm going to miss it when I'm gone - you just fly through the water with it equipped! (I've been doing SSO dailies, so swim a bit every day, but almost never dash)
I agree with Kiulia about the maul glyph. It provides a good chunk of extra threat and damage when tanking 2, 3, or even 4 mobs, as you're always hitting at least two of them for about 2k on top of the swipes.
Another glyph I'll recommend for ferals is the Glyph of Healing Touch. The reason resto's don't want the glyph is because it makes HT less mana efficient, but for us it's more important to be able to shift out, get a quick heal (it gives HT a 1 second cast time if you have naturalist) and shift back into form.
An extra bonus is that with Heart of the Wild I have a 13k mana pool in my resto gear, making the mana efficiency much less of an issue. Has worked great for me healing a few 5-mans without having to respec.
Karthis sounds like you're speaking from untested theory. I dont think you've tried it. The 2nd maul hits a random mob - who knows which one - so I think you are create threat on multiple mobs as the attacks continue. It's all rage free too. Along with the godlike swipe, and the godlike mangle every 3 minutes, we have some very solid aoe tanking abilities to play around with.
Anyway, all I'm suggesting is that ppl try it. Its tons of fun to see those mobs die quicky, and 10g from the AH is pretty darn cheap if you cant get it for free from a friend. I'm often topping the dps charts in heroics. And I'm holding threat in all our raids (...and the game is easy-mode which I dont deny)
btw, I like your blog a lot, I just founds. Its full of very solid, current and interesting information.
You still have a minor glyph slot free?! You slacker. I just dropped my Aquatic Form glyph for Dash: being a fast sea cow was fun but I never ever go swimming. Unburdened Rebirth is also a nice little minor glyph available today, aka "The Glyph of an Extra Bag Slot".
As for majors, I'm using Rip and Maul. The Maul one is a lot of fun for number padding: I'm seeing it do as much as 5500 damage if it crits two mobs. It does seem to break crowd control, though -- Flyv
Glyph of Dash for PvP, FTW
I havent read into this so I may have missed a point but I cant see the long term future of making Glyphs. If you were maxed out in enchanting then you were always in business as people always needed new enchants on upgraded gear. Once the initial hype is over and you have had your play and chosen your glyphs why change unless they constantly think up new ones?
Keep in mind that the dual spec feature that should be introduced pretty shortly after Wrath comes out (3.1 patch I believe) will also swap glyphs. So unless you fancy swapping between feral and boomkin/resto, there really is no reason not to have a full set of bear glyphs and a full set of cat glyphs, swapping between them as needed (just not when you're in combat).
Also, glyphed maul is really a great tool for AoE tanking. When tanking an AoE pack, I have found it to be very effective to spam swipe while keeping maul queued up and tab targeting between mauls. That adds a whole lot of extra threat to a large number of mobs. And with all the extra rage you now get from dodging AoE packs, the rage is no a problem to keep maul going.
I realize the Glyph of Maul hits a random second target... which to me is not worth it.
It also breaks CC - and in the Sunwell pulls I've been doing, that's horrible.
"Why am I not taking the Glyph of Growl?"
Because it's not in the game yet. >:P
@K:
Hence that sentence being in my "At level 80" section. ;)
Hey Karthis, another big fan here. Been reading the blog for quite some time now, and I like your take on our furry issues more than perhaps any other feral blog out there.
Onto the matter at hand: I am also a strong proponent of Glyph of Maul. With tab targeting and spamming maul and swipe, I am holding entire packs of elites in heroics as the entire party just aoes them down. Swipe alone will keep mobs off the healer... glyph of maul will keep mobs off everyone.
The target it hits is not completely random. In my experience, it tends to hit the mob you are targeting plus the mob that is closest to you distance-wise.
As far as breaking CC - well that's more of an issue of positioning, isn't it? After all, you could say the same things of the new swipe and berserk.
Here's another context to look at maul in: Its almost like a mini berserk that's never on cooldown.
Other glyphs I've taken: For now, I'm using Healing Touch, as the 1.1 sec heal (in the case of my spec) is pretty useful. I like Glyph of Thorns because shifting out to recast on yourself every 10 min can get annoying. I may swap healing touch for rip, though.
@johnmlinn:
First, thanks for the kind words - I appreciate it. I find that its the readers who make the blog though - I always love reading an responding to questions and emails.
Secondly, I seem to be in the minority when it comes to the Glyph of Maul, but after giving it a shot it just doesn't do it for me. I guess different glyphs will work for different people - which is probably for the best - if we're all cookie cutter then something is seriously wrong.
Finally, on breaking CC - in many cases I would agree that it is just a matter of positioning, however my guild is just learning the Sunwell, and I'm finding that the space we have to work with on some pulls is quite constrained (due to not wanting to pull unnecessary protectors). That means that I'm often tanking extremely close to a sheeped mob (usually there are three of them) and those suckers like to wander a bit. Also, when the pulls go really wrong and the tanks have to start scrambling, the last thing we want to do on non-farm content is break CC unnecessarily. BTW, these sunwell pulls are 6-7 mobs, plus one protector is we mess up killing the scout.
The issue I have with the thorns glyph is that it's self only. I often am keeping up thorns on my fellow tank, and if mine's not running out, odds are I won't notice his running out
I have to aggree with the other posters, glyph of maul is worth having.
With dodge and damage generating rage I am very rarely rage starved. I always have maul queued and it hits for around 2k.
With the glyph it hits the pack for 4k and seems to just burn through the trash much quicker. It's a free maul. Combined with berserk it allows your DPS to go that little bit harder. It also means that when your main target goes down and you auto select the next, the maul glyph has already hit it multiple times - ensuring a nice threat buffer. A good example where this shines is Utgarde Keep with the dragon/rider combos and Skarvald (caster/melee) - or Nexus, Magus Telestra when split into 3. You simply get a free head start on the following mob.
The downside is if you need to be hitting only one mob (due to CC). It then takes maul (you can't swipe or berserk either) off your rotation and you are reduced to lacerate, mangle.
Best to pull em clear of CC and let 'em have it all :)
Also don't forget that if the healing starts to drop off you can lose one melee mob by popping natures grasp and backing up when it procs. (No use on ranged or casters unless you can hide)
Love the blog.
Dude. Glyph of Maul. Use it, love it.
Even if not using the tab-spam technique, it's one less mob to worry about losing aggro on. That can make a difference.
And it certainly helps bear DPS keep up with our death knight friends (especially in offtank spec). You laugh, but managing others' perceptions of feral effectiveness is key to protecting our raid spots.
-Junten, Lightbringer, US
Yes. As the note at the top of the article says, I wrote this before the world knew that WotLK trash would be the mindless AOE-fest that it is.
When you have to care about CC and technique and finesse, Glyph of Maul is a bad choice. When you don't, it's great.
I don't find a double-maul any more difficult to manage than swipe. The only time when it's a problem is when you're trying to tank a single mob near other CC'd mobs, in which case mangle+lacerate is usually enough (and if it's just a single mob you can usually easily pull it away, or LOS if a caster).
In general I always make a point to have my CC'ers cast immediately upon pull so I can tank the other mobs safely away from them. And it's fun to say "keep your mobs away from me or they WILL take damage!" :) Just requires a little more group coordination. IMHO the extra effort is worth the glyph.
-Junten, Lightbringer, US
While great sounding in principle, it was impossible to get that level of CC placement in instances like Sunwell, or BT.
It also ignores the re-sheeps that have to happen sometimes.
Besides, as tanks it's not out primary job to out-dps the raid on trash - it's told hold our assigned targets and not break existing CC'd targets.
If T8 trash requires precision, Maul is gone in a heartbeat. (It'll be irrelevant and dangerous.)
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