Glyphs in WotLK, in action
A couple months back, when Inscription was just a whisper in the wind, I did a post about warrior glyphs and my dream setup. Now that WotLK has been here for two months and we actually got to use those glyphs, I thought I’d revisit them. I’ll list all glyphs that could be remotely interesting to a prot warrior. Some of those glyphs are unchanged from my previous post, some are completely new.
Major glyphs:
- Glyph of Barbaric Insults: still useless to me.
- Glyph of Blocking: the glyph, IMHO. It rocks my socks. Who wouldn’t want big Shield Slams? Do not leave the house without it.
- Glyph of Cleaving: hot hot hot. They changed it from costing less range to affecting an extra target. Cleave on 3 targets is extremely nice in heroics. I recently switched to it, it’s great.
- Glyph of Devastate: actually, not bad at all. I don’t devastate a whole lot anymore at all, this could help to increase the DPS of your group by stacking more sunders. I can totally see its merit. I might ask an off-tank for my raids to have that glyph.
- Glyph of Heroic Strike: useful in low rage situations, which have become rare. Because of that, very low on my list of must-haves. Possibly useful for off-tanks with less rage than MTs.
- Glyph of Intervene: if you have to Intervene a whole lot, you’re doing it wrong.
- Glyph of Last Stand: if you have to pop Last Stand every 2 minutes, you’re doing it wrong.
- Glyph of Rapid Charge: probably awesome in PvP and for soloing, but I don’t have a lot of cooldown problems in groups.
- Glyph of Resonating Power: Reduces the rage cost of Thunderclap. See my comment about the HS glyph. Low rage situations are uncommon, so that’d be another wasted glyph slot for me.
- Glyph of Revenge: best glyph along with Glyph of Blocking. Get it now, get the macro, enjoy. Can’t imagine playing without it.
- Glyph of Sunder Armor: in the long run, Glyph of Cleaving adds more threat for me, but it’s still a good glyph. I just don’t use Devastate enough anymore to warrant its use.
- Glyph of Taunt: if you have to worry about Taunt resists, you’re doing it wrong.
Minor Glyphs:
- Glyph of Bloodrage: there are very few minor glyphs that do anything for us, so we might as well get no health hitting when popping Bloodrage.
- Glyph of Charge: increased range for Charge is <3, for me.
- Glyph of Mocking Blow: to get mileage out of it you have to use Mocking Blow a bit. I don’t. Do you?
- Glyph of Thunder Clap: increased range. Yes. Get this glyph.
The commentary in this list is very biased. What’s your set-up? I am rolling with Blocking, Revenge and Cleaving. Insert cleavage jokes now. 
Bonus question: if you could create a glyph of your choice that we don’t have yet, what would it be?
Mine: Glyph of Heroic Throw. Minor Glyph. Reduces the cooldown of Heroic Throw to 10 seconds.
Do want.
Im using blocking, revenge, and Sunder, with Thunderclap being my only minor glyph atm.
I think another awesome glyph would be to reduce the cooldown of thunderclap and shockwave in half.
Darraxus´s last blog post..Dreaming about World of Warcraft
Reply
Interesting. I have almost the same set-up except I took the HS glyph over Cleave specifically because I’m the MT. If I were the OT, I would think I’d be on adds more than a single big boss and would get more use out of cleaving.
Oh, and I’d like to inscribe my glyph in her cleavage if you know what I mean.
Reply
I was so happy that the Glyph of Blocking was one of the first ones Saffron discovered. A guildie had a bounty of 500g on it for the first scribe to discover it.
Reply
I use Major: blocking, heroic strike and revenge.
Minor: Bloodrage, Thunderclap, and Battle Shout. Because I’m bad at refreshing Battle Shout.
I really think you should Devastate more often. I use a mouseover macro for Devastate and in the early stages of a battle the Heroic strikes, slams and revenges hit the first kill target, the devastates go to the others. It really works for multi-mob tanking. Everyone sticks to me like glue even when the hunter uses Volley, the DK uses Death and Decay and the warlock does Rain of Fire.
I’m thinking of switching Heroic Strike for Devastate glyph.
Reply
Interesting commentary. I mostly MT for my guild and we’re just starting to push progression (achievements wise, full clear of everything else so far).
I use Blocking, Last Stand and Taunt as my majors, with Bloodrage, Charge and Thunderclap as minors.
You don’t like Last Stand and Taunt, but I have them for specific fights.
Last Stand gets me a 2 minute CD, giving me 20% more health (bringing me to 42k raid buffed) for the first and third Arcane Breath by Malygos in 25 man and as part of our push on Sarth + drakes to help me last that little bit longer while DPS kill drakes.
Taunt I use cos when something goes wrong, I’m more mobile than our other tanks and can pick up the mob (i.e. our Sarth tank died while we were attempting +2 drakes, charge + Taunt put him onto me (with Tenebron in tow)) A resist there would have been the end of our healers, then the raid (of course, we failed anyway, but that’s another story).
My point – don’t write off those 2 glyphs yet, they really help for progression fights.
Reply
admin Reply:
January 28th, 2009 at 12:54 am
I told you I was biased. I only do heroics at the moment, and there I really don’t use Last Stand much at all. I used it heavily when we were still raiding, so I can follow you there.
I am still not sold on Taunt just yet, but thank you for providing insight for someone who’s a lot deeper into progression than I am.
Reply
Ablimoth Reply:
January 28th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Is ok, I’ve been following for months (since you were featured on tankspot actually).
I really like your writing, thank you for it.
Reply
I run with exactly the same minors as you
As majors I run with Block, Revenge and Devastate.
I run with Devastate for the simple reason threat on trash I’m not worried about. In 25 man its me, a DK and a Pally wich nicecly covers all.
On bosses Glyph of Devastate is burst threat on the beginning where you get the aggro of 2 sunders + devastate dmg. When 5 sunders are up its useless but I glyphed this one (changed from cleave) especially for sarth with 3drakes so i get a bit more burst threat in the beginning so people can just go nuts hard and fast.
Reply
Meatgazer Reply:
January 28th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Remember, the sunder effect on devastate no longer provides threat. Only the damage on devastate causes threat.
The sunder skill, however, provides a set amount of threat per use (325?).
Reply
Arvernien Reply:
January 29th, 2009 at 2:22 am
I think it is 345. The devastate damage based threat is generally higher if you have a good weapon.
Reply
Einstijn Reply:
January 29th, 2009 at 8:46 am
K i didnt know that yet,
apperently need to recheck the numbers,
thanks
Reply
Think I still have some DPS Glyphs, had to spec Prot quite soon after hitting 80 and atm busier with my Rogue main. So far it’s enough for heroics and 10man Naxx, although I might actually change them…
HS/Revenge and TC/Bloodrage are set, probably Blocking as 5th.
Armagon´s last blog post..Armagon: what a raidnight. first day without lag on thaddius. firstdown, then sapph, KT, Sarth+1
Reply
I use Blocking, Revenge, and Devastate. Since I use Devastate less often, that extra sunder it applies is really nice. Plus, I still tab-target so it generates a lot of threat very quick on those secondary and tertiary kill targets.
For minors I use Bloodrage, Thunderclap, and Charge.
Reply
“Glyph of Mocking Blow: to get mileage out of it you have to use Mocking Blow a bit. I don’t. Do you?”
Yes. Particularly in pugs, you learn to use it a lot when every dps is hitting a different target, or if a taunt is resisted for some reason.
Back in the day of Battle for Mount Hyjal, I used it a lot too. I’d be surprised if we didn’t see similar trash waves in a future encounter.
Namthe´s last blog post..Hello, my name is Namthe and I’m an Addonoholic.
Reply
Namthe Reply:
January 28th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Admittedly, Glyph of Mocking blow is still useless… Barbaric Insults however is a different story.
Namthe´s last blog post..Hello, my name is Namthe and I’m an Addonoholic.
Reply
need more charge powerups! I got alle the charge glyphs but i still want MOAR. warbringer ftw!
Reply
My majors are blocking, heroic strike, and revenge. The heroic strike one is the only one I’d really consider losing at some point, but being a MT in my guild I’ve found that even when you’re being hit for 10k or more hits, rage can run out of you’re spamming heroic strike. on fights like Malygos, where everyone is standing in sparks and getting 150% increased damage while you’re kiting the big blue dragon around, every little bit of threat is welcome, and the extra damage from spamming heroic strike and getting the rage cost back from a crit is very useful in my opinion. The same counts for the Sartharion 3D fight. I usually tank the three smaller dragons there, and it is a complete dps race on the first two dragons. Melee and ranged will pull out all their tricks to do more damage in the shortest possible time. I try to turn all my white damage into heroic strikes at that point, and on the first dragon I find myself rage starved occasionally. I don’t think I’d choose another glyph for that fight, ever.
If your focus is completely on heroic, then the cleave glyph is a very useful choice, most likely a lot better than the heroic strike one.
Reply
Write me in for any glyph that lets me use Heroic Throw more often. Though I admit any improvement to the current selection of Minor Glyphs would be welcome – apart from Glyph of Thunderclap, I have a hard time getting really excited about the rest.
Reply
An important thing for all of us to remember is that the inherent threat from the sunder armor is no long included in the devastate threat. We still get damage threat and the defensive stance threat multiplier and devastate has another built in multiplier. The point of this is related to the glyph of devastate. The threat generated from the first devastate is the same whether you use the glyph or not. The second swing does more threat but only because the target has two sunder effects on it and therefore takes more damage.
The real value of the Glyph of Devastate is in the rapid application of sunder armor and the effect that has on your damage and on the party’s ability to kill the mob quickly.
Reply
I use the same Glyphs, I guess great minds think alike. I also mostly run heroics atm, because it’s what I have the most fun with, and also it doesn’t help that I work nights on Fridays and Saturdays so I tend to miss raid-y things.
The other tank in my guild isn’t sold on the Glyph of Revenge, but I can’t imagine not having it. o.O
Naissa´s last blog post..New Video Card, New ISP, New Image Post!
Reply
[...] Glyphs in WotLK, in action A good and compact post about our glyphs, and how they perform in action. If you’re not all down with glyphs yet, this might just be the kick-off you need to get into them. [...]
Currently I use Block, Dev, and Revenge. I use to do Intervene (reason behind this) and sunder. I thought dev and sunder would stack back when it first came out till I tried and was like blah dumb. It took me awhile to get rid of intervene because I was not main tank at the time. If I saw our main tank taking alot of dmg I would use it and take the hits for him. In alot of cases I ended up saving the raid cause that was enough time for healers to pop off another heal. Then as we progressed and got better gear I switch out my old glyphs. With glyph of cleaving changing to an extra target is great for ot’s and 5mans other than that I wouldn’t get. (Unless I want more cleavage) My minor glyph are bloodrage, thunderclap, and battle shout (thinking I will go for charge).
Major-Glyph of shield wall
When using shield wall you take an additional 15% less dmg for 12seconds ^_~.
Reply
I use block, devastate, and revenge. Minors are obvious. I’ve considered cleave instead of devastate, but can’t bring myself to do it. I’d like to see a minor glyph that passively improves our defensive stance in some way, but that’s never going to happen.
Reply
I used to think along the same lines as you for what glyphs were the best, but after some experimentation, I found what works best for me.
My GM kept harping to me about swapping them up, telling me that there were better ones out there than what I was using, but I kept saying I didnt want to waste gold on glyphs. The next day, I got 5 of each minor and major glyph from my GM and a note: If I need more, say it. Go experiment.
And I did.
I found that the blocking (duh!) was a no brainer. I sat around and was talking with my pocket healer and warlock GF about how I tank, and the healer made the comment that I now tank like paladins do: I get in there, spread a bit of threat, and then just re-apply it all over the place. It got me to thinking that 9/10 I’m not spamming HS on the mobs when tanking trash… I’m spamming cleave. So I swapped out my revenege glyph (i stil revenge alot, but the free HS just wasnt enough to get my excited in aoe situations).
Then I started to look at my sunder glyph. I realized that I dont have a ton of snap agro in raids b/c I am having to apply 2 or more devastates before the other warriors in the raid do (if they toss on the sunder/devastate, then I dont get the stack in my favor, and devastate only does the same as if there was 1 and not 5 on the mob) I also got to thinking about how often in raids, I got 1 or 2 mobs, usually only 1, to tank. How nice would it be to get the 5 sunders up on the boss asap for my other melee DPS’ers? I toyed around with the devastate glyph and found that my DPS and TPS went through the rough. The DK’s in my raids that were OT’ing with me now had trouble keeping thier mobs on them if I happened to turn on their mob.
My minors actually didnt change that much: t-clap and charge stayed, but I was using the mocking blow one (just b/c it was free and available on the first day of inscription). I swapped it out for the glyph that increased the duration of my battle shout by 1 minute. Sure, dont sound like much, but thats one less annoyance when I am running around without a pally.
As for my personally customized glyph, I would want either a reduced CD on heroic throw, or make it so shockwave’s cone of damage is slightly bigger (so hard to aim that thing on the run)
Reply