Cataclysm: Moonkin Glyphs

None of the major WoW news sights are reporting them but several beta testers are reporting that the druid glyphs are available in the Beta now. Who knows what stage of development the glyphs are in, but it is something interesting to talk about. Lissanna has the most complete list here on her blog (and I've stolen her list), but you can also find them on the Moonkin Repository. If you haven't seen the glyphs elsewhere, here is what we can look forward to in Cataclysm.

In case you don't remember, there will be three types Glyphs in Cataclysm instead of the two we have now. Blizzard is adding a third category of glyph called a Prime glyph which is really what we think of as Major Glyphs now. These will be the clear DPS boosting glyphs have been the bread and butter of the Major Glyphs in WotLK. In Cataclysm, the Major Glyph category will be the more situationally helpful but generally ignored Major glyphs we had in WotLK. The Minor Glyph Category is so far unchanged.

Prime Glyphs:

• Starsurge – When your starsurge deals damage, the cooldown remaining on your Starfall is reduced by 5 sec.
• Insect Swarm – Still increases damage by 30%, no longer mentions debuff.
• Moonfire – Increases the periodic damage of moonfire by 20%.
• Starfire – Unchanged (Starfire increases duration of Moonfire by 3 sec up to a maximum of 9 sec)
• Wrath – Your wrath does 10% additional damage to targets afflicted by your insect swarm.

If Cataclysm was going live today, what would I pick? I don't have any math to back it up, but my gut reaction is to go with the classic WotLK combo of Starfire, Moonfire, and Insect Swarm. I would choose these three right now because every report I hear out of the beta says that DoTs are strong and Nukes are weak. Therefore it makes the most sense to pick the Glyphs that boost the DoTs.

At this point I think the Glyph of Insect Swarm (GoIS) and Glyph of Starfire (GoSF) are no brainers. With a 30% damage boost GoIS was a very strong for most of WotLK and only fell because our DoTs didn't scale well. Since that is changing in Cataclysm, I assume that GoIS will be very strong once again.

I am a little surprised that GoSF hasn't changed, though it still can. When I pick it I am assuming that it actually adds 3 seconds to the duration of MF and scales with haste, instead of just adding an additional tick. If that is the case, then GoSF should be very strong.

The big question is should we go with Glyph of Wrath (GoW) and increase our Wrath damage by 10% or with the Glyph of Moonfire (GoMF) and increase our MF DoT damage by 20%. It's a tough call. Buffing DoTs over nukes is generally not a good idea because nukes tend to make up a much larger portion of our DPS then DoTs do. However, what I'm reading is that our nukes are currently very weak in the beta and that the DoTs are very strong. On top of that there is some synergy between the GoSF and GoMF that shouldn't be ignored. Therefore, I have to go with GoMF right now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that change by the time Cataclysm is released.

Glyph of Starsurge (GoSS) is the "also ran " of this category. There are a couple of things that make this unattractive from my perspective. First, Starfall has been nerfed quite a bit in the Beta. Reducing it's cooldown is nice, but won't pack the same punch that it does currently on live. Second, Starfall isn't always an ability you want to use on cooldown. If you're saving it for an add phase each time then the cooldown reductions are wasted. Though it is possible that GoSS might allow you to use Starfall every add phase instead of every other add phase assuming the timing is right.

Major Glyphs:

• Focus – unchanged (Increases Starfall dmg by 10% and reduces range by 50%).
• Thorns – Reduces cooldown by 20 sec.
• Barkskin – Unchanged (reduces chance to be crit by melee attacks).
• Entangling Roots – Reduces cast time of roots by 100%.
• Hurricane – Slows movement speed by 50% (up from 20%).
• Innervate – When innervate is cast on a friendly target other than the caster, the caster will gain 50% of inntervate’s effect. (up from 45%)
• Monsoon – Unchanged (reduces cooldown of Typhoon by 3 sec)
• Rebirth – Unchanged (res with 100% health)
• Solar beam – Increases the duration of your solar beam silence by 5 sec.
• Starfall – Reduces the cooldown on starfall by 30 sec

That is a lot of choices. Also, pretty much all of them are only situationally useful, and it will be difficult to pick out three and say "these are the best to use." I won't be surprised if we will be switching out of several of these choices quite often.

If I had to choose my standard three I would probably pick Glyph of Starfall (GoSFall), Glyph of Innervate (GoI) and Glyph of Rebirth (GoR). Unless you are saving it for adds GoSFall is a pretty clear DPS increase for a Major Glyph. GoR is a clear winner for me, because you never want to see your rez target die due to a poorly timed AoE or rez acceptance. Finally, I choose GoI because of all the mana talk that Blizzard is making for healers, and there is talk that Cataclysm will be the return of the Oomkin. If healers need mana and we need mana then GoI is a smart choice.

Glyph of Focus could be very nice in the right type of fight, but I am not a fan of the range reduction. In general, I think it reduces the usefulness of Starfall rather then helps it's damage output. Glyph of Hurricane would also be very helpful in the right situation, but I think there has been only one fight in all of WotLK where I thought it might help. The other Major Glyphs are primarily PvP related, but could have some impact in PvE. However, I expect most of them to be rarely used if at all.

Minor Glyphs:

• Aquatic form – increases swim speed by 50% in aquatic form
• Mark of the Wild – Reduces cost of MOTW by 50% (NOTE: GOTW is gone and MOTW is now group & already costs no reagent)
• Unburdened Rebirth (unchanged) – rebirth no longer requires a reagent
• Challenging Roar – Reduces cooldown by 30 sec
• Dash – reduces cooldown by 20 sec
• Typhoon – reduces cost of the spell by 8%, increases radius by 10 yards, but no longer knocks enemies back

The Minor Glyphs haven't changed much. The only big change was that the Glyph of Thorns was made into a Major Glyph. Unless, they add a new minor glyph I will probably stay with Unburdened Rebirth, Mark of the Wild, and probably take Glyph of Typhoon as the third.