Sunday, December 7, 2008

Major Glyphs for Restoration Druids

*EDIT* Now updated for 3.1 and Innervate change! *EDIT* Confused about what to pick for your major glyphs? Well, I’m not going to tell you what your choices should be, but I can perhaps make it easier for you. How is that? I’m going to run down all the Restoration (and a few multi-purpose) glyphs, detail their pros and cons, and just give you a better idea of what you’re getting into. Ready? Let’s go (in alphabetical order)!

Glyph of Barkskin
This glyph was created in 3.1, probably to try and offset the high damage now taken in PvP encounters. This is not a PvE glyph, for if you're getting hit with physical damage, it's highly situational and something is very wrong (note that this is a guide for Restoration Druids; not Ferals). It's also important to remember that the glyph only affects melee criticals; not those brought about by spells.

Glyph of Entangling Roots
Wait, what? Glyph of Entangling Roots? Isn’t that a Balance glyph? Well…yes, yes it is. However, it’s not strictly Balance. Sure, in a 25-man raid group, it’s not going to be the best use of your slots. Perhaps not even in a 10-man group. Where this would shine is PvP. It would allow for more splash or focused damage to be applied to your immobilized target before they could move again (barring their release due to various abilities and items). Overall, this may be best for a Dreamstate PvP spec, and not for a straight Restoration or raiding spec.

Glyph of Healing Touch
The Glyph of Healing Touch is actually a highly debated glyph of questionable help. It cuts down cast time and healing of Healing Touch by 50%, but the mana cost by only 25%. Therefore, casting two glyphed HT’s in a row would do the same amount of healing in almost the same amount of time, but cost 50% more than a single unglyphed HT. Many people seem to be picking it as a sort of “Flash Heal” for a Restoration Druid; however, at level 80 we achieve the spell Nourish. It has the same cast speed as a glyphed, non-talented HT with arguably more healing done. It is rather expensive, however, but it leaves your long cast HT as an emergency button with your Nature’s Swiftness. The argument for this glyph is almost always that it’s for leveling Druids and Moonkins/Ferals who need a quicker straight heal. Since it’s available at level 15, this argument makes sense.

Glyph of Innervate
Glyph of Innervate changed a bit from its original. Now it returns 90% of your base mana to yourself if you cast it upon someone else, or combines the 90% with the 450% of base mana return when cast upon yourself. This means a return of 3146.4 mana to yourself (at 80) when you cast it on someone else, or a total return of 18878.4 mana if cast upon yourself, since you receive 15732 mana normally. This isn't a bad option if you're constantly having to boost that silly Priest or Paladin up from a dead mana pool, especially as it no longer relies upon Spirit.

Glyph of Lifebloom
This, at first, looks like a rather under-powered glyph. Only one more second on the duration of Lifebloom doesn’t seem like a lot, until you add in the talent Nature’s Splendor, which increases Lifebloom by 2 seconds. This greatly increases the timing of your Lifebloom, giving you more room to cast more spells, raid heal, run Lifebloom stacks on more people, or cast Nourish, Regrowth, or Healing Touch without letting a stack drop off on someone. With the nerf to Lifebloom’s ticks, it may not be the best choice for PvP, where the bloom portion can be more important than the periodic.

Glyph of Nourish
This handy glyph came in 3.1 as well, and it basically copies the bonus from your T7(.5) set. A 6% increase to Nourish's effectiveness with each HoT application isn't too shabby, and with the T7 set bonus, it's pretty intense. This glyph was most likely created to make Restoration Druids less hesitant to break their set bonus when heading into Ulduar. It is a very tank-centric glyph; not many people other than your tank will be taking enough damage to have stacked HoTs. If you're not often healing the tanks, this may not be the glyph for you, despite its power.

Glyph of Rebirth
This Glyph is a very raid-oriented glyph, as it can never be used purely for your own benefit. However, if you’re learning new content, facing bosses that will always kill people in your party just because that’s how the fight works, or you’re always having to use your Rebirth during the course of a raid, this isn’t a bad thing to invest in. It provides a buffer so that your reborn target is less susceptible to rezzing in a bad place and immediately going back down.

Glyph of Regrowth
Though it’s been nerfed, it’s still a good glyph depending upon your situations. I can foresee it being much more beneficial to five and ten-mans where your healing may need to come in bursts that ticks can’t cover, and you won’t have a wide range of healing abilities within your party. It’s not a bad glyph, but odds are you won’t be spamming Regrowth too often.

Glyph of Rejuvenation
I was under the impression for a while that this glyph was not functioning properly. However, after reading the comments on Wowhead and doing my own experiments, I found it to be the case that the 50% extra healing when you’re under 50% total health comes as an extra, in-between tick rather than on each normal tick of Rejuvenation. So, if your Rejuvenation would normally tick for 1k, at 50% health with the glyph, instead of going 1.5k---1.5k---1.5k--- it goes 1k-500-1k-500-1k-500. Extra healing, especially at those points, is never bad, and if you’re keeping HoTs rolling on a tank, Rejuvenation should be up in any case.

Glyph of Swiftmend
This glyph used to be the number one most important glyph of a Restoration Druid. However, since 3.1 and the introduction of new glyphs, this may not be the case anymore. Though being able to cast Swiftmend without worrying about refreshing your HoT immediately is more mana effective, Swiftmend has been rendered even more situational due to its cooldown and the variety of other tools available. Though by no means a bad glyph, it is no longer a necessity.

Glyph of Wild Growth
The final new member of the 3.1 glyphs, it extends your Wild Growth to another teammate, so it now hits six members of your raid or group. Though not the best choice for five mans unless you're running with a pet-heavy team, if you're often placed on raid healing, it could be invaluable. Since the cooldown of Wild Growth is six seconds, that's one less person to worry about during that time.

I hope this helped your choices!

8 comments:

Aertimus said...

I just trashed my Glyph of Rejuv for Glyph of Regrowth. I have been finding that in 25 mans the tank is under 50% so little and for such a short amount of time that Glyph of Rejuv does next to no healing over a fight. I'm going to see how Regrowth works. I'm betting it will be more worthwhile to reapply regrowth early if the tank needs an extra boost, instead of casting nourish. Have you played around with Glyph of Regrowth?

Anonymous said...

I go with an Innervate-Lifebloom-Swiftmend glyph setup, and I'm madly in love with it. The Swiftmend glyph is just as good as you say it is, and I'll argue that the Lifebloom glyph is well worth it aswell. Doing a little quick math you'll see that Lifebloom along with 3/3 Nature's Splendor and said glyph will restore Lifebloom to it's former glory, healing/mana wise. Thus using what I refer to as a HoT build, you have plenty of time to keep lifebloom, rejuvs and regrowths up on tanks and those pesky DpSers that have yet to learn that standing in fire is a bad idea in general.

I do not find Glyph of Regrowth worthwhile though. We have Nourish as a flash heal, Swiftmend to back that up and NS+HT if you need more power than that.

Now, this build and glyph-combination will not win healingmeters in raids. But it's THE build for proactive healing and I do consider proactive healing the very essence of druid healing. Let the shamans, priests and paladins handle the reactive healing. They're better at it anyway.

Andrew Gordon said...

I'm running with Lifebloom/Swiftmend/Regrowth, but I'm finding regrowth less and less useful, and am considering swapping it out for Innervate. Undecided, depending on how much my guildies need my innervates.

Anonymous said...

Glyph of Swiftmend was one of those things that looked "meh" at first glance, but in practice it's nothing short of amazing. THE resto glyph to have.

Don't sell Regrowth short, it's my spam heal of choice now (besides Wild Growth and Rejuvenation) thanks to all the talents that buff it. Glyphed it's even better.

Glyph of Innervate OTOH is really disappointing from what I was initially expecting, but it's still worth having for every resto.

Glyph of Rejuvenation is disappointing as well. I kept this for a long time instead of Regrowth thinking that it would really come in handy because it would proc when it really needed to. Looking over WWS stats (look way down at the bottom for Glyph ticks), however, it's REALLY weak. Besides, this is when I'm going to Swiftmend anyway which almost always bumps the target back above 50%. Glyph of regrowth is a much stronger choice.

Have not experimented with Glyph of Lifebloom but I'll check it out.

Varrad said...

I chose Regrowth / Swiftmend / Innervate glyphs.
I found Lifebloom Glyph useless for me. I stack LB on all tanks only on full tank and spank bosses (not many). On others I'm raid healer mostly and I prefer WG / Regrowth / Nourish spam with Rejuvenation on targets + Swiftmend when needed or even HT (talented, 2,5 sec. cast, can crit for 15k+) sometimes (not only with NS).
With this healing style Regrowth and Swiftmend glyphs work wonders together (try combo: critting Regrowth + Nourish (1 sec. cast after crit) + Swiftmend when needed, and still you got Regrowth ticking for next Regrowth bonus). When you got more mana regen / mp5, and some spell power, then you can easily spam Regrowth on tank with enough mana returns. It crits at least 2 per 3 Regrowths (above 60% crit chance when talented) and my record crit from glyphed Regrowth is above 12k heal. ;)
I found Glyph of Innervate obvious 3rd choice...

Anonymous said...

I had never seen the Swiftmend Glyph, but after reading this, I got it and I LOVE it! I gave up the Regrowth glyph for it. My other majors are innervate and rebirth. The rebirth is awesome for the health bump on the rezz-ie... innervate I've used very little, there's been little call for it so far, but when it is needed, it good.

I have a lifebloom glyph sitting in the bank, but I've decided to leave it for now, this combination seems to be working for me.

StaticAxby said...

I'm currently using Rejuv/innervate/swiftmend but I intend to drop out rejuv for nourish as the glyph usually counts for only a couple of percent healing. If I can get away with it wild growth will replace innervate to keep maximum flexibilty between raid and MT healing.

Tedra said...

Well, I'm (currently) using Swiftmend/Nourish/Wild Growth. I think I'm going to swap Swiftmend out for Innervate, though. All it saves you, pretty much, is a GCD. If you were using Swiftmend right before getting the glyph, you'd be saving it for when Rej is half done or more. In that situation, the power of this glyph is a lot less, since you're only saving a few Rej ticks. I did like it, but I don't find myself really noticing the benefit anymore. I am, however, currently having mana issues @_@;;. If innervate works this way now (in that it gives you more mana when used on yourself) then I'm in love. The extra regen when using it on someone else can't hurt either, particularly since I'm usually having to save my innervates for our priest in the Saurfang fight.

Ty for the post =).