Moonkin glyph selection 11 comments

The choices of glyphs for druids has remained largely unchanged for a long time now. Insect Swarm and Starfall glyphs have traded blows, but with the advent of 3.3.3 with the Starfall Armageddon, Glyph of Starfall is the clear winner. For the full rundown of glyphs, read on.

Minor Glyphs

I will start with these because these are the choices that are kind of nice, but at the end of the day won't make a massive difference whichever you choose. Good choices here can make your life easier though.

[Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth] is the first choice. There is nothing worse than, on a hopeful attempt, a key player going down. You get asked to res, and have to meekly reply that you have no reagents. This will prevent that ever happening.

[Glyph of the Wild] is a good option in 3.3 if you have the 2 piece tier 10 bonus. Gift of the Wild will almost 100% of the time result in an Omen of Clarity proc, especially in a 25 man raid. If you hit this just before a Hurricane then the Hurricane will benefit from the increased damage. I would say that this makes a good second glyph for any Moonkin in 3.3.

[Glyph of Typhoon] is a must if you intend to use your Typhoon as part of a dps rotation, i.e. as part of an AoE spec. Personally I do not use this glyph on my regular spec because Typhoon is a lifesaver in some instances. On my Anub'arak/AoE spec though I do use this. Not using this results in getting aggro from the tanks. Just to emphasise, this will not get you masses of threat, it will just result in you annoying the tanks.

[Glyph of Dash] is a good final choice if you do not intend to take Typhoon. I would recommend taking this for a regular DPS spec over Typhoon, as Typhoon unglyphed provides a nice safety net in some instances. For a Balance Druid, there are occaisions where you will need to run away. Dash is a good way to do this (or to increase the speed of corpse runs, or just to decrease time running around when you can't be bothered mounting). A reduction in cooldown is on this score kind of nice.

Major Glyphs

With the advent of 3.3.3 major glyphs have become a much simpler choice. There are now 2 good paths to go down, however 1 outweighs the other. I will start with the 3 that I use. I will then go through those that I don't use with reasons behind them being turned down.

[Glyph of Starfire] and [Glyph of Moonfire] are the first choice. I list these together becuase they work so well together. Having Starfire without Moonfire results in increasing the duration of a DoT that is doing just over half of the damage it could be doing anyway. Having Moonfire without Starfire results in the DoT doing a lot more damage but for just over half the time it could be doing it. Combined the Moonfire dot contributes for 24 seconds instead of 15 (assuming Natures Splendour), and it does 160% of the DoT damage that it would do. These 2 factors result in the benefit overall being about 200% additional DoT damage based against an unglyphed moonfire. This translates to a few percent of your overall. Increased uptime also of course means fewer breaks in standard dpsing rotation to refresh.

[Glyph of Starfall] is the third glyph I take due to a bit of extra DPs for 1 GCD is always nice. In ICC its use has become more important, especially with the boost it has been given in 3.3.3. In fights such as Saurfang (due to Blood Beasts) and the Lich King (due to Vile Spirits / Valkyr kidnappers) this talent has become so powerful. To be able to cut 30 seconds off its cooldown is just so valuable.

So onto the rejected glyphs. [Glyph of Focus] is first up here. Increased damage for Starfall looks like it should work well with [Glyph of Starfall], and that is true. The decreased radius, it could be argued, increases the control you have. Part of the appeal of Starfall to me is that it does have an immense range. It means having to be more careful about when you use it, but means you can use it at regular casting range. Using this glyph means you are reducing your distance between you and target to be within range, in some fights, of interrupts that should only affect melee range. This sentiment holds true even with the DPS boost given to Starfall in 3.3.3.

[Glyph of Hurricane] does not increase DPS. It might help with control a little, but really the use of this is liable to be so situational. In the fights that you are likely to be using Hurricane you are interested in getting as much AoE damage out as possible and there are other glyphs that do this better than this glyph.

[Glyph of Wrath] in a similar way to the above doesn't increase DPS. You could argue that the pushback resistance is nice, but pushback is such a minor issue that throwing away DPS from one of the 3 selected glyphs renders this as an undesirable glyph that only affects the pushback on 1 spell.

[Glyph of Monsoon] was almost a selection for my AoE spec. Then I did the maths and realised that 3 seconds off the cooldown of Typhoon really feels a bit wasted. Half the time I am casting Hurricane in such a way that the 3 seconds would fall mid-Hurricane anyway and so renders this glyph as pointless. That combined with the fact that using Typhoon (without the minor glyph) a lot in a fight is just going to turn your tanks against you.

[Glyph of Insect Swarm] is a nice glyph. It can potentially increase your DPS, however will instead remove what is a very nice effect. Increased damage mitigation is always welcomed, and 3% might not sound like much but compared to an ultimately small DPS increase I think that your healers and tanks would welcome you keeping this glyph off your character sheet. Combine this with the fact that the DoTs don't scale as well as other options and that gives a strong reason to not use this glyph.

[Glyph of Innervate] is useful but at the end of the day you should not be having mana concerns. In AoE I do tend to see my mana drain heavily however an unglyphed innervate works fine. In other instances, you really don't normally need the mana this gives you.

Summary

So there you have it, my quick rundown of glyphs. For those that missed it the glyphs that I would recommend are as follows.

Comments

Mister K 5:20PM on the 1st of Dec 2009

Really good breakdown of the glyphs. Great post!

Erdluf 12:51PM on the 2nd of Dec 2009

Please tell me that you spec Nature's Splendor, and the Starfire Glyph increases your Moonfire DoT from 15s to 24s.

For Glyph of the Wild, it might be worth mentioning 2t10, and using Gift to proc Omen of Clarity.

Otherwise, a very good post.

Aeiedil 1:10PM on the 2nd of Dec 2009

Hi Erdluf,

Thank you for pointing out my idiotic error, yes I do spec Nature's Splendor and while doing this write-up I totally forgot about it. I'll edit the post to reflect that.

Regarding 2T10, I will be editing this once 3.3 is released. At present 3.2 is still the current content patch, so when 3.3 is current I'll go through and update all the articles (see the version number in the article header). I had seen some information regarding GotW procing OoC and its use with 2T10, so I agree it certainly deserves a mention with regards to that minor glyph.

Thanks for the feedback

Andrew 7:36PM on the 10th of Dec 2009

Hey. Just a quick comment on your AoE Minor Glyph choice of Typhoon. Part of our strat for Deathbringer Saurfang is to have the moonkin (aka me and one other) using the knockback of our typhoon (along with hunter frost traps to slow them down) to push back the Bloodbeasts to give dps a time to switch and take them down. Glyph of Typhoon is a deal-breaker for that strat. Cheers!

Aeiedil 2:39PM on the 11th of Dec 2009

We tried that tactic the other day, and found that Hurricane really was quite ineffective due to the AoE damage reduction on the mobs. It was much more effective when I single-targetted, so I was using my regular raiding spec. The extra AoE damage from an AoE spec would have been still unable to hold aggro from the healers. Typhoon was as you say very very useful on this fight, in particular for fending off beasts from the healers.

Really they should be kited over the frost patch to allow people to get away, with Typhoon as a last resort. So long as the ranged all dps the targets they will die fast enough anyway, any time you are AoEing is time where you could be doing much more damage using your Wrath and Starfire.

Emilya 7:08PM on the 9th of Feb 2010

interesting choice...starfall isn't used as often as insect swarm, by me or anyone else i know with a druid, but i tried using your glyph choice on that one only to realize that i was losing a fair bit of dps by getting rid of my insect swarm glyph not too many ppl use it, but the ppl whose attention i've brought this to now agree with me and use glyphs of moonfire, starfire and insect swarm ultimately it's up to the player, but i'd recommend giving my 3rd selection a shot and see how much more of a priority you give insect swarm :)

Aeiedil 12:40PM on the 10th of Feb 2010

Considering that my guild is currently at Sindrigosa I may have to give this a second look for tonights raid. There are other changes I intend to test tonight too though.

The DPS boost from Insect Swarm is significant certainly, and on Sindrigosa where damage per execution is more important this may prove better advice.

Either way, if tonight goes down well I will update this post tomorrow with fresh advice.

Bahamutth 3:12PM on the 12th of Feb 2010

Our tactic on saurfang consisted of me blowing the bloodbeasts over the side, works like a charm but i heard rumors they fixed that so i respecced and left out typhoon.

Aeiedil 6:36PM on the 14th of Feb 2010

That sounds a bit like a bug / unintented behaviour. I am approaching the point where I may be unspeccing typhoon, though I am still finding use for it.

I can't recommend typhoon for everyone - I just have it as a personal preference.

Shadesong 8:54PM on the 23rd of May 2010

So does glyph of insect swarm REALLY dish out more dps than glyph of starfall? Having 1m cooldown only on starfall seems to generate a whole lot of damage for me, I just don't see how increased insect swarm damage (ignoring the fact that you're no longer helping out tanks) can compensate for starfall's power.

Aeiedil 12:19AM on the 24th of May 2010

No it doesn't, Starfall glyph beats Insect Swarm glyph hands-down, I haven't the exact numbers to hand at the moment.

Starfall is the superior glyph as of 3.3.3, before that though it was IS :)