At level 17 and 16, the girls have two open glyph slots to work with. In theory I’m paying attention to what I’m doing this time around, so no more filling things in willy-nilly!
That said, most of the online discussion seems to be focused around the higher level glyphs. While it’s nice to see what I’ll want to be using when I hit 80 (in the distant future), it doesn’t help me much right now. So I went to to Wowhead and filtered out all the glyphs I can use.
Major
Glyph of Arcane Explosion – Pass
This just isn’t a spell I use very much. The range isn’t that wide and I’d much rather be freezing things that get too close (so that I can run away instead) than blasting them and getting even more aggro. Plus Arcane explosion is more of an area of effect spell and I have no real desire to find myself nose to nose with multiple bad guys… that’s what tanks are for!
Glyph of Arcane Missiles – Maybe?
This one increases the critical strike damage of Arcane Missiles by 25%. I honestly have no idea how often I crit, so I might need to take Stringtheory out and beat on some target dummies before I decide if I want this one or not.
Glyph of Fire Blast – Pass (for now)
This gives increases the critical strike chance of Fire Blast 50% when the target is stunned or incapacitated. As far as I can tell none of the cold spells stun or incapacitate– so I don’t know if this would be useful or not. I’ll need to do a bit of poking around into the mechanics to see if this one is worth it. For the moment Glyph of Fireball appears to be a lot more useful for Overdraft to be slotting.
Glyph of Fireball – Yoink!
This one increases the critical strike chance by 5% while removing the damage over time aspect. Since I haven’t been relying on the DoTs for much damage, I don’t think the trade off is a bad one. I’m still looking for some good theory crafting for lower level mages, but I’m not finding a whole lot. I’ve got the whole internet to look through, so this may change later! But, per all of the online discussions I can find, it looks like this one is the way to go for Overdraft.
Glyph of Frost Nova – Maybe?
This raises the damage front nova targets can take by 20% before they are set free. At the moment this looks like the best of the bunch (although I will have to hit the training dummies tonight for an idea of how often Arcane Missiles crits. I’m thinking of using AM as a ‘turn to face target’ tool for Stringtheory, so I may go with that one instead.)
Glyph of Frostbolt – NONONO!
This increases the damage by 5% but removes the slowing effect… WHICH IS WHY I USE IT. Sheesh. Apparently it’s not that bad for a raiders but I am a far cry for being a raider. Plus I don’t plan on raiding (The guild name Five and Dime is in honor of the fact I don’t plan on going much further than 10 mans. If I get to those.)
Glyph of Ice Armor – Pass
Imbues us with 50% more armor and resistance… which right now actually isn’t too horrible. Half of 110 is 55 and that’s roughly 25% of my current armor on both mages. Apparently it doesn’t scale as well in the higher levels, but it’s not looking too bad at the moment. Then again, the spell is self-cast only so this is something that won’t affect both of the toons. Since you have to get hit in order for it too work (and I’m not fond of getting hit) I think I’ll pass on this one for now.
Glyph of Polymorph – Pass (for now)
This is a ‘stupid proof’ for the polymorph spell, as it strips all DoTs from the target when cast. Which keeps the sheep from un-sheeping on the next tick of damage from your PUGmates. I’m not sure if it keeps DoTs from being applied after the sheeping has happened, but at least it will keep me from having to cancel my sheeps because someone else targeted them while I was casting. (Arg!) That said, I really don’t use the sheeping much at the moment, the PUGs really aren’t much for tactics at this level.
Minor
Glyph of Arcane Intellect – Pass
This is a 50% cut in mana cost for my basic buff spell. If I was just soloing I’m not sure if this would be worth it, but since I am looking into using the Dungeon Finder there is a good chance I’ll need to cast this on at least three people at once. (Well, one right after the other, which is more or less the same thing.) So I figured I’d better test out the unbuffed version… and Stringtheory can apparently do up to 10 people in a row before running out of mana. So Pass.
Glyph of Frost Armor – Pass
This is a 30 minute extension on a 30 minute spell… and I can’t see that it’s that much of a headache to have to recast it. Plus this is a self-only spell, so I’d have to get it for both of them, and I’m really trying to diversify the builds so that I can get as much mage-y goodness into the team as possible.
Glyph of Slow Fall – Yoink!
This removes the regent requirement from the Slow Fall spell. Since I’m a fan of not falling to my death (that and a fan of being able to leap from tall buildings) this sounds like a good fit. I’ll give it to Overdraft since Stringtheory already has Arcane Intellect buffing duties and they can share a keybind.
Glyph of the Penguin – Yoink!
This is a vanity glyph only, but one I may take when the next Minor slot opens up again. It would replace the sheep on one of my mages, but I’ll still have the sheep for the other… which means I can then turn mobs into various cute ‘n cuddly critters later on down the line. Completely useless in the grand scheme of things, but I can’t see that the other two glyphs would be any more useful. So Stringtheory shall now be known as the Penguin Mage! (Hey, at least it’s thematic…)
Heading over to WowPopular gives me a list of the most used glyphs. Again, this listing is skewed towards the higher level choices and min-max builds, but normally the least used ones are least used for a reason. Amusingly the average player seems to share my lack of enthusiasm with the minor glyph choices and the two I picked are actually the two most popular choices.
I’ll update this post tonight after I get a chance to whack at a training dummy for a bit… see you then!
