Glyphs are items made by the Inscription profession. Each glyph modifies one of your spells, changing it slightly. At 80, you can have 3 Major Glyphs and 3 Minor Glyphs. Major Glyphs are powerful, while Minor Glyphs tend to be cosmetic. Glyphs need to be applied near a Lexicon of Power. This can be found in the major cities near the Inscription trainer. Essentially, you have to return to a city to change Glyphs, so you can’t change them in the field. However, I think they will rapidly become fairly cheap, so re-glyphing might be something you do before you head out to an instance for the night.   Here’s a listing of what I think the top 3 major glyphs are for Holy and Protection at level 80, and some comments on the others. I’ll cover Retribution and Minor glyphs in another post. Holy1. Glyph of Seal of Light - You need a Seal up to get the haste from Judgements of the Pure. This improves your healing by 5%, making it very powerful, especially on shorter fights.   2. Glyph of Seal of Wisdom - Like Light above, but for longer fights. It’s an interesting decision if you should take both of the Seal glyphs, because you can only use one at a time. But it makes you a bit more flexible for different fights. 3. Glyph of Holy Light - This can do a fair amount of splash healing, helping a traditional paladin weakness. Glyph of Cleansing - Mana reduction is always useful, but not very exciting. Glyph of Divinity - Lay on Hands doesn’t drain your mana anymore, and only has 20 min cooldown. So it’s a very useful spell, and this glyph makes it even more useful. You get to drop a large instant emergency heal, and you get a fair bit of mana back. Glyph of Flash of Light - This glyph is currently terrible. The HoT does not stack, so you severely hurt your tank-healing capabilities. It might be decent if you were raid-healing, but given that Glyphs are permanent, it’s really hard to see this being useful. Perhaps a Ret build (with Art of War) or a levelling build would consider it, but it’s pretty much a waste otherwise. Glyph of Seal of Righteousness - Might be good for soloing, but in an instance you will be using a glyphed Light or Wisdom. Protection 1. Glyph of Righteous Defense - Having taunts miss usually ends very badly. 2. Glyph of Seal of Vengeance - Vengeance is a solid seal for Protection, and reducing boss dodge and parry rates by 2.5% is very nice. 3. Glyph of Avenger’s Shield - This glyph is a bit of a toss-up. I think it will become more useful as you move into raiding, and precise pulling and having large initial threat becomes more important. However, you might prefer building threat on multiple mobs in the 5-man dungeons. As well, 100% more damage makes it more feasible to toss AS on every cooldown, just to build threat. Glyph of Consecration - This glyph does increase damage per cast of Consecration. However, Protection has a very smooth rotation with an 8-9s Consecration cooldown, and this glyph spoils that rotation. Still, if you’re very comfortable with managing your abilities as they come off cooldowns, this might be a good choice for you. Glyph of Exorcism - Gives you another spell interrupt, which is something we lack. However, this is very specific and may depend greatly on what instance you are planning to run. Glyph of Judgement - Extra damage and threat from one of your main abilities is always good. Glyph of Seal of Righteousness - I think most Protection paladins will be using a glyphed Vengeance on bosses, but this could be decent for trash. Glyph of Spiritual Attunement - You shouldn’t need this glyph, as regular SA and Blessing of Sanctuary will provide enough mana. But keep it in mind if you do find you have mana problems.

 This is for AOE Farmin/Grinding. It works really well, you can chain pull 4-6 mobs at a time. No need ot drink or stop. The only trouble is keeping all the mobs on top of you. At lvl 70: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbuhxtb0kZfxt0bbqZh OR: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbuhxtb0sZfxt0bbsZh A few things make this epic. You don’t have to spec for Holy Nova any more, and one of the patches made the mana costs ALOT cheaper. Twin Disiplines+Spiritual Guidance+Holy Specilization=Pretty Good DPS. Then you multiply that by 5 mobs and we get a good bit of DPS spread around. Wait theres more! With Reflective Shield, you have damage mitagation+okay DPS. The Shield+Heals from the Holy Nova spam will keep you alive as long as you don’t go oom. How to not go OOM?!?! Spirit Tap is crazy good for leveling. This will keep you mana up plus with Spiritual guidance will add a good DPS boost at the end of the AOE pull. Also using Power Infusion will not only provide a crazy DPS burst from the spell hast but the 20% reduction in mana cost is sweet. Meditation, and Mental Agility all go to having great DPS with mana regen. How to pull? Know what you’re attacking, melee is great, ranged is iffy. Holy Nova+Holy Reach is a VERY big AOE so you can sometimes get two ranged stand between them and still get both, but it is kinda tricky. Also need to have 5 guys kinda close so that they don’t start to evade bug as you pull. Becuase Holy Nova is instant, not channled you can take knockbacks okay. Order of Operations: 1. Check All buffs, PW:F, IMP:DS, Inner Fire. 2. Pop PW:S 3. FIrst Mob get’s Holy Fire + SW:Death 4. SW:Pain other mobs you want in pull. 5. Manuver to gather them around you. 6. Power Infusion. 7. Holy Nova spam 8. Make sure you keep Shield up whenever you can, if you get oom and out of HP, you rly shouldn’t, pop Inner Focus and Desperate Prayer. By getting the first mob with Holy Fire+SW:Death they’ll die first and fast procing spirit tap giving you regen and DPS boost at end of pull. This all adds up to 3 sources of damage, DOTS+Holy Nova+Reflective Shield. With two sources of damage mitigation, Shield+Holy Nova, cast a renew or POM in the rotation as needed. If Power infusion isn’t up get you a trinket combo with a [Use: Spell haste +X for 20 sec] and a [Use: SP +x fo 20 sec] you should be able to get this off rep vendors from BC and quest rewards from first few quests in Northrend. Then use these two at the same time in place of Power Infusion. Other notes on gear: You need tons of Spirit, Spell Power, Intel and about 30-40 spell hit. Kinda in that order of importance, this is debatable rly. I wouldn’t go for stam, you’re healing as you deal damage so Spell Power or Spirit>Stam You can’t get full Spiritual Guidance+Reflective Shield+Power Infusion+Spirit Tap at 70. Take what combo you prefer to start off. I suggest Spirit Tap, Power Infusion, Spiritual Guidance, then Reflective Shield, in that order. Then once that’s filled get Focused Power, Surge of Light, Aspiriation, Rapture, in that order as you lvl to 80. You can heal any 5 man with this spec just fine, you’ve for healign focus+2.5sec GHeal+Imp Renew. You can also DPS one pretty well to, you’ve got the 2sec smite+SP boost from Spiritual Guidance+Bust with Power Infusion. This is my 3rd post about this. Everyone keeps saying “I’m smite chain pulling single mobs no prob.” or “I can Mind Flay with VE any single mob np.” I’m chain pulling 5 mobs with this no prob. I really think it’s great and I hope you all can pull it off.

Two other hotfixes that Ghostcrawler didn’t mention. Judgement of Justice now lasts for 10 seconds in PvP, and the Sanctified Wrath talent in Retribution no longer allows 50% of damage to bypass absorption effects (in fact, it allows none). – Ghostcrawler:

I’m attempting to post this early since the Ret community felt totally surprised last time. We are looking at some way of making Avenging Wrath and Divine Shield mutually exclusive. This may be through Forbearance, if we can reduce the Forbearance duration through a hotfix. The bubble is intended as a defensive measure. Yet bubble+wings currently is used a lot in BGs and Arenas and helps contribute to the feeling of being destroyed by a Retribution paladin while you are unable to respond. My apologies to the Ret paladins who already feel picked on. We are really trying hard to not overdo anything but even the last round of pretty severe nerfs didn’t seem to do enough to Ret’s dominance of PvP. We are also sympathetic to the notion that if Ret can’t do insane burst damage, that the spec might need other tools to be viable in PvP. We’re exploring this now, possibly though the missing 11-point Prot talent, possibly through other avenues. We’ll let you know when we’ve made a decision here. I don’t know exactly when this change will go live, but I didn’t want you to return from trick-or-treating and be shocked that we didn’t announce it, since that seemed to cause a lot of damage with the last nerf. I’ll leave this post unlocked for now, assuming the responses stay intelligent and we don’t get too much flaming or trolling. NOTE: The hotfix will be on Live and the beta. (Source)

Hardly unexpected, though a more elegant solution to Avenging Wrath + Divine Shield’s hard to counter nature would be beneficial. Linking DS, DP, HoP and AW again via Forbearance would be a pretty stupid move in the long run because we are already locked out too many of our abilities for too long, so a compromise such that DS sets AW on a 15 second cooldown would be fine. The problem is that they are seeking to hotfix it which severely limits their options, and as always is unlikely to become more sensible when it goes Live as they have other things to worry about. AW causing Forbearance is a ticket to seeing it back to never being used in PvP, for healing or damage dealing. Who is going to want to cast a 20 second damage increase which can be easily Purged or Spellstolen and also locks out their major defensive abilities? I’d also suggest moving Divine Protection (not Shield) off the Forbearance timer. I’m not exactly happy about this, but I can see how it may be necessary. I hope they are gentle, and that they seriously consider more PvP tools for us rather than use that line as a forlorn hope. UPDATE: Hotfix has been applied. Forbearance Duration reduced to 2 minutes. AW cannot be activated under Forbearance. Divine Shield, Handof Protection, Divine Protection and Avenging Wrath all now cause Forbearance. Bleh, crap way of doing things, for all specs.

It deliberately restricts the use of abilities rather than open up options for their use, which is why I’ve never liked it as a mechanic. It was first brought in to deal with a PvE rather than PvP problem: chaining BoP’s together in certain encounters made them trivial (I seem to recall the nerf being discussed in conjunction with Blackwing Lair encounters), long before Arena’s were mooted. A single Paladin chaining BoP and DS in PvP, primarily to defend nodes in AB and AV, was both powerful and overestimated at a time when Shaman and Priests didn’t hotkey Purge, but never really resulted in an outcry. Still, they linked Forbearance to DS aswell as BoP, and so with a 1min Forbearance effect we had the situation up until 2.0.1. Not a big deal it has to be said as you really should be throwing out BoP on your allies, not yourself. With 2.0.1 two new abilities were introduced which altered the equation somewhat: Avenging Wrath and Mass Dispel. Avenging Wrath caused and couldn’t be used whilst under Forbearance, Mass Dispel removed Divine Shield when previously it couldn’t be (Counterspell went some way to negating DS in PvP against Healing Paladins). Unfortunately this meant that in PvP Avenging Wrath couldn’t be used until at the earliest 1 min after Divine Shield, and only in PvE fights where DS wasn’t useful. A 1 min duration however wasn’t the end of the world. More annoying perhaps was BoP and AW being Purged or Spellstolen leaving you with a pretty high opportunity cost, the benefits of which could be erased in less than a GCD. Kalgan had this to say about Mass Dispel and Divine Shield two years ago:

I don’t know that you can necessarily call it negated - It has a 1.5 second cast time, which means you have plenty of time to stun them as they cast Mass Dispel. It also means any other friendlies have an opportunity to interrupt it. - Casting Divine Shield would still get you out of any form of crowd control and remove any debuffs, even if it got dispelled after the fact. - You’re talking about 1 of 9 classes that can counter it. - Using your words, if it’s “already on a 5 minute cooldown”, then that implies to me that you’ve already learned to survive without it most of the time. :0 - It costs the priest a substantial chunk of mana, so it isn’t something they can throw around carelessly.

I think by now we know just how hollow every one of those points are. However I would pick up on just one, as as it neatly dovetails into criticisms of Forbearance: “- Using your words, if it’s “already on a 5 minute cooldown”, then that implies to me that you’ve already learned to survive without it most of the time. :0″ The value of all the abilities listed is not simply the buff that they give for 10-20 seconds, it’s the knowledge (yours and your opponents) that you can pop those abilities at a given time. It is that knowledge which in part allowed us to adjust to the 5 minutes whilst DS is on cooldown, as well as your opposition not being able to see what cooldowns you had available. Forbearance is quite literally a flashing sign saying ‘Squishy Plate Wearer Here’ because it shows that we have no answer to the gank train when other classes possibly could. In the 3.0 Beta Forbearance was increased to 3 minutes, Avenging Wrath removed from it and changed to 20% damage/healing, and Divine Protection changed to a pseudo- Shield Wall. I don’t think I ever understood why the duration of Forbearance was increased. Three minutes is an absolute eternity in every mode of gameplay and we have no ability, such as Preparation or Cold Snap, that instantly refreshes critical cooldowns. On the other hand BoP, DP and DS are fairly mutually exclusive in terms of their gameplay uses: DP for tanking; DS for dropping aggro and debuff clearing; and BoP would be used on someone else. So long as AW wasn’t linked to Forbearance I wasn’t too concerned. Fast-forward to today and the current situation is down (apparently) to AW being able to be popped whilst being Bubbled, and so it was hotfix nerfed. To be quiet honest, I think that’s bullshit reasoning.

We are looking at some way of making Avenging Wrath and Divine Shield mutually exclusive. This may be through Forbearance, if we can reduce the Forbearance duration through a hotfix. The bubble is intended as a defensive measure. Yet bubble+wings currently is used a lot in BGs and Arenas and helps contribute to the feeling of being destroyed by a Retribution paladin while you are unable to respond.

If we take that on face value then they may have a point. However there are other things they could have done which are possible as a hotfix, the most obvious one being reducing damage done whilst being under the effects of DS by 50%. Remember, they can nerf numbers server-side but they can’t change tooltips, so this may be an issue for those who read take the tooltip as a contract cast in stone. Oh, wait: Not to mention Righteous Vengeance, which currently on live does nothing. So re-linking AW to Forbearance is not because of tooltip fidelity, but simply because it is the quickest way to get the job done. ‘Still’, you may be thinking to yourself, ‘laziness doesn’t imply dishonesty’ to which I would agree. However lets not forget that two undocumented nerfs went into this hotfix. By far the lesser one is to JoJ, Ret will take Improved Judgements and Holy should have 30yrd Range Judgements so it’s no biggie. The greater one is Sanctified Wrath, which no longer causes any damage whilst under the affects of AW to pierce absorption shields (even though the tooltip states it should). The idea with this hotfix was therefore fundamentally to nerf Paladin Burst, especially against Shielded targets, rather than to eliminate the once per 5 minute DS+AW. The effect is another 20% nerf to Paladin burst potential because no Pally in their right mind will AW in PvP. In PvE Prot will never use AW because it puts their Shield Wall on a 2-minute cooldown. Equally Holy would have difficulty justifying the GCD + vulnerability to Status Effects/Aggro which popping AW over DS would cause. And in PvP munching through PW:S or Mage Shield will again be an exercise in futility. For Ret PvP AW is even worse than it was in 2.4.3, and not great for Holy either. If Blizzard want to do this then fine, but I’d propose an alternate solution.

Change Hand of Protection so that it may not be used on yourself, similar to Hand of Sacrifice. Forbearance to remain a part of HoP to prevent chain-immunity in PvE/P.

Remove the Forbearance Debuff completely from Divine Shield, Divine Protection and AW. In PvP it gives away to the opposition a means tracking vulnerability when their should be using their own skill to do so, and has zero value in PvE.

Cause DP and DS to incur a 30 second cooldown to each other. In PvE this would have a limited effect, in PvP it means they can’t be used back-to-back but can both be used in the same fight (like CoS and Evasion can both be used). If Paladins are a defensive class, and don’t have offensive abilities like intercept/MS/interrupts etc, it’s time we started having the label pay off. DP can be Purged remember, so it’s not exactly uncounterable. Right now, Warriors in PvP are both a more defensive class and have more offensive abilities.

Cause Divine Shield to reduce damage caused by 20%, negating the worry of AW+DS. Paladin Burst with both DS and AW popped will remain less than a non-DS Paladin, which by now should be easier to cope with at lvl70 and 80. If there is an issue with Paladins doing any sort of damage whilst invulnerable then reduce damage by 50%; still doing some damage though is necessary (to remain a minor offensive threat, interrupt flag caps, etc).

Let any Paladin use AW whenever the hell they want, 3 (2) minute cooldown permitting. It’s purgeable for gods sake.

This still makes us weak against Priests and Mages due to their shields as Sanc. Wrath no longer pierces. As this is desirable for Blizzard then so be it.

We are also sympathetic to the notion that if Ret can’t do insane burst damage, that the spec might need other tools to be viable in PvP. We’re exploring this now, possibly though the missing 11-point Prot talent, possibly through other avenues. We’ll let you know when we’ve made a decision here.

Ghostcrawler posted this in acknowledgement of Ret issues without significant burst damage. Frankly, I can already heal myself or someone else through another Paladin’s Burst as Ret, so our Burst is not even close to insane. Even with the changes I’ve outlined above Paladins need more tools to do the job, though I am weary of using Protection’s 11 pt talent to solve Holy and Ret’s PvP issues. Frankly, there is plenty of room to do it in the Retribution and Holy Trees. I’m not holding me breath for new abilities and functionality. Even if we get them it will be a very long time before we do (see: 2+ Content Patches), and will be to address shortfalls in the class rather than provide new advantages to improve game balance. Every time Blizzard says ‘we are considering x/y/z’ as a buff take it with a huge pinch of salt because in the main they’re trying to sooth your feelings and most definitely not guaranteeing changes.

I try and stay positive when I focus on developments in the WoW world, but it’s getting hard to grit one’s teeth through yet another round of nerfs being fired like buckshot into the ranks of the paladins. Even when they’re not aiming at you, it’s almost a given you’ll get some collateral damage - probably right in the face. Rohan of Blessing of Kings has been doing a good job of keeping up with the changes - the vast majority of which are nerfs - to paladins in the last few weeks, and I’ll point you there if you want to catch up on what’s changed (and changed, and changed again). So, What Went Wrong is a recent example of his interesting and insightful posts. I’m angry, and bitter, and very very frustrated. I will try not to rant, but I make no promises. The change that’s frustrating me most is the story of Avenging Wrath, which was our shiny new Paladin spell at level 70. The Backstory In TBC Avenging Wrath was only a damage buff. It lasted 20 seconds, on a 3 minute cooldown, and triggered the Forbearance debuff - which lasted a minute, was triggered by Avenging Wrath, Blessing (now Hand) of Protection, Divine Shield (aka bubble), and Divine Protection (aka bubble; made you immune but you couldn’t attack at all, and shared the DS cooldown) and locked you out of all those spells while active. Nice boost, right? In practice, it was rarely used.

• PvE: it did nothing for Holy paladins (the vast majority of paladins in TBC), Ret paladins were a rarity in PvE (although those that existed would indeed have found Avenging Wrath useful), and generally it was mostly used by Protection paladins looking to crank up their TPS (since they didn’t have to worry about Forbearance, as they weren’t going to be bubbling).
• PvP: pretty much never used, because it was purgeable/stealable, and locked you out of your only defensive ability to boot. No-one was going to give up the ability to bubble just for a damage buff that was almost certain to get wiped off anyway.

From The Sublime… So, in the WotLK beta, Blizzard detached Avenging Wrath from Forbearance, and gave it a buff to healing done as well (finally making it useful for Holy paladins). This was, as far as I know, to encourage people to actually use it, and it worked. Finally, people were using their Level 70 spell - and loving it. To compensate, Forbearance was increased to a 3-minute duration. Fair enough. …To The Ridiculous Except, of course, that ret paladins were bubbling, blowing AW, and owning people up in BGs while completely immune - and strangely, other people didn’t like that very much. Blizzard clearly felt that this was an absolutely urgent issue, and hotfixed in a nerf (without even testing it first on the beta realms or the 3.0.3 PTR). Avenging Wrath now causes Forbearance again (which has been reduced to 2 minutes rather than 3). The forums exploded as soon as this was announced, of course. Ten pages of respondents said “for god’s sake, don’t put it on Forbearance, just make AW and DS unable to be triggered at the same time, like trinkets”. This was apparently ignored, as were the nearly-as-numerous suggestions to have AW cancel DS and vice versa, or have AW just not give a damage boost while bubbled… et cetera. Where Avenging Wrath Stands So, let’s take a look at the net change between TBC and now, shall we? Forbearance: Was 1 minute. Now 2 minutes. PvE: Holy paladins will no longer use AW unless they really need the throughput buff and can be certain they won’t need to bubble for survival. Ret paladins may use AW, except on fights where they know they’ll need to bubble for survival. Prot paladins absolutely will not use AW (losing the TPS boost it provided), as it would lock them out of Divine Protection (which is now a Shield Wall ability rather than just being ‘bubble-lite’). PvP: No-one (with any sense) will use AW. It’s still vulnerable to purge/steal and will still lock you out of your most vital survival ability; a paladin who’s blown their bubble is a vulnerable, probably-soon-to-be-dead paladin. And it’ll lock you out of your bubble for longer than it used to. Good times. So, in other words, we are now worse off than we were in TBC. Thanks for fixing us, Blizz! Much appreciated! “Paladin” Doesn’t Just Mean Retribution This post was announced on the forums as an “upcoming Ret paladin PvP nerf”. However, it is in fact a nerf to all specs in PvE as well as PvP. This follows on the heels of the last nerf, just four days earlier, also hotfixed in, reducing mana return from Judgements o the Wise and damage from Seal/Judgement of Command. Those really were Ret nerfs, not applicable to other specs, but in that post Ghostcrawler says “we still intend to lower the damage of other Seals and Judgements” (except Seal/Judgement of Blood and of the Martyr) - which basically means that Seal of Righteousness (the main seal for Holy DPS) and Seal of Vengeance (the main seal for tankadins) are getting it in the neck. Explain again how those are Retribution nerfs, given that Ret uses primarily Seal of Blood/Martyr and Seal of Command? It’s really starting to feel like Blizzard has forgotten us Holy and Prot paladins are even here. Testing Times However, what also concerns me in the second nerf thread is Ghostcrawler saying (emphasis mine):

We are going to hotfix the nerfs to Judgement of the Wise (from 33% to 15%) and Seal and Judgement of Command (down 20% damage) to live. We need to start getting more testing on these changes right away to see what they do to Retribution in PvE and PvP.

What, in God’s name, do they have a Beta test and a PTR for, if not testing changes? Why the hell are they hotfixing nerfs to the Live environment before they’ve tested them?! And then we have the issue that they’re hotfixing untested nerfs in left, right and centre, but when it comes to fixing damage done by these nerfs, the response is “we’re exploring this … we’ll let you know” and “as soon as we’re comfortable that we haven’t over-nerfed Ret, and a couple of other things, we’re going to look at healer dps again to make sure you can solo” and “we do realize this hurts Holy and Protection as well, and that is something for which we are prepared to offer compensation”. So, the cheesy Bubble+Wings IWIN combo made people unhappy enough that it had to be hotfixed (despite the fact that it was a once-every-5-minutes combo for 12 seconds), but repairing the ongoing effects of these hamhanded, scattershot nerfs is something that has to be carefully considered, orchestrated, and implemented? Does anyone really wonder why paladins are feeling angry, bitter and victimised at this point? Frankly, I think Blizzard has really dropped the ball on Paladin development. I will still be playing Sailan when the dust settles (unless something really really dire happens), but I can’t blame other paladins for rerolling or quitting entirely.